Another Variant experience, brought to you by the RBD Gang.

Difficulty: Monarch
Civ: Mayans (Religious, Militaristic)
Map Size: Large
Opponents: 11 (random)
Climate: Random
Mountains: Random
Landmass: Random
Landform: Random
Barbarians: Random
Culturally Linked Start
All Victory Conditions enabled

Standard RBD Rules:
* 10 turns per player
* No Reload
* No Autosave (save occasionally, back up to last save if crash).

Variant Restrictions:
* No use of Forced Labor. (The Benevolent One does not whip).
* Monarchy government only. (Despotism until it comes available).
* Customized City Names required -- do not use the suggested (Aztec) city names. Please no jokey or tounge-in-cheek names, either. If you can't think of something good, name it after an event in your reign, or the local terrain.

No access to the high-commerce governments (republic, democracy) will make taking/keeping a tech lead difficult, if not impossible. Yet no whipping also means no production loophole to exploit, and not knowing what kind of map we will get will mean having to decide strategy on the fly. On the up side, no war weariness, martial law on hand to make content faces, and as cities grow (especially after sanitation), some military won't need paid.

Position Available! Benevolent Kings wanted!
:king: :egypt: :queen: :viking: :king:
Apply now! Limited time offer!


- Sirian

Before something else begins. I shall have to pass. Maybe I will pick up when 7 begins if 4 meets an early demise (it seems the most likely to end of the current RBD games, one way or another).

But good luck, that's definitely a challenge game.

(edit):

Just a moment to hijack this thread before it become cluttered with "on topic posts". Subject: naming conventions for save games. It would be nice if we could all agree on a common convention for naming the saves so it becomes easier to sort out, and yes, the default save name DOES suck (like I'm going to know which of my 35 "Joan d'Arc of the French..." saves is the most recent one, or even which one corresponds to which game). I typically use folders to sort the succession games anyhow, but the file system utilities built into the game make this a hassle. I suggest the form:

<Acronym/Name> <#> <Date> <AD/BC>

as in:

RBD 6 1500 AD
LK 3 2500 BC
Infantry 1 250 AD

I know most of us (including me) do put the civ name in the game save somewhere, but this is mostly redundant. There is (should be) only one game with the identifier "RBD 4" or "EX 2", etc., and it's not as if you can change the civ you are playing as in the middle of the game. Leaving it out also removes any ambiguities as whether the civ name is "French" or "France", for example. If we do adopt such a convention, then anyone downloading the saves should be able to do an alphabetical sort of the save folder in windows and see right away which save file is the most recent for any given game following this convention. The number of the game would also be compulsory even for the first game of a particular name, so that saves from the original wouldn't become interspersed with saves from subsequent games with the same identifier.

While I am submitting this specifically to the RBD players, it would be nice to hear feedback from the other succession players in this matter.

I'd like to give it a shot, I think such a game is winnable with a tech brokering strategy, but it would be interesting to find out. What worries me is the starting position, I have having a mass of jungle near my start position, and usually restart immediately if I can see any jungle where my settler is placed on the map. Death to this useless terrain type I say. ;)

Anyway, put me down for this one. :)

...has been reading my posts on rbd. I point you to:

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=60822&messageid=1011255957

#3 the Sympathetic Despots :).

Have fun. I'd join if I could.

I'm in the same boat as CC; RBD4, RBD5, and Inf are enough to keep me busy for now. I could join in here or another RBD game after one of those wraps up. Perhaps another time? :)

Anyway, if it weren't for the forums being down, I would have signed up for this one a while ago. If you've still got room, count me in! One succession game is not enough. :D

Sounds neat, sign me up :hammer:

You've seen my comments in the rbd forum, but I'll try to stick
with your intentions as close as I can. To those tied up with other games atm, heck, np, there'll be more to get in on!!

Charis

(Jester was taken; I was doing a lot of latin studying this weekend...)

I'd love to get in on this game, now that the forums actually _work_. I'd say the challenge looks crippling, but I just played much the same kind of game, albeit on a smaller map, and monarchy actually works pretty well, even later on. No whipping... well, I've always been loath to do that anyway. We can kiss a tech advantage goodbye, but that just means the warpath is just going to be all the more tempting.

Of course, this being my first succession game, I'll need to know how this all works. (like getting the games from one to the next... email?) I've been following the games, mostly, but I'm still in the dark as to the nuts and bolts.

But sign me up; I've been missing all the action so far. Time to jump in!

Jester :nya:

That's five (Sirian, OneInTen, Schnarrd, Charis, Jester). Admissions are now closed.

With nothing else to do (the forum being down awhile) I have played the start for this game. We have a very interesting choice to make, which either way, will require strategic cohesion from the team, so I will present my report and my thoughts, and ask the participants to weigh in on what direction to take the game. I think we should vote and come to a consensus, then commit as a team to whichever course has majority support. Sound good?

4000BC: I examine our starting location. My first instinct is move a square to the right, to get access to the coast (coastal wonders, harbor, shipbuilding). However, that's a dry location, so before I commit us, I right click on the other squares. Lo! The jungle above us offers one unit of trade! IT'S ON A RIVER! North we go, as fresh water is too valuable to pass up.

3950BC: The Mayan capital, Xenalia, is founded on a river in the jungle. Our people suffer an incredibly high rate of disease (55%!) but spices are spotted to the north, 2 of them in range of Xenalia. We have two grassland with shield in range, some hills and food grasslands, and LOTS of jungle. Lots and lots. Thick, sweltering, damp jungle. We're going to have to put some priority on clearing it or we will repeatedly suffer plagues. There are no food boosting squares (wheat, cattle, flood plain) in range, so we are going to have a slow start. I set to researching Mysticism at min science, and training a Jaguar Warrior.

3750BC: Our warriors grow to sufficient numbers to be able to take action. They set out to explore southward while a temple is constructed.

3500BC: Our warriors heading south have crossed a desert and found another river. There is a goodly bit of land to the south.

3450BC: Our borders expand due to high culture! Our capital grows to size 2. A minor tribe is located deep in the jungle to our northeast, across the river. We should send emissaries.

3300BC: The Temple in Xenalia is completed! We are surely the first civilization on the planet to complete such a great project! With production at 5 shields per turn, I decide to train three more Jaguar Warriors before building our first settler. I know this will only further delay our second city, but it should not at all delay our third, and I believe (based on how far we've already explored without contacting any other civs) that further scouting would be to our benefit. Additional goody huts, or contacting civs before they find one another (making us the middle man, at least for a while) would gain us more than we lose on six turns of production at the second city. At the very least, I will have a look around and figure out where best to send the settler, rather than sending them out blindly into the dark.

3200BC: Our first warriors have turned west, following the southern coast. A lovely inland lake has been spotted, and the Benevolent sets his sights on founding a Mayan city there. Our second warrior party is completed and sent to make contact with the minor tribe near Xenalia.

3100BC: Our third warrior party is trained and sent south into the interior lands. Our first warriors are circling clockwise around the outer coast, now heading north.

3050BC: The minor tribe teaches us Pottery!

3000BC: Our fourth warrior party heads northwest. Xenalia finally set to train settlers.

2950BC: Our third warrior contacts a minor tribe, who agree to join our rich culture to serve us as warriors. They are poorly trained but highly devoted, and are sent to defend Xenalia. Our first warrior encounters hostiles in the west, and fortifies in the mountains. Xenalia grows to size 3! Sadly, there are no more mined grasslands, so shield output remains at 5 per. Settlers due in five more turns.

2900BC: Hostiles attack and are beaten back. More hostiles approach, so our party continues to camp.

2850BC: Our first warriors defend a second time. They still did not promote to veteran, arrgh. Rather than head west into another thick jungle, where there are silks, toward the source of these barbarians, we choose to head north, into a fertile valley. Another minor tribe spotted! Our third goody hut, to be.

2800BC: Our second warrior has reached the end of the peninsula to our east. It is smallish, and entirely choked with jungles. Entirely. Our first warrior recruits the minor tribe in the far west to serve us as conscripts. We are now running a serious budgetary deficit, with so many troops to pay for (4 jags, 2 conscripts, 1 worker, at 3 gold per turn), and desperately need to found another city soon, lest we go broke. We have been running 1 science per turn all along, though, so our treasury is up near 50 gold now and we will be OK, but times will be tough for a little longer.

2710BC: Settlers produced. They follow the road out of Xenalia as far it will take them, then turn southeast, toward a forest in the midst of grassy plains, where there are cattle. Our second warrior in the south has found gems in the mountain above Crystal Lake, at the origin of that second river. Xenalia begins construction of a barracks.

2630BC: Our western conscripts make contact with our fourth minor tribe and another conscript force is recruited! One will be sent south toward the silks, the other to continue north in tandem with the jags. Costs now running at 5 gold per turn (temple, 5 units over our limit), with income at 2 per turn. Losing 4 per turn! Hurry settlers, hurry!

2550BC: The great Mayan city of Riggoro is founded in a rich valley and begins to produce settlers. I know this will waste two turns of production (six shields), in the long run, but the Benevolent has his eyes set on Crystal Lake, and our capital can soon churn veteran units, which is deemed better. Our budget breathes a huge sigh of relief as Riggoro is able to provide support to some of our warrior parties in the west without expending our treasury.

2510BC: two more goody huts are spotted by our first and third Jaguar warrior parties, one in the far west, one within five squares of Riggoro.

2470BC: BOTH minor villages declare war on us and attack! In the desert west of Riggoro, our warriors defend valiantly against three units and are promoted to Elite!!! They have suffered two wounds and must now rest awhile. In the far west, our jaguar warriors are badly wounded by the first of three enemy units and are forced to retreat! The second unit attacks them, and they are too winded to get away, but they make a stand and somehow survive the onslaught, promoting to veteran! The third enemy unit then attacks, and wounds our party down into the red yet again, then perishes! What a heroic engagement!

2430BC: Our second warriors, who have turned north, and who found that the jungle extended only a little farther, but that there was a huge deciduous forest beyond the wet jungles, have finally reached the other end of the endless vegetation and discovered... barren desert. Endless sand dunes as far north as the eye can see. We appear to be entirely alone in this world. Our first warrior party must retreat to heal, so I run them past the remaining unit of angry locals, running north now along a river over there.

2350BC: Our badly wounded forces in the west reach the mountains at the origin of that river, discover another sourch of rich gems, and make camp to recover. Barracks completed. More jags to be trained. (I'll pump another settler as soon as I can, but the city is many turns away from size 3 yet). Thirty turns have passed.

2310BC: Our second warrior, returning south and exploring the far side of the great forest, run into another minor tribe, which declares war! Our jags defend, are promoted to veteran, then are wounded and retreat.

2270BC: Our newly trained veteran jags provide cover for the wounded group, attack and are promoted to elite! Xenalia starts on settlers. Our third warrior spots yet another goody hut right in our near vicinity. This one is the last, at least in this region.

2230BC: We are attacked again! The minor tribe declares war and, losing one unit, then chases off our elite forces. We have to do a bit of shuffle and dance to protect our wounded units.

2190BC: Barbarians eliminated. And it occurs to me to observe that in all this time, the only "random" barbarians I have found have been those two in the west, encountered early by our first group of warriors. No camps anywhere. I now believe our random barbarian setting rolled up "Sedentary" and those early attackers had to be the remnants of a hut one of the AI's poked into, perhaps killing off the AI warrior or scout and then wandering into our party. It seems almost a shame we haven't had any chances to pick up 25 gold from camps, with so many units running around. Ah well.

2150BC: Forty turns have passed. Our three jags in the east are sent north to explore. One is fortified at Riggoro (he'd been sent there to heal). Our party in the northwest appears to have found the end of that land. Our first jags are told to begin the long journey home, intending to fortify them at our soon-to-be settlement at Crystal Lake, while the conscripts continue northwest to clean up the last bits of darkness in the area.

2110BC: We discover Mysticism! Start on Polytheism. Our southbound conscript in the west, beyond the silks, has met with a French settler/warrior pair. We trade them Mysticism for Masonry and most of their treasury. They also have Bronze, Wheel, and Alphabet, but we say no to further deals.

2070BC: French found Lyons right in front of us. Our conscripts leave their territory and explore southward. Xenalia produces settlers, starts on Granary.

1990BC: Riggoro produces settlers. They head south toward the lake. Riggoro starts on temple.

1950BC: El Dorado founded at origin of river to the north, on the edge of the jungle, where the forest begins. Starts on temple.

1910BC: Jags in the north spot green borders. It's the Persians. Another northern jag spots a goody hut. Out pops three units of warriors and we are attacked. Unit defends, but is forced to retreat. Second unit mops up.

1870BC: Trade Mysticism and 3 gold to the Persians for Bronze Working.

1830BC: That "last bit of land" in the northwest appears now to be a strait leading to another large land area, as we encounter a veteran Indian warrior. We trade India Mysticism for Wheel, Alphabet, and most of their treasury.

1790BC: We find yet another goody hut in the northern desert, just before a Persian warrior could get there, and the minor tribe teaches us Horseback Riding! I change Xenalia over to Pyramids, then discover the Persians are already building them! Did I miss the notice, or did they start way back before I even met them?

1750BC: Crystal Lake founded, starts temple. Elite jag from north returns to guard El Dorado. Our conscripts in the far southwest, below French lands, reach the southern shore. Our elite jags in the north have explored most of the edge of Persian lands. Fifty turns have passed, and our Mayan civilization's Founding Era has come to an end.

Now it is time for the High Council to meet, to set the path of our future and choose the course of our destiny. I will detail our dilemma, and the options I see, in the next post.


- Sirian

Our situation looks quite promising. There is a thick jungle stretching coast to coast at the equatorial latitude, where Xenalia is located. Above that, a thick forest, and beyond both of these in each direction, a VAST desert.

North of the northern desert lie Persians lands. South of the southern desert is a wide open plain, mostly dry but with fresh water in the area, plenty of horses roaming, and beyond, to the far south, ocean.

To our west is a large sea or small ocean, beyond which lies another fertile valley, which is closer to France than to us, but not by very much. I foresee this region as a good location for a forbidden Palace and many more cities, but that may be a long long time away.

We have four spices between Xenalia and El Dorado. There is one gem in range of Crystal Lake. There is a horse in range of Rigorro, two more to the south, two silks near the French border, and one more gem in the western valley.

Of eleven opponents, we have found only three and are on par in score with each of them, despite our low-food start. We are clearly on a hot world with flat lands (5 billion, almost no hills or mountains, most of what is there being the origin points for rivers). We may also be on a dry world, which may explain the slow start of the AI's, if their lands need irrigation for them to grow much. Of the other eight civs, I have seen Zulu and Japan capitals on the top5 city list. The English were reported as the largest civ by the Top 8 report. (Wonder if they got a settler from a goody hut?)


Now here's the situation. The Persians are to our north, but they do not yet have iron working. They started the Pyramids early (and often get them, being Industrious and starting with the tech). If we are to have any chance at building the Pyramids ourselves, we would HAVE to march up there and put a stop to their project, either by taking their capital or at least forcing them to swap off the Pyramids to defend it.

If we are ever to attack the Persians, NOW is the time, to do so as soon as possible, before they get stacks of Immortals going. If we can send ten vet jags and take over their capital, we may get a great leader, and we would certainly set them back. Right now, with just five jags and three consripts, "we have an average military compared to them", which means they could NOT handle ten of our jags. On the down side, we'd use up our golden age in despotism, and there's no guarantee that the Persians are the only ones ahead of us on the Pyramids. The French (another industrious civ) haven't started yet, though, so that's good. I have not seen sign of Americans, Chinese, or Egyptians, either, though they may be out there. IF THOSE THREE ARE NOT PRESENT, then we surely do have the jump on building the Pyramids, except for Persia, although the lands around Xenalia would need much improvement.

So we have two primary options: attack Persia, or not.

We have some strategic choices to make within this context: do we keep Xenalia going on Pyramids, and wait for our smaller cities to build temples, then barracks, then troops? Do we skip the temple at Riggoro (can't at El Dorado, it needs more reach to get shields into production)? Or do we swap Xenalia back to granary, let it finish that, then use it to crank troops while the smaller cities finish temples first? Or do we even waste 9 shields, swap Xenalia to spearmen and start cranking troops immediately?

If we opt for peace, we can forget the Pyramids, but could still try for the Oracle. (We're too far from Monarchy to go straight for Hanging Garden). Or we could let the granary finish, and start cranking some workers to improve lands, bring spices online and start chopping down some of the jungle.

On the other hand, if we forget the wonder, opt for war and bend ALL our effort to cranking as many jags as possible as soon as possible, we might wipe Persia out entirely and permanently take over some of their cities, and perhaps even get a leader with which we can rushbuild the Pyramids.

Many choices. Many options. All of them gambits. Even peace, with Persia our closest neighbor and looking so strong, would be a gambit. For they might grow strong and pose an even worse threat later.

My vote would be to attack Persia, but I am open to peace if the team wants, and I am undecided about whether to continue the wonder at Xenalia or to go for granary and just pray that the war gives us a leader.

OneInTen, Schnarrd, Charis, Jester? What do each of you think? I want to hear from you and reach consensus before I post the savegame and start the 10 turn rotation.


- Sirian

My preliminary vote would be to attack Persia, but first I'd like to see the game (Sirian, could you upload it so we can see it before we make a decision?). I've never liked starting next to Persia, as I think that Immortals are the best ancient unit in the game, and Persia tends to be quite aggressive. Nothing beats a stack of Immortals in the ancient age. Also, when playing as the Aztecs, it tends to be a given that your golden age will be as a despotism. Besides, it won't be a total waste; we'll still get production bonuses from mined grasslands, and that boost to production equals more jags which might be enough to wipe out Persia. I'd like to see if we can snag the Pyramids too, or at least have Persia build them for us (sometimes when attacked, the AI continues to build wonders, even when you have troops marching on its capitol).

Early combat is the way to go, especially since we won't be able to rush to republic/democracy and do some major building.

First, a look at our heartland and the northern lands.

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

I believe the two yellow dot locations are the highest priority, as both have a grassland with shield in immediate range, and several more good squares on hand for rapid growth once temples are completed.

In the area of the dark blue dot, we either suffer some overlap or put a lot of land to waste. After ten minutes exploring possibilities, I came up with this one, which leave Dark Blue with eight squares of total overlap with four cities, wastes ZERO squares, and ensures high long term potential for all these cities. I'm convinced this is the best option in this region. So after the yellow dots are grabbed, dark blue would come next in priority, then the two light blue squares in the far north.

The purple, red, and two white dots are all "Projects". They will be strong cities in the distant future, but will have dismal starts, therefore they should wait until more productive locations are online.

Now we COULD have one stronger city in the eastern jungle, with no overlap anywhere and only two jungle squares wasted. Or we could do the purple-red plan, have two cities, get more coastal and sea squares into production, waste one jungle square, and have some overlap. The reason I prefer two cities is that, being restricted to Monarchy, COASTAL SQUARES BECOME MORE VALUABLE, and being Militaristic, we build harbors at half cost. Coastal squares offer 2 trade apiece, and 1 from darker blue sea squares. The more coast we bring online, and the more harbors we have, the more total population size and trade power we will have. So I value two lesser but still good cities over one perfect blockbuster. Purple should come before Red because it can grab that whale and it's on the river.

There's a black dot in the far north, in the desert, where a fishing village could go.



Now a look at our southern region:

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

With such dry lands, and keeping in mind that we want to maximize coastal harvesting, I drew up a plan to found all our new southern cities (besides Crystal Lake) on the sea. This left the areas you see marked in bright green as unclaimed, and we could fill these in with half-cities, intended to be permanently kept to size 6/7, for continuous production of workers and, after industrial, to crank out one conscript unit each per turn. The green dots would mark where I think these half-city inland settlements might go. The one on the right had a flood plain in range under the black X, and could borrow the two hollow green circles temporarily, until railroads arrive.

The light blue dot I marked in the wrong place, it should be one more to the southeast. I marked it early, though, and didn't want to redraw the entire picture to move it, so just try to remember it's in the wrong place. :) I thought initially it should go there to get a free food out of the desert, but if moved to the southeast, it would get two more coastline into play, and reduce overlap with the green dot.

Red and Purple dots are REALLY barren locations, and should wait until the whites are all grabbed, unless the French are pushing too far toward us. (But then, they would only sail around and grab white dot areas, so even then I say get the whites first).

Riggoro has that cattle, so it's the best settler factory, but not if we decide to make war on Persia (It would have to crank troops). If ever do get the Pyramids, we could expand pretty rapidly from there. We also need a lot of settlers and workers, yet we might do better to wage an ancient war while our chances for success are still high. There are just so MANY possibilities, and we can't pursue them all at once, so... we'll have to pick and choose, and to some degree, take what the game gives us.

Looking forward to getting underway. :king:


- Sirian

I generally play a mostly peaceful game, but in this case it sounds as if war might be our best option.

By the sounds of it growth is going to be at a premium on the map we have, hence the granary in every city the pyramids provides is even more of a boon than usual.

Since we have no plans to get past monarchy, a fast start seems vital, thus I think we need the pyramids, and if you believe the only way to get them is to attack persia, then that's what we have to do.

However, I don't claim to be a great early game war monger, so I'd appreciate not being next in the turn order if we do decide to attack. ;)

My entire Civ2 existence was defined by being a devoutly pacifist massively expansionistic settler maniac, never attacking until I had more tanks than there were squares on the map.

So, naturally, my vote is to beat our enemies until they cry for mercy, then beat them some more. Cry havoc, and unleash the sheep of war!

:sheep:

Early game conquest is easily the way to go. One question, though. If the Persians have access to iron, they become about a bazillion times more dangerous. Would that change the situation any? I've fought against immortals early on, and it's just about the worst thing that can possibly happen to a fledgeling civilization.

I could play this either way, and I'm always leery of the Persians. But my vote goes to slaughter, quick and painful.

Although we haven't heard from Charis yet, the consensus seems to be leaning toward war. But what should we do with Xenalia? If we keep it on a wonder, we would have to fight our war with just two cities, both of them small and fledgling, and far from ready. It would take quite some time to finish temples and barracks, then build troops. All we'd be able to do is attack the enemy capital and take it, then have to make peace with the remainder of the Persians, or raze the city and pull back with our survivors.

On the other hand, if we swap Xenalia to spearman (to waste least amount of shields), then crank jags every other turn, we can send a continuous stream of troops northward starting immediately, and prosecute a total war to take over and/or wipe out all of Persia.

Surely the total war approach is less risky, but it would mean no Pyramids for us unless we get a great leader out of the war (possible, but I've played with Aztecs and never gotten a GL out of the early war. Those jags get wounded a lot and have to rest up, and rarely actually win in combat on a per-unit basis).


It's easy to keep iron out of Persian hands if we can see where the iron is. Only Zulu Impi are more effective pillagers than Jags. But we are on a long term unswervable direct beeline toward Monarchy, which will probably take another 70 turns no matter what we do. So the only way we'd get Iron Working is from a goody hut (unlikely, since we've gotten 11 of those so far and now covered all the lands not already explored by the AI's) or through trade. Trade is possible, but won't happen any time soon, as we have nothing to trade until Polytheism comes in.

Persian Immortals remain a threat all the way to the industrial age, but we do have horseback riding and horses in range, so even without poprushing, we could build enough horses to cope with their immortals by the time they could march them all the way down to our cities. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense, though. If we take out Persian cities, they can't build the Immortals in the first place.

I'd rather stay the course with the Pyramids, ideally, but that is quite risky, since all it would take for the Persians to be able to fight us off is three or four immortals, and we have no idea how advanced the largest civs in the world are. (If a pack of six of them met early and traded a lot, they could be several techs ahead of us by now, and some may have started Pyramids, while our city has no more shield squares ready to go). Not continuing the Pyramids now means losing them to someone else if we try to go back and build them later. If we swap off them, we'd have to get a leader to be able to build them.

Even so, the Pyramids aren't the end-all, be-all. They help more than any other wonder on a map like this, but it's really tough to grab them if you wait as long we did to start. Every time I've gotten them, I've had food surpluses (wheat, cattle) on hand at my capital. If we cranked Jags every other turn from Xenalia, starting right away and not relenting, we could definitely overrun the Persians and capture all their cities, and then build the Hanging Gardens.

I guess the real issue is whether or not we stand a better chance of getting a great leader in a total war than we stand of building the Pyramids all on our own. And there is still the wildcard of being hit with a bout of disease, which could reduce our capital back to size 1 at ANY point the game decides to punish us.

So how lucky do you guys feel? Total war? Or try to play both ends and take a shot at the Pyramids? (And still waiting for Charis to weigh in).


- Sirian

Xerxes blood shall make our fine Mayan grass grow!! I just have a BAD taste left in my mouth from rbd1 starting (not quite) next to the Persians. Seeing the stacks of DOZENS of immortals shift around left this lingering feeling that the instant they decided it, I was to be wiped off the map. Before their iron, let our little scrappy jaggies eat their lunch. Get Iron working ourselves early to be able to see and plunder any resource they might have.

Keep our capital on the pyramids, scrap the temple, and if needed the barracks. Overwhelm them in an army of every-pouring-out jaggies! :spank:

Games where you have a incremental advantage over your aggressive near neighbor have gone very well for me so far...
Games too close to pacifism have been long slogs.

It seems we're unanimous... Persia must go!

:goodjob:
Charis

There is another option - play the gambit that the Persians will complete the pyramids first, and we should attack on the very turn that happens (or as close as possible), thus getting them to build the pyramids for us. :D

If we did this, we could build our military, take Persia out early, and still get the pyramids.

It's a risk, but think how cool it'd be if we pulled it off! ;)

OneInTen: you're right, that is another possibility! We'd not get the culture for it, but we'd get the free granaries. There is a down side, though: someone else might beat Persia to it. Not highly likely, but possible. And that would mean it would be too late to use a leader on it.

My instinct is telling me that it's a losing move to stick with the wonder in the capital. There are 8 more competitors we have too little information about to stake so much on a late risk, with so few shields ready to go and the threat of disease hanging over us. The more I look at it, the more I think "longshot" for us to build the first wonder from that city.

Let's forego the attempt to build it ourselves. Charis is right, RBD1 and Persia with the Pyramids was just really ugly. Let's go for the total war approach. I'll change the production over to a spearman (we'll only lose ONE turn off our next Jag, so really it's not 9 shields lost, but only 5, effectively). Then Xenalia can crank troops until the cows come home (maybe a settler or worker in there as it grows to size 3 or 4, but don't shrink it down below size 2, as we want to keep production at 5 per turn or more).

Don't worry about iron working. With the total war approach, it WILL NOT MATTER. Persia is doomed. Also, be warned, once we bring Iron online for our civ, we lose the option to build any more Jags.

OneInTen, you don't have to worry, the war couldn't start on your turn anyway. You'll be exploring, managing the smaller cities, maybe some diplomacy, etc. If I put you later in the turn order, you'd be MORE in harm's way as far as the war goes.


One word of warning about Jaguar warriors: their strength lies in numbers. A stack of 9 is a force to be reckoned with, at the same shield cost as 3 horsies or swords. But three stacks of 3 is chump change. WAIT until we have at least 8+ in one stack before we take any aggressive moves. Save elites to mop up wounded enemies (better chance for a leader).

No Right of Passage betrayals, and don't make peace with the intent of attacking again in the short term.

The best news is, once we commit to total war, it will take us some time to prepare, and we can postpone the decision about trying to let the Persians finish the Pyramids. We might attack their outlying cities first, and give them a chance to finish Pyramids while we still try to get a leader, or we might decide we can't risk it and go right for the throat. We need more information, so keep exploring up there, let Xenalia pump out Jags while the other cities prepare (temples, barracks) and we'll see what new information more time presents to us.

If this decision goes poorly, I'll save a copy of the savegame and, after the succession game is over, any of you can go back to 1750BC and see what replaying it differently might have yielded.


- Sirian

Got late word that Cy asked in on this one earlier today, so we'll squeeze him in here.

10 turns per player.
No worker automation, don't overdo "Goto" either.
24 hours to take your turn -OR- to post "got it" with up to another 24 to post your result.


Roster and Turn Order:

Sirian
OneInTen
Charis
Schnarrd
Jester
Cyrene

This order is based on first come, first served. (Charis made his application known on another forum while this one was still down). So OneInTen, you're the next Benevolent. Good luck!

Cy, if you want to express your thoughts regarding our planned war, do chime in.

- Sirian

0) 1750BC: Spearman completed in Capital, start Jaguar Warrior

1) 1725BC: Continue scouting.

2) 1700BC: Jaguar completed in Capital, start another.

3) 1675BC: Goodie hut spotted by warrior. Riggoro completes temple, starts barracks.

4) 1650BC: Capital completes another Jaguar, continues producing them. El Dorado completes temple, starts Barracks.

5) 1625BC: Nothing much happens.

6) 1600BC: Capital makes another Jaguar, you know the rest.

7) 1575BC: Good news and bad news from the hut - we get Iron Working from the Teoihuacans! However, Persians have iron in their territory, and we dont! :(

8) 1550BC: Capital completes its customary Jaguar. Riggoro finishes its barracks and can start Jaguar production.

9) 1525BC: Spot Persian warrior just to our North ... guess they know where we are now. French begin Pyramids.

10) 1500BC: Nothing much happening.

---

Well, that was a fairly mundane turn, but it leaves us with a lot better knowledge of where we stand. Persians have iron close at hand, as soon as they get Iron Working they will be a huge threat to us. If we're going to attack we have to do so as soon as possible!

Our nearest source of Iron sits on the western most white dot on the map of our south. This probably changes the priority for settling that dot a bit. ;)

I think we can probably get troops up to Persia in sufficient numbers before they get Iron Working and get their Immortals online, but it may be a close call. I'm glad I don't have to make it. :p

Great job! :goodjob: I didn't think we could find any more huts (or even if we did, we'd only get attacked again! Our first four gave goodies, then six of next seven attacked us!)

Next up, CharisEvolent the Ben. Or... something like that. :)

"Make war, not love!" :frog:

Sirian, IIRC getting Iron connected to your cities won't cancel out your ability to build Jags... because it's a UU, and they never obsolete. That's one more reason to like Impis and the like - if you have Leo's, you can build a really cheap unit and spend gold to upgrade it for a (relatively) modest cost, even in modern times, rather than being forced to build a more expensive infantry-type unit, which might take longer if you don't have the infrastructure in place where you are building the unit.

Charis Ben Evolent was thrust to power when the peaceful and serene nation
of the Mayans was terrorized by the violent and malevolent Persians. Xerxes
had set the tone "There can be just ONE nation on this continent!" Little
did he know how true these words would be. Charis Ben Evolent, known to
his friends as Chas, was a benevolent despot, hoping one day to be King
of a prosperous nation. To see that future happen, it was laid to him the
task of building up an army of Jaguar Warriors, mighty and frenetic, these
speedy fighters were known for their swarm tactics.

1500 BC (0) - In surveying the situation, Chas saw a fortuitous coalescence.
The very spot he craved to settle as a bottleneck to avoid a wide distal
boundary from the main line, was indeed a source of iron. Not only that, it
was at fresh water! Settling in this zone would be a top priority. The second
priority was to build a military and to deny Persia access to their iron.
Rigoro would be set for settler right after its Jag was complete.

1475 BC (1) - 1425 (3) Movement
1400 BC (4) - The insolent Xerxes tells Chas to "watch out!" and to move
his troops away. We will do so, but just for the moment.
1375 BC (5) - A settler and puny warrior pop out of Pasargadae, heading for
the iron hill right near it 8-\ They cannot be allowed to hook up!
The Jag in the area thinks about taking him out now rather than later,
snagging a worker in the process. Susa will become the first main target
(along with its horses) within a half-dozen rounds, if we kick things
off THIS early. Diplo screen tells us they've got their capitol plus
four cities (Pasargadae, Susa, Arbela and Antioch). We can see all put
Arbela and the capitol, and those cry out to be taken!

1350 BC (6) - The Settler is completed and 'GO's to the iron hill white dot.

1325 BC (7) - Their settler is approaching the hill...

1300 BC (8) - Golden Age (ack) as we take the settler and warrior out,
building a colony at the iron.

1275 BC (9) - At Susa a Jag defends against an archer. We trade a Jag
for a warrior in battles near our home.

1250 BC (10) - Chas doesn't initiate attacks, but seeks to disrupt their
operations until we can get a "stack-o-nine" to crush a city. (Well,
he tried a two-jag-assault at Susa, thinking only one defender, and won,
but another spearman appeared. Now they need to back up and heal,
and join the other 5 or 6 coming up the plains.)

It could have been a bad move to start hostilities so soon, but I didn't want
to see "Iron Hill City" founded and end up facing Immortals. :eek: I was hoping they
would found near it, letting us pillage, but no, they marched straight up
the hill. Not fun to see a wasted GA, but that's what Aztec early wars are all
about, it comes with the territory.

BTW, we better find out for SURE if Iron availability means no more jags.
If so, we MUST settle NEAR the iron, not on it!

Good luck,
Charis

Zed's been right with a nit before, but not this time. This is something I have recent experience with: Jags come off the queue, and swords go on.

But DO NOT swap around dot locations over this insignificant factor. Build the city right on the Iron, and send a Jag from Riggoro, or if necessary, send the one from Crystal Lake and replace it with a new one from Riggoro at the next opportunity. Just realize that bringing iron online for the whole civ is not a top priority. In fact, we don't want that to happen until the Persians are gone.

Charis: good job all around. I'd have preserved the slave labor (no maintenance, after all) as we are badly hurtin for workers and the colony is just something to defend. Worse, it has put a free road on the square, if things do go badly for us up there. We will just have to make sure they don't go badly. :)

Schnarrd, it looks like the war will get going in earnest on your turn.

- Sirian

Hmm. Last time I played India my war elephants did not come off the queue when I got Military Traditions, but I think that might have been because I never bothered getting access to saltpeter (never needed cavalry.) So, you ought to be able to continue pumping jags at least in cities where you don't have iron. Whether it's worth delaying that final road connection between your iron town and the rest of your civ is up to you...

OK, I've got it. I'm not used to war this early (I usually wait till knights, or Immortals if I'm playing Persia), but I'll just have to make sure I get that stack 'o nine Jags before attacking. ;)

I'm not sure if swordsmen will replace jags once we have iron online, so I'm not going to connect. I think (but I'm not sure) that since you can't upgrade to a UU (but can upgrade from) that the game treats an upgrade path of military units starting with a UU as a seperate upgrade path (hope that made sense :D ). Not sure how you could have still built a knight-based UU though.

After the reign of Charis Ben Evolent, the people of the Mayan nation, whipped into a nationalistic fervor (no pun intended - I didn't do any rushbuilding ;) ), wanted someone who would cripple or destroy the evil Persians to their north. To this end, they chose Schnarrdevolent the Warmonger, who promised to use the Aztec Jaguar Warriors to great effect. When Schnarrd ascended the throne, he surveyed the situation and set two goals for his reign:

1. Seriously cripple the Persian empire
2. Make certain that the increased troops built for goal #1 would not seriously strain the Mayan budget

Here's the turn-by-turn of Schnarrdevolent's rule:

0. A glorious Jaguar Warrior fortified near Arbela, inspired by a divine light, beats off an attack by a Persian archer, only losing one hitpoint in the process. :eek:
1. Our Jaguar Warriors pick off various Persian warriors while approaching Susa. Only 3 Jaguar Warriors are in position to attack Susa, the closest Persian town.
2. More Jags move into position to attack Susa.
3. Seeing the enormous strain on the budget (-7 gold per turn), Schnarrdevolent switches Xenalia's production to a settler so that the mighty Mayan despotism might support more of our glorious armies. This loses five turns of Jaguar Warrior production, but Schnarrdevolent sees this as a necessary loss.
4. More Jaguar Warrior movement.
5. More movement.
6. The city of Ironopolis is founded on the iron hill. This eases the strain on the budget, but Schnarrdevolent knows that more Jaguar Warriors will be built shortly, straining the budget once more. Also, one of our Jaguar Warriors near Arbela is attacked by an archer, while a worker in that area near the iron colony is captured. Our other Jaguar Warrior counter-attacks the warrior, but is forced to withdraw.
7. The heathen Persian city of Susa is attacked by seven glorious Jaguar Warriors. Two Persian spearmen fall, and the city is autorazed. Six of our Jaguar Warriors are heavily wounded and need to recuperate, but there are no losses. Our Jaguar Warriors near Arbela recuperate as the Persians destroy our iron colony and capture the other worker.
8. A turn of healing. A settler is produced from Xenalia.
9. Our Jags near Arbela defeat the Persian troops near Arbela.
10. Schnarrdevolent is sorely tempted to attack the Persian capitol city of Persepolis as six Jaguar Warriors are in position to attack it, but he sees that six new Jaguar Warriors will soon also be in position to attack, so he resists the temptation. Formerly Known as Susa is founded on yellow dot (City Formerly Known as Susa wouldn't fit :( )

Looks like Persia will fall next turn. Are we going to conquer Persia fully, or just conquer all but one city? Last time I checked, Xerxes was willing to accept a peace treaty for one city - he should increase the price once we conquer Persepolis.

Good luck, Jester! ;)

With over 30 Jags now (and paying out the nose per turn for upkeep) I think we have enough forces. While we still have some Golden Age left, perhaps we should start El Dorado on a wonder (it can swap to Palace placeholder if we get beat to all the ones we can build at the moment). Riggoro might be best put to use building settlers. Crystal Lake is building a worker but could build a settler instead, as it's large enough. It's time, I think, to let the current military ride its way to victory and switch the empire over to expansionist tasks. Right now, we're so top heavy with units we could not AFFORD to switch to Monarchy even if we had it.

I also think that OneInTen's idea is worth a shot. :goodjob: We haven't gotten any leaders, don't have many elites in place, and there are no other civs who could infringe on Persian territory any time soon. What if we take the city they will offer, give them 20 turns of peace (or however long it takes) for them to finish the Pyramids, park our troops on/near/around the iron deposits to prevent them gaining access, and wait to see if they will build the Pyramids for us, then finish them off. We might lose a chance at an earlier leader and building the Pyramids for ourselves, but that's a somewhat thin chance anyway. The Persians might get beat by the English or somebody, to the Pyramids, but if not we'll get them next to free, just no culture benefit.

As long as we can successfully keep them away from the iron deposits, we would remain in complete control of the situation, able to wipe them out at our convenience. If we parked 8 units in a ring around each iron, that ought to do the trick.

Once the Persians are gone, we will have SO MUCH land at our disposal, it could take us forever to fill it all in! :king:


- Sirian

I like the idea of the Pyramid gambit (of course, I suggested it, so naturally I want to do it). ;)

As I see it, the worst that can happen is that they dont finish the Pyramids, in which case we destroy them anyway, we just don't get anything extra from the deal.

Unless anyone can see a reason why we wouldn't want to give it a shot I say go for it.

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it..."

I've got the game. That's a lotta jaguar warriors! This should be fun, to say the least. Let's see, what's on the agenda... conquer the persians down to two cities, then accept their treaty to get them down to one. Then wait, and hope they like pyramids. If they don't get them, assimilate their inferior civilization. :scan:

In the meantime, start wonder building with El Dorado, and settler building with... uh, forgot the name, but I'll check that. :rolleyes:

I hope my reign slakes the thirst of our cruel, cruel gods. This shall be an era to mark on our oh-so-advanced lunar calendars, the sunset of our golden age!

(now just to stay off the pungent weed...)

Jester

Pungent weed??? Did I hear pungent weed?!?! [pimp]

I'm just glad to see we're in great shape, and that I didn't
start the festivities too soon. (In fact, they're off the iron to stay)

One minor comment, in pursuing the other cities, do NOT trample across the capitol's land. We NEED that to stay as productive as it can, lest one of the other two nations building the pyramids beat them. Seems a decent shot, a good gamble :P

It'll be so nice to see Persia a vassal state begging for its very existence. :love:

Charis

Quote: "With over 30 Jags now (and paying out the nose per turn for upkeep) I think we have enough forces."

Well, when you said "total war," I guess I took it literally. :D I think this means that after we finish with the Persians, we can use our massive force of Jaguar Warriors (either upgraded to swordsmen or unupgraded) to conquer another opponent. :soldier: :D

“With the end of the reign of King Schnarrdevolent, haughtiness spread through the kingdom. Mighty as they were, the Persian empire was proving no match for the swift strikes of the Jaguar legions. Eager to claim credit for the times of victory, the fifth cousin of Schnarrdevolent (twice removed, and a half) Frankevolent the Short made his bid to the throne of the Mayans. His claim, however, was contested by the general Filmore, whose victories in Persia placed him in high favour at court. A clandestine war at court ended with no clear winner, with the rulership officially granted to the Frankvolent, but with the armies only half loyal, under a subdued but unrepentant Filmore. Historians note that at this time very little of Frankevolent was seen, appearing only at formal occasions and cricket matches. Official business of the empire was conducted through his Jester, although some have speculated that Frankevolent was actually an idiot, and that the Jester was the true power behind the throne…”

;)

Turn Zero) Changed El Dorado to Oracle. Changed Xenalia, Riggoro and Crystal Lake to settlers. Look at the amount we’re spending on military and shudder painfully. Otherwise, everything looks good.

Turn One) Discover polytheism, start on monarchy. Move some units around. 11 Jaguars will rain down next turn.

Turn Two) The rain of jaguars is successful. 4 wounded, 1 dead. Should have attacked with 6, since they built a spearman in the intervening turn. I burn their inferior little city to the ground. Move some warriors, spot some archers. Their fate is sealed.

Turn Three) Total Persian capitulation. Razed one city, bargained for their second last. They’re down to one miserable hovel in the north, Antioch. The iron will be well guarded.

Turn Four through Ten) Found two cities, otherwise uneventful. Jaguars wander aimlessly.

Okay, that sums up my time here. That was more troop moving than I like to do in the average century. Apologies to my successor, Cy, if he has to deal with one or two residual Goto commands. I think I caught them all, but you never know. I also may have taken an extra turn somewhere in there. If so, oops. I realized I was keeping slightly fuzzy track of them around turn six, when all there was to do was move jaguars.

We are going to have all the south populated very soon. We also have a huge army doing practically nothing. I’ve got both iron deposits guarded, which is costing us 16 gold for those warriors alone. (notes to Cy: I’ve got two elites guarding the north one. If we’re going to keep up that strategy, you can switch the two veterans on the way for the elites. Also, Riggoro is on wealth, for lack of anything better to make. Switch off in time to put out the settler.) I can’t say I see a logical course of action except to expand to our borders and then see if we can kill the French. We’re not technologically prepared for consolidation, and there aren’t any other targets. Options? Just expand into Persia forever?

I also question letting the Persians live. Maybe I didn’t quite catch on to what this tactic was, but it somehow seems unlikely that Antioch is going to produce the Pyramids any time soon.

So, good luck, Cy!

Jester, :king: of the Mayans

Hey, a file might also be helpful, eh?

Edit:

...

...

Do I just not see my own files? Is there something I'm missing? Don't I just have to browse for the saved game, and then post the message?

Jester:

The point of letting the Persians live was to not capture their capitol city, which was producing the Pyramids at the time you razed it. Antioch will definitely not produce the Pyramids. Ah well. No big deal. Pungent weed happens. :smoke: Maybe the French will build the Pyramids, after which we can conquer them with our massive army of Jaguar Warriors. :ripper:

Are you zipping your savegame before you post? You need to get the post under the size limit; Civ3 saves are extremely big. Just zip the savegame with WinZip and post the zip file.

Ah! So THAT'S what the tactic was. Well, that certainly makes more sense; I was too busy concentrating on killing the city my troops were all assembled to take.

Well, uh, next time we're trying a gambit, I'll be sure to think it through a little more carefully. :crazyeyes

:smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

Well, Jester, old buddy, my young musician friend, this one shall enter the annals right up alongside "ignore the farmlands, irrigate the desert!" from RBD1.

Ah, but that's all right. Now it's going to be REALLY interesting. (Start building those granaries, folks, including at El Dorado if it's not already past 60).

Cy, you're up next. :king:


- Sirian

Yeah, yeah, I know, I wasn't quite with it there. I'd even read over the thread a bunch of times. There's only one possible answer: :smoke:

As for the pyramids, hopefully the french will get it, and we'll get it from them. Or, if we're really super-unbelievably lucky, we can get it as "Whatever wonder we get from El Dorado". If not, the hanging gardens is always handy to have around, or the oracle even.

On the plus side, our tech is SO slow that we've got plenty of time to build granaries, even alongside settlers. Just need to get rid of some of that military before we drown under their collective weight.

Jester

GET RID OF THE MILITARY???

:smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

1) We're heading for Monarchy. In Monarchy, up to three units in each city can pacify unhappy faces with Martial Law. That could mean running fewer luxuries or less need to build expensive colleseums as quickly.
2) More cities will defray costs. We get 4 per settlement allowance now, that will drop to 2 per small town, 4 per 7-12 town, under Monarchy. Still, we're planning a lot of towns.
3) Jags never go out of style. They remain useful to the very end as pillagers/harassers/garrison-to-prevent-flipping, plus refer back to point 1.
4) AI respects raw number of units. Right now, we command a great deal of respect. :) I kind of like that. :)

We did get a little extreme with number of troops, but that's the whole strength of our civ now. We need to balance things out to support these fellows, but we would not benefit to get rid of them.


- Sirian

This is going to be a very short report since, well, nothing happened.

First, the good (?) news: the Iroquois finished the Pyramids in 630 (3 turns in), so I doubt that was ever going to work anyway. The not-so-good news—the great wonder cascade has started. The Germans completed the Oracle the next turn, and now all are off on the Colossus hunt. We can probably bid all great wonders adios until we start the next war and prospect for leaders.

I saw what looked (to me) to be about 4 good city sites in former Persia, so 3 settlers are heading North, and another will be produced in 2 turns in El Dorado. A 5th is on the top yellow dot, and can settle next turn.

I sent a few Jaggies to form a picket line on our border with France, as I viewed settling the southern desert to be priority 9,999,999, and wanted a little peace until they get their galleys up and operating.

Oh, and I just plucked free workers out of the air wherever they shook loose coming off war footing to build roads, so it looks like a madman set them loose 8-). I didn’t want to waste 15 turns moving them into orderly positions…

Sirian: Our peace treaty with Persia expires in 2 turns. My theory is that dead Persians make good neighbors, and that Antioch would look much nicer in our shade of green. There are 20 Jaggies standing around up there ready to deliver the coup de grace and go out in style before we move on to other units.

I looked at rolling over France while we had the army for it. The problem was just the distance. It would have taken so long just to get there, by the time we got to Paris we would have been facing Pikemen and Knights 8-0. Geographically, though, we are set up to cause both France and India no end of grief over the years. Ought to be fun. Especially after they go to Republic/Democracy and can’t afford long wars.

--Cy

Inherited Turn, 510BC: Vowed that Jester would only get 8 turns his next go-round, to even these numbers back out. ;) Zoomed every city (must-do activity following any Cy turn at the helm) to see what all manner of inefficiencies the automated assignments for newly grown population have been up to. Oh, hey, not too bad this time. A couple fledgling colonies running at 1 shield were swapped to coastline to produce an extra gold, reducing our deficit. Chicken Itch was swapped to the mountain to get a second shield (and finish its temple much sooner, at the cost of halting the population growth for a while). Rephrased "New Susa" to get a shorter name onto that one. :)

Now for strategic decisions. Persia's toast in a couple of turns. Cy has left me with four (4!) settlers moving northward. That's enough to get all three "good" sites above El Dorado, plus one extra. A fifth settler is being built -- Cy intended to run them way north into former Persia, but unless we get a Great Leader from the final mop up and can use him to rush a Forbidden Palace in the middle of the continent up there, that's a losing proposition. I ready the veto pen but continue marching the settlers north for the moment. If we DO get a leader, I'll send at least one or two of the settlers all the way up to start "Second Maya". If not, I'll grab all this good land remaining here in our homeland.

This leads me to question the value of a fifth settler. What would I do with it? I could send it east, to the far end of the Xenalia River, to start that "project" city in the jungle. Or... I can swap El Dorado to Palace placeholder and go for the Hanging Gardens. Hmm. A fishing village or a Great Wonder? OK, so we're not that hungry for fish this week. I change El Dorado to break-even food, maxing shield output, and we're off to the races! No other city in the Empire can do much of jack at the moment, they are all recovering from building settlers just now.

Still on the inherited turn, I look over Crystal Lake, and think about what might happen down there once we plop four more cities onto the map and capture Persia's last city. The corruption is going to go UP. Hmm. Well it will cost 5 shields wasted to swap off barracks, but I do it anyway. Crystal Lake must have irrigation! I also swap Ironopolis to worker. Then, finally, I wake up all sixteen of our iron-guarding jags in the north, move most toward Persian city, move one north to explore last bit of darkness there, move the rest (a few) south.

Now STILL on inherited turn, I check the diplomatic situation. India has made contact with somebody (Japan?) French have Map Making (arrgh). Nobody has heard of Persia yet (good!) We have contact with six (6!) other civs, but I can't even see where the three newcomers are. Well, OK, I hate not having good intelligence, so I establish embassies with the three new civs. Ah, they are all south, and must be on our landmass, as only French have boats and they just got the tech. Interesting.

Still on inherited turn, I inspect Cy's worker assignments, nod approval of all the road building, veto the guys in the mountain above El Dorado (move them west to a grass, where a road can be finishing in THIS millenium). I also vetoed the miners next to New Susa, sent them westward to get the horsies online.

STILL on inherited turn, I broker contact with India while I still can, as someone else can (and will) do it next turn anyway. I then decide to broker some tech, because now that France has mapmaking, the bastard AI's will trade maps with one another, and trade maps for tech, and tech for maps, and maps for contact, and blah blah blah, all jump ahead and leave us in the dust. So... I brokered our two techs to anyone who could pay in cash or gpt. France wanted simply too much for Mapmaking, or their world map, so that will have to wait.

490BC: More Jag positioning in the north. French start Colossus. Two more civs now have mapmaking, and I trade Iro's our world map for the tech and their territory map and change. I trade someone else Polytheism for their world map, and make lots of minor deals, including buying a French worker, which is sent to build road to Chicken Itch. (Sorry, I know that's not its name, but I can't remember the real name, so don't hate me). Moya Mona founded on a yellow dot, starts temple. Worker produced at Crystal Lake, moves to irrigate. Another worker started.

470BC: Move last units into position on Persian doorstep. "Just routine training maneuvers" we tell the nervous Persian emissary. Fortified the conscripts near India on a choke point, completely bottling them up in their area. India will need ships to go around, or the cahuna's to declare war and attack, to get past this blockade. (DON'T MOVE THIS UNIT!)

450BC: Meet with Persia to discuss terms of extending our peace treaty another 20 time units. They were eager to lick our boots, but not quite eager enough to voluntarily join the Mayan empire, so we informed them that they would be added forcibly. Vet Jag attacks archer, reduced to 1 hp, promoted to elite. Elite Jag attacks fortified spear, wins with 4hp left. Vet jag attacks last Persian defender, does 2 damage, leaving him red, then perishes. Elite jag attacks, Persian city captured!

"We have destroyed the fledgling Persians!" -- that's what I expected it to say. It said no such thing. I sat and stared at my monitor for five minutes.

WHAT IS THAT BLIGHT ON OUR LAND??? :mad:

:eek: :aargh3: :spank: :rocket:

The Persians have respawned in the No Mans Land between Mayans, India, and France. They have just magically been given a new city and fresh units, as if the gods reached down and said, "Do Over. You get a second chance."

Gah.

Welp, folks, the war with Persia ain't over, and I can't end it on my turn. Sorry. I'll move what troops we can in the general direction, they ought to get there in about 1000 years. In the mean time, I fortified 5 jags in the captured city, with the intent of preventing it from flipping back. Please don't move them.

No leaders, so Cy's "send them to Persia" orders to the settlers is vetoed. They are now ordered to settle closer to home.

And not only is the whole war not over, it's not even over yet here in our area. There's an archer/spear pair threating our road builders. Good thing I sent the spare troops south. They attack, and one is wounded to red and retreats, the others win and both are promoted to elite.

I send both of the jags that can be spared from The Cy Line north toward the Persians, in the west. I am under no illusions that one or two jags can finish off a newly spawned civ, but maybe I can pillage their irrigations or something, while awaiting reinforcements (and waiting and waiting).

430BC: Gossamer founded, startes temple. A Persian archer that must have been wandering the wilderness appears to threaten our road builders in the forests near the spices. I have only one jag in the area, he attacks, fails, retreats, and I then have to place him in harms way between the enemy and the workers, to save them. Used the extra pop in captured city to fund a scientist, dropped science rate to zero.

410BC: Our jag is lost to the archer, but the workers have been saved. Reinforcements obliterate the offending archer unit. Worker produced at Ironopolis, moved to mine the hills, harbor started. Granary finished in Riggoro, settler started.

390BC: Canopy founded, starts temple. Chicken Itch completes temple, starts worker. Right of Passage with France for their world map and 40 gold. I'd sell the Zulu a RoP but they are flat broke.

370BC: Our forward jag spots Persian settler/spear pair (ALREADY???) and bravely attacks. HE WINS! Two workers captured and sent south, where we hope to meet up with second jag before anything bad happens to them. Wounded jag moves onward toward Persepolis, lands next to a stack of two Persian archers and two spears. (Wow). No way did these turkeys build five units and a settler in like three turns. They had to have been given all these resources out of thin air! The good news: we have more war to fight!

:splat:

Still 370BC: Spirit Dune founded, starts temple. Roads coming along nicely, more to be built.

350BC: Persian Archer attacks our wounded jags, they retreat in the red. Whole stack pursues. Captured workers flee south, meet up with second jag, which is assigned to escort them to our territory while the first jag leads the enemy stack westward. New Susa set to lose 1 food instead of gain 2, for ONE turn, to slow its growth down below pace of granary completion. (Thus saving six food at end of the day.) Harbor queued up next for New Susa, which now has a whale and fish in range.

330BC: Um... the Iroquois have started the Hanging Gardens. (!!!) Joan has started the Great Wall. (!!!) Guess it's a good thing that El Dorado has been prebuilding for Gardens my whole turn. We are still 11 turns away from Monarchy. Wounded jag flees west to mountain, entire Persian army on the chase.

310BC: Last minute diplomatics, selling world map and RoP's. No sense paying for Monarchy, nor for Construction at high cost, let Joan spread that one around a bit before we buy in. Settler finished in Riggoro, sent on Goto (automatic orders) to the Yellow Dot in far south, due in 5 more turns. Worker in the area moves onto flood plain to irrigate, build roads, and then irrigate that wheat and help out cities in the area. Another worker due next turn or two from Crystal Lake, which can work in that area. I sent a vet jag on Goto to Moya Mona and Gossamer to give them defenders. Rest of jags near El Dorado are available, and marching toward France/NewPersia, but not on auto.

I set Riggoro to Forbidden Palace PLACEHOLDER, pending either the Great Library (unlikely) or a shot at a middle age wonder in another 80ish turns. I'd prefer SunTzu for this map, but frankly, get whatever we can get and be happy. This means that Riggoro is busy for the next 1000 years, and must stay on Forbidden Palace until El Dorado completes the Hanging Gardens and the Palace placeholder comes available. We now have enough cities to sit on a Palace placeholder forever, if we had to.

With El Dorado and Riggoro on wonders, that leaves Xenalia and New Susa as the only available strong cities. Both finish granaries soon, and New Susa is slated for harbor after that, but each could then crank troops, workers, or settlers as the current Benevolent sees fit.

We need more workers! Not at all costs, but that's something some of these corrupt cities can help with. We also need to start thinking about cutting down jungles around the capital, although we're not quite ready to begin that. Need basic roads and to mine/irrigate a few squares first. Keep an eye out for any workers the AI's might trade to us, pay cash (about 25 gold), for any that you see. Wouldn't hurt to get a horsie or two online, also, and maybe a couple more veteran spears.

The Iroquois are building the Colossus just across the channel from our southern shore, and Japan is also close, and they all now have ships. Unless you want to see alien colonies appearing on our southern shore, and SOON, we also need to put some priority on grabbing the land down there. The yellow dot I sent a settler toward, and the white below it with the horsie, are most in jeorpardy. Just don't give up on our wonder builders to make settlers, we don't need those spots THAT badly.

El Dorado is slated to reach 300 shields (and finish Hanging Gardens) in 16 turns. We get Monarchy in 10 turns, so that will work out fine. Since we are religious, we can revolt in just one turn, so don't hesitate, even if it starts costing us a little bit of unit maintenance. The reduced corruption should make up for it. And start to irrigate some grasslands in appropriate locations, where shields aren't more vital, as by the time they're done, we'll be in Monarchy and can benefit.


- Sirian

I urge not selling contact with Persia to anybody, it would trash our rep if they find out how we're abusing Persia. Best to finish them if we can. India is bottled up and France has nobody in the area, so we MIGHT kill Persia a second time without them making contact. I think it's worth a shot, the contact wouldn't be worth much anyway.

Since we can't possibly take or keep a tech lead, broker anything we get to whomever can pay (but don't take below-market offers).

The two newly captured Persian workers in the west might be best used to build a fortification in the middle of the Cy Line of Defense. Keeping France out of our lands, and having a nasty mountain fortress to hold the line against ANY invasion, might be worth the time. The only other thing those workers could do is build roads from the Cy Line down to Ironopolis. Workers are at such a premium now, we need to make sure those get back to our territory safely, too.

The only way we could ever make the north productive is with a great leader to rushbuild a forbidden palace. On the chance we get the opportunity, I drew up this set of suggestions:

Purple Dot could be the FP site, it's on the river, centrally located, with cattle and shields and lots of food. Yellow Dot cities are both strong locations and near important resources. White dots are good secondary sites, Light Blue tertiary sites, and the reds are minimum priority "plug the holes" locations, mostly fishing villages that would boost trade.

- Sirian

Gah!!!! That's another rule I would toss on the dungheap! Respawning??? Dangit man, if I pick 6 opponents I want SIX opponents, not 7 or 9. Do *I* get to respawn if I wiped off the map. :mad:

Let's say I'm glad that happened on your turn Sirian :P I wouldn't have expected/remembered the respawn and done the same, and would have felt a wet noodle whether delivered or implied. Well this has turned from a game where you could almost declare early victory to one where we've got a REAL fight before us.

> I urge not selling contact with Persia to anybody, it would trash
> our rep if they find out how we're abusing Persia.

Did you happen to look at their attitude when you first saw them? Is it the 'same' civilization with reversion-chances in captured cities, or a new civ with same name? (The former I gather)

> Zoomed every city (must-do activity following any Cy turn at the
> helm) to see what all manner of inefficiencies the automated
> assignments for newly grown population have been up to. Oh,
> hey, not too bad this time.

Yay, I'm not the only one picked on for peccadillos! :hammer:

> Rephrased "New Susa" to get a shorter name onto that one.

I just plain didn't get the first one. Now if you refound a city ON the site of Susa that was a great name, but I was quite confused to see it back next to our capitol ;p

> Still on the inherited turn, I look over Crystal Lake, and think
...
> Now STILL on inherited turn, I check the diplomatic situation.
...
> Still on inherited turn, I inspect Cy's worker assignments, nod
...
> STILL on inherited turn, I broker contact with India while I still

Gadzooks man!!!! I think we need to have 10 turns for everyone and 2 turns for you, since you do so much before turn 1 ! :splat:
(j/k of course... good moves. Although taking off a mine in the middle seems counterproductive unless he just started)

> Our forward jag spots Persian settler/spear pair (ALREADY???)
> and bravely attacks. HE WINS! Two workers captured

[party]

> This leads me to question the value of a fifth settler. What would I do with it? ...
> Settler finished in Riggoro, sent on ...

You can never have enough settlers :P We ARE in the land grab phase after all. When your subcontinent is sparsely populated, each settler is one less "blight" on your land a few years later.

A strong turn overall, marred only by a galling Firaxis design decision (imho)

Charis

Hey all.

On the settlers. Both corruption factor in the North and the number of turns it will take to get there were (are) duly noted. That is why I sent the first settler to the yellow dot site in the original homeland. My goals in biting the bullet and sending a wave North were (1) Land Grab, I didn't want to kick the Persians out just to have the Iroquois or someone show up in galleys; and, (2) I was more concerned with population and food production than with shields at this point. There are some pretty good squares up there, and the pop could produce workers to really develop the Northern Kingdom, which will in turn produce like mad once we get a Forbidden Palace up there. That being said, I considered taking a couple of extra turns to even up the year a bit, as nothing had actually happened on my turn, but thought it a good time to hand off to you as the settler wave was still in the center of the Southern Kingdom and my intent could still be easily subverted 8-). You are, after all, our city location planning specialist.

On irony. The mine in progress in the south? Heh. I had that guy building a military/resource road, but knew I was about to hand off to you, and, not wanting to hear about your "finish each square completely before moving on to save wasted movement turns" doctrine, I set him to a mine while still next to that city before he broke loose into the desert with road again. HaHa!

On Contact with the Japanese (I think it was them). Did you see how I got that? That warrior I had parked in the far south caught a glimpse of their border over the sea, and, by getting on the final square of land, I could see exaclty one square of their area, so I waited for someone to wander into sight...

Good luck all. This is going to be a real PITA until we get rail in 8-).

--Cy

Quote: "Rephrased "New Susa" to get a shorter name onto that one."

You renamed Formerly Known as Susa?! Oh well. Actually, I wanted to found that city on the site where Susa used to be, but I figured that by the time the game got back to me, that site would already be settled. Consequently, I just founded the city where convenient just to have a city called "Formerly Known as Susa." :crazyeyes Now I don't even have that. :rolleyes:

Ugh! The Persians respawned? :vomit: I guess that's just one of the risks of ancient era combat. :( Looks like the next few turns could be tricky, especially if the Persians respawn again. :mad:

Cy: regarding workers, my "don't move on" policy is in regard to roads, not other improvements. The automation will sometimes irrigate or build a mine, then move on without building a road, requiring another worker turn to be "wasted" later to move back onto the square for the roadbuilding. However, it's OK with me to build just the road, and come back later for other improvements.

A military/expansion road net is too vital to wait around on, when there are so few workers available. As dogged as I am about worker efficiency, it's just a "rule of thumb". Don't waste worker turns without a good reason. I had a good reason with the two workers I reassigned, though, and in the south, at Crystal Lake. That city needs some irrigation, and so does Dz-tin and the yellow dot, so I sent the first worker across the forest without stopping to build a road.

I always have more workers than this. We have so few for two reasons: killing Persia was more important, and in all our early kingdom, we had one cattle and a couple game, no real food surpluses for somewhere to crank out several workers, so our cities were always strapped for population.

Charis: I wasted one worker turn on the mine, however, I saved two turns on the founding of yellow dot city in the south by getting the road built, and we have horses online. If the miner had been halfway through, I'd have let him finish. I also wasted two turns of slave labor on that one in the mountain at El Dorado (plus the turn spent moving onto the mountain). However, that road got connected and another toward Moya Mona is underway, while the mountain road would still be six turns out. Cases where I deemed other jobs more important. If there had been other workers in those areas, I might have done it differently, but those were the only guys who could get vital connections made, and turns have been saved on unit movement as a result.

Schnarrd: isn't "X Formerly Known as Y" ultimately a tongue in cheek reference back to Prince? So... Prince of Persia? (That would be another esoteric reference, or am I just reading too much into that? :) ). You can rename New Susa again, but try to keep it shorter. "Formerly" or "Notsusa" or something.

Cy: you did a great job on your turn. We NEEDED a settler push, but I would argue that single-shield cities with only long-term hope of corruption relief should almost invariably wait until all the production-able locations have been grabbed. We still have two jungle sites to the east which will be POWERHOUSE cities after many centuries of jungle chop, and short term will bring in lots of much-needed trade. There's a white dot still needed southwest of Chicken Itch. Some of those southern coastal locations will be pretty badly corrupted but not beyond hope of courthouses, so I'd put all of those on priority over anything in the Persian area. Now that might be different if there were ANY civs up in that region, but there aren't, so even if other civs did expand into the region, their cities would also be single shield and not be doing much of anything, not even have culture expansion. If you take a look at RBD3 savegames and look at the unclaimed area north of England, this is about like that. On maps with this much land mass, the AI's have plenty of locations to grab, so except for those silks (the location south of Antioch), I'd say everything up there is low priority.


- Sirian

I've never had a civ respawn on me before. (Remember Egypt in RBD2? It didn't reappear -- neither did China in my Desolate Japan game way back when). I wonder what circumstances are required for such a respawn to take place. The only thing I can see different is that Jester razed their capital (thus freeing the name/slot of their first city for re-use?) and that there was a large patch of as-yet unclaimed land for them to be given.

Persia had cities on three of those north dots, but one or two were autorazed. If we had played out the OneInTen "let them build it" gambit, then even if they hadn't built the Pyramids, they might have gotten the Oracle on the cascade (instead of the Germans). Even if not, we could have had more cities up there and possibly (possibly) avoided the respawn.

Then again, once we capture the new Persepolis (don't raze it!) and finish Persia for good, we'll have at least one city in that middle area, and be in position to grab that second gem luxury. So there are some up sides to the current scene. :)


- Sirian

Quote: "Schnarrd: isn't "X Formerly Known as Y" ultimately a tongue in cheek reference back to Prince? So... Prince of Persia?"

I suppose it is, but I didn't think of that at the time I named the city. You're probably just reading too much into it. :D

As for respawning, in my first game as the Iroquois, I had to reconquer the Greek capitol 3 times in the ancient era - and I never razed a single Greek city. Each time the Greek capitol respawned as the next city in line to be built (ie Pasargadae after Persepolis in the case of the Persians). I'm really not sure what the requirements are for a respawn - I think there just has to be a certain amount of unclaimed space. If that's the case, even if we conquer the current Persian capitol, we have to face the possibility of yet another respawn. :mad:

I took two extra turns? Yikes. I didn't _think_ I was that out of it that night, but apparently so. Well, 8 carefully counted, VERY carefully played turns next time. Maybe attend some support group meetings for help getting off the Pungent Weed.

:rolleyes:

What's the status of the french and indians as far as tech is concerned? If they get a real army of horsemen and swordsmen, our Jaguars are going to look pretty tiny by comparison. Still useful, but a big cost for reduced effectiveness. Although I've underestimated those scrappy guys before.

Should we take one of the French or the Indians out? I was presuming, by the end of my turn, that persia would be wiped out at will (wrong...) and that we'd either have to find an enemy to fight, or we'd end up paying huge sums for a military we aren't going to use until it's outdated. We can wipe the persians now, but the fundamental problem remains; jaguar warriors are high-maintenance, and not getting any lower. Use them, or we might as well lose them.

Jester

The differential benefit for using them as attackers dimishes with time as their opponents get stronger, but I really don't think it's use them or lose them. The answer: More cities, and Monarchy.

With Monarchy you get up to *8* free units per city, no maintenance cost (8 for metro, 4 for city, 2 for town). (Contrast to zero free units in Republic or Democracy) Also up to *three* can serve as military police to make the people happy, unlike two in despotism and zero in Rep/Dem.

You guys ARE right in realizing our cash drain is high with this huge number of jaggies, but the solution is not to kill them off or to disband, it's to settle, settle, settle. (Along these lines I agree more with Cy than Sirian on the utility of a 1 shield city far from capitol -- I just prefer to deny AI that land and don't want them near my core cities. Point is well taken though that they have no shortage of land to grab now and have no reason to snag ex-Persia land.)

Charis

You're right, I'd forgotten about the extra police effect. That would be worth it, the factor that tips it over the edge.

Still, in our situation, Monarchy < Despotism when it comes to maintenance. Sure, we get 8 units free... if you happen to be able to pull hospitals out of your magic hat. At best, we get 4. Likely, all those little cities will net us a whopping 2 each. Despotism, we at least get a flat 4.

Still, you won't find me complaining about settle, settle, settle, so I'll just wait and see just how much those jaguars can do.

Jester

P.S: Sirian? We're starting Summoning Team... you around?

Well it looks like it's my turn, so I'll play as soon as I get the chance (probably in about 6 hours or so).

I was late to Summoning Team Night (sorry) and arrived right after Cy timed out. We caught Jester up, broke things off at the start of act 3.

Good luck on your turn, One.

Zed's right about the Jags, it seems. This game was on Chieftain diff, ancient era.

Well, when I picked up the game I figured it would be a quiet time just pushing units towards Persia, so I settled in for an easy ride. ;)

0) 310BC: Indians use a boat to get around our blockade ... I guess we can't hold them back from the rest of the land. Crystal Lake completes its worker, decide I may as well build another.

1) 290BC: Start retreating our warrior away from Indians, since I don't see the point landing In their territory and pissing them off. Try to lead Persians further astray with our Jaguar. Arbela completes its temple, decide that since the population there isn't producing useful shields, settlers are about the only thing worth building there. Chicken Itza finishes worker, starts on a settler. Looks as if the Indians have their eyes on the Iron.

2) 270BC: Further leading Persians astray with the Jaguar ... I reckon we can keep them out of the way until we smash them and never have to deal with them. :p Indians plonk down their city, guess they're not heading for the Iron spot yet after all.

3) 250BC: Temple completed at Dzibilchaltun, start Harbour.

4) 230BC: Still making those Persian units do a merry dance. :D Xenalia finishes granary, starts settler. Eeek, the Japanese have snuck across and made a city in our region - on the coast in between Ironopolis and Crystal lake.

5) 210BC: Workers finally back in behind our unit line.

6) 190BC: Yarra-Yarra formed with the settler on the yellow dot, starts on temple. Joan wants to trade territory maps with us tipping in a gold for the pleasure, so I politely decline.

7) 170BC: Persians come to beg for peace. I take the chance to note they have no further cities before laughing in their face. Nasty persians seem to be on to my tactic as some of their troops give up the chase.

8) 150BC: New Susa finishes granary and starts harbour.

9) 130BC: Spot that persians have a settler on the loose protected by a spearman just south of their city. Their archer they left chasing is allowed to catch up to the Jaguar, Jaguar wins combat losing only 1 hp. Monarchy discovered, begin revolt immediately. Switch research to Code of Laws. French begin great Library.

10) 110BC: El Dorado switched to Hanging Gardens. Riggoro switched to Palace. Try to block settler/spearman from going too far, unfortunately I only have on Jaguar there at the moment and they're sitting in forest, so attacking is impractical.

Well there you have it, I missed out by a turn in being crowned King OneInTen. The next 10 turns should hopefully be enough to obliterate the Persians for good this time, we have a good lot of our units headed that way, and they've only got one city, with perhaps one more on the way. We shouldn't have too many problems taking care of them - can only hope that it brings a great leader in repayment for putting up with them for so long!

Other than that, it's all smooth sailing thus far, although I'd be somewhat happier if we didn't have Hakodate plonked down on our happily little area.

Good job, One. Don't let Hakodate sway you. You can change the name on it after we capture it (some day) if that suits you. ;)

As for this controversy about Jag availability, here's a shot from an Emperor game on which I based my observation:

So I'm thinking... "not available in this game, not available ever". Apparently, however, both sides are right. Both ways can happen. What's the determining factor? Difficulty? Something from preferences? Not having checked Monarch level yet, I decided to have a look in THIS game we're playing now, at Ironopolis, which is built on an iron. Here's what I found, draw your own conclusions:

I don't know about the Jags ... could it be a pre and post patch thing? It's got to be either that or difficulty level, surely.

I've just started a road from our iron town towards the main road network in my turn, but it'll take ages to complete, by which time we're probably not really going to be wanting to attack with them anyway I'd think.

So I'm not sure it'll be an issue for us.

I'm surprised you haven't noted this before...

Units that can be upgraded don't go obsolete for good. They are not available to build if/when there are resources **in that city's box** to build replacement units. That first surprised me when I saw a warrior available to build in the LATE game when someone pillaged a road connecting that city to iron. Yet no warrior choice available in 'online' cities.

I would have to guess there was no Iron in the city where the first screenshot was taken, and obviously there was Iron in Ironopolis!

Once we have a fully connected network, if we chose to pillage the road(s) to Ironopolis, voila, all the other cities have the choice to kick out a Jag. This is why I asked in early game if we should found Ironopolis ON the hill (can never be cut off) or make a road TO the iron (easy cut off).

Tis lookin' ok. I just hope Persia: i) dies out for good, doesn't respawn again, and ii) doesn't get to sour anyone else's opinion of us.

Charis

Well, the city I had was connected to iron, but had both a swordsman and Jag available to be produced, as the screeshot shows. I'ver never run anything but 1.16f. I'll step up the difficulty a bit and see what I find... assuming I survive. :p

Well, I tried Monarch, and got the same results. Both swordsman and Jag available. I checked a city that culture flipped to me, same thing. It had one American worker, nobody else, so I don't think that affects it.
:confused:

Could the difference be whether you pop up the city view and select something from the build queue on the right side of the screen, or whether you stay zoomed out in map-view and right-click on the city to select "change production"? I noticed that both of Malishara's screens are of the latter, while both of Sirian's are of the former...

Nope, just rechecked using zoom. Mine still gives both as available units for production.

Charis: you're up here, been so for a while now. Don't let all that ice and those fishing village plans go to your head. :fish: ;)

Or are you just postponing having to confront another Persian respawn? :lol:

Gah! :eek:

Thanks for the reminder. I keep a list of games in a notepad file with turn order, but hadn't entered Benevolent yet. :smack:
(That's also why I'm starting to say "Good luck JimBob" in my posts to help remind the next guy ;p)

My bad, I'll try to sneak home for lunch to play it, else early eve.

Charis

PS Although it is true that a Persian respawn doesn't sound appealing, mainly due to threat of re-respawn!

I don't know, but would it matter if you built right ON the Iron? I believe Ironopolis was indeed built upon iron.

Just an idle thought...

"Who started the war with the Persians anyway??" roared the General. "Sir,
a check of the royal archives informs us that Charis Ben I started the war,
but did absolutely nothing to prosecute it!" "Well tell him or his son or
whoever to get his carcass over here and FINISH IT!"

Thus did start the humble reign of Charis Ben Evolent II...

110 BC (0) - Anarchy?? The country is in Anarchy... I wonder what will come
of this... Two cities get entertainers to avoid waking up in state of revolt.

90 BC (1) - "Crowned King?????? But, but, I haven't done anything!" cries
Charis Ben II. The Archer+Settler step out of the forest, and are
eaten alive by our hungry little vet jag! :hammer:

70 BC (2) - Kagoshima of Japan finishes the Colossus, the Indians and French
start the Great Library. Settler is sent North to Yellow dot persia spot
near spices, fish and horse.

50 BC (3) - We see New Madras founded near where our "Iron sitter" is, and
the French come RIGHT up to our Maginot line and found Toulouse. Iroq start
Gardens, Indians start Great Lib. Alas, the French city is at a choke and
cuts off free passage to the Persian lands. The jags up there will HAVE
to suffice! We'll back up and found our own choke city on other side of
mountains.

30 BC (4) - Indians want Monarchy for literature. They get a shiny Mayan
dollar instead.

10 BC (5) - After several rounds of cat and mouse, the archer fails on his
attack on our jag, and the Spearman runs away in fear.

10 AD (6) - The dawn of a New Millenium!! It is a pity the "blight" has lived
to see this... now begins our final assault! At the temple, the generation
of a Great Leader is prayed for. A spearman trying to run back INTO the
city and is slain (wounding one elite jag). On the city, they're down to
size 1 (bah), lose one spearman, and three injured jags.

30 AD (7) - A polite Hiawatha wants to trade Territory maps. He too gets
the shiny Mayan peso. El Dorado completes the Hanging Gardens, a wonderfully
appropraite wonder for the Benevolent Mayans. An elite jags goes against
the last Persian spearman in the city and... wins (no GL).

"We have destroyed the Fledgling Persians, Excellency" They deserved it!
:hammer: :hammer: :lol: :hammer: :hammer:

50 AD (8) - The Palace is expanded for the Mayans first Benevloent King. :love:

70 AD (9) - France wants to cancel the RoP (or have US pay through the nose
for it, so lapse it does). They're now annoyed... hmm... :confused:

90 AD (10) - El Dorado goes on FP placeholder, do what you like there.
The City of Chimichanga is founded up North on the coast. Nearby
Arbela is working on a Settler, intended for the purple dot FP location.
Ironopolis is about to finish a Settler to go N-NW and form a boundary
city over the mountains from the French.

There is an UNMOVED Settler left to go on this turn. He's unsure where
to go, thinking about the dark area to South of the blight known as
Hakodate. There may be higher priority spots, including up in Arbela's
area. May the next King be wise in deciding...

Note this was a reign of war and jockeying. Diplomacy was ignored, so
feel free to contact other leaders soon.

Thus ends the reign of Charis Ben Evolent II. Good luck (Schnaard then Jester?)

Schnarrd says he's unavailable til Sunday, so go ahead Jester.

One bit of advice: take the Monarchy for Literature deal, if you still can. If we can build the GL at Riggoro, great. If not, keep it going on placeholder and we'll try to nab SunTzu or whatever we can get. If by chance we DO get the GL (seems unlikely, since there was cascade from Colossus) we could ride no science for quite some time.

As for France... let them infringe on Mayan territory at their own peril! :) Too many affronts and we'll give them a piece of our mind.

Getting those silks north of Canopy online might be a good project to add to the docket.

Good luck Jester, then Cy (and see you guys tonight).


- Sirian

Well, that was boring. Wish I could have been out slaughtering demons. Instead, I get to practice piano and singing! Yay for me!

However, I've got the game. I'll play it out either tonight or tomorrow.

Jester

"The turn of the first century of the new millennium was marked by the rise of a diplomat to the throne, Mortimer the First, also called the Merchant, for his trade skills. His reign is famous for parlaying the social advances of the Mayan Empire into economic advantage, securing prosperity, and beginning development of a radical trade concept which would come to be known as Currency..."

Okay, I start playing. First things first, take Sirian's advice and trade the French for literature.

Only, they're so enthusiastic about monarchy that they not only give us literature, but also code of laws, 80 gold and 5 g/per turn. I also give it to the Japanese for 12 g per turn, 50 bucks and a world map. And the Zulus, for 8 pt, 70, and a world map. Hope nobody minds my bartering our HUGE tech advantage away for a measly 700 bucks, 3 turns of research, two maps and literature.

I hope they enjoy their monarchy!

:king:

My turns (8 of them, if I can count today, which is by no means certain) were pretty much dead uneventful. The deal, listed above, was the high point. Everything else was deadly dull. I produced a couple workers, switched riggoro to the great library, and founded Delicious Whale. The Japanese and English both asked for our map, and I told them where to stuff it. Nobody got pushy, which I'm somewhat disappointed with. Roads were paved, lands were irrigated... all in all a caretaker turn.

Hope yours if more eventful, Cy. Our tech is pumped, but if we really wanted to, we could be making 35 odd bucks per turn if we sacrificed our tech. It all depends on how much we want currency. I could have gotten philosophy, but... why? I also could have gotten construction, but the french have it, and we might be able to finagle/bully/steal it from them.

Jester

Delicious Whale? I would have named it Blubberburg myself. :lol:

My turns (8 of them, if I can count today, which is by no means certain)

210 - 90 = 120. 120/20 = 6. You have taken 6 turns. :)

Cmon kid, don't make us look bad. :) Take your last two turns (if you can do so before Cy posts "got it"), then in the future, note what START DATE you begin at, what rate of time passage is taking place, and what end date to stop on. Or should we supply you with this info? :p

Nice going with the brokerage (I expect us to broker quite a bit. I normally try to be stingy if I can get ahead, but this is a low-economic scenerio, and if we're going to get ahead, it's through brokering or pure aggression. I believe.) The MAIN reason, however, why I suggested we broker Monarchy is that Iro's also have it, and if they brokered it, we'd get zippo. So grab any good deals we could while we could! Two techs, piles of gold, etc etc, sounds like we got a good deal. :)

- Sirian

Actually, I not only already have it, I have finished my turn.

Now, if the board will ever let me post the damn thing, you can get the game (I have no problem reading the posts, and posting notes like this, but ever since the crash it can take me hours and hours to get a post with a saved game posted).

--Cy

If you're still trying, and still awake, Cy, you can email it to me. I'm up next.

In AD 230 Cy_Tzeltal ascended the throne of the Mighty Mayan Empire. The Kingdom was quiet and prosperous, so he put his focus on growth. 5 cities were founded in his reign, ground was broken on two more, and plans were prepared for an 8th city.

In the Northern highlands known as Chiapas, 3 cities were founded. First, the Great City of Palenque was dedicated in the foothills of Chiapas. In this city will be built an awesome Forbidden Palace as a portal to the underworld, where future Maya kings might defeat the Lord Death and return in dreams and visions. Also founded were the cities of Yaxchilán and Uaxactun. Ground was broken for the cities of Bonampak and Copan, but they will not spring to life until the next turn. In the town of Spirit Dune, plans have been drawn up for yet one more city. The builders will be ready to depart in 5 turns to a site on the edges of the Chiapas on a great river. At this time the first two waves of building fortold by the house of Sirian will be complete in the north.

The settlements in southern lands did not proceed as smoothly. Our planners had picked out a nice green site SSE of Cystal Lake with cattle and horses, and a settlement party was on the way, when, in the second turn of my reign, the Arrogant Japanese landed a party from a ship and snatched the site from beneath us. May the futons in Fukushima be fouled with fetid fudge of an excremental nature furnished by flatulent fowl who have eaten a few too many fermented figs. My blood boiled with thoughts of war, but Venus had not yet appeared on the horizon. The day will come when we will cleanse our lands of these folk, but for now we will let them build in ignorance of their eventual doom. Unable to build in a preferred site, Tikal was founded in a blasted wasteland, nestling up to the few squares of green it can utilize like a cold person just inside sidling up to a fire. On our border with France, the town of Sentry is also founded. May it keep open the pass into France until such time as our hordes of fanatical warriors shall sweep through and doom the Pink Nation. The French are an odd folk. They are so proud of digging two outhouses in their border town, they named it for them. And they call this “culture”?

Our spices are highly valued by those who know us. In return for them we received in trade maps, silks, Construction, and Philosophy without having to reveal any of our scientific advances. Despite the fact the game engine hasn’t noticed yet, we have moved into a new age, and are researching Feudalism at a moderate pace that can be adjusted to suit the next ruling house. Oddly enough, no other civilization has yet completed a Great Library, and we are now 10 turns away from completion. IN the next turn we will discover if the House of Sirian needs to prepare to eat headgear. Oh, and speaking of spices, two of ours are not on-line south of El Dorado.

For future kings: A galley is being built on the west coast in Gossamer. We could ship a settler directly west of Gossamer and found another city to keep Persopolis company. By virtue of being backed up to the water, backed up to our cultural borders with un-pressured water squares to give culture area, and near our capitol, these cities should be unflippable once their culture grows together. I generally dislike colones at sea, but the strait is so narrow that it will be easy to shuttle things back in forth in single turns. And, even at war, unless there is a physical blockade, the transports will be invulnerable, as they will go city to city in one turn. They would give us a jump-off point in the first war with India, when we will land a strong force in that one-square bottleneck just outside Calcutta, then roll up the peninsula from Persopolis 8-). It will have to be settled kinda quick, though, as India is really on a settling tear. Oh, and don’t ask me why I built the road one square too far south over there (if I was planting a city there, I would put it in the coastal square equidistant between the two forest coastal squares, not one more south where the road mysteriously goes to). Speaking of flipping, Sentry IS flippable, eventually. And I do mean “eventually” in the real long term, but still, it is something to consider. I put it there anyways. It is good to be king 8-).

Good luck to future rulers.

--Cy

In the year 330AD, our Benevolent, the great king Cy-Tzeltal, was struck down by a strange sickness. His son, Siri-Tzeltal, whipped the entire palace in a froth, demanding to know the source of the illness. Our wisest alchemists concluded that the fetid jungle around our home city had gestated something evil. What, they were not quite sure, but pointed to records from ancient times when a bout of disease struck the entire capital.

"CUT IT DOWN!" said Siri.
"How much of it?" they asked.
"THE WHOLE JUNGLE. EVERY LAST FERN, TREE, AND WEED!"

So workers from all over the kingdom were recalled to Xenalia (with a few minor exceptions) and many new workers were trained at a school in New Susa, some from Gossamer and Chicken Itch, too. They have set in to chop down the jungles, and more workers yet are needed. Many, many more.


Siri-Tzeltal received a message one day. A rider from the distant northern colonies arrived. He bore a parchment that said only, "Forty-Two."

"What is this?" Siri demanded.
"The answer to a question."
"What question?" asked Siri.
The messenger scratched his head. "Uh... I have no idea, My Benevolent."
"Who asked this question?"
"Your Great Great Grandfather, Benevolent One."
"Hmm. Well it must have been important, right? No wonder those colonies are so useless. By the time we can do anything about their problems, it's too late. Well, off with you. And next time you come, bring the answer AND the question."

Now what in the cosmos does "forty-two" happen to mean??? ;)


Effort expended by Siri-Tzeltal on the northern colonies: zero. They were allowed to run their own affairs. Cy, I forgot your city names once I started, but you can rename them next time you're up if you like. I also decided to go ahead and even out the turn numbers, as waiting all the way through another cycle is going to drive us all mad. :)

Inherited Turn: RoP's with England, China, for all they would pay plus world maps. Inspected the workers, zoomed all the cities. A few worker assignments looked questionable (mining in the north? When it's all lost? Why not irrigate a little first, get them growing faster -- especially on rivers -- and mine later? Oh well, I'm not paying attention up there, just worked on a road to connect a former Persian town to the luxuries). Irrigating deserts instead of plains at Dzin was a minor weedy choice -- could have mined plains for more shields, or irrigated them for more food. A whole lot of workers doing lowish priority jobs at colonies, while just a couple workers in our heartland. I decided it was time for labor reforms on a national level.

New Susa swapped to aqueduct, then set up to crank workers every other turn from now until the space ship launch. Or... at least until we have 40+, or else some other locations to take over the worker training. We have a LOT of work to be doing, with jungles but also a ton of cities with little or no improvement. I managed a major effort in the Crystal Lake area, but everything else in the south was pulled home to Xenalia (after vital road nets, in some cases).

We've got core river cities with no irrigated grass? We got off despotism quite some time ago, our cities should be much larger even counting building so many settlers. I'd like to set as a goal to get Xenalia to size 12 by the time the game gets back to me. Grow it quickly, then later we can swap irrigated grass to mined hills and really crank something... maybe troops.

Our colonial phase is now all but over. Let the cities in the north build more settlers, but no more support for them from home unless they are invaded. (Except maybe a worker or two to connect the silk). We had not yet paused in stretching our neck, but our once-military is now in shambles, scattered widely and about to go obsolete in terms of siege warfare.

So with these two things in mind, I said fooey to infrastructure (except granaries and aqueducts, which are NEEDED for growth, please put some priority on them, and on courthouses in cities with more than 40% corruption happening). Units and more units, that is what I wanted to build. Dzin and Ironopolis are now cranking troops at a decent clip and could stand to do so for a long long time, because other cities are busy with wonders or worker training... or too corrupt to pitch in.

Oh, one more thing. Everybody borrowing tiles from Xenalia was told to take a hike. The capital is the top priority.


340AD: I decided to research Feudalism at our best rate (without large deficit). If we get the Great Library, this might be a bit of a waste, but then again... we'd be on toward SunTzu and more importantly, Pikemen. We could really stand stronger defenses.

370AD: all the old deals expired, and we dropped about 30gpt. To recover from this, I renewed RoP's with all our near neighbors except Iro's, and this will keep most of them poor and us richer. Feudalism research continues, due in just over a dozen turns. New Susa starts its continuous worker production.

380AD: settler sets sail across the bay.

390AD: JOAN PROVOKES WAR! :mad: Er... uh... hmm. Where is our army? Dangit. Um... FALSE ALARM. We have no army. Joan can do as she pleases, for the moment, and what pleases her is grabbing more land out of the middle. (India got barricaded again on my first two turns, so we've not heard anything more from them).

400AD: Joanie's bold moves continue. She has two cities now on the coast. Our settler has no choice but to head for the gems. That may seem like a sad consolation prize, but may ultimately be worth more to us than either of Joan's locations would be. Gems = big trade value, while two corrupt cities with lots of food = not much more than a boost in territory to slightly increase RoP profits.

430AD: Mayans complete Great Library in Riggoro. (Sirian eats hat. Ooh, cotton