So after the successful finish of the pseudo-3CC Prince culture game we were involved in (Zav04) me and Liq have decided to tackle Monarch OCC. I've tried Prince and Monarch OCC many times in private games and it is quite a challenge. I've beaten Prince but have yet to beat Monarch on OCC; I've come close though.

A requirement for anyone who wants to play this SG is to review this thread on Apolyton. It has grown to become the bible for dedicated Civ4 OCC players:

OCC (One City Challenge) at Monarch and above (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=144365)

Now, based on the unique challenges of higher-difficulty OCC, I'm going to suggest a grand strategy upfront, one that follows closely what the successful players on that thread claim is necessary to win. I've used this strategy to win at Prince:


1. Grab three required wonders - Pyramids, Oracle, and Great Library. Chop-rush them early with at least two workers.

2. After early worker techs, beeline to Alphabet, then Civil Service (for Bureaucracy), then Literature (Great Library), then Education (universities), then Liberalism (free tech), then Astronomy (observatory), then Computers (laboratory), then Fiber Optics (Internet). Perhaps deviate to Biology/Medicine if health is a problem.

3. Build the Internet after acquiring Fiber Optics. Consensus is that it's impossible to win Monarch+ OCC without doing this given the increased late-game tech costs introduced by the patches.

4. Join all GP to the city (except for an Academy and maybe one shrine). Specialists are the key to winning.


Now I'm certainly not requiring people to follow this strategy - I am a firm believer that players can do whatever they want in their SG turns. But if you want to deviate from this strategy I highly suggest bringing it up with the team before doing so.

We still need to decide on civ. Difficulty of course will be Monarch. Map will be the balanced map (normal size); it's really no fun to play OCC without crucial resources (and believe me we'll have a hard enough time as it is).

I suggest either Elizabeth for philosophical and financial, or Qi Shi Huang for industrious and financial. Suggestions? A high GP birth rate is very important, but so is getting those wonders (and the more the merrier past the required three).

How about five players? You can be an SG newbie but please be an experienced Civ4 player. After deciding on civ either me or Liq will roll up a start and play 30 turns, then it will be 15 turns per person afterward.

Also since Liq is a co-owner of this guy he's free to change/veto anything I've said here.

Difficulty: Monarch
Civ: To be discussed
Map: Balanced
Size: Standard
Variant: OCC

Roster (closed):
Merzbow
Liquidated
Methos
grs
Thormodr

Rules:

Strict 24/48 got it/play it, 15 turns each.
Posted saves must be at the end of a game turn.
Auto-build improvement automation is not allowed, but auto-build trade network is allowed.

I'm definitely in. Always enjoy a good OCC game.

I'd be very interested in trying that variant. I guess we are going for space? I would like us to take an industrious leader, to make it easier to get the wonders we want.

If you take me, please note, that I won't be available from tonight till 4th or 5th of January.

Only made it through the first page of that thread so far, but its a great read!

I'd have to go with Industrious as well. With an OCC I really like that production boost.

Edit: IMO Biology is something we should definitely go for, that is if we have any farmed tiles. The extra food would definitely help out with our unhealthiness plus it allows us to have more specialist. If we have no farmed tile or just one or two it might not be worth the time.

I've been playing a few occ's and glad I did before reading that appleton thread.

to recap
health is a MAJOR issue as the size of city is dependant not on happiness but health. Health only get gets worse at higher difficulties.

Research is an issue, not money.

Imo financial is kinda a gamble in that if you do not start near a bunch of 2 coin tiles you will need cottages to bump it all up to be useful. double speed banks doesn;t help much as cash is not an issue at that point in the game.

expansive for the +2 health, this will be critical in the mid game before techs like medicine come in after that it kinda falls flat... again very luck based trait, in that if you start off in a non costal spot with only one health resource... it's a great trait to have... half price granarys and harbors are both good as they are early game buildings.

If you start off with high innate health in the form of costal plots, fresh water, forests, special resources, then expansive is a wasted trait.

Industrious is WIN. All aspects of the OCC tie into this trait as it helps not only world wonders but all those National wonders we are able to spam in the same town.. keep in mind the following...

say you gain the ability to build ironworks in ten turns, for an industrious civ, that's five turns not only able to buld the next tiem, that's five turns extra you have the effects of ironworks going. A large portion of the builds our city is going to build are wonders, both world and national.

Finally, industrious civs get half priced forges... ya they are evil on health but the hammers they provide can be major. Bum rushing oracle to score metalworking early might offset the -1 health.

philo is major in that 100% tacked onto the already insane GP rate is um... insainer?:crazyeye: another always-useful trait double speed university is ehh

Spiritual isn;t half bad... shoo-in for early religion and the ability to flop around on civics to fit the moment. I'd rate it on par with expansive.

Other factors to include are starting unit... a scout is better than a warrior as initial city placement is crucial.

I like later game UU's like panzer from bizmark as they hold their own against over teched opponents using modern armor.


sadly I don;t think there's a leader that's both phil and industrious..


if given the option between the two major traits, I like industrius more than I like philo as all those wonders add their own GP's.

so add to your short list

Bismark is industrious and expansive... not bad traits. and gets the panzer as his UU... a fantasic end game unit. also starts with a scout.

Peter is Philo and expansive... UU is the excellent cossak. starts with a scout

Ghandi is spiritual and industrious... the fast worker is not a bad UU. Starts with a warrior.

Saladin is spiritual and philo with camel archers being a relatively worthless UU for the occ.. as we are looking for deterant, not a war, knights obsolete too fast. Civ starts with a warrior.

the above mentioned qin starts with a warrior and his UU cho ko nu isn;t that bad as it can hold it's own against early gun powder units.

Lizzy gets redcoats... inferior to cossaks in terms of end game holdovers. Add to that a starting warrior.



My personal preference is bismark on account he has a pointy hat!


Cheers!
-Liq

I am not sure expansive outweighs financial in the long run. Both are a gamble I would say. I am not such a big fan of philosophical in this setting. It will just give us our GLs sooner and while that is nice, I am not sure it is really critical. Given that industrious is a must imho and reading Liq's arguments I vote for either Qi Shi Huang (1st) or Bismarck (2nd).

man took so long for me to look all that crap up mass peeps posted before me :lol:

fear liq at 4 am in the morning, where no spell check dares tread!


oh and automated workers are the DEBIL in SG, the one expception I hold is placing workers on auto spam roads after civil service farmage is finished. They get the mindless rail roads done and they also jump on late game resources like coal and oil when those are allowed to be mined.

also, I say reroll if we get a land locked start :D


Cheers!
-Liq'd

I would also have to agree that financial is a really nice trait, in just about any game. Philosophical would be nice, even better if mixed with Industrious (sadly, there is no leader with these two traits). I'm not that big on expansive, it would help but seems less valued compared to financial or industrious.

My vote is for Qi Shi Huang. Not for sure what my next choice would be.

if we can recast a few times to start, then yah expansive is marginal....

if we are forced to take what comes it hedges our heath situation alot more. If were are granted a default costal start I too like Qi better as financial is no longer a gamble.

hmm sun is coming up soon I'd best run back to the coffin, lest I get burned!~

Cheers!
-Liq

Although I am a SG newbie I have been playing Civ4 since it came out and I have been Civing it up since '91 :king:
I have been trying to get into a SG but invariably all the slots are full. I would very much like to play in this one. I can't promise perfection but I can promise 100% effort ;)

...
oh and automated workers are the DEBIL in SG, the one expception I hold is placing workers on auto spam roads after civil service farmage is finished. They get the mindless rail roads done and they also jump on late game resources like coal and oil when those are allowed to be mined. In a OCC I would not want to see a single worker automated. How much do you think we will have?
also, I say reroll if we get a land locked start :D
Cheers!
-Liq'd I guess the starter can decide that. If it is too bad, he should restart, but that's it.

I guess the starter can decide that. If it is too bad, he should restart, but that's it.

I would have to agree with this. I don't like re-rolling just to get a start we want. If the start is horrible I can understand.

If there's still a spot open, I'd like to sign up. =)

OK Methos, grs, and Thormodr fill up the three remaining slots as they were the first to respond.

I think it's a toss-up between expansive and financial. The additional money you gain from financial with the tiles available to one city is similar to the extra beakers, gold, whatever generated by an additional specialist (which +2 health with give you, since OCC cities are ALWAYS health-limited).

So it's either Peter or Bismark I suppose. Hmm. I've confirmed that Industrious gives you +50% to building a national wonder also, which I didn't know. I think that cinches it for Bismark!

I agree with Liq that auto-build trade network is fine (in fact I tried this in an LK game but got beat down by the man himself, heh). I'll put that in the rules.

I'll roll a start.

Holy crap you guys have to check out this screen capture utility, it is awesome:

http://www.download.com/CaptureWizPro/3000-2192_4-10434490.html

Approximately 10^100 times better than the in-game facility. Lets you select arbitrary areas of the screen so no post-capture messing around in Paint Shop Pro.

Turn 1 (460 left):

OK folks so this is our start:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/merzbow4242/Merz01/Turn01/CaptureWiz002.jpg

No coast unfortunately, but it otherwise looks pretty good. It always warms my heart to see lots of 2+ food and river tiles. I think I'll settle where I am. Our challenge is going to be production; we have only cows and one hill. Obviously we're gonna have to rely on lumbermilling/railroading our forests. We should not chop a single forest in our fat cross.

Berlin is founded; I start on a warrior:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/merzbow4242/Merz01/Turn01/CaptureWiz003.jpg

Turn 2 (459 left):

28 gold from the hut, meh.

I start on archery BEFORE bronze working because the barbs will be popping up early and I want each chopping worker to be escorted with an archer. Many games previously I stuck with workers escorted by warriors or simply unescorted and have lost workers or have lost turns running them away from barb archers.

Turn 3 (458 left):

Zzz.

Turn 4 (457 left):

We find the coast... so close but yet so far:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/merzbow4242/Merz01/Turn01/CaptureWiz004.jpg

Turn 5 (456 left):

Zzz.

Turn 6 (455 left):

Zzz.

Turn 7 (454 left):

We pop a scout from a hut, cool:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/merzbow4242/Merz01/Turn01/CaptureWiz005.jpg

Turn 8 (453 left):

Archery -> Bronze Working.

Da buddamonx FIDAL.

Turn 9 (452 left):

Zzz.

Turn 10 (451 left):

We meet the Incans. I'm glad; Capac is usually a reliable ally as long as you stay on his good side.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/merzbow4242/Merz01/Turn01/CaptureWiz006.jpg

Turn 11 (450 left):

One of our scouts was eaten by a lion.

Turn 12 (449 left):

Our other scout eats a lion.

Turn 13 (448 left):

Berlin finally pops a warrior after 12 turns, joy. I put it on archer in 8.

Turn 14 (447 left):

Zzz.

Turn 15 (446 left):

We pop another scout to replace our dear departed. I name him Milenko, as he is our link to the undead:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/merzbow4242/Merz01/Turn01/wcwj.jpg

Turn 16 (445 left):

We meet Cyrus, another reliable ally. Score 2/2 on not being next to Monte or Alex...

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/merzbow4242/Merz01/Turn01/CaptureWiz007.jpg

Turn 17 (444 left):

Zzz.

Turn 18 (443 left):

Zzz.

Turn 19 (442 left):

Zzz.

Hinduism FIDAL.

Turn 20 (441 left):

Zzz.

Turn 21 (440 left):

Archer pops finally, I post him south of the cities near some forests that we'll be cutting. I put a worker in the queue.

Turn 22 (439 left):

Bronze Working -> Mysticism

I decide to go for the Oracle first since it's usually taken by the AI before Pyramids. This means I need Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, and Writing.

Turn 23 (438 left):

Zzz.

Turn 24 (437 left):

Zzz.

Turn 25 (436 left):

Zzz.

Turn 26 (435 left):

Zzz.

Turn 27 (434 left):

Our archer eats a lion.

Turn 28 (433 left):

Zzz.

Turn 29 (432 left):

Zzz.

Turn 30 (431 left):

Our archer eats another lion.

To next player:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b79/merzbow4242/Merz01/Turn01/CaptureWiz008.jpg

Our near-term route is pretty much set I think. Chop another worker/archer pair, chop for Oracle (but make sure Writing finishes before the Oracle so we can grab CoL), then chop for Pyramids. DO NOT leave workers unescorted, they WILL be eaten.

Put the scouts on fog-busting duty around the capital once we've explored that area to the south. Consider chopping a third archer for city garrison if there's still some unbustable fog near the city. It wouldn't be fun to lose the game because a wandering barb axeman takes Berlin (yes, this has happened to me post-2000 BC).

I'm not able to post the save due to unspecified upload errors. I have to go to lunch now so I'll debug this later.

I'm assuming roster is set by the order we signed up? Meaning Luiqidated is up now?

Lurker's Comment:
I'll be following this SG closely, wish I would've been here in time to sign up for it. I've played probably a dozen OCC, mostly on monarch, and have come to mostly the same outline you have in the original post.

However, my favorite leader hasn't come up at all. I love Saladin for many reasons. Philosophical gives you twice the great people until Philosophy, and then 50% more than normal at that point. Since great people are your science and production, that's a pretty necessary trait.

Spiritual lets you get a couple religions (even on Monarch you can get 3 or 4), and that means monastaries, which can give you another 30-40% research bonus for much of the game. Not to mention you save 5 turns of anarchy.

And finally, the camel archer is a great UU for a OCC. They come at the point where even with great diplomacy another civ will feel you are weak because of your size, and come after you. Also they are resourceless, which is huge for this varient. You can never rely to have the resources you need.

I'm curious as to why he hasn't come up in this post or the one on Apolyton. Ah well, I'll be curious to your results. It certainly is a One City Challenge

Looks like Civfanatics file upload feature is permanently broken. Going to start using my own web storage. Anyways, here is the save:

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn01/Merz01_BC-2840.Civ4SavedGame

Liquidated is up now.

Good points afpunk. I do love monasteries for the + to research, but it's hard to found religions on Monarch, so we would have to deviate from the master beeline somewhat (costing us turns to Education, etc). Definitely the great debate is between philosophical and industrious. I guess we'll see. I'm hoping people will play better than I have since I still haven't won a private Monarch OCC since the patches (out of maybe 5 attempts).

One tip for the homies... one thing we need to get is Heroic Epic. The hard part is this requires a unit with 10+ experience. This is pretty much impossible just with fighting barbs, but I've developed an easy way to get this. At some point in the game there will be a very weak civ that everyone hates. Just declare on that civ or join a war against that civ, and send a couple units over to fight. Once one gets 10+ experience, give him the 3rd promotion and we can build the epic (with Literature of course).

@afpunk: I hope you aren't one of those quiet lurkers. It would be nice to use your experience. I've only been in two OCC SG's; one a Space win and the other an AW that we are slowly bleeding to death on :blush: .

@Merzbow: I believe the uploads problem is only on your end. I've uploaded a test save and looking at Uploads10 I see uploads roughly every several minutes all day long. The problem must be on your end. Do you have a firewall or some other sort of security that could be blocking it?

@Merzbow: I believe the uploads problem is only on your end. I've uploaded a test save and looking at Uploads10 I see uploads roughly every several minutes all day long. The problem must be on your end. Do you have a firewall or some other sort of security that could be blocking it?

No firewall. I've changed nothing recently. Anyway, it doesn't matter anymore now that I have my own web storage. I'll just host all my photos and files there.

Not for sure about that site you are using to host the save. My security sure didn't like it.

I believe afpunk was stating that due to using Saladin he was able to get several religions, and thereby gain the benefits from monastaries. I did not get that he was stating we should attempt that. My interpertation anyway.

A good start. I think we are a little shy on the resources but if we are smart we can overcome this. Go us! (Well Germany anyway).

Liq said
Saladin is spiritual and philo with camel archers being a relatively worthless UU for the occ.. as we are looking for deterant, not a war, knights obsolete too fast. Civ starts with a warrior.

afpunk said
However, my favorite leader hasn't come up at all. I love Saladin for many reasons. Philosophical gives you twice the great people until Philosophy, and then 50% more than normal at that point. Since great people are your science and production, that's a pretty necessary trait.


Liq said :confused:


other than that, Got it! I think.. yah dl'd fine.

As for the screenshot utility, thanks again for the heads up mertz I will test drive it.

To counter your advice might I suggest civscale from the blue marble package, it can eleminate clouds so that the pull away view is readable.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140246&highlight=blue+marble

to reiterate earlier advice from mertz...
an improved civlopedia over at
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=148253
was updated for 1.52 patch.

will post turns after some food and drink.

Cheers!
-Liq

Eternal thanks for the link to CivScale, finally those darn clouds are gone.

Preflight:

hehe, I add capturewinpro as just one more of my legion of civ sg tools in the other monitor. too bad all the colors for the toolbar are garish looking.

oh also using notetab light as a textpad replacement... on the pre 1.52 crashes, I lost so many writeups because I forgot to save after every text entry, I moved to this program... it's really sweet.

ok sort of limited on resources but our normal tiles are all food rich and we are on a river. A good mix of forests (5) as well, not bad.

since buildling a worker change from working a forest tile to working the third flood plains for the extra coin, cuts a turn off meditation..


[1]2800 BC
worker is built whom I name Mel Lentz...
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/P2_gog_fea_Mel_Lentz_saw.jpg
the man Jerry McKinnis of ESPN2's "The Fishin' Hole" says..
[lumberjack competitions are] certainly a compelling sport, one where there is a legitimate hero in the lumberjack world.

His name is Mel Lentz. And he is my hero...



yah ok! shame on you for not knowing all that!!!:crazyeye:

start on another worker since they gonna be near the same archer, that allows the cutting to go faster and allows me to stay on the flood plain for the extra commerce. worker two in 10 turns.

Mel heads off to the closest forest out of the city radius SW where he and Leo the archer will hook up.

ok that was the entertainment for this boring turn!

[2]2760 BC
ooooo Gazebo's telephone moma comes over the www.cbs.nu yes, the 80's disco terror is arriving as we speak!!


start mel chopping.. says 30 hammahs

[3]2720 BC
lumberjack fun!

[4]2680 BC
forest cuts for 30 hammers and worker in 2. moving to next forest.

[5]2640 BC
Cyrus converts to hinduism.
next forest is 25 hammers.

[6]2600 BC
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/jbeckett.jpg
Justin Beckett (the worker) is born in Berlin and heads over to the sw... archer in 9 as I switch back to working a plains forest.

meditation came in, priesthood in 7 (was 6 working flood plains).

[7]2560 BC
zzzz:sleep:

[8]2520 BC
oooh score, victoria says hi... 3/3 on no psychos! after zav04 with toku only like 20 tiles seperating our capitals, I relish the sane civ leaders!

[9]2480 BC
mel finishes his chop, archer in one turn... moves onto next.

Sven the archer will buddy up with mel prolly. start on a barracks before next archer.... it needs the chops more than the archer.

[10]2440 BC
mel and sven heading to the nw to chop

10 turns on barracks

[11]2400 BC
a lion pokes it's head out in the NW, mel and sven and paired so np.

[12]2360 BC
Judaism is founded somewhere.

[13]2320 BC
priesthood comes in, writing in 12 oracle takes 22 turns on a high hammer diet. we need barracks and archer to finish.

[14]2280 BC
45 hammers from two chops comes in, barracks in 1.

[15]2240 BC
barracks finishes and archer in 1 turn, queue up oracle to build after archer.


ok finished 2 workers and 2 archers... a 4 exp archer is due next turn for city garrison. barbs soon so keep him there.

crucial next step is make sure writing comes in before oracle finishes so we can grab code of laws. Careful with those chops!:eek:


http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/berlin_2240_BC003.jpg
I switched berlin over to a high food/beaker setup to speed up max happy population and take writing down to 9 turns... play with the tiles to minimize the time it takes to get oracle + code of laws. if a few dead turns building a few scouts is fine!

next tech is masonry for pyramids, Animal husbandry to hook up the cows is important as well but masonry first.

5 is max happiness click stop growth next round.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/berlin_2240_BC002.jpg
not much else to show other than no souts killed.

Cheers!
-Liq

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK...

http://orangecow.org/pythonet/lumbr4.jpg

Merzbow
Liquidated
Methos (up)
grs (on deck)
Thormodr

hahah I circled the incorrect forests...

liq is beat tired.. meant to circle the 2 hammer 1 food tiles not the 2 food/1 hammer..

oh well

Excellent roleplaying with the lumberjacks. I love Monty Python. I will check out the map and familiarize myself with the terrain so it becomes second nature to me. Good work everyone. :goodjob:

Got it....

You're right Liquidated, I completely looked over that part of your post. Its quite right that there is no perfect answer yet for who to pick as your leader. However, the ones that are mentioned do stand out. This being Civ IV, there probably is more than 1 way to win every OCC game, but there are some definite guidelines to follow as well. In case you were wondering, the research path I follow most of the time with Saladin is Polytheism, Mining, Bronze Working, Masonry, Monotheism, Priesthood, Writing, Code of Laws, Civil Service, Alphabet, Literature. Also, I will throw in Agriculture somewhere early in that sequence, and if there are resources using animal husbandry or hunting, I'd stop and get them. In about 80% of the cases, you will get both Hinduism and Judaism, and often Confuscianism as well.

Obviously, the biggest weakness of this approach is that if you don't have copper, you are stuck with warriors until alphabet. Now, a properly fortified and promoted warrior can fend off archers, but if they get Axeman, you're in trouble. If worried, you can stop off and get archery, but you may miss out on a religion.

My build order usually starts with 3 warriors, then 3 workers, then the pyramids, then the oracle. I chop like crazy with my worker/warrior pairs, knocking out every tree that can possibly give me hammers. Usually, there are enough trees to finish up the workers, pyramids, an oracle, and sometimes more than that.

I'm not saying this is the best starting strategy for OCC, but it has worked for me. I had a Monarch OCC space win before the latest patch, and I had one come up 2 parts short after. I know there have to be better strategies than mine out there, that's why I'm so interested in this game. Good luck :)

Agreed afpunk. The perfect leader for a occ would be phil/industrious with the starting techs debatable...

Maybe Lincoln will be phil indus...

As it is though, there's more than a few viable strats for occ so far, somthing that makes CIV4 really shine. This game really is the jewel of the series.


Cheers!
-Liq

All I can say is that I've as of yet failed to win on Monarch with the strategy posted on my introductory message. I'm hopeful that together we can modify the strategy to be more optimal and of course 'represent' when it comes to the all-important skills of micromanagement, diplomacy, and just plain ass-kicking. So guys, play your turns slowly and THINK. :p And a little luck won't hurt...

Turn 44 (2240 BC)
Methos: Interesting strategy going for chopping forests only and not improving the land. I do not believe I've seen anyone do this before. Not for sure if it’s good or not. Guess we'll see.
Methos: We're currently at -1 gpt with 23 gold in the vault, with Writing due in 9. I'll leave it as it is until Writing is complete.
Berlin finishes: Archer

Turn 45 (2200 BC)
Archer promoted: City Garrison I
Methos: Begin two chops that will net us +37 hammers and +45 hammers, for a total of +82 hammers.

Turn 46 (2160 BC)
Methos: Our scout following the western coast spots a barb archer to his north.
Contact made: Arabian Empire

Turn 47 (2120 BC)
Methos: We meet Saladin, who is not an aggressive leader. So that makes us 4/4.
Methos: Our western scout flees from the barb archer.
Contact made: Chinese Empire

Turn 48 (2080 BC)
Methos: We have now met Mao Zedong. I'm unsure about how aggressive he is.

Turn 49 (2040 BC)
Berlin grows: 5
Berlin's borders expand

Turn 50 (2000 BC)
Methos: After growth I continue to emphasize commerce for research. Currently the Oracle is due in 3 and Writing in 4.

Turn 51 (1960 BC)
Methos: Well, we're considered 5th as the most cultured nation of the world. 1st place goes to the only unknown civ still left.
Methos: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that one of the workers is mining the only hill in our radius.
Methos: The other worker I parked outside Berlin since we have no worker techs he is basically useless right now.
Methos: The Oracle has 137/150 with +7 hammers.
Methos: Writing is due in 3.
Contact made: Spanish Empire

Turn 52 (1920 BC)
Methos: We meet Isabelle. We now know everyone and I don't believe any one of them is very aggressive.
Methos: The Oracle is now 144/150 with +7 hammers and will be done in 1 turn. Writing is due in two. I switch to an archer and leave the Oracle in the queue.
Berlin begins: Archer

Turn 53 (1880 BC)
Tech learned: Writing

Turn 54 (1840 BC)
Research begun: Masonry
Methos: Huayna Capac asks for Open Borders; I agree. It benefits us since we're not expanding.
Methos: Switch back to the Oracle. It'll finish in 1.
Berlin finishes: The Oracle

Turn 55 (1800 BC)
Tech learned: Code of Laws
Confucianism founded in Berlin
Confucianism has spread: Berlin
Berlin begins: Archer
Methos: I decide to make Confucianism our state religion. It'll allow us to grow another size due to happiness.
Confucianism has spread: Machu Picchu (Incan Empire)
Scout loses to: Barbarian Archer (3.00/3)

Turn 56 (1760 BC)
Methos: Our northwestern scout was killed by a barb archer.
Methos: Set Berlin to grow. It'll finish its current archer in 3; same as when Masonry is known.
Methos: BTW, we have two barb cities near us. One to the east and another to the southwest.

Turn 57 (1720 BC)

Turn 58 (1680 BC)
Methos: Mao Zedong asks for Open Borders. I agree.
Tech learned: Masonry
Berlin finishes: Archer

Turn 59 (1640 BC)
Research begun: Animal Husbandry
Berlin begins: The Pyramids
Archer promoted: City Garrison I
Confucianism has spread: Tiwanaku (Incan Empire)
Methos: Both workers have begun their chop. Both workers will grant Berlin +45 hammers each, or 90 hammers total.
Methos: I decided to start research on Animal Husbandry. It'll allow us to use the cow which will help production.

Confucianism spread naturally to one of the Incan kings’ cities, plus I influenced another with the free missionary. Amazingly, with only one city influenced (at that time) the Mayans converted to Confucianism.

Finishing research on Animal Husbandry IMO is a necessity. Pasteurizing the cow would cause that tile to produce +3 food and +3 hammers. It’s worth the 6 turns.

I also believe Agriculture is worth it too due to the farms. In 23 turns our cultural borders will expand picking up the rice, and possibly the sheep and silks. The silks don’t matter at this point but the other two do.

After growth switch citizens to tiles as I have indicated in the pic below. Realize that in the pic the cow tile hasn’t been improved yet, but will gain an additional food once it has. The below will produce enough food to stagnate growth and produce 12 hpt. Even with this it'll take around 30 turns, so we should probably chop another forest or two.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Merz01_Size_6.JPG

Our first great prophet should go towards the shrine. After that super specialists.

Here’s the 1640 BC save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Merz01_BC-1640.Civ4SavedGame).

Lurker comment:

Why build a shrine in an OCC? Money is never a concern and you're probably not going to have much time to build a lot of missionaries to spread it around. I would just merge him for the hammer boost which it looks like you guys desperately need until lumbermills come around.

I would just merge him for the hammer boost which it looks like you guys desperately need until lumbermills come around.

Good point on the shrine. I guess it all depends on how much influence Confucianism has.

As to the lumbermills there's no need. I have a feeling there won't be any forests left by the time it makes it back around to me. I'm not so sure thats a good thing.

I would be inclined to build the shrine with the great prophet. It's free money in the bank. It all depends how much Confusionism (spelling intentional) is spread. He gives us five gold a turn if we merge him as a super specialist. If we don't and Confusionism spreads to more than five cities, we make more money. If we merge it though we get two hammers a turn forever though. Maybe extra hammers are the way to go.
Changed my mind. Merge first. If we get a second one, build the shrine.
Just my opinion. :P

Usually in OCC I just merge the first few prophets and only make a shrine if the religion has spread. We'll be getting PLENTY of great prophets in the future so we don't have to worry about missing out.

It's definitely dangerous going with a state religion in OCC. I usually just go Free Religion because no religious civic advantage outweighs the diplomatic minuses. But if we can actually convert enough allies to our state religion, then it's a big plus. Let's see if we can keep Capac converted then.

Lemme guess, Izzy is Buddhist and everyone hates her. :p

Merzbow
Liquidated
Methos
grs (up)
Thormodr (on deck)

It's definitely dangerous going with a state religion in OCC.

Eventually I can understand your point. Once religions start getting established having none is typically better diplomatically. This early in the game religions aren't established enough plus the AI's are still expanding, and probably will be for some time. By declaring a religion it increases our happiness, meaning more citizens. Size 6 right now is a lot better than size 5, so IMO was worth it. Later is a different story.

good tech choices (as if you had much option with the setup given..)

needed to hook those cows up asap but needed masonry done as well. farms are win as well with the rice coming soon.

leave the forests in the city area even/alone so we keep the health bonus... we can use the health mid game, lots of forests outside our radius to chop still.

melding gp as a spec is more important right now for the hammers.

grs said
If you take me, please note, that I won't be available from tonight till 4th or 5th of January.

so I'm assuming he's skip until he posts back.

Thormodr is next then.

Cheers!
-Liq

in a conventional game, izzy is bad news as a neighbor as she grabs budhism and demands you switch over..

what generally happens, izzy goes for hindu or bud then is intolerant of all others, precluding her from opening borders with most people from the get go.

She then stalls as everyone else converts to some other religion and tries to get along.

I mean no one expects the spanish inquisition right???

In an occ it's not so bad in that swapping one religion for another is easier to do with just one town to worry about.

She still sucks as a next door neighbor though. I rank her up there with monty as most-hated first encounter.

I so rarely ever see mao not sure how to take him.. seems all my games I get monty and izzy or izzy and monty. doubt mao is half as annoying as those two.

Cheers!
-Liq

Thanks, didn't remember grs was out.

Merzbow (on deck)
Liquidated
Methos
grs (skipped until 4th or 5th)
Thormodr (up)

It's great we have Izzy. By 1000 AD she'll be half the size of everyone else due to numerous wars, and it will be easy to pound on her for some Heroic Epic karma.

Ok cool. I am ready and I think I am well appraised of the situation. I will not chop any forest in the city's radius and will hook up any resources we have. I will stick to the plan as far as tech goes and try not to make any newbie mistakes. One question though...where's the save?

Never mind. I'm an idiot. :P I see it back on page 2, the 1640 BC Save. I shall get to work doing some preturn analysis then get down to playing. ^^

EDIT: I can't seem to download the 1640 BC save. All I get is gibberish on my screen. The 2240 BC save I have no problem with. I figure it must be a different format somehow. I guess I could use some help here or else I won't be able to get the save. :(

just left click the file... in firefox I get a blank window and popup box that asks if I want to save the file or open it with a program (well and a 'do this the same way again always' which is BAD:lol: )

After some early SG name issues (curious if 1.52 patched that error) best to save the file raw to say dektop then shove it into the saves folder under my documents.

I just made a shout cut to my saves directory on the desktop and any new save I just drag on over. then again my desktop always ends up as a directory listing after a few weeks :D .


Cheers!
-Liq

Hmmm....I can left click your save game and download it no problem. However that doesn't work for Merz's. However if I rightclick it and save link target as, I can do it no problem. So rightclick instead of leftclick for me. Anyway, for all my longwindedness.....GOT IT!
:)

Ok. Here we go. My 15 turns of fame as it were. :)

Preflight check:
Everything AOK (not the Microslop game) except we are last in points. I vow to change that. ;)
19 Gold in the treasury and even gold at 100% science.
Barb city to the South and a Barb City to the East. (Stay away from our Sheep!) 2 More and we'll be surrounded. :P
We are growing in 5 (It will be our happiness limit) and we will get the Pyramids in 64 turns. 2 GPP/turn and 8/100 so far. Let's get at it.

Turn 1 (1560 BC) Basically, Stay on Target! Keep on keeping on. Incans snooping around with their Quechua

Turn 2 (1520 BC) Forest 3 tiles East is chopped down as well as the forest
3 tiles south. The tree gods are angry but the Pyramids are now only 49 turns away. :) Debating where to chop next. I consider chopping near Machu Picchu (Southeast of the city) as we may lose it to Incan cultural expansion soon. I know they aren't creative but I perhaps err on the side of caution and don't do it. I'd hate to lose the movement there and the worker turns if the forest becomes Incan territory. I head East to start chopping down the Forest.

Turn 3 (1480 BC) Incan Quechua walking back and forth. Towards one Barb city and then towards the other. Indecision breeds defeat I say. Ja Wohl! Mel Lentz commences deforestation. 22 Hammers coming in in 3 turns.

Turn 4 (1440 BC) Justin Beckett will start cutting down a forest for 30 hammers. The ecocide continues. :P
Yikes! :eek: Barb archer appears next to Mel Lentz and Sven. Being in a forest and fortified gives me confidence we will win. *Crosses fingers*

I also notice if we grow again we will be unhappy so I take off the Flood plains tile and shift it to the Plains. This allows us to still get Animal Husbandry in 1 turn and gives us an extra hammer. I will switch it to the Plains Forest next turn.

Turn 5 (1400 BC) Sven kicks Barb archer butt! (2.8/3 Health) :goodjob:
We also discover Animal husbandry. It will allow us to abuse cows and make funny screenshots of them later. :P More importantly, it revealed Horses two tiles West of our borders. Could come in handy later.
Looking at the Tech choices I choose Agriculture (5 Turns).
Mel Lentz murders another innocent forest. 22 more hammers to Berlin.

Turn 6 (1360 BC)
Move Mel and Sven one South onto the Forest Plains Hills. Justin Beckett adds his 30 hammers and I will go one south with him and then one to the Bovines.

Turn 7 (1320 BC)
Machu Piccu's borders expand. I think my caution was correct. It would have taken me 2 turns to get to the forest and 3 to cut it down. I think we wouldn't have got it. *Whew*

Turn 8 (1280 BC)
Barb Archer out from Southern Barb city. Will it tangle with the Quechua or come for us? Any bets?

Turn 9 (1240 BC) I believe the answer is neither. I can't see the Quechua or the Barb Archer but I do now see an English Warrior.
English Archer near Machu Picchu as well. They have open borders. The Incans are sending a war party of an Axeman and an Archer to the Eastern Barb city. (I hope. :P)

Turn 10 (1200 BC) Agriculture in. I pray to the Rain gods then set put my shoulders towards the Wheel. I hope that was the correct choice. That should almost take care of our basic Worker Techs. Forest cleared to the South of us by Justin Beckett. Time to make his way towards the cows. Pyramids in 11.

Turn 11 (1160 BC)
The long trek to the cows begins. I only moved Justin Beckett one tile to keep him under Leo's watchful eye.

Turn 12 (1120 BC)
Pyramids in 9, The Wheel in 3
I shift a Flood Plains to a Grassland forest to get the Pyramids in 8 and The Wheel still in 3.

Turn 13 (1080 BC)
Another Forest brutally murdered for 30 hammers. Pyramids in 5. There is another forest 2 tiles West so I send Mel Lentz and Sven that way. After that I figure it would be Cottage time. (When we get Pottery).
Justin is seperated from Leo but I moved a city guard archer to watch him.

Turn 14 (1040 BC)
Absolutely nothing to report. :cool:

Turn 15 (1000 BC)
Vicky asks for Open Borders. We are at +1 Relations from years of peace. I figure we need allies and since England and the Incas seem to be getting along (As well as us being decent militarily) I agree to it. My theory is that it will bring us all closer together. I also figure our religion may spread better with Open Borders. If this was a bad choice I apologize.
We discover The Wheel. I set out targets on Pottery. If this is a bad choice, feel free to change it. Pottery will be discovered in 6 Turns and the Pyramids will be built in 3. :D
I get Justin Beckett to start pasturing the cows. This will take 4 turns. Note: Please switch the City Guard Archer with Leo next turn.
Sven and Mel Lentz on a Grassland Forest and will be ready for chopping next turn.

Well that's a wrap. I didn't get to finish the Pyramids but I knocked 61 turns off of it. Imagine....the world's first wooden pyramid. :P
We are also still last at 248 points. I have not lived up to my vow. :P
Anyway, go US! I mean Germany. :)
Save game in the next post. :king:

Sven kicking butt!

Here is the Save Game and a picture of our Mighty City State. ^^

After the Pyramids we have several good builds; the library (+25% beakers), temple (+1 happy), and a monastery (+10% beakers). My preference would be the library first and than the temple. We need the additional beaker boost plus the happy face for growth. I like monasteries but tend to build them when I have nothing better to build.

What type of government are we going for when Pyramids is finished? Universal Suffrage doesn’t seem worth it now as we won’t benefit from it enough. We don’t have any cottages and it’ll take, I believe, 40 turns to go from cottage to town? Our gold right now is horrible, but I believe that’s primarily due to being so early in the game, so rushing with cash isn’t worth it at this time either. We’re still building up.

IMO I believe Representation would probably be the best for us at this time. +3 happy faces would allow us to grow three more pop points. It also grants us +3 beakers per specialist, though I’m not sure if we’ll be doing this for a while.

I think Representation sounds best if we can afford it. :) Not sure on the upkeep for it.
I just thought of something after I finished my turns. When our workers are done chopping, it might not hurt to sit an archer in a Forest Hill next to the Barb cities. That should give us some free experience and get us closer to having a unit qualify for Heroic Epic. As long as the Barbs don't have Axemen yet, and I haven't seen any, it could get us a lot closer to ten experience.
Just an idea anyway...

Solid turns. Representation is definitely the way to go. I'll see if I can fortify an archer near the barb towns and make it to 10 exp (what you need for Heroic Epic). It's hard with barbs but not impossible.

Merzbow (up)
Liquidated
Methos
grs
Thormodr

Pre-turn:

Looks like Capac is our closest neighbor and thus should be our best ally. Let's keep him Confused. (Of course Liq and I remember what happened in Zav04 in the same circumstances, but hey it all worked out didn't it bud?).

Pyramids almost done. I think I'll save the remaining few forests outside our fat cross for the Great Library.

As soon as Pottery comes in I'll go for Alphabet (which should fall quickly with Representation, library, and a scientist).

Turn 1 (384 left):

Move Sven towards the southern barb city for punching-bag duty. Mel is coming home for re-education as a cottage builder.

Turn 2 (383 left):

Jeez our copper is in a blanking useless location. And this was supposed to be a balanced map? Let's hope we have iron:

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn02/CaptureWiz010.jpg

Turn 3 (382 left):

The 'rids come in. I revolt to rep and caste. Put London (Berlin :smoke:) on a lib.

Turn 4 (381 left):

Cyrus wants OB. I decline because I first want to check the relations screen to remind myself of who Capac is and isn't enemies with. I obviously do not want to trade with his enemies. Cyrus checks out and I take the OB.

Berlin can grow again with the extra happy joy.

I kick Milenko off his hill and start exploring. We need more map knowledge to know who's going to fill in our remaining border areas.

Turn 5 (380 left):

Heh, cute. Capac takes the eastern barb town, Olmec, and on the same turn it gets Confused:

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn02/CaptureWiz011.jpg

Turn 6 (379 left):

:sleep:

Turn 7 (378 left):

Pottery -> Alphabet. After Berlin grows in 2 I might hire a scientist since we'll be at our health limit (for the time being).

Turn 8 (377 left):

I fortify Sven on a +75% tile next to Circassian. Hopefully the AIs will leave this one alone for a while:

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn02/CaptureWiz012.jpg

It looks like we might get lucky enough to be completely surrounded by Capac. Cyrus appears to be closing in also, too bad he's Jewish. We should convert him:

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn02/CaptureWiz013.jpg

We should use the next prophet to build the confused shrine.

Workers on cottages.

Turn 9 (376 left):

Berlin grows. Somehow we acquired an extra health but I still hire a scientist; it boost our research by about 30%. We still will grow in 16 (this will improve once I throw down a few farms on some plains tiles and work those instead of the 1-bread forests). We need an extra worker. Will build one once the lib comes in.

Turn 10 (375 left):

Sven eats a barb archer, I give him a hill promotion (because he's standing on one). Only 8 more to go for the Heroic Epic.

Izzy manages to talk Victoria into turning Buddhist. Hmm. Guys, do NOT trade with Saladin or Izzy, they are both hated by Capac and Cyrus (our neighbors).

Turn 11 (374 left):

A forest grows near Berlin. Schweet!

Turn 12 (373 left):

Mao is Buddhist also, crap. Looks like Sally is going to be the universal punching bag this game, not Izzy.

Turn 13 (372 left):

Zzz.

Turn 14 (371 left):

Great Prophet comes in. Not an easy decision on what to do... I decide to go against my earlier recommendation and join him instead of making the shrine. We REALLY could use those extra hammers and beakers at this point in the game. We'll have another chance later (almost certainly).

Library -> worker. Stuff is just happening too slowly with only 2 workers.

Poor Sven. Nobody wants to beat on him.

Turn 15 (370 left):

Heh I spoke too soon. Sven is now at 3 exp. That barb city seems to make a surplus archer about every 8 turns, then wastes it. You go girl!

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn02/CaptureWiz014.jpg

To next player:

After Alphabet comes in trade for Iron Working. We got screwed with copper so we need iron or we'll be fish bait.

Once we hook up iron build a bunch of axes and spears.

Build the monastery for the extra +10% to science (and the missionaries). We don't have to convert anyone else until later in the game but we NEED to keep Capac confused. To that end, use the scout to scout out all his cities and make sure our religion is the most predominant. If not, build missionaries This takes priority over EVERYTHING else.

Merzbow (just played)
Liquidated (up)
Methos (on deck)
grs (skip until 4th or 5th)
Thormodr

got it, let me re-read in detail the turns and make sure no raids today.. cleric is LFG so all's good!

ok geting to it.

Cheers!
-Liq

preflight:

ok load up game and GG see pyramids.. kick ass chopping there thor
also great on a forest popping... that's why I left the forests alone nearby, that extra gets us 6 forests in our tile space for +3 health.

ok well how much time we have on the great lib? oooo sheep and rice are in our radius... hot dog!

we ok on health now so that can wait... notice out scout is in the east so gonna build another scout after worker is done. not too sure how we want to divy up the tiles in terms of cottages... farms on plains yes but what about grass? well I'll build cottages for now as they are easily paved over for farms later.

[1]600BC
hmm snore

[2]575BC
ok well milenko is gonna swing nw
see vucky has horse archers.... and another barb town to the north... ok eek.

[3]550BC
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/barbs.jpg
milenko steers AROUND the barb town

[4]525BC
Worker pops... gonna go hook up the resources. build a new scout in 1.

[5]500BC

Sven beats up another archer... but before I can see his exp...

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/p0capac.jpg
well whatever I do I don;t wanna piss off capac so I accept.

scout builds so start on confused monestary in 6..

promote scout to "lief" and give him woodsman one.

sven is 4/5 exp and 2.0 hp.

[6]475BC
Alphabet comes in and hmm... literature requires poly so poly in 3 it is!!!

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/ollyoop.jpg
spot the capac town of ollantaytambo which needs confused... it is religion free so that will prolly happen naturally.

I shop for iron working and lots have it... so I get fishing and iron working for alphabet from cyrus... lets try and grab math too from our pal capac. well he has no gold so make an even steven alph for math... trade is in his favor but.... no one else has math!

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/ironman.jpg
haha iron is next to bronze.... and BARELY in our radius. hooking that up POST HASTE.

[7]450BC
Checking trades... get sailing from capac for meditation and priest hood... again his favor but hell those are junk techs and we'll not spare the time to research sailing in a long time.

vicky has currency already... she's running away with tech.

[8]425BC
checking trades. well vicky doesnt like us much!

[9]400BC
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/litt.jpg
poly comes in and go for literature in 7 imo we might have a shot at music first.

[10]375BC
sven beats off another archer and promotes hills 2.. is 2.8/3.0 hp lol

civs all have mono now but only trade we have is code of laws... eff that.

mao founds christianism that's fine as less friends for izzy.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/cultureclutter.jpg
someone likes us!

[11]350BC
confused monestary coems in and only one capac town is not confused with no competing religions...

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/morebarbs.jpg
wow found ANOTHER barb town this time NW of capac.. get away!!!

start on an obolesk in 3 turns why? well +1 culture the rest of the game is good I think lol

[12]325BC
Mao drops the other shoe and converts to christianity...

iron comes flooding in!!! so start on an axe.. keep the ob on queue since we can build it after it's obsolete if it's in queue.

queued up axe spear axe spear all in 4 turns each really no choice, we need the military. great libray will be ready to build for menthos at teh start of his turn.

what's hilarious is capac is roading past our city to link up his eastern city. thanks for the free labor man!

[13]300BC
no fun trades..

[14]275BC
crap, a junk capac axe is on another hill next to sven and sucks up the free exp... bastard.

[15]250BC
capac wants code of laws as a gift... sigh seeing as other civs about to get it and none of them are willing to trade worthwhile techs for it I say ok. =/

literature comes in I place the tech on --->MUSIC FOR 18 TURNS<--- feel free to change this.

Great library is in 20 turns... one turn left on the axeman I started... workers are free.. to chop when able.. feel free to cancel the farm action going on in the rice. I see 6 forests worth cutting.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/relatives.jpg
peeps really do not like us and well capac is not being a very nice ally... sigh

so question is, do we stall a bit on great library to get a military going or chop all 6 forests left to secure it.

if still not taken gardens seems worthwhile.. also how to divvy up our land... food or cottages?

not a great turn set but man capac is all demands and no gravy.. need to start on repairing relations.

Cheers!
-Liq

I will probably be able to pick up my next turnset.

Got it....

Good work Liq. You were faced with some hard decisions and did well. HC is being a jerk which is really too bad. Cyrus generally makes a good ally. It would be nice to get him on our side. Too bad he's Jewish.

I am quite worried about Vicky though. She may just go off and declare war on us. HC being a greedy sod would probably demand a lot to join in the fun. :(

I am also glad Sven is gaining xp. Annoying about the xp stealer though. :mad:

If we get a free Great Artist from Music would we join it to the city? Free tech? Or culture bomb?

Thank gawd we got an Iron anyway. *Whew* That could have been disasterous.

Turn 105 (250 BC)
Methos: That's interesting. Huayna has workers building a road in our lands.
Research begun: Monotheism
Methos: Since we have a religion the Organized Religion civic is a definite advantage. I take a 3-turn detour for Monotheism.
Berlin finishes: Axeman

Turn 106 (225 BC)
Methos: WTF? I remove all the queues except the spear. Do not queue every single build for another players turnset! If that’s the case what are the rest of us doing playing! :mad:
Methos: I do start the spear.

Turn 107 (200 BC)
Tech learned: Monotheism

Turn 108 (175 BC)
Research begun: Music

Turn 109 (150 BC)
Berlin finishes: Spearman
Archer defeats (2.22/3): Barbarian Archer

Turn 110 (125 BC)
Berlin begins: The Great Library
Methos: The southwestern barb city finally attacked our archer. he's currently at 2.4/3.
Archer defeats (0.81/3): Barbarian Archer

Turn 111 (100 BC)

Turn 112 (75 BC)
Archer loses to: Barbarian Archer (2.10/3)

Turn 113 (50 BC)
Methos: Well, he took out two archers before finally going down.

Turn 114 (25 BC)

Turn 115 (0 AD)
Warrior loses to: Barbarian Archer (0.60/3)

Turn 116 (25 AD)

Turn 117 (50 AD)
Axeman promoted: Combat I
Axeman defeats (5.00/5): Barbarian Archer

Turn 118 (75 AD)
Axeman defeats (2.75/5): Barbarian Archer
Axeman promoted: Shock
Berlin grows: 9
Xi Ling Shi (Great Scientist) born in Berlin

Turn 119 (100 AD)
Berlin finishes: The Great Library
Confucianism has spread: Bactra (Persian Empire)

Turn 120 (125 AD)
Berlin begins: National Epic

We have a great scientist sleeping in Berlin. I was pretty sure we wanted him to build an Academy, but since he was born last turn I decided to wait and get everyone’s opinion.

The barb archer pillaged our iron mine so we need to send a worker over to fix it. The road is still there but the mine isn’t.

The current build is set to National Epic, but that’s primarily because I didn’t know what to set it to. Until the mine is replaced on the iron we can’t build any axemen. There are no hammers invested in NE.

Lastly, please do not queue the next four or five builds for the following player. When I started there was one turn left on the axemen. In the queue was a spearmen (3 turns), axemen (4 turns), spearmen (3 turns), axemen (4 turns), and an obelisk (2 turns). Total that’s 16 turns worth of builds queued! What’s the point in me even playing if my turnset is being played for me! I do not like playing a turnset where my turns are mandated to me, so please do not do that! Make the suggestion, but do not set them!

Here's the 125 AD save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Merz01_AD-0125.Civ4SavedGame).

hehe I queued those to offer suggestion not manditory. As a reminder that we need military sooner rather than later.

regardless I'll refrain from queuing anything from now on if it bothers you methos. wasn;t trying to force any builds seeing as this is a occ you know when items are built.


as for the obolix.. if you queue up an item that goes obsolete... as long as it stays in the queue you can build it. it's a free point of culture a turn for a dead moment.

Again sorry did not mean to annoy.


oh yeah I would vote for academy seeing as the 3 specs we have now are pumping out 21 beakers a turn before the acad making it profitable from the very first turn.

21 beakers from specs 27 from commerce.. 48/2 => 24 beakers and um... lets check... 4 culture from the mini wonder. We have library .25 and monestary .1 so building mod would be a whopping 85%, that's really sweet.

oh about the lay out of the land... cottages on grass farms on plains or a few more farms on grass to support specs. Can tweak out hammer situation by building watermills later.

might want to make that axe medic first promotion helps the punching bag thing

Cheers!
-Liq

Good work Methos. ^^
Too bad Sven the punching bag died. He was getting so close. :( Man that Barb city must be cranking out the units fast. :P
I think the academy is our best choice as it will really give us a boost to our science and we can't afford to fall behind.

Too bad Sven the punching bag died. He was getting so close. :( Man that Barb city must be cranking out the units fast. :P

The interesting thing was that the turn before one of our neighbors moved an archer up next to the barb city. Barbs did nothing. Next turn our neighbor left. Then wham!

I'm thinking the Academy would be the best bet too, as +50% beakers is a lot! Main thing was I hated to do it the turn before my last turn. Figured it wouldn't hurt to wait one turn just to make sure. It always sucks in an SG when a player makes some trade deal or hefty decision within the last couple turns of his/her turnset.

It is good etiquette in SGs to wait for the next player on the 15th turn I have read so no worries there.
I see grs is away until the 4th or the 5th so am I up next?
If so, I can play tonight. I will go ahead and build the academy if I play unless anyone strenously objects.
Let me know. :)

It is good etiquette in SGs to wait for the next player on the 15th turn I have read so no worries there.

Very true. I've been playing SG's four about a year now. I haven't seen any of you (other than grs) so wasn't for sure how familiar you all are with SG's. I was more mentioning it for everyone's benefit and knowledge. :)

I see grs is away until the 4th or the 5th so am I up next?
Let me know. :)

If you notice in post #59 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3522312&postcount=59) he stated that he might be able to take his turnset, so I don't know if that means he's back or what. I guess its up to the game creator. Do we give grs a little time or continue using his original skip request?

oh just in case anyone missed the various postings of sulla and sirian...

mine ALL hills within our cultural borders when the workers would otherwise be idle. Any hill with a mine on it has a small chance of popping an ore based resource every turn.

So instead of parking the workers once the city lanscaping is done, mine the hills.

as for the artist we may just get... a culture bomb would bump us over 5k allowing our last real pop BEFORE all those paracite capac towns have a chance to form their own culture.

Seems pretty clear cut we want to culture bomb under the present circumstances.

Cheers!
-Liq

yah give grs his 24 got it or let him pass himself.

I really felt bad about my turn set btw on account that our political stand fell quite a bit from all but capac himself.

as it is now though with capac surrounding us completely he's acting as a super shield of sorts.

very glad to see you didn;t encounter more demands your turnset menthos.


btw we need to spam missonarys to have capac keep the faith, he's got a ton of towns now.

Cheers!
-Liq

Cool. That was my way of thinking to culture bomb the nearby cities if we get a great artist. If they revolt to us, they are destroyed. :goodjob:

Don't worry Methos, I need all the help I can get so don't worry about offending me. :P

I always assumed you had to work the hill tile in order to get a resource popping up. I can't recall it ever happening and I always upgrade every tile anyway to maybe trick Barbs, though I don't know if they are that stupid. If that's true though, that would be very cool. You learn something new everyday. I'll file that away. :)

I always assumed you had to work the hill tile in order to get a resource popping up. I can't recall it ever happening ...

I've had it happen several times throughout a game. The sucky thing is trying to locate it. :D

I highly disagree with going for Music... it's a useless tech in OCC, we'll have more than enough culture as it is. We should be going for Civil Service ASAP. The +50% to our city is critical to have and we NEED the free tech from Liberalism. Other than that the turns look good. We definitely should keep appeasing Capac whatever his demands (up to and including a non-suicidal war), as long as it appears that he isn't about to be crushed by someone else. We should also cultivate Cyrus.

Hanging Gardens is a very good wonder to go for as it gives us +2 to engineers.

Scientist should definitely build the academy.

For now we should definitely cottage many of the 2 and 3 bread squares (perhaps 4 or 5). The 1-bread plains squares should definitely be farmed, then we can work them for the hammer. Forests in the fat cross of course should stay unmolested.

Let's give grs a bit of time to respond since he said he's ready.

Merzbow
Liquidated
Methos (just played)
grs (up)
Thormodr (on deck)

Music in my opinion is not useless and we are only four turns away. Globe theatre is invaluable as we don't have to worry at all about an unhappiness and I noticed we seem to have a severe lack of luxury resources this game.
I fully admit civil service kicks butt for OCC and we should go straight to that when music is done though. I am sure we could trade music around after as well and get some techs we do need. The free great artist is super since it will put huge pressure on the border cities the Incans have and hopefully destroy them. If may be the only chance we get as hopefully we won't be getting any more great artists.
Just my opinion of course. Maybe if it was a player turn earlier and I was on the ball, I would have recommended going straight to civil service. We could have traded for music. Unfortunately it is too late now.
All in all though, I don't think it will kill us. Bureaucracy sure does kick butt, being literally made for OCC. :)

Music in my opinion is not useless and we are only four turns away. Globe theatre is invaluable as we don't have to worry at all about an unhappiness and I noticed we seem to have a severe lack of luxury resources this game.
I fully admit civil service kicks butt for OCC and we should go straight to that when music is done though. I am sure we could trade music around after as well and get some techs we do need. The free great artist is super since it will put huge pressure on the border cities the Incans have and hopefully destroy them. If may be the only chance we get as hopefully we won't be getting any more great artists.
Just my opinion of course. Maybe if it was a player turn earlier and I was on the ball, I would have recommended going straight to civil service. We could have traded for music. Unfortunately it is too late now.
All in all though, I don't think it will kill us. Bureaucracy sure does kick butt, being literally made for OCC. :)

Globe Theater is Drama, not Music.

And we certainly don't want to deliberately put any more pressure on Capac's cities, all that gains us is more diplomatic minuses. We do want to expand borders to grab the copper, but we won't need that until the Internet so it will happen naturaly.

Plus we would want to JOIN the great artist, not create a work. Joining gets us the GP points PLUS the beakers from representation.

(A general note to everyone... don't take my criticism the wrong way, overall you're all doing a great job. I'm just that way. :)

Hee hee. Oh yeah. I suppose it is Drama. Fair enough.
There is an Incan city 1 Tile North of the copper so I am not sure we are guaranteed to get it unfortunately. I suppose in time, our culture may overwhelm that city, Coriwhasamafoosis or whatever it's called. We are within 70 turns of our next cultural expansion and that will be speeding up rapidly I suppose.
I suppose culture bombing may piss of the Incans a lot too. Perhaps you are right. Slowly overwhelming the border cities is maybe the best approach and they won't see it coming. :P

And as I've said before, don't worry about offending me. I'm learning all the time and I'd rather have debate over these things so I can gain possible new insights. Now excuse me, I'm off to reread the tech tree. :blush:

Yeah we will definitely need that copper someday. If we can't trade for it then we'll have to conduct cultural warfare with the Hermitage.

well thor and I 'cheated' and looked at the save last night and saw a few things Menthos' log did not stress.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/culture_bomb_time.jpg

note 50 ad.. no problem as we wanted great library first and we got it gg.

second is culture bomb now and deal with the political pressure now instead of over the next 100 turns.

we're not getting access to that copper nor those horses since that whatever town has a fantastic starting spot that it can live on with 3 tiles.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/culture_bomb_resources.jpg
(Liq is getting better with photoshop!!! note the kewl squares!)

looking at it close we gain pig to the northwest (lose w/o culture bomb) Horses to the west (lose w/o culture bomb) cows to the south secured and silk to the northeast secured.

notice the towns hogging the horses is brand new... kick it before it can stand up, it'll be a productive city for capac regardless as it's a really sweet city site. edit: well one square NW would have been better but capac did that to secure the bronze.

also, to keep the southern axe alive, after the culture bomb, borders will dovetail with barb training grounds... after every fight, move the axe to our borders to heal about 3 times faster (roughly). he's almost 10 exp so keep that guy alive!

as for diplo...
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/capac_diplo.jpg

max lost for borders is -3 right? well we are at -2 two already and someone will plop a town on the southern rice sooner rather than later.

note the whopping +6 relations on religion...

next player must spam missonaries to convert all the capac towns.. so that he stays the faith. If he goes hindu we are screwed.

So to recap liq's advice is..

1. use the probable music artist as a culture bomb asap. (cannot see how we don;t get music first as is, the other civs all going calendar.)

2. work civil service after music and revolt beaur

3. spam all of capac's towns with confusion... there's a mature town in the extreme NW, make sure to send a conversion over to that first.

4. oh yeah, rehook up the iron lol


should be getting another great person soon... scientist the odds favorite so gg more beakers. If we get a profit well the meld vs. shrine choice will be very hard... shrine is not-so- needed gold and culture but it's also .. let me verify... 1 priest gp that never obsoletes and 3 priest spec slots...

the 3 priest slots are really nice in that we can dictate our next gp pretty effectively for all but enginners.

melding a priest adds needed hammers and more base research under representation.

This is a turning point. the wonder, combined with 3 fast GP's and a staggering civic change (+50% hammers and beakers? oh my) and capac liking us that much means the next complete rotation will see great progress before the other civs can pick up speed and really overtake us :)

discuss!!!:D

Fun SG.

Cheers!
-Liq

well thor and I 'cheated' and looked at the save last night and saw a few things Menthos' log did not stress.

That’s odd. I thought the autolog would have mentioned that. Looks like another ‘request’ to the author.

As to Music, I wasn't for sure about it. Notice I took a detour to get Organized Religion and just went back to Music as it was queued when I started. In truth I believe it may be worth it. The great artist could definitely help us with out culture. One thing though, is how close are we to hitting the 5k mark? Would it be better to do a great works (+4k culture) or make him a super specialist (+x amount of culture a turn).

Actually -4 is the most you can get from border tension. We're just going to have to disagree on the use for that artist and on the wisdom of going for Music if it looks like the copper is lost anyways. Coriunpronouncable is far enough away we can't assume it will ever flip (i.e. auto-raze). But I agree with everything else.

current culture is 1690 + 47 a turn. Keep in mind that the town sitting on our horses is brand new... kick it while it's down and it'll never get those horses back.... we want horses if only to use as a bargaining chip for bronze.

Cheers!
-Liq

You are to fast for me, skip me once more. I seem to miss the whole game :(

Merzbow (on deck)
Liquidated
Methos (just played)
grs (skipped)
Thormodr (playing)

Ok, I will play it tonight. What is the consensus on the Great Artist? Do we culture bomb? When we get music I will start heading towards civil service ASAP. ^^
Also is it cheating to look at the saves? I never played out any turns. I just looked at the map and wrote down relations and other info. I don't want to do anything against the rules that's all.

looking at saves is fine so much as you leave them as is.

helps get a better picture of what's going on because no report is all-inclusive. Trust me, reading all-inclusive reports would suck almost as much as writing one. :lol:

I vote culture bomb to get our culture borders established sooner rather than later. Just buffer the hate with more missonaries to spam capac with.

The AI civs are generally pretty good about hogging culture borders. Look at capac's new towns. Keep in mind the AI usually manages to place one or two towns in spots that make you think WTF as well.

Cheers!
-Liq

Ok, I am at home and this is my GOT IT. :)
I will build the academy, culture bomb with the artist, rehook up the iron and try to build a couple of military units after Heroic Epic.
I will head straight to Civil Service when Music is done.
That and keep the ship upright. Steady as she goes Captain. ;)

build missonarys before heroic.... we must keep capac confused.

Cheers!
-Liq

Ok...Preflight check. Everything looks satisfactory. I am happy to say we are not in last place anymore. We are 7th in military as expected but we are 4th in GNP. Cool!
I notice the Incans only have the Great Lighthouse so they likely won't be getting any great artists soon. The Persians have the Parthenon so they may be getting some down the road.
Anyway, city looks good. Cottages growing nicely I see.

Turn 0 (125 AD)
Beakers jump from 63 to 86 as the Academy is built in Berlin. Music will now come in 3 turns instead of 4. Nice.

Turn 1 (150 AD)
Zoroaster born in a foreign land.
Mel Lentz sent to remine the iron.
Scouts continue to explore.

Turn 2 (175 AD)
Mahabodhi BIDAL, Zoroastrian involvement highly suspected.
Axeman (7/10 xp) back on punching back duty. Only one archer there and at 2.4/3 health. Hmmmm....Naw too risky (Odds around 5.5 to 5.1 I believe)
Wow...I just noticed a potential 2 whale city. How often does that happen? :p
http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/1926/civ4screenshot00124bu.jpg

Turn 3 (200 AD)
We enter the Medieval Era as we discover Music. Sights set on Civil Service in 11 turns.
Homer is born in Berlin. (I just pulled a Homer! :lol:)
He is used to commision a great work. My theory is that the 12/culture turn for merging is worthless. The 3 gold a turn is nice but keeping our Iron safe is a much better option as we are dead without it. If the Incans manage to get a Great Artist we could be done. Kill the snake when it is young. I also consider our relations with HC but realistically if this were the NFL, they'd get 10 yards for encrouchment parking on our borders. So I decide to go for the Bomb play. ;)
http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/7079/civ4screenshot00078rl.jpg
http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/2359/civ4screenshot00081gt.jpg
Relations go from -2 to -3 for borders but really it was inevitable. It is better to take the initiative I think.
For our efforts we took the horses so now we can have greater mobility if we so desire. We snagged another cow which we can hook up and gift to HC if he needs it, to repair relations. He also now have pigs (67% share :)) and the sheep are 97% ours.
Coriwhatzamafoosis is still 100% Incan though. :sad:

The Chinese have a pretty sweet starting sight. Marble, Cows, Wheat, Clams, and 5 hills. *Jealous* Here is a pic:
http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/971/civ4screenshot00117tj.jpg

Turn 4 (225 AD)
Taoism FIDAL. It turns out to be the English.
Incans finish hooking up the horses for us. Thanks HC. ^^
Iron back on line.
Barb archer near Olmec. Aztec? No....Olmec :P
Pigs are now at 70% now.
Turn 5 (250 AD)
I start another cottage for when we grow. I start mining hills outside our city radius hoping for somehting to pop. I start making a few roads as well. I prefer more tactical options if we get invaded.

Turn 6 (275 AD)
Vicky converts to Taoism.
Barbs in Circassian build a worker. How insulting that they don't consider us a threat. :P

Turn 7 (300 AD)
Scouts exploring find a Persian river city with seven resources (3 wines). Wow.. Pigs now at 77%. They must really love us. :goodjob:
Cyrus offers us HBR for Code of Laws. I reject his offer. I admit I am a little gunshy trading . I don't see that as being in our interests though.
HC adopts heritary rule.

Turn 8 (325 AD)
Absolutely nothing...zzzzzzz

Turn 9 (350 AD)
Heroic Epic done. Sorry I didn't catch your message about missionaries till after I started playing. Sorry...
GPP jumps from 15 to 32 though.
Hee hee...Next GP in 4 turns, likely as great scientist.
I line up a Swordsman in 3 turns.

Turn 10 (375 AD)
Civil Service only 4 turns away. Sweet!
Barbs build another archer.

Turn 11 (400 AD)
Izzy demands COL. I refuse. I hope that wasn't a mistake but I figure everyone must hate her anyways. (No suprise there.) She won't trade Calendar either. Useless...
Sally is making a big push for the Barb city. Axeman, Swordsman and two Chariots.

Turn 12 (425 AD)
Swordsman in. I line up a Confused Missionary that will take 3 turns. Swordsman sent out to guard workers that will hook up the extra cow. I didn't promote or name him.

Turn 13 (450 AD)
Plato born in Berlin. (Love those Greeks.)
We can discover philosophy with him but I figure merging is best.
I merge him with Berlin and our beakers go up from 88 to 105. Sweet.
http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/5488/civ4screenshot00148gw.jpg
Confusionism spreads in Coriwhatever. Cool!

Turn 14 (475 AD)
Civil Service in. I revolt immediately as this is vital to us. I select Paper as our next tech due in 857 turns. :P Berlin will be unhappy for the one turn of anarchy. Oh well.
Barbs build another archer.

Turn 15 (500 AD)
HC offers currency and 100 gold for civil service. What a jerk. I tell him ahhh...NO!
Barb comes out of the city but doesn't attack us.
Bureaucracy online now. We are up to 138 beakers. More than doubled in my turnset. At least I did something. :P
I figured Paper was best as I believe is on the path to Liberalism and Education. You can change it if you wish. It is due in 6 turns.
Confused missionary will be done next turn. I figure the city north of us Olywhatever or Cuzco the Incan capital could be confused.
Workers are hooking up the Cow and mining some hills.

I hope I did ok.

Note: Berlin to grow in 7 and it is at max happiness. Hamlet will grow in 2 turns.
I did not do any trading but there are opportunities. You can get calendar (I can never spell that word right) HBR and Drama I think. Drama would be sweet for Globe Theatre. ^^
Next GP due in 10 or 12 turns.

Save in next post.

Here is the save. Sorry once again about not building more missionaries. :(

And still trying to figure out how to post pictures better. Not the best at it yet. I will get better :P Imageshack seems good though...

Here is out wonderful city in 500 AD. I swear I wasn't working a plains farm. I figure it would be better on a plains forest. Weird...

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/1733/civ4screenshot00188qa.jpg

I also consider our relations with HC but realistically if this were the NFL, they'd get 10 yards for encrouchment parking on our borders. So I decide to go for the Bomb play. ;)

Actually in the NFL, and in all levels of American Football, Encrochment is a 5 yard penalty. You may also be thinking of the old halo rule for punts, but violating that is now a 15 yard penalty. The Old halo rule would be a 10 yard penalty.

I suggest a wheel route, rather than a straight bomb anyway. Get a fast receiver on a slow corner in space, and boom! :lol:

Well, I figure we took more than 10 yards from the Incas anyway.
As far as Wheel routes go, we discovered that a long time ago. :p
Still trying to get to a corner of Space though. ;)

Great turns Thorm. So we actually got a unit to 10+ experience for the Epic (I think that's what's needed)? Sweet. :hammer: I think I'm going to gift Capac some techs. Remember that you can get up to +4 relations just by gifting techs. In peaceful games I always do this with my immediate neighbors.

It looks like Izzy's grand plan to convert the world to Buddhism has failed. I encourage people to piss her off.

Merzbow (up)
Liquidated (on deck)
Methos
grs (skipped till 4th or 5th)
Thormodr (just played)

My bad. I meant national epic not heroic epic. We are stuck at 7/10 xp and it seems Mao may crush that barb city to dust. :( We may need a future war with a weaker power to get that built.
The extra GPP is kick butt though. We are up to 32/turn and should get another great person in about 12 turns I believe. ^^
Gifting to HC isn't a bad idea. There are lots of trading option out there. I considered a few but didn't pull the trigger. Probably the weakest part of my game is tech trading so any advice on this in this game would be appreciated.

Tech trading is tricky in this game because we generally want to slow the AI's advance to space. But we also can't afford not to get those military techs or hurt our diplomacy. In general don't trade away the latest or next-to-latest techs on the 'main beeline' I guess. Also try to keep any one AI from becoming dominant in tech.

ok since I just went down that path thor, a bit about screens and how I deal with them. Your milage may vary so just take this post as one possible way of doing it.

not in chronological order, this is how I deal with screens at the present moment..

1. taking the screen
I gave up on the native civ screenshot feature in CIV4 as to call it flaky is an understatement. Seems using window mode with desktop res being higher than civ res screw up the screens but I have no choice. The multi monitor setup I have pushes civ4 off to the right just enough to get me 4 frames per second loading... easier to go a custom resolution than tolerate the crap load time and manually move the window.

I tried a few screenshot apps but settled on FRAPS. nice unobtrusive screen and movie app that can reside in tray and let you set up your own hotkey to take screens. Starts off with a frame rate in the upper left, the first page of FRAPS has a weird black rectangle with a set of radio buttons in the corners... to get rid of it, click the disable radio beneath it (lol took me like 10 mins to figure that one out).

set the save folder to someplace easy to find.

set native output to bmp or jpg however you wish... I'd assume you want to keep it all in jpgs.


2. editing the image to be board friendly
Once you have the perfect screenshot, edit it to make it more board friendly. Pick a full featured art program like photoshop(the pain!), coral draw, printshop pro etc. I personally use photoshop and man, it's a painful learning experience!!! the default ms paint is very limited, best to skip it and start learning how to use a real paint program.

make sure the size of most of the screens is under 100k. For slop ui screens under 50k is easily done. Feel for the people with crap connections!!! they are still out there, somewhere!

Can do this by
a.cropping pics by cutting/copying out the selected area and making a new picture of the copied area. Generally section off the area you want to post, then copy it. With the selected area in the clipboard I just open a new file in photoshop and it sets initial resolution to whatever is in the clipboard. I think paste the image and rename the jpg as a jpg.

b. shrinking the native resolution by resizing the image in your chosen app. in PS it's image->image size.. I take my ugly custom res and turn full screen shots into 800x600.

c. Compressing the jpg even more by file ->'save as' a jpg again, and selecting a compression ratio that's to about 50kish. feel free to keep the fullscreen shots, like the culture bomb results, relatively uncompressed and larger as thats where you want the detail.

keep screenshots under roughly 800 res wide whenever possible lots less when cropping pics. Actually the main reason I crop pictures is to keep their width down.

Wider screens warp the message board and people viewing the board at *coughworkcough* and/or low desktop resolutions have to scroll along the horizontal slider just to read the other posts. Peeps asking for it when coming to SG forums but well be nice!

3. uploading the pics.
to save this fine site the bandwidth and free up the personal upload storage capacity of your isp, use a free service to host images. Imageshack is one, as is photobucket. I personally use photobucket and have no issues at all. I have to get around to trying imageshack to see if their interface is better but bucket gives me the html tags so all I need do is copy and paste.



random screen tips!
use the app Civscale that comes with the blue marble package. In that program you can set the size of various settings like how big city graphics are as well as resources, improvements etc.

One major boon to screens is the ability to tweak cloud levels from their overall strength to the area of the zoom they appear. I just turn the bloody things off allowing me a clear line of sight even at max zoomout.

Civcscale also lets you tweak your UI color.. finally found one I like.. that blue was not mixing well with my desktop color scheme. Civscale is great little app that's generally not talked about since the bluemarble mod pack that it's downloaded with takes the spotlight.

For screens where you want the widest area of play view, like the culture bomb results, you can minimize and even eliminate the UI. the keybinding for toggling the UI is alt-I. Do not recall offhand the minimal UI keybinding as I personally don't care for it.

Anyway just a few tips thor, I learned that crap the hard way lol.

oh and stay away from photoshop unless you are a glutton for punishment; what a Byzantine app that thing is.

Cheers!
-Liq

Barb comes out of the city but doesn't attack us.

sigh, it's crunch time on getting a 10 exp unit merz

if peeps making a push for the barb town, our window of oppurtunity to get a 10 exp unit off barbs is closing fast. If an archer is dumb enough to walk out of the town just attack it if we have even or better odds.

If we lose the axe that's the breaks, if he wins that'll get him to 9ish exp and that much closer to Heroic epic. More exp for closer fights correct?

Just assume we lose our barb training grounds in your 15 turns rather than wait it out.

Since we can get 9 exp from that free archer there was another barb town to the NW I saw. imo if the axe lives move him over to there to see if he cannot ekk out the last exp.

Think you only have to get a unit to 10 exp... not live past IBT to promote :lol:

would add meaning to the Heroic part.

nothing ventured nothing gained merz!

Cheers!
-Liq

A great read over at planetciv titled Why Civilization needs Patches

http://planetcivilization.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Interviews.Detail&id=4

From it, this passage that rings true in this SG.

Soren Johnson of Firaxis Games said:
I suppose another good example is that there is no industrious and philosophical civilization. There are 28 trait combinations and 26 leaders, so there are two missing. One of the two is industrious-philosophical. That used to be Rome. Friedrich and a few other people, probably Aeson, made a strong case that philosophical and industrious is just too dangerous. Multiplicative math: If you're industrious then you can build more wonders, and if you can build more wonders you get more great people, which then is multiplied by your philosophical trait. They basically had proven that the Romans were too powerful.


Well look at the first page of this thread and we have our answer. :lol:

oh bite the bullet and attack that exposed barb with the 7 exp AXE!!!!!! now or never! liq takes the blame if he dies.

Cheers!
-Liq

Pre-turn (325 left):

Wow, +6 with Capac for brothers&sisters. I've seen +7 from him before in other games for this. It seems Capac is the most willing to be friends with you based on religion out of all the civs. I'm certainly going to try to keep it that way.

I notice a lone Izzy town to the NE. If we can't get the Epic from whacking on barbs guess where we'll turn next?

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn03/CaptureWiz020.jpg

I'm going to gift Capac CS to try to pump up the lowly +1 for trade relations we currently have. This will give him a boost too vs. the other AIs - he's lower in score and we don't want him to fall behind. He's now +4 and friendly!

Capac hates Vicky - don't trade with her.

There are trades available but I don't want to trade CS away to non-Capac civs until we get Paper (sticking with the plan to keep most everyone else a tech or two behind on our beeline).

Hmm we're at our happy limit. I turn on Avoid Growth and hire more specialists. We need Drama and Globe Theater sometime soon. Hopefully I can trade for that.

Heh, Mao has an enormous army coming to claim the barb city. Unfortunately our intrepid axeman is at bad odds to the barb archers for attack (sorry Liq). I'll have to cool my heels for now. If Mao takes it, we may have to plan for a limited war with Izzy.

Turn 1 (324 left):

Although I'd love to build a temple so we can grow again, our military is seriously pathetic. My turns will be spent mostly building units.

I want to work on cultivating another ally. Should it be Cyrus or Mao? Cyrus hates Mao and vice-versa, but Mao is pleased with Capac while Cyrus hates Capac. So we should focus on Mao. I'll break my previous advice and will make the uneven trade of CS for Currency to get a positive modifier. We are +2 to relations from that. OK for now.

Turn 2 (323 left):

The Chinese take the barb city. So much for the Heroic Epic... for now:

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn03/CaptureWiz021.jpg

I gift Mao Literature. He's now +3 to relations and pleased. He's also willing to go to war with anybody - but we don't have anything to give him now. Keep cultivating him, he's the most powerful AI and will make a good ally. But don't let him run away with tech. If we lose the game because Mao runs away with Space you can blame me.

Turn 3 (322 left):

:sleep:

Turn 4 (321 left):

I confuse Cuzco.

Turn 5 (320 left):

Cyrus asks us to cut off the Chinese. No thanks buddy. I'm mildy concerned that one day we'll find ourselves in a war with Cyrus - he borders us so that can suck. We'll have to hope our allies will come to our rescue.

Paper -> Drama. Only 2 turns and we need the Globe to grow again (and getting it will make Philosophy cheaper - remember, the more optional prereqs for a tech you have the cheaper it will be).

I quickly check and Mao would be willing to go to war with Cyrus for Paper and Music - so if we're attacked we now have backup. Even though Capac is nominally our best ally, he isn't willing to war with anyone! And this coward is supposed to be an Aggressive civ?

Mao has built the Church of the Nativity, so he'll be unlikely to ever Confuse. But not a big deal since Mao doesn't care about religion much.

Turn 6 (319 left):

Keep in mind that in order to win this game we're going to have to eventually start wars between the space-racing AIs. But that won't come for a while. For now keep our leverage over Mao for an emergency declare.

Turn 7 (318 left):

Drama -> Philosophy. A prereq for Liberalism, much cheaper than Education for the moment, and will give us Pacifism (which will be great for GP as in this game we can run a state religion safely - at least so far).

Need to confuse Ollan-unpronouncable at some point.

Turn 8 (317 left):

Start on theater, prereq for the Globe.

Turn 9 (316 left):

I trade Drama plus some gold to Capac for Calender, a prereq for Astronomy. With luck by the time we grab Liberalism we'll have traded up for everything on the Optics path - being able to grab Astronomy as our free tech would be a coup.

Mao back down to cautious because our trade relations decayed... he's not willing to declare now. I gift him Drama, he's now +4 and Pleased again, and willing to declare again (remember this - Mao must be above Pleased to declare).

Unfortunate that we are enemies with Cyrus, Victoria, Isabella, and Saladin. Good thing we aren't going for a diplomatic win. :/ This severely limits our trade opportunities. Oh well.

Turn 10 (315 left):

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn03/CaptureWiz024.jpg

Her initial army consists of a grand total of TWO pathetic archers. Heroic Epic here we come!

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn03/CaptureWiz025.jpg

I consider whether to bribe Capac to declare on her (he's willing but that prick Mao is no longer for some reason, even though he's still pleased). I decide not to since Izzy is stuck WAY up in the NE of the map, and doesn't have OB with Vicky or Mao, and thus can't get any of her units down here - except for whatever's in her single isolated city, Zapotec. This is almost too good to be true. We get to whale on Zapotec for the Heroic Epic experience at almost no risk to ourselves!

Scientist pops, I join.

I hide our workers and start moving units up. After theater pops next turn I'll make more units... at least until I can actually see what's in Zapotec. Again, the only 'army' she's thrown at us so far consists of two archers.

Turn 11 (314 left):

Unit movement.

Still only see those two archers. Although I have other units in position, I'm bringing up our 7 exp axe to do the honors.

Oh no... Milenko the Scout is under threat in the west from Izzy's warrior! I move the Wicked Clown out of the way:

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn03/CaptureWiz026.jpg

Turn 12 (313 left):

Philosophy -> Education. Revolt to Pacifism.

Turn 13 (312 left):

Anarchy.

Turn 14 (311 left):

What a coward... Izzy is actually running her archers away from us! I name our 7/10 axe 'Big Swinging', for obvious reasons, and place him out alone as bait for the three archers in range.

I make a big trade with Capac - Music and Paper for Monarchy, Metal Casting, and Construction and some gold and a map. I hold Philosophy back (we can use Philosophy to bribe him to declare on Izzy in an emergency).

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn03/CaptureWiz027.jpg

I see TWO Hindu Missionaries from Saladin in Capac's territory. After the sword pops next turn I'll build a missionary to turn Ollan.

Turn 15 (310 left):

Big Swinging has a golden opportunity at a bare Izzy archer. He swings and... connects! He's now 9/10 - only one point from the Epic:

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn03/CaptureWiz028.jpg

Berlin is missionary in 2.

To next player:

It really, really sucks that we're stuck at size 9. We need to build the Globe to correct this but it's a 14-turn hump (10 if we fire both our scientists).

Get Big Swinging past 10, then close out the war with Izzy. Taking Zapotec would require a bunch of catapults, and we have better stuff to build at the moment.

http://nryan.com/Civ4/Merz01/Turn03/Merz01_AD-0800.Civ4SavedGame

Just a reminder... once you build the Globe turn off the 'Avoid Growth' button.

Merzbow (just played)
The Wet One (up)
Methos (on deck)
grs (skipped)
Thormodr

wet one?

Main Entry: liq·ui·date
Pronunciation: 'li-kw&-"dAt
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -dat·ed; -dat·ing
Etymology: Late Latin liquidatus, past participle of liquidare to melt, from Latin liquidus
transitive senses
1 a (1) : to determine by agreement or by litigation the precise amount of (indebtedness, damages, or accounts) (2) : to determine the liabilities and apportion assets toward discharging the indebtedness of b : to settle (a debt) by payment or other settlement


ergo, Liq has no ass-ets but Liq is still inflected!!!!:mischief:

sheesh, nothing about liquid!


nice trade on tech there. I'll forgive you for that 18gpt :smoke: trade I won't mention.

Cheers!
-Liquidated

preflight:
Looks like a fake war with izzy. we have lots of military so that's fine and I see lots of converting to confusion one way or another occured... thanks .. I think lol. We have alot on our plates so I can understand the less than overzealous missonary response.

send lief the scout over to capac's lands to update our info on his lands with the help of the clown.. that will dictate if next up will be another missonary.

Big swinging (great name!) is in no danger this turn so he can heal-up in a leasurely manner. I'm assuming the swords going to harras zapotech ..lots of pillaging at least.

Fine Ol' Train Jumpa and Supa-sprung Mule Robba the axes runs over to protect 'da kows'.

on the trade scene feudalism!!!! and horseback I'll reserve techs from capac and mao for now and cryus can use a bit of happy happy... he doesn;t have civil yet so will he go for civil for his feudal? we can use longbows for sure.

I try horses + feudal for our cvil but nein! he takes feud for civil though! nice..

that was pretty much your trade merz as the trade was opened by grabbing mono last turn

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/Working_hard.jpg
that's a lot of workers!!!

[1]820 AD
wow izzy is dumb, moving those two archers off the hill and into the open... not gonna let them loot so off with their heads.. sorry big needs to heal up.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/thugs_on_the_loose.jpg
fine ol' 4.3/5's his way to 6 exp

ow supa takes a clear first hit from the archer but beats it down for 6/5 exp and 2.2 hp

barb town is still NW

notice berlin was working a 2 food one commerce tile instead of the 1 food 3 hammers and one commere tile... bad advisors... though they remain off, dunno.

now Mao is roading our land for us! ... great

mel and justin come out of hiding and start a cottage - a log cabin most likely!

Velvet Kisses and Damaged Roses the twin goth swordsmen group up before heading off to pillage izzy

big is healing supa sprung is going to go medic and heads to big

[2]840 AD
Cyrus finished Chicken itza - wonder if it tastes good.

Supa goes medic 1 and slides up to big

Fine ol' stays unpromoted and hangs out with the sheep for now.

the goth twins movin on up.

two capac towns are hiduized... going to make another missonary.

[3]860 AD
ok missonary complete window is blockin my view but good news! berlin spots an enemy!

ROFL it's christmas time for big!!!! a lone warrior poking around the west. Big swinging is now 4.8/5 so I'll wait one more turn to heal up and see where that warrior is going... north to pass or south to pillage.

start on more cottages near the home front seeing as globe is coming sooner rather than later.

supa hooks up with the goths to help cover them.

horse tech still up but rather not trade out drama.

jumpa goes to support big..

start on another missonary in 2 turns

[4]880 AD

ohh opps Liq's bad, sorry guys let you all down big time


=/



the warning last turn was an izzy archer in humawhatever who sprang out at bigswinger and well bigswinger is now has 11/10 exp. So sorry, I know how much you all wanted 10 exp on him but I overshot and got 11.

He's now covered by jumpa and all is secured!

FYI promoting our archers to longbows is 100 gold.. we need the cash until we can recover from pacifism lol.

Machete Masta Hoopti Rida the axeman breask off from berlin to deal with that warrior who is getting close to our mines to the west.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/gp.jpg


[5]900 AD
mao wants to trade his horseriding and 270 gold for our music... no thanks..

WOW mao declares war on victoria! uh you know what that means..

p0 4 GPP away from a great person.

GP next turn!!!! odds on dr. science but he's got competition!

hmm civlo pedia not working and I see no heroic epic... so going to save game and reboot.

civlo (well sevlo) pedia working and see..
ok unit needs level 4, not just 10 exp so have to promote big swinging - total noob oversight but them I had no idea having both prereq's for a tech made it cheaper... liq learns from elder merz yet again! Too bad I promised never to bring up that idiotic 18 gold per turn trade for monty's sheep, merz pulled off in Zav04 ...

big goes city attack

no matter, starting on globe in 14 turns (forge is in 5, screw that) so one turn delay on heroic is nothing..

learned another new noob bit of info!!! So being able to build heroic epic happens the moment you promote a unit to level 4. note 9 turns on the wonder.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/izzy_zap.jpg
the goths approachith the izzy!

and misson fails in olly =/ send in the next missonary!

start on a plan to irrigate that plain north east of Berlin.. or should I say london?

[6]920 AD
warrior takes out a mine.. ok small issue, easy to fix.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/beatdown_time.jpg

masta hoopti takes him out flawless... like that 100% odds?


http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/ihop.jpg
Imohep the engineer! pops and meld him. more hammers is good, thanks ihop.


huh weird... izzy never got a worker to zap... oh she's blocked in by vicky and mao... interesting.

10 turns on globe and education in 5 turns now thanks to ihop

not good odds attacking izzy and no time for cats.. lets see... nope she's pissy izzy like normal and doesn;t want to talk to us... well lets terrorize her. lets take her food away.

our first two cottages will grow up to be towns in 4 turns...

[7]940 AD
Oh get THIS.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/mad_hatter_vicky.jpg
what the tarnations is that #$%@#%@ thinking??? mao is supposed to ask us to go to war with HER, not the other way around!
as Obelix always said ..

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/obelix.gif

"These Britons are crazy!?!"

ok all is not lost... ollywhatever takes to confusion the second try.

[8] 960 AD

hmm only losing 4 gold a turn now. not enough energy to care, it's gonna be a long ugly haul playing with photoshop after this.

[9] 980 AD
ok all's good the goths heading on up to that wheat.

big is all healed up and heads to zap. izzy still will not talk.

oh zap built a catapult... eek?

[10]1000 AD saladin wants us to cancel deals with the greeks... well he's - 4 from religion alone so screw him.

oh my look at the stack cyrus has running about.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/liquidated/Greeced_Lightning.jpg
neither capac nor mao like greece but we don't really want to piss him off.

berlin has a medic axeman btw I promoted one of the thugs to medic 1... we now have two medic axemen. Good to have obsolete medic units running about as they are the last to ever get attacked.

[11]1010 AD
liberalism in 9 =) 196 beakers a turn is no slouch.

only person that's competition on liberalism is vicky and she's at war. globe in 5, a university in 10 oxford in 15, heroic epic in 8, a forge in 4 etc... I stay the course with the globe.

we now have two towns pumping out 5 commerce a tile.. another town in 4 turns.

our two trades are +3 +3 to greece btw.

Machinery is