Emperor Difficulty Succession Game -- Cuban Isolationists (RBD7)

Sirian and I wanted something to fill in the gaps between the other games
without overtaxing our teammates, so we're staring a 2 person SG with
some restrictions. (Actually due to the extreme nature of one restriction,
it will allow a replay of the game under a different ruleset I have in
mind regarding Communism - hence the Cuba name, but more on that later!! The
idea is to see how much the starting map affects the outcome vs what the player
does or doesnt do)

Cubans (Babylonians: Sci/Rel), Emperor, Huge map, small landmass arch, 11 rnd opps
Space, Cultural, Diplo victories ONLY. (Almost random, Russia will be in)
Raging Barbarians to give us SOME combat. Random climate conditions.
Turns: 10 per round after first round.

Restrictions for this breed of Isolationists
- No shipbuilding, never move off your original island
- No map trading (neither give nor take)
(It should have the 'feel' of a five city challenge game, but with more cities
and less initial contact)
This also means that by end of game you will ONLY see your own island. Should
make the replay interesting ;p

--- Starting Turn - Charis ----

A superstitious but very curious group of people were tired
with the Nomadic life and start to look for a place to settle. They are led
by a young man, Fidel Charistro, who has tremendous ambition and drive,
and seeks to one day very soon become King.

4000 BC (0) - Well they don't have to look far! A very nice spot indeed,
right on top of wheat, next to wheat, and on a river, next to a hill.
Founding on the hill looks attractive BUT that loses the fresh water!
Can shift one SE from Wheat to plain flood plains - that picks up two more
floods and a hill at a cost of plains desert and mountain, a great deal.
Founding on the hill would trade three desert square for three hills (nice)
but at the cost of the river. Gah! Possibly making a bad choice already,
Charistro chooses the hill (will blame reading the Jungle Rumble story if
this is bad!). Staying on wheat square costs a ton of food, moving to floods
loses a lot of shields, while moving off river looses "quick 12", ability
to make a hydro or Colossus, but gives defensive bonus. If we end up going
for culture, more production will help and we'll crank out settlers rather
then grow to 12, until construction.

On the hill top the settler sees there is ANOTHER wheat in range, wowza!
Also not one but two golds. We look to be four squares off the coast.
Maybe share a wheat and get a city on the coast and river asap. Worker
stays in place to irrigate. Warrior started - we'll need him asap on
Emperor. Planning to get Monarchy asap, and hope we're alone on an island.
With no feel yet for Emperor, I turn aside thoughts of Pyramid rush ;p

3950 BC (1) - Found Havana on the Hill, and start researching Warrior Code.
Did I say two gold? Make that *four*!

3700 BC (6) - Size 2, already need to push luxury rate to 10% (I hear Jungle
Sounds, but I don't see any jungle!)

3650 BC (7) - Crud or yay, depending how you look at it. With warrior one
turn away and road done, it's safe for the worker to hit the hut. It's a
Bantu settler! I'm already feeling like this start is too strong. And yet...
on Emperor I'm gonna take what it gives. In a non-variant Monarch game
it would be "all over" already. Down to the shore he goes to settle Babylon.

3600 BC (8) - Ok, all traces of guilt are gone. "The citizens of Havana are
dying of disease. They think conditions in the surrounding flood plain may
be unhealthy (!) 8-\ Bantu sees a dual-whale spot but it too is off
the river. Gah! Another river decision. Normally I jump at these but the
river spot is SO close to the capitol. Move one away to snag both whales,
or stay on river, crowd the capitol, and laterfound another fishing city
for the second. Charistro must feel supersititious, he avoids the river.

3550 BC (9) - With the extra settler, gold and food, gonna start a very
early temple in Havana. (Rush? We'll see soon) The warrior is going to
take just a few rounds to scout, given the setback to population due to
disease. We need recon!

3500 BC (10) - Atop the mountain we see cattle, some grassland, and tundra.
(Hmmm... a small patch, or a vast Greenland???)

3450 BC (11) - Havana borders expand. Did I say four gold, I mean SIX! That
says something about the age of the earth here. Ah, a fresh water lake to
our West. Nice. No barbarians or Jags yet, so far so good.

3350 BC (13) - Coast found a bit north of cattle. That's 8 squares across at
this point. How small IS this island? Next turn 30% luxury as Havana hits 3.

3250 BC (15) - Ok, no whipping, as we shift briefly from wheat to gold hills.
Second cattle and fish seen, and spot on river AND coast identified to
hit all three. When Babylon finishes his warrior next turn, will send him
scouting too, since luxury rate high already. (Whale seen but can ONLY
be reached by settling ON the cattle). Near Babylon he sees another whale
right next door. I can already see I don't like that spot.

3050 BC (19) - Tundra game seen to NE, with some bonus grasslands.

3000 BC (20) - History of the world shows some of our future foes are:
Zulu, Aztec, English, Japanese, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, and we're
actually on the eighth slot (of 11). And that game... make it three.

2900 BC (22) - No wait, four game. Havana starts on Settler.

2800 BC (24) - We now see that South of Havana are a cluster of mountains,
ONE ugly spot with at least some fish to found there.

2710 BC (26) - Nubian tribe teaches us pottery, as they point out more game
in the tundra (the tundra is starting to look a little extensive.)

2630 BC (28) - First barbarian sighting, up north. They attack between rounds
and we survive with 1 hp.

2550 BC (30) - Settler pops out, and we hit a hut for Masonry.

EVIDENCE of the PUNGENT WEED! I just now notice that: i) it's 3 a.m. and
ii) there is a goody hut I missed right nearby that looks rather too much
like the gold. (Which is itself so numerous I can't count 6 vs 7) Next turn
the warrior diverts to go hit it.

2510 BC (31) - Settler nears place to found, our wounded warrior thinks he
better rest and heal before proceeding. Our next settler heads for the
game cluster near us to the east.

2310 BC (36) - Warrior code learned, Mysticism started. With NO other tribes
seen, this is surely an island. Our northern explorer finds more shore,
although not sure if he's at furthest extent yet. We defeat a Barbarian
up North and find a camp, and that hut near us... gave the Wheel. (Hmmm, uh,
no horses in sight)

2270 BC (37) - Havana starts another settler. (If there ARE foes around, we
do have no military. We can now start Bowmen, but if they fight we get
a way-premature GA. Also, would probably want a Barracks first.
More weed... duh... of course no horses had been in sight. Now that we
have wheel I look again and see at least two :)
Ninevah founded with access to FOUR game, a coast, and bonus grass.
We defeat the Bar camp (next to the horses which we now recognize)

2230 BC (38) - Babylon prepares to rush a barracks.

2110 BC (41) - Horseback riding and Alphabet from huts to north, sweet!
Island is almost fully mapped out -- Time to turn over the reigns. :P

I look forward to the colored dot analysis :)

Take as many turns as seems appropriate at the time for this first round, then
we'll switch to 10/round.

Good luck :)
Charis

Attached is the map after the first round (~40 turns) in 2110 BC.

I took a screen shot and threw out a very rough look at city placements, but
it wasn't with the careful consideration some do this :P
0- Where we started in 4000 BC (not a future site)
1- These sites aren't in order. 1 is an outpost near lots of gold.
2- Coastal spot with some game. Could go North one spot if less overlap
needed with Ninevah (they don't look like food powerhouses though)
3- Couldn't edit with my simplistic program, I would move one West onto the
coast, and leave the other game to '9'
4- Catches horse and gold, but some fog left, might not be 'best' spot
5- The only habitable spot in the Southern tip, catching 2 gold.
6- Game in reach, and closing the coast border
7- There or south one spot to be about right distance from 1.
8- From location on map only, a good general area for the FP for a nice
dumbbell empire. May be a better spot nearby
9- Filling in gap, and catching a stray game
A- Fishing village, and where I wish I founded Babylon
(Speaking of which, we might want to rename the Bablyonian city names with
Carribean/Cuban city names)
B- Filling out the border, can't see enough for exact placement.
Depending on FP placement will probably jam in another 1 to 3 cities up there.
(For 16 to 18 total cities)

Since this island will be our ONLY source of cities, do NOT take these
pungent weed first thoughts as anything more than pungent visions. Feel free
to point out bad choices or improved locations. Your turn will likely decide
the destiny of most founded sites. Decent chance for oil with the tundra, but
rubber and aluminum might never show up.

Hmmmm.... we're isolationists in this game... the drive for coastal cities
isn't AS great as normal, I now realize...

Charis

Too bad you can't attach a file in an "edit". Save attached here.

The weed has started already?! :smoke:

Charis

Haha! Cuba? Greenland is more like it! An isolation variant and we get placed on a snowball. Welp... I'll see what I can do.

I find it humorous that you have a large patch of desert, then a very small swath of grassland, and then frozen tundra. What a weird island.

Good luck on this variant, guys!

If we want "challenge", Charis, you can dial that up rather handily, I see. However, for nonhogtied starts in terms of terrain, you're fired. ;)

What we got here, is a double variant: the one we picked, plus the Eskimo Gambit (carve your homes from the very ice itself, my people, for we have nothing else!)

In "Rumble" I did move from flood plain to hills, but the hills were still on the river. I'd NEVER move my capital off a river. :smoke: You say "until we get construction", but unless some other civ paddles by in a galley, we're not going to get Construction for millenia. So your "we'll just pump settlers" plan was adopted. Everything else you did looks quite good from here. Well, considering this terrain.

While I would still have preferred to be on the river, at least the location you moved to is otherwise superior in every way, and will get us many more shields in the way distant future. My hopes for this game are, frankly, not high, but we'll see what we can do.

Inherited turn: increased science rate, whipped temple at Babylon. Babylon set to build workers next. Click next turn and our warrior is attacked from the barb camp, wins with no damage.

First turn: attack barb camp, razed, 25 gold.

Early turns: complete exploration of our land. Marvel at how much tech we have (all those came from huts, you say? Nice). Whip temples at Ur, Ninevah after they complete warriors and grow to size 2.

I veto "Plan Nine From Outer Space" and found Ashur one square southwest of Charis's 9 spot, which would have wasted a flood plain. My location is also closer to the capital, has no more overlap, and can borrow that upper cattle from Ur at times to vastly speed growth/production. Ashur starts a warrior.

Middle turns: One of our two roaming warriors returns to meet up with settler for sixth city. Other warrior patrols for barbarians, finds one, fortifies in hills, then LOSES in combat. (Welcome to Emperor). Our last remaining spare warrior is dispatched. More work on the gold hills is undertaken, while some irrigation of flood plains is started.

While 9 was slightly off, 3 is a complete disaster waiting to happen. It's landlocked, for starters. Also, it's landlocked, has no access to the sea, can't build a harbor, and is landlocked. :eek: That might not be so bad, except 60% of its land is ice and half the rest is overlapped. 3 gets the veto stamp, and our sixth city is founded one square to the left.

Our reinforcement warrior defeats the barbarian and heads north into the mountains. A barbie horsie is spotted, so I fortify our unit on a mountain. Um... guess she was pissed at Ken or something, because barbie rolls right over our mountain fortified warriors without taking damage. Our "patrols" are now both dead, and Sirian has failed miserably with the military side of his turn, but what can you do when the dice roll up bad for you in the early game? I had the high ground in both these fights and the "odds" were in my favor each time. Oh well. :( (And it's going to get worse before it gets better, folks.) :(

Barbie says, "Ken you bad bad boy, you." :splat: :spank:

Granaries are whipped in Ur, Ninevah, and Ashur. Havana once again suffers disease, and drops from size 4 to size 2 AND failed to grow as expected because the PATHETIC automated worker distribution in cities vetoed my assignments when the city size was shrunk. Fearing that we'd drop a third time, to size 1, I look at our 22 shields and whip that granary out. Blah. So now Havana has a granary, and has been whipped. This will mean extra luxuries at times, but I thought it was the best move. Not only do we get a fat ball of ice to live on, but somehow get slapped with all the stored up bouts of disease from other RBD games that we never got hit with, and over what? Like 4 or 5 flood plains? Brutal.

Babylon makes three workers but then grows too large and I end up building a regular bowman there to keep the peace. while a taxman sits around a few turns.

Late turns: Ur builds a settler and founds Akkad. Ninevah whips a barracks, starts spearman. Barbie continues her rampage as she rolls over yet another of our troops and raids Ninevah for 9 gold. (Sheesh.) I have a warrior moving in that direction. Ashur also whips barracks, as it too is on the front line. These warriors ain't cutting it, I've lost 3 of 5 fights with them. I want to see some vet bowmen and spearmen.

Havana builds settler and Cove is founded. Writing is due on the next turn, I urge we head for Literature after that, so we can whip a lot of cheap libraries asap.

Status: 1250 BC.

We have temples in our first 6 cities, 5 or 6 workers, a settler due next turn. We have 8 cities, half of them have granaries. The two new settlements are building warriors (for martial law, and because they are safely on the back side away from barb raids). They can whip temples soon. Havana is building a bowman, as it needs more troops to keep order.

I rate our chances at building an ancient wonder to be less than zero. All we can do is expand quickly and whip temples/libraries as the chance presents. Oh yeah, and we need to build some military to fight off those barbarians. Never have they given me more trouble. Usually the AI's are around to clean up any camps I don't manage to take out quickly, or I win SOME of the battles and use troops garrisoned in the wilds to keep all area visible and prevent more camps from popping up.


Now for my thoughts on settlements. When dealing with frozen land, there is one, and only one concern: FOOD. Everything is about scrounging more food, because it's in such short supply.

Here's how it works:

Need 2 food per population. You get 2 free in your center square, so that leaves room for up to two tundra/forest/hills. That means cities are limited to size TWO without better food sources.

There are four possible food sources: game squares, water squares (with harbor), fish tiles and whale tiles. That's it. And three of those are in the water.

Each square with 2 food can add ONE size to your city's potential. Each whale can add TWO size to your city (the whale gives 3 food with harbor, which can pair with an extra forest/hills). Each fish tile can add THREE size to your city (4 food, plus two extra forest or hills). Tundra/forest/hills are mostly useless, unless you have a lot of fish, or a couple nonfrozen land tiles in range (grass is best, but plains or even desert can add to your eventual max size).

For this game, other than at cities already founded on the edge of the tundra, all remaining cites we can settle are entirely frozen, thus they are all "fishing villages" dependent on the sea for size, and destined never to be high producers. What they can do is boost trade, boost score, boost territory, boost culture (a little) and perhaps build support of various kinds. For that kind of scenerio, the priority is to build everything as close to being IN the water as possible.

I drew up the following plan, which shows not only locations, but the full maximum potential population/coverage of each city. Maxing food is the top design priority here, but there is the secondary consideration of maxing shields to the best possible degree also (meaning hills are preferable to forest).

I found six good locations capable of producing genuine "half-cities" that can grow to size 12 or nearly. These are marked in red and green. The purple city is the site for the forbidden palace, picking up three game squares and two hills, which means more shields than ANY other city in the north, plus it's centrally located up there. One small problem: on a huge map, we need sixteen cities (16!) to qualify for Forbidden Palace, and we only have eight right now. That means we have to settle all the red and green locations, plus purple, plus one more (the white dot above Babylon), before we could even start constructing the FP.

The yellow location is on fresh water, can grow to size 7 and, with a granary, then crank out workers at the pace it's able to build them, without having to invest in an aqueduct first. The other white dots are "size 7" locations that can also crank workers, or, if need be, supply continual draftees in the late game. The two blue dots are "plug the holes" mini-cities able to get two hills apiece into action. They are the lowest priority. We could build eight or ten of them, but that would be counterproductive as we'd eat into "too many cities corruption".

Also note that Cove will be limited to size 12, that's 11 water tiles and one gold mine mountain. And 8 useless mountains, although maybe one of them will turn up a resource later.

The worst part of all of this is that we have zero luxuries on our landmass. We have nothing to trade! Except maybe horses or other strategic resources we can't yet see. That's Not Good.

We should have been called "Eskimos". :whipped:

You're up, C. Good luck.

Holy crow, talk about miserable terrain! Looks like the game is out to get you guys and then some this time... "You might be good enough to take those silly Variant rules into Monarch games, but you're on Emperor now, and I'm playing to win. Bite me!" :lol:

Good Luck, Cuba. The Game dealt you a crappy hand, but you can salvage it... maybe.

This game should be fun to watch

Our luck has been coming in chunks of "extreme" so far.

- The terrain has led to aspersions of Eskimo ancestry, not Cuban.
- But that rock is ours, ours, ours. We no share! Ours ours ours!
(If you think of Emperor+ games as "holding on for dear life" until you reach Cavalry or Industrial, that's gotta help)
- Havana area is food central and by (questionable) choice stuck at 6, while food is SCARCE elsewhere
- I don't think I've ever seen such a "good" set of goody huts
- I don't think I've seen this much disease in all my other Civ3 games combined

Yet, there is ONE thing that gives me hope...
... if the world is nasty and cold for us, maybe it is worldwide, maybe we're in fact on an ice planet?! :crazyeyes

One other key thing comes to mind, Sirian, as I ponder our future. The "no ship" rule could mean auto-death. At some point we'll be tartgetted by one, maybe many foes, and they have the option of simply bombarding us back to the stone ages, and there would be absolutely 100% NOTHING we could do about it. We can hurt but not sink the ships with artillery. Gonna have to amend that to "no *transports*, and naval defense ships may not leave our own 'coastal' waters for any reason. That gives us some meager defense even vs a large fleet against us, if we pump artillery to weaken and just 'finish' off with frigates or such.

To foster more hope, I'm trying to think of endgame scenarios where we have a shot. Lucky lucky endgame resources give a space option, cultural is a thought but with the odds projected for early wonders, ouch, and for diplomacy we'll need to practice the art of bending over backwards. Do you consider a "human" wall (or cats) on the entire coastline as clever or AI exploitation, challenging them to build a marine force? I've used that in one naval game where I started on a dinky little island and was able to keep a razor thin defense force at home while my man-o-wars went to conquer other islands. Just stretching here to think how we can hold on :P

Charis

PS In the "parallel" universe, I have to think the mid game will look very different, with a key priority as "getting off our ice rock" by pre-building a invasion task force to let loose when we can sail. Alas, that will be too slow with isolated contact.

When I read the game rules, I thought the idea of not building ships was to make it hard in the case of the AI declaring naval war on you. The way I figured it was you were restricting yourself to buying other AI civs to fight the war for you, thus wearing down the opposition and getting them into a position where peace is possible.

At least that's how I'm planning to play it if the situation arises in a similar style game I'm playing. Iwanted to see if I could build every great wonder whilst stuck on an island by myself and not leaving it (monarch difficulty though) ... I may adopt the map rule though, we'll see what happens when other AIs get over here. So far so good for me since I've gotten all 7 of the ancient wonders ... :D

No ships == No ships. We'll make do. Artillery can chase them off, and unless they are an immediate neighbor just across the bay, we won't hear from them again for centuries. (You know how many turns it takes at 3 or 4 movement per turn to cross a huge map?) And as for late game ships, we can use Cruise Missiles to target ones with 2 hp left, if the missile hits both of its "shots" the vessel will be sunk. (Can't target ships with 1 hp left, game bug).

I don't at all mind fortifying our shores. Think occupied France: historically it HAS been done, and HAS required marines to punch through. But... that's a lot of units at 1gpt each. We have a lot of coastline. I think you are also overestimating the threat levels. The AI's mostly come after you for resources, or if you are just TOO weak militarily. Well... we ain't got no resources! :( So why would the AI's WANT to take this rock away from us? :)

No ships. Of any kind. It can be done. :) And... I'm also looking to maintain a low diplomatic profile, which means NOT penny pinching trade deals no matter how much they are ripping us off (take the deals they offer, continuously, except ones where they offer maps, just pull the maps out of the deal and substitute something else, just not making them pay full market value) and maybe even sucking up a little, if somebody's F8 charts look too daunting -- two things I NEVER do normally. (Usually I am seen by the AI's as the world's most diehard miser. And they aren't shy about letting me know it).

Diplo win is the one thing I've never accomplished, because I tell uppity civs where to stick it and don't back down from fights. This is a prime chance to go for one. Or... space. We can forget cultural, for that you must grab ancient wonders. If we are the darlings of the world diplomatically, that should lessen our chances of being attacked as long as we aren't so militarily thin as to hold up a sign saying, "Come Spank Us!: :spank: :eek:


- Sirian


EDIT: one more note. I've noticed that AI's typically ask for, and offer, 10% +/- the market value. That is, you can always offer them 10% less than they ask and they'll take it. You can ask for 10% more than they offer and they'll pay it. (And it may come out to more in some deals, as past a certain point they only offer cash in chunks of 10, so they may offer 20 gold for something worth 32, because 10% less would be 29 and they won't offer that). SO... in order to figure out HOW to offer them "diplomatically pleasing" deals, find the full market value then knock off 10-11% of the price. They'll be pleased as punch.

Oh yeah, and those "give them 1 gold" deals you like doing... they don't care. That's negligible, unless it's extremely early in the game. Now giving them 10 gold, or 20, early enough, that can buy a lot of favor. Later you need to give 50, or 100, or a free RoP to some weak civ or a low cost resource to a large civ. As much as the idea of this PAINS me, that is the path to a diplo victory. Penny pinching kills Gracious relations. Hanging up on someone without making a deal is not a penalty action. They don't care. We can probably still make some money off of some civs by offering the small fry continuous RoP's at 15% below market value, for which they will view us as generous. :lol:

Second round lets both take 15 rather than 10, it's pretty quick going.

1250 BC (0) - Everything looks in fine shape, except change one city with
Spearman order to Bowman.

1225 BC (1) - Start on Iron Working (toward Construction and to see if we have
any Iron or not ;p)

1200 BC (2) - 1175(3) - Not much, micromanaging turns

1150 BC (4) - Aztecs finish the Colossus (so quick it's scary)

1100 BC (6) - Holguin is founded on Green dot.

1050 BC (8) - Barbarian horsie wants to lay down some smack. Warrior
is on the hill, fortifies, and grabs his ankles. Good thing they're
only 'conscript' strength ;p This is repeated in 1025. "Hills good!"

1000 BC (9) - Settler now in Ashur area is 'goto' to the FP purple dot.
The other one is near the east red whale dot. The settler near Ur is
heading for horsie red dot on west coast.

950 BC (11) - Cardenas founded at the eastern whale red dot.

925 BC (12) - Ugh, thought our scouts time was up. Fortied in mountain
this time to give good vision, it went 2hp-vs-1, then 1-vs-1, then the
horsie fell (phew!)

900 BC (13) - Another settler born, at Bablyon. He heads toward blue/purple
areas, for our next leader to redirect to a red or green.

850 BC (15) - Happiness starting to get more problematic (well duh Charis,
build more military!)

No whipping this turn, so feel free to get it out if needed. :hammer:
We're razor thin on military, but have gotten a very good jump on settlers. You get to pick our next tech next turn as well (Guessing Literature for Library)

Good luck with the ice rock!
Charis

EDIT- Roger on the "no ships" :eek: In one game I've had they did NOT turn away the ships just when injured, the pounding was continuous and unabated. City improvements and population went poof. I was picturing that here and it wasn't pretty ;p
As for the silver dollar thing, I've got no hard data either way. It was rather effective in a couple of games I've had, but I am thinking very early game, so that's consistent with your comments.

Iron Working? :( :(

Iron is useless to us for the following reasons:
1) We don't need swordsmen to take out a few barbarians. All we need is a couple of veteran troops.
2) We don't need swordsmen AT ALL. Ever. They are a dead end unit and we should be well past them before any hint of threat arrives (and even if not, horsies are better for defense, they will retreat, can reinforce faster, upgrade, etc etc).
3) We are a long long way from Feudalism and Chivalry.
4) The sooner we connect to iron, the more chances for it to vanish on us, even worse when we have no use for it. (If all the iron on our island goes away forever, we're toasty. We can't pick up and go get any more, and with a map blackout, we MAY even not be able to trade with anybody until AIRPORTS come online, if a map line of sight is required for harbors).
5) "To see if we have iron or not" might scratch an itch of curioisity, but is otherwise of no practical use. Even if we have none, we can't do anything about it, and either way it won't affect anything we're doing in the short term.

Those are turns lost where our core cities could have had libraries to boost our culture and research. Or... harbors. Or courthouses. Or SOMETHING of shorter term use.

My conclusion: Iron Working = :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

:)


Anyway... Yes, I opted to research Literature next. After that, PLEASE don't go for Construction as we have no use for aqueducts yet (and can't afford colleseums) until we first have courthouses and harbors so that we can have more than three cities MAKE IT to size 6. :)

We had 10 cities when my turn began. I settled 10 more. There are only 2 sites left to get, and we need to get the light blue dot to be sure that no curious AI's plop down up there.

In 690BC, Egypt build the Pyramids (and entered their golden age, if they hadn't already). China got the Oracle the following turn. It's POSSIBLE, on an archipelago map, that not enough AI's got together by this point to have traded up to having Literature or Mapmaking, so it could be that this ended the cascade. In any event, I committed us to pursue a world wonder. Ur is building Palace (at 700 shields to complete, currently, so we have plenty of time). Ideally, we want the Great Library. That would catch us up instantly on tech when we make contact with 2+ civs, even if that doesn't take place for 1000's of years, as the library won't go obsolete until WE get Education. Secondarily, take anything else we can get, even the Lighthouse if that's the only option. Sistine would be the one we would most want but we may not get that far in time to get it with this attempt.

I used Havana to crank 4 more workers, so we now have 9 total. Most are in the Ur area, improving to speed the wonder construction. Havana is at max size and could be running one wheat and 5 hills, if more hills are mined. Both Ashur and Ninevah badly need mines. DO NOT connect the iron, for reasons I listed above.

I urge you to think long term. All these ancient wars in the other RBD games may be skewing your perspective. Spears can upgrade all the way through. Bowmen are dead end. Now that all the barbs are eliminated, never to be heard from again, warriors are only useful while we remain in despotism, or if we get Monarchy before Republic. Better a warrior than a city sitting around with entertainers and taxmen at size 1-3, but try to build veteran spears where possible.

Granaries are MOST urgent in cities that will be scrounging for food their whole existence. These will vastly speed growth, which will boost trade. Harbors, courthouses... the trick to them is a whip-wait-whip. You can get 1 shield going, whip a barracks, flip it to courthouse/harbor, wait another turn for it to go to 41, then whip again. Bang, 80 shields, only 2 pop whipped, 2 extra turns taken. We'll have to do some of this in the north. All those red, white and green dots need the harbor first, too (as much as it pains me to delay courthouses). Another trick is to get 1 shield, whip a barracks, then flip to granary or courthouse/harbor. This is the best plan for cities with a single game in range, as they crank more food per turn at size 1 than they do waiting around on size 2. The trick is this: whip at 39 shields needed (29 for temples), so that the max number of shields are gained. Do this by any means necessary and available. It doesn't pay to get only 20-30 shields out of a whipping. You'd do better to build a warrior in that time, you see, get the warrior "free" or with 1 turn delay, and whip a larger amount of shields.

On emperor, you also NEED a troop in the city, as a whipped city with no troops in it and no temple is unhappy at SIZE ONE. So we either have to send troops from other cities, or let a city build a warrior before we do anything else. So what I've done is this: all the cities with a troop already in place are set to build granaries. (This doubles the rate at which future whippings could take place). All the cities where a troop couldn't be spared were allowed to build their own temple naturally (if they could muster 2 shields per turn) or have been set to build a warrior first, then to whip the temple as soon as they grow to size 2. You can rearrange the plans all you like, but if you completely ignore the whip on your turns, our growth curve is going to suffer. On the other hand, we don't want to whip any of these cities more than about 4 total times. That's one for temple, one for granary, one or two for harbor, and then maybe one more (toward courthouse or library). As to what to build first, I had choice of only granary or temple. If harbor were an option, I might choose that, too. I'd definitely opt for courthouse in Ice Palace (purple dot).

Cove and Akkad ended up building their temples the normal way. They are both set to whip granaries soon, Cove in 3, Akkad in 6. I urge that Havana be left at size 6, use it to build barracks and crank the vet units, since it has no access to placeholders, and if you keep shrinking it to make settlers/workers, we lose gold, with our economy kind of weakish. Ur is going to be stuck a long, long time with no library (wouldn't have had to be that way if Literature were done first -- poke, prod, wink ;) -- but too late now). But that was our ONLY hope to grab a wonder, and I'm determined to get something for us. Ur is our only southern city on fresh water, although with our happiness situation the way it is, seems kind of doubtful we can grow it to 7 without more improvements.

My biggest concern right now is what the dark map will do to us. I didn't quite think it through in terms of it preventing us from doing any trading at all, ever. If that's the case, we really bit off a lot here.

Oh one more thing. You took 41 turns the first time, and 16 this time. I took 29 last time to even it out, but this time I said fooey and left you to fix it. :) Thus 530BC. Our situation is looking more and more bleak the more I think about it. Good luck with squeezing milk out of THIS fuzzy coconut. :)


- Sirian

Here's a fresh pass at the settlement plan. Nothing major has changed, just shuffled control of a few squares around. Got a hills for San Cyreno. Swapped some game around. This is the "at the end of the day" outlook. I expect lots of temporary borrowing and shuffing back and forth. The one place we should NOT borrow is at Guantanamo Bay. It should keep its grimy hands off the forest-game squares needed by Ice Palace. Every round we have the Forbidden Palace will be a round with much extra bounty of trade and production, so everything else in the north must bow to the need for Ice Palace, wherever there is conflict.

The south, too, has a lot of sharing. This sort of game is NOT one where Cy would thrive, as zooming the cities and micromanaging "borrowed" terrain to see which city has a more urgent need at any given period is not something he would undertake. :) There were literally times when I would have that third wheat for Havana one turn, for Babylon the next, Havana, Havana, Babylon Babylon. Occasionally they both really needed it and I had to choose (Havana, usually). Same with Ur and Ashur, that one gets flipped around a lot on my turn, and now also Ur and Akkad. That's probably the worst part of a game with packed cities, the extra work of managing the overlap efficiently. If left to the devices of the automated selection, nothing short of complete disaster would ensue. :eek:


- Sirian

Originally posted by Sirian
The trick is this: whip at 39 shields needed (29 for temples), so that the max number of shields are gained.

Actually, I believe you get 40 shields per whip, so long as you have at least one shield invested. So for anything that costs more than 40 shields, you should whip when 40 shields remain, not wait for 39 (and for your harbor/courthouse trick, you should be able to do the second whip immediately, without the wait turn between).

Also, I'm curious, are you going to allow youselves to build embassies? Or will the automatic reveal of the foreign capital location contravene your 'no maps' rule?

--
Jaffa

I just love the names of the new cities!!

:hammer: Cetacean Observatory -- San Cyreno -- San Charisso -- El Chuca :hammer: and of course...

Guantanamo Bay :tank:

Jaffa... not quite on the whipping. The number of citizens is [ #shields / 20 ] which is ROUNDED DOWN and has a minimum of 1. It's also doubled iirc if you have NO shields in the box yet. So 1..39 is one citizen, 40..59 is two, 60..79 is three if done in one pass, better to do as shift-to-39, whip, un-shift-to-now-40, wait one turn, whip to completion.

| EDIT- Ah, one point where I got confused on this. I had like 8 turns to do something with 5 shields per turn, so I figure 40 shields. Yet it was only one citizen to rush. Ah!! You can do 40. In reality there were 38 shields left, which do take 8 turns at 5/turn |

Good question on the embassies. I imagine that they will choose to build embassies with us, which we can't stop. That will also show their capitol. Can't do anything about that. Now will we use espionage? Wasn't disallowed, too early to tell if/how useful.

Sirian... yes I've already been "swapping" tiles between cities on occasion, sorta of a macro-micromanagement :cool: Now *THIS* is a builders game!! (When you only have straw and mud to build your castles) It's up my alley (for temperament anyway, I'm improving on figuring out what needs to be shifted)

Now tundra improvement into better terrain was a CivII only feature, eh?

Charis reviews the charges of illegal use of pungent weed on the Iron Working and his decision is... guilty as charged! :eek:

I must have been feeling a combo of the following at the time: i) Sirians reports of barbarian brutality sound really nasty, we better develop a counter, ii) if there are no horsies and no iron on this rock, we can pack in it right now, iii) i must cover up a bad decision not to start on a river by getting an aqueduct!! :smoke:
It must be the same advisor who 'counts turns' who made this science decision. (Still, we had no idle time for libraries in that phase anyway, I don't think the damage was extensive.)
Roger on avoiding Construction until later, in any case, and not connecting the iron. (Can we hide it from the AI's?!? :scan:)

> We had 10 cities when my turn began. I settled 10 more.
Excellent

> I committed us to pursue a world wonder.
This may turn out later to be a "MVP move", time will tell. I like it. (A little surprising after the "chance at a wonder is less than 0%", but maybe that was referring to ancient wonders.)

> Sistine would be the one we would most want but we may not get that far in time to get it with this attempt.

By the time the shields are ready Fission will be known (j/k)

> I urge you to think long term. All these ancient wars in the
> other RBD games may be skewing your perspective. Spears can
> upgrade all the way through. Bowmen are dead end.

Good point, I should have realized this. (Playing at 2am I do miss somethings I shouldn't) I was paranoid about the Barbarians. The horses especially cry to BE attacked rather than wait to be attacked, and Bowmen are better suited for that. It was a mix of flashbacks from the ancient wars and from the one or two emp/deity games I've tried where if you don't make the BEST units you can RIGHT NOW, you'll never live to see even Monarchy.

> Granaries are MOST urgent in cities that will be scrounging for food their whole existence.... the trick is to whip-wait-whip.

Good tip, I'm all over that. In fact I just finished writing up that key trick in a "Micromanagement Guide" I'm working on :king:

> On the other hand, we don't want to whip any of these cities more than about 4 total times. That's one for temple, one for granary, one or two for harbor, and then maybe one more (toward courthouse or library).

One for courthouse, one for library, one for barracks, one for... oops, no, bad me.

> I'd definitely opt for courthouse in Ice Palace (purple dot).
Although you don't need one once FP built, 80 shields vs 300 shields means that when corruption in FP site is more than 4 of 15 lost, that's the better choice. (We're probably losing half shields?)

What is the whipping 'memory', any more info? I was under the impression it's 20 turns per item whipped. If not cumulative, that would mean an insignificant impact if whipping was once per 20 turns. If cumulative, your fourth whip is remembered for 80 turns, etc... So the cumulative memory effect is 20, 60, 120, 200, 300...

> I urge that Havana be left at size 6, use it to build barracks and
> crank the vet units

Sounds about right. I wonder what's about right to keep the AI from thinking "FRESH MEAT!" 3 top-defense units per city? (Us having a key resource they lack not withstanding)

> My biggest concern right now is what the dark map will do to us. I didn't quite think it through in terms of it preventing us from doing any trading at all, ever.

Oh the AI will find us, and once one finds us, they'll sell contact and we're "in the loop".

I'm feeling less overwhelmed with bleakness for some odd reason at this point, now that the rock is a full fledged nation :)

Charis

I've got a glimmer of hope for you - you CAN trade with people without seeing the city you're trading to. I thought you couldn't for a few turns until Germany popped up on the list ... perhaps it was because they got the requisite advance (Navigation), but I have a feeling that maybe it was also since they had LOS to me that was enough.

So there is light a long way down the tunnel. ;)

530 BC (0) - Everything looks fine. Watching the in-between turn it's funny...
The Barbarian armada is our "coastal defense" right now :P

510 BC (1) - Notice no settlers for the last two spots around or in progress,
so put set up Ashur and Bablyon to do this before getting back to vet
production.

490 BC (2) - Ashur and Cardenas expand borders. Ice Palace gets noticed as
in need of a granary whipping in two turns, which will help it grow faster.

470 BC (3) - Literature is complete. I choose Map Making!
Just kidding, no. I take... Code of Laws. Courthouses are needed, certain
advisors point out. Plus opposite choice of Monarchy first wouldn't work
if you plan to whip a courthouse or two. Ur hits size six and is looking
less happy. Sliding luxury to 30% gives +8/turn, while making a tax collector
out of a food square leaves us at zero food surplus (alright since at size 6)
and +11/turn, so we do that. Cove at 39 gets granary whipping.

450 BC (4) - Havana starts a Library. Santa Rosa starts a Granary. The Cove
a Warrior (consider switching). I mine the leave the horse near Ur but
leave it unconnected, about to connect the horse near San Charisso.


430 BC (5) - The domestic advisor reminds Charis that Map Making is not JUST
for ships, but also for Harbors. :blush:

His confidence goes down and instead of whipping the Ice Palace, switches
to temple which will complete in 4 turns, the same time it will grow to
size 3. :confused:

410 BC (6) - Ninevah whips library, Akkad a granary, El Chupa a temple.

390 BC (7) - Settler up from Ashur, goes to white dot.

370 BC (8) - Settler up from Bablyon, heads to blue dot. (Both now back on vets)
Ashur is unhappy, and a food worker is made tax collector (which puts it
at zero growth for the moment)

350 BC (9) - Havana finishes on library, starts vet Spear. San Cyreno
Cardenas whips its granary now with 38 left (it needs a warrior there asap)

To even out year (and count) I'm turning over now. Akkad can either whip its
library this turn, or you can switch. Due for whipping soon: San Roberto (g4),
(OR switch to temple and plain build), San Rosina (g5), Cetacean (g2). Ellipi
can finish it's library, switch to a military unit or something else (it may
get unhappy when it hits 3). To point out what the 'governor' does, he tried
to steal the Ice Palace's game for El Chupa. Feel free to vary any production
orders (and continue to clue me in better choices). (I'm sorta expecting the "well it would be nice if I could build HARBORS which we desperately need" and weed accusations, but you will be able to get to FP via courthouse quicker)

Good luck,
Charis

While I thought Literature was the best choice after writing, a case could have been made for maps or laws, as those offer some short term options. The iron didn't offer us anything in the short term for this scenerio.

Three defenders per city? Well, see, we have two conflicting interests here. First, we need enough force to deter aggression, or to fight off an invasion. Second, we need as much science as we can muster, which means we can't afford too much military. I would be sorely tempted to gambit for one (1!) defender per city in the north, with a force of horsies and catapults at Ice Palace to respond to any landings. Two defenders in the south, at our more vital (and appealing) cities, with a horsie-catapult force at Havana. Go as thin as we dare. Once contact comes, we will have to beef things up a little.

Now this IS a little risky, but I pretty much think we should be disbanding all those warriors sooner rather than later. On the other hand, if contact is slow in coming, we're going to be sitting around doing not much of anything waiting on tech, at times, and might as well build units when that's the case. I'm a TOTAL opponent of wealth "building" in the early game as even one shield per turn is worth more, and it really is usually good to build more military if all the infrastructure options are complete, until perhaps the industrial age when more and more units are just budget busters if your strategy is peaceful victory.


- Sirian

Iif you want to make the game more accurate you should build all the sanitation and education improvements, Fidel always reminds the worls that although all of the flaws of Cuba, his educational and sanitation sistems are one of the best in the world in his everlasting speeches with his statistics.

Inherited Turn: observe that Ur is at size 6 with a taxman. This COULD BECOME size 7 with an entertainer. So it must be done. Ashur says byebye (quite likely permanently) to the shared cattle, and Ur is set to grow in five turns.

I look over the land, ready to crack my whip, and find that we are not as sad on shields as I anticipated. Ah, the joys of a huge map. Corruption still bad at our far end but not hopeless as this would be on a small map. I decide to spare many cities. Babylon, Ellipi and Akkad, all are set to build libraries and allowed to do so normally. Havana is cranking the troops (I overlooked that I could have had it at 10 shields per turn by taking over the horsie, but so it goes. One turn lost on military production! I fixed this after the next unit was built). I believe I whipped a library at Ninevah, and would soon at Cove. Santa Rosa was MEANT to whip its temple and then a granary, at least that was my plan for it. Charis changed that to granary after the warrior was built... and lo and behold, I find that with two forest squares, this town can get to 3 shields per turn! I swap it over to temple and let it build normally, then it can whip the granary later. A similar decision by Charis at Ice Palace receives a thumbs up. :goodjob:

In the far north, whippings will take place on schedule. Granaries we shall have. However, I note no troop at Guantanamo, so San Cyreno is sacrificed. It starts another warrior.

Then I look at the workers. Uh... why are they mining normal hills in the south, instead of hills with gold deposits. :smoke: Haha! I was thinking I had nothing but praise to offer for this turn, but nope, found some little thing to nag about. :spank: ;) And look! Workers mined the square with horses then left without connecting them! I'll end up spending a worker turn moving back into that square. (Was there a reason for that? I don't think horses -- and rubber -- ever vanish, and we could stand to build some horsies at some point. Plus we are already connecting the other one.) OK, got my nits in, now I feel better. ;)


330BC: As much as we could use more vet spears for martial law, I swap Ninevah and Ashur (half of our barracks towns) to workers. The Age of the Whip and Scythe has dawned.

310BC: Ellipi reaches size 3, is unhappy. I swap around to one coastal and one forest tile, now cranking 4 shields per turn, content, but break-even food. *shrug* Much micromanagement of shared tiles.

290BC: Vet spear from Havana heads to Ellipi. Havana swapped around to get 10 shields per turn, now cranking troops every other turn. Cove library whipped. (Or was that last turn?)

270BC: Cetacean Observation borrows grassland w/ shield from Ninevah. Other shared micromanagement continues. San Tamarino founded on coast.

250BC: UR GROWS TO 7! I zoom the city, note that at our current rate of 20% lux, enough trade can be brought in to get another happy face going! Worker joined to Ur! UR GROWS TO SIZE 8! Now cranking 13 shields per turn (one lost to waste, so 12 net), break even food, one entertainer, and the Great Library due in 20 turns!

I check F11 and we are #1 in the world in literacy! :jump:

I have a warm fuzzy feeling all over. :love: :love2: :D

We are also #4 on territory, #3 on population, high ranking in several other categories, and (heh, no surprise) dead last on military-to-population ratio. We also have all the territory that we ever will, so I expect to see our ranking decline over time. This is good news for now, though. We may just have a shot here.

230-190BC: Granary whippings in the north are undertaken. Infrastructure and worker progress in south is coming along. More troops from Havana shuffled around. Temples and libraries NOT whipped are completed all over the place. I run a deficit (ouch) to speed Code of Laws one turn so that it will be done on my turn.

170BC: Science returned to normal rate. Granary whipped in Ice Palace, and BECAUSE I had slowed its food production, it's set to grow again AFTER the granary is completed. This is a most urgent point: city growth or shrinkage (due to disease) is handled before production. So if you grow on the same turn as a granary is built, you DO NOT get the benefit of the granary (unlike in Civ2). Thus it may save food (and time) to SLOW food growth so that a city will be timed to grow on the turn after granary construction. I've also done this down at Cetacean Observation.

This is also why the worker factory at size 6-7 works so well. City grows to size 7, THEN the production is handled, and if a worker is completed, the city is then shrunk back to size 6, but because of the food peculiarities of granary particulars, is ready to grow again on the next turn. You can crank a worker per turn without your city shrinking. It's all because the food is handled first, the shields second.

This is also a way to squeeze FREE SHIELDS out of cities about to grow. If you are micromanaging tiles within the city, running high food on some turns and high shields on others, you run the high shields FIRST, then run the high food on the tail end, and when the city grows, you get an extra square of shields anyway. (I'm sorry if you don't follow that, that's the best I can explain it. One of my more useful efficiency tricks).

150BC: All is well in Cuba. I may have been wrong about us getting an ancient wonder: at the time I said that, I didn't think we could get Ur to size 7 -- yet now it's at 8! Cross your fingers. This baby may even net us more than one wonder, as it can hibernate on placeholder for extended periods.


Charis: I'm glad you chose Code of Laws. Harbors would have been useful in some situations, but Code of Laws hurries our Forbidden Palace, which is surely the most urgent task in front of us. Ice Palace is ready to WWW its courthouse (whip-wait-whip) and then start on the FP already! Way to go. :goodjob:

I chose mapmaking next. Our economy is now teetering under the cost of granaries. That's always the price of whipping: early production means early maintenance and slower research. I think, generally, it's a good investment, which explains why the AI's do well in ancient research (they build so little, except for settlers) then falter later as their infrastructures fail them. One thing you can do to help is swap Akkad from mined hills to gold hills next turn, after its library is done. This will pick up 2gpt. (Ahem, if that gold hills had mined first...)

Cetacean is ready to whip in 2 turns, and AFTER that it can borrow the grassland again, unless you think Ninevah would benefit more. Chupa and Rosa are set to whip in about six turns I think. They are on high shields now, should be swapped to high food after granaries are whipped. I decided to let Guantanamo build its temple naturally, after which you can sort it out. San Cyreno and San Martino are TOO FAR from Havana to get to 2 shields per turn, so I urge you to whip their temples out at the next earliest opportunity (even if only 25ish shields are whipped, in the one case). Why? Well, keep in mind 1000 year culture bonus, and also that we will eventually swap out of despotism, so it's better to have some whippings on the back end, where they will fade away by the time things get rolling in Republic. If a town can muster 2 shields per turn, less whipping is needed (and less should be done).

GOOD EYE on the eventual low value of courthouses in the north. I agree, skip them everywhere but Ice Palace, get harbors, granaries, temples instead. I think we'll get our fp early enough that it would ultimately cost more than its worth to whip those cities that much.

As for the south, don't whip anybody who can muster 4+ shields per turn. Cove might warrant one more to get a harbor, or maybe not, it's got 3 per turn going now and has been whipped 3 times. Cetacean is probably good to go with 1 whip for granary and 1 for harbor.

The worker in the desert is set to build a road, and bring some irrigation to cetacean. I'd also like to see a road from Ninevah across to the west and started one worker on that assignment. As for roads in the north, it MIGHT be more useful to get mines going, too, as more shields in key cities might reduce how much whipping we would do. We still need more workers, as there is a lot of lengthy work to be doing in the north. Babylon looks like a good site to provide them, or you could crank more from Ninevah and Ashur as I did throughout my turn.

Chin up. I think I see rays of hope for us.


- Sirian

- comments below, I'm about to start turn now... -

I'm feeling a TON more chipper about this game after your report, woo! :hammer:

{The loquacious one also discerns the increased tension of the weedy one with
regard to 'making the right move', and heaps on abundant positive comments
as well - :D - MUCH appreciated}

A brilliant stroke with Ur! :hammer: :goodjob: The thought had occurred to me that if we're
not contacted for, oh, another millenium, we'll never research anything before
the wonder is done and end up with new Palace in Ur. I'm hoping the AI isn't
teasing us, and planning to finish the GL in 13 turns!

> Santa Rosa was MEANT to whip its temple and then a granary, at least that was
> my plan for it. Charis changed that to granary after the warrior was built...
> and lo and behold, I find that with two forest squares, this town can get to 3
> shields per turn! I swap it over to temple and let it build normally, then it
> can whip the granary later. A similar decision by Charis at Ice Palace receives
> a thumbs up.

8-}


> Then I look at the workers. Uh... why are they mining normal hills in the south,
> instead of hills with gold deposits. Haha! I was thinking I had nothing but
> praise to offer for this turn, but nope, found some little thing to nag about.
> And look! Workers mined the square with horses then left without connecting them!

> I don't think horses -- and rubber -- ever vanish, and we could stand ...

Would have seemed an imposter if no nits... but see, even there the border of
ignorance is driven further back. I didn't know horses and rubber didn't
disappear. I just know most of the other good ones do, and too often.

> I swap Ninevah and Ashur (half of our barracks towns) to workers. The Age of
> the Whip and Scythe has dawned.

:hammer: !!! This age was very effective for rbd1 India. Hmmm... ya know...
the thought does occur... A double gambit... an "Economic Worker Crusade" as
it were. Part A: Set up about three-four worker farms, cranking them out every
1,2 or 3 turns. Forgo granaries and use these workers to grow the little cities
to their maximum size straight up. Savings in maintenance, shield cost or whipping
angst, letting them all build libraries instead, perhaps under their own new shield
power. Part B: Forgo military (not totally, but largely), and instead have a
massive, long term whip and scythe program where we work the bloody tar out of
our rock. Spend maintenance costs for units on something productive instead of
on mil units that might not see battle for several hundred years. This long term
thought stems from severeal things: If they come now or real soon with real
military, we're toast. If we get embroiled in a defensive military bog, all our
production and cash and maintenance will get pushed to that, and even if we
survive, we lose, long run. If we *DO* get the GL, we can push the economic
aspect further by no spending on science. Instead build libraries and have a
massive road network and harbors to increase commerce. When the time does
eventually come that the world is all in contact, we can buy the last few techs
cheap that didn't make it through library, and be in a position to try to race
AHEAD on tech. In other words, since the AI really only counts UNITS for military
might, let them count warriors (and workers?) and when we actually FIRST SEE BOATS
swimming by our shores, only then get modern units, whatever that is at the
time. Plus the time from "first sighting" to "capable invasion" will be quite
a while.


> UR GROWS TO 7! ... UR GROWS TO SIZE 8! Now cranking 13 shields per turn
> Great Library due in 20 turns!

Wow... I'm waiting to be floored (still not overhoping cuz it will hurt to lose
it 15 turns from now)

> I check F11 and we are #1 in the world in literacy!
> I have a warm fuzzy feeling all over.

Wow! Double that! :blush: Such warm bubbling over on the ice rock?!

> We are also #4 on territory, #3 on population, high ranking in several other
> categories, and (heh, no surprise) dead last on military-to-population ratio.
> We also have all the territory that we ever will, so I expect to see our ranking
> decline over time. This is good news for now, though. We may just have a shot

F11!!!!! Ah! That's how to find out more about folks even in darkness.
Uh, is that list in order? Are we in some way on top for Havana? In any case,
look at Thebes! Size 2!!! Is our rock a tropical paridise compared to theirs??

Our high literacy, our high GNP and land area suggest that the AI's are in as
bad shape as we are, if not worse! F7 shows only 3 wonders complete, so I'm
thinking there is no contact, no tech trading between them. Until Magellans is
done (or a few hundred years after that), things will stay the same. If we're
ALL in the same low resource, low tech quagmire, the "Economic Worker Crusade"
is even more golden with a 'late contact date'.

> Granary whipped in Ice Palace, and BECAUSE I had slowed its food production,
> it's set to grow again AFTER the granary is completed. This is a most urgent pt

Very good info!!

> This is also a way to squeeze FREE SHIELDS out of cities about to grow. If
> you are micromanaging tiles within the city, running ...

Gotcha. But explain this. That "extra shield" or tile that it works is one that
the COMPUTER/Governor chooses, and it's (from what I've seen) food-centric.
Let's say I'm on a turn about to grow, but two shields short to also finish
the unit. If **I** got to pick that extra tile, I would pick a forest or hill
and ka-ching! I'm done my unit early. But... the computer picks a grassland with
a mine, and gah, I'm stuck with one shield short. I've tried (only sorta) to
go into governor options and tell him "focus on production", but I can't seem to
tell him: "Grab as many shields as possible subject to non-starving" Any ideas
how to do this? It would be a micromanaging coup.

> Charis: I'm glad you chose Code of Laws. Harbors would have been useful...
> but Code of Laws hurries our Forbidden Palace, which is surely the most urgent

Aye... ready to WWW the house and go FP. If the game beneath him isn't already
mined that's going to be a priority.

> I chose mapmaking next. Our economy is now teetering under the cost of
granaries

Worker farm??? Let's see... 14 cities have granaries, 7 don't. Those that
don't could easily be fed by workers I think. Or some subset. Do you tend to
always have granaries for every continental city? I often do, but probably
not more than 3/4 of cities.

As you note, temple whipping (and libary) benefit from the 1000 yr bonus nicely,
and will be targets for the whip. One important note on whipping, according
to some tests lately. Either whip a city boom-boom-boom and be done with it,
or have a 20 turn gap between whippings. The worst thing you can do is to
whip one, wait about 19 turns, then whip, and repeat. (Detailed post later)

> I think I see rays of hope for us.

If the AI isn't just toying with us, I think those rays are quite true,
and quite bright! :lol:

Gonna start my turn now :P
Charis

I see the granaries as must-get in every coastal city, for a couple of reasons.

1) The small fry exist to feed the big fish, not the other way around. (Don't focus too much on improving the fishing villages).
2) Even the worst of these cities are set to do well for us later. The trick is not to rush the population growth. Until the FP is built, the ONLY thing these cities are good for is growing their own food, so let's get the harbors and granaries in place.
3) Hostile enemies can occupy water tiles. It's always a good idea to have the granary food storage, for this and other reasons.
4) As for which cities will do the 6-7 worker dance, it's likely to be different ones at different times. A lot also depends on happiness limitations. Are you confident you can look into the future? See which cities we can afford to never grow on their own? We have a lot to do in order to make these locations viable. We want libraries, markets, universities, cathedrals in EVERY one (except Fort Knox and Chupa, perhaps). Why? To get more population with more coastal tiles into play. More culture, more research, more total power.

We WILL have to do the worker dance, but even the smaller cities are set to grow to size 7, which with no luxuries on hand means a cathedral in each. And we can't afford to buy these off, so they have to build them for themselves.

The granary in Chupa might be extraneous. But then again, with it limited to size 3, what would it matter if it's whipped a bit? The cost per turn is the only thing in question. Cathedrals at 80 shields are affordable and boost culture. We could then whip it all we please, within its population limits, if it had enough pacification. That's perhaps the main reason for the granary in some instances: to do exactly what you suggested: whip several times as closely together as possible, then stop. That's how it's happening at Ice Palace.

The cities can grow on their own in just five turns with granaries and harbors, up to size 7. Isn't that painless enough? Get some there, have them build more and more workers, and we can rejoin workers to size 7+ coastal cities as the worker tasks dry up or happiness slots come open. I just don't see it as worth our time to join workers to cities less than size 7. Let them work the land sooner, and save up a bunch of them, then join them to size 7+ cities later, where the value in food-saved for each is doubled.

I've done quite a bit of these low-food fishing village scenerios (AP4, Desolate Japan, Rumble in the Jungle, and some games you haven't heard about). In situations where a new colony is built too late to benefit from the whip, and must go without a granary, it's often more urgent to get a courthouse going than anything else. This won't be like that, with this FP right there. But I have seen low-food cities and come to the conclusion that I will NEVER choose to build an aqueduct and grow to size 7 without first having a granary, in a city that lives off the sea. It just hasn't been worth it. Growth completely stalls and threat of starvation is too high. Now a higher food city (especially with rails and 6+ extra food) can do it, but that's not what we have going.

Perhaps the main benefit of the granary is keeping 20 food in storage at size 7. This even puts the option of negative food on the table for URGENT projects, and even right now we have a problem with barbarians wandering our waters. Those will cause us no end of grief in shuffling around our city tile assignments once we have harbors online. I find lack of granaries just too constricting. Fort Knox doesn't need a granary, but Chupa depends on what we do with it. Could go either way. If you want to skip it there, I have no objection.

Summary: below size 6, granaries allow speedy city growth. Above 6, they keep that vital food storage.

Is that worth the production and the maintenance? Well... keep this in mind. A city with an extra water tile in place under republic, once the FP is in place, has extra trade coming in which can pay for the granary. If the granary then keeps our average city sizes at 1 higher than they would be without the granaries, I think the best move is to build the granaries asap (behind temples, in some cases). How are we even going to get cities large enough to build the workers in the first place, without the granaries?

And then there's one more point: what use is it NOW to not be on max food production??? The hills haven't been mined, there are no roads, and corruption is out the yingyang. Now maybe once the FP comes online, and we have mined some hills, some of the better cities up there could be switched semi-permanently to break even food. EVEN THEN, it's to our benefit to let them grow on their own from size 6 to 7, with granaries in place, once they have built aqueducts, because 100% of the food that is so painfully gathered is preserved and kept in storage.

That's my take, at least. If you still think otherwise, persuade me. :)


- Sirian

Culls notes above for a todo list...

* Get mined gold hills online ;p
* Watch Ceta and Ninevah and others to see if swapping needed
* WWW Courthouse in Ice Palace
* Whip Cetacean in 2 then borrow grassland
* Whip Chupa and Rosa in about 6, then go high food
* Let Guantanamo build temple naturally
* Whip Cyreno and Martino temples
* Build road and irrigate to Ceta, then Ninevah to the west
* Need more workers (Babylon, Ninevah or Ashur)
- Finish mapmaking and get harbors out soon (not quite)
- Mines in key spots up north (didn't quite reach)

150 BC (0) - I count about 17 mil units short of '2 per town' for happiness
and plan to build NO MORE mil units after that for the next 500 yrs :P
There are 5 mils queued up.
Ellipi? With 4 shields that barracks looks natural.

Cove courthouse with no corruption? Must be a harbor placeholder.
But that's not due for 18 turns, and shields will be wasted. Let's
slip in a worker as an intermediate :P Holguin and Cardenas seem to
have placeholders for Harbor.

130 BC (1) - 'W' for Ice Palace. ALMOST forget to take it off barracks ;p
Trips the middle w for one turn improvement: I disband the warrior for
2 shields, allowing an immediate second whip of 38 shield. His shields
will be bought back first round Palace comes online.

110 BC (2) - Whip Temple in San Cyreno, granary in Cetacean. Toy with
whipping in a Library in Ice, but it's had enough! On to the FP!

90 BC (3) - Cyreno starts on a granary (swap if needed, same for Guantanamo's
granary started next turn). The new units and structures are strapping us,
Maps will take a little longer now. San Martino whips temple.

70 BC (4) - Santa Rosa and Chupa whip their granaries. Cetacean whips his
Library. Rosa and Ceta get Courthouse placeholders for Harbor.

50 BC (5) - Quiet turn. Went whale watching!

30 BC (6) - Couple of more workers show up. Mining the iron, but not
planning to connect it. Gold mined hills online :hammer:

10 BC (7) - San Cyreno expands. (Quiet turn if that's the news!)

10 AD (8) - A new Millenium! Celebrations ring throughout the land!
But... folks are encouraged to stay off the weed during this party!
Martino and Guantanamo party so hard they expand. To try to get Maps
on time before Harbor placeholders finish, Akkad goes wealth. (Stop
gap measure, I don't care much for wealth usually.) Micromanaging Ellipi,
I get a zero net loss gold for now. Cardenas hits three and short a second
military police. Make a tax collector there for one turn til help arrives.

30 AD (9) - Managing...

50 AD (10) - Great Library should arrives in 5 turns! :hammer:
Appropriately, on Sirian's turn. You might get some better tiles
or intracity sharing, or even better, an extra dollar or two. It's
tight, now at -1 gpt, Treasury at 16 and Map Making due in 11.
Notice in the latter half nothing got whipped. Well, the cities that
need it are size 1, but good thing anyway, maintenance-wise. (Roberto
and Tamarino are near size 2 and will probably want a temple whip)
The Ice Palace and Chupa grow next round. Make sure Palace gets choice
game square if needed.

Good luck,
Charis

PS Just saw your response as I'm posting this. Skimmed, and seems all granaries all around is way to go. No problem them, finish them up as maintenance cost allows.

Inherited Turn: I take those production cities OFF wealth. The sad thing about wealth in the ancient age is that you need NINE shields per turn to get TWO gold per turn. Any less and you only get one. So... some hopelessly corrupt city can sit on wealth with little pain, but 3-5 shields per turn for just one gold? That's desperation. :)

OK, so what to do? First up, Fort Knox. Until such time as the FP is completed, no sense letting this outpost grow to size 2. I flip it to a taxman. That's costing us... zero. I swap Ellipi and Babylon around for max gold configs, and while this nets zero gold, it does add 4 science per turn. Deficit now at -2 and I place my faith in providence and click next turn.

70AD: Swap Ashur to library. MMOW. Babylon grew to 6, deficit down to -1. Worker force of 6 in the north is moved onto the iron to mine.

90AD: Temples whipped at Roberto and Martino (or was that last turn?)

110AD: Roberto and Martino put on wealth. (They are due for harbor whippings anyway, so once again, these bits of wealth are costing us nothing). This is the last shot for the AI's to steal the wonder from us. My hand hovers over the mouse button...

130AD: AI's run through their turns, nobody completes any wonders. IT'S OURS!

150AD: Ur completes library. (Of the great variety). Starts another. ;)

170-190AD: Various whippings. Cities in the north on and off of wealth.

210AD: China completes the Great Lighthouse. :eek:

We beat them to the GL by just THREE turns. [dance] Don't ask me how we pulled this one out of the hat, as I honestly have no idea. :lol:

Science boosted to 40% for one turn, running -10 deficit with 13 in the treasury... to speed Mapmaking by one turn.

230AD: Ur finishes library (again?), starts harbor. Cove harbor whipped at 38 shields. Placeholders galore switched to harbor all across Cuba. Fort Knox swapped from taxman to alchemist, science dropped to zero, Babylon and Ellipi configured to high shields. Chupa riots (oops) and I redirect a spare warrior toward it. One turn of zero science nets us 18 gold, reviving our treasury off of the respirator.

250AD: The people celebrate the end of my reign by expanding the palace and throwing a huge celebration!

[party] :love:


San Charisso is set to finish temple on its own. If the mine can get it to 3 shields it would be best left unwhipped. If not, I don't know. It's running 2 per now, which ain't bad.

Roberto and Martino (or is that Lola? I forget) are set to WWW. Martino/Lola(?) needs a second troop. Rosa and Holguin should not be whipped. DO NOT let Chupa grow past size 3. Cyreno is kinda fubar, it's the most backward village. At this point, I'd rate the harbor more urgent, so what you can do is wait for the optimal moment to whip the granary, do so, then swap to harbor and let it finish in 20.

Because Ice Palace was whipped three times in about six turns (granary, www-courthouse-dotcom) it will riot if it grows past size 3, so I waited for the iron to be mined, then swapped it to max shields, break-even food, and let Guan borrow one of its game. We are just going to have to wait ~50 turns now. At least we know what the timeframe will be. There's no way to speed FP construction, the game ignores disbanded units and lumberjacking for all wonders, greater or lesser, and there's no way to increase the shields any further. We'd have been worse off without the courthouse, so this is the best we could hope for.

As a result, our science situation is the next "groundbreaking" decision to be made. I see a couple of options:

Plan A: Research Philosophy at our fastest available pace, then swap to zero science, run an alchemist beaker out of Fort Knox, and pull in Republic 40 turns later (unless AI's show up off our shores to GIVE it to us via the GL first).

Plan B: Research Mathematics at full tilt, then Construction OR Currency at 40 turns.

Plan C: Research Polytheism at full tilt, then Monarchy at 40.

Plan D: Stop researching right here and now and wait on the AI's with what we have going.

Plan 9 From Outer Space: continue full research indefinitely.


I'm in favor of Plan A because it ensures us Republic option right about the time the FP comes online, no matter what our opponents are up to, and most if not all the whippings we're doing RIGHT NOW will have worn off. (We need to lay off the whip once the harbors in the north are completed or given a boost -- we can handbuild libraries quickly enough once the FP is online). Monarchy would be a different form of goverment, same corruption benefits as Republic but less trade, but... we'd have a shot at the Gardens. Construction could let us build not only aqueducts but also colleseums. Currency would let us build markets to increase our profits in a different way (but remember, the luxury part of markets is probably useless to us this game). A difficult choice... and it's entirely in your hands now.

The choice will be yours to make. If you opt for one of the research plans, think about what I did on my last two clicks: I ran higher science at a deficit one turn, zero science the next. Net result, breakthrough one turn early, and +12 net gold after 2 turns. Now why did this happen? It's the peculiarities of libraries under weak/corrupt economies, with no marketplaces in effect. If you go in on inherited turn and slide science to 60%, you'll note that it says Philosophy in 4 turns. But the deficit is such that you'd have to run TWO turns of ZERO science in advance to build the treasury high enough to stand that deficit. So total turns taken would be 12. Compare that to steady running at 20%, which would take 15 turns. (Yeah I know this is REALLY pushing the micromanagement to squeeze blood from a turnip, but we are pretty hard up against it. Think about if we had been just 4 turns slower on the Great Library, or had not researched Literature in time). Harbors coming online and cities growing will throw a wrench into any long term plan you make, but consider the ultra-micro management of surplus-deficit seesaw research and see what you come up with. (Just don't go :smoke: for a turn and let the treasury be bankrupted!) :)

As for the economy, you can pull more gold by swapping Ellipi and Babylon back to max trade configs, IF you see a greater need for trade over quicker harbor production. Cove is on wealth while it runs max food to grow to at least size 3. (Need a spearman down there for martial law, the city has been whipped several times, although only once lately). Guantanamo is on wealth pending a chance to whip more toward its harbor. Might sqeeze some cash out of some other cities, but try not to put our major players on wealth if you can avoid it. Babylon can better spare the shields than Ellipi, as it's maxed out and has plenty of other food, while Ellipi is more in need of its harbor. Ur can be put on the fish once its harbor is done (we DON'T want it to grow again, but it wouldn't hurt to store more food when the shields aren't running). After the harbor, it's got nothing left to build, so maybe try for another wonder there? It can hold out over 50 turns, I think. Worst case, shields that would have gone to wealth or military units go to waste.

China having the Lighthouse, if they are near us we can expect contact soonish. If not, who knows. I spotted sea currents west of Ellipi my last reign but forgot to mention it. Looks like ocean everywhere else.


Good luck with the harbor building. :fish:

- Sirian

On wealth, I'm not a big fan, but I didn't like the possible flip side. Saving a
few shields in a petty town costing us a lot of wasted shields in more productive
towns when the timing for harbor was thrown off. Sounds like you did great to
shift thing around and guide us into Harbor making :goodjob:

> 150AD: Ur completes library. (Of the great variety).

Woo!!! :hammer:

> Starts another

:lol: LMAO! Well... why not? Oh wait, I thought u meant started another
placeholder for a wonder, not library. (BTW I don't value the chances, or
the utility of Gardens much in this game)

> 210AD: China completes the Great Lighthouse.
:eek:

> Fort Knox swapped from taxman to alchemist, science dropped to zero
oh good, oh first read I missed this and thought "now he DID make a scientist
if he set to zero, right??"

I like the tip on max sci then zero sci. I thought I noticed that happening,
but wasn't sure if it was an optical illusion or what. As for trying to squeeze
blood from a turnip... that's my vocation!

TODO from notes:
* San Charisso is set to finish temple on its own
* Roberto and Martino set to WWW
* Martino/Lola needs 2nd troop
* Spare Rosa and Holguin the whip.
= Don't let Chupa grow past size 3
- Cyreno, use a granary whip to speed up harbor
- Ice Palace stuck at 3 due to rioting that would occur
- Harbor for Ur then and start another wonder
- Think over science choices: zero now, or gun Philo (to Repub), Math (to Constr
or Curr) or Polytheism (to Monarchy)

Other thoughts...
- I'm going to *hope* that the lack of contact and us getting GL is a sign
that the AI is scraping, and may not find our ice rock for many years yet to
come. That means no military beyond MP, pushing gold, not relying on GL to
kick in until it FLOODS in much later, and it means researching our own next
line of govt. Having that online around same time as FP would be good.
If and when "first contact" is made it will call for a full scale re-evalution
and rapid response.
- Which govt? I don't think the corruption factor will really matter, since
we're talking post-FP, and all our cities are on one island, never to build
more in far-off lands. Both are pay-rush, 100% efficiency, an irrelevant draft
rate (for now... we ARE religious and could switch fast if needed)
Monarchy has MP 3 and 2/4 unit support for our small/size7 cities. That's
versus Republic with 1 extra commerce on each square already producing one.
The math on that... with 21 cities, extra cash would be about sum(sizes)+nCities
with roads on all worked squares (which they should be but aren't quite yet).
That value is 85, and doing an actual count with current squares is 75
(Missing: Ellipi 2, Cardenas 1, Rosa 2, Chupa 1, Lola 2, Cyreno 1, Tamarino 1)

Number of units, which would all cost under Republic, is 66. Allowed under
Monarchy would be 44. The cost difference in maintenance is 22. We would need
to keep THREE extra citizens content, with no cathedrals for a looong time to
come I think. How to calculate that? I'm not sure 8-\ Playing with the
slider suggest that's about three 'notches' on the luxury slider, which for us
now has a cost differential of 35 gold per turn (49 vs 15).
Revenue of 85 balancing 35 extra luxury costs + 25 main costs leaves Republic
out ahead by a good bit right now, decreasing as number of units increases.
But... as number of citizens increases, the extra commerce squares are pure
extra bonus in republic. Before doing the math I though Monarchy would win.

Viva la Cuban Republic! Here's the turn...

250 AD (0) - The party atmostphere continues, and the Mayor of Ur is
sent off to a well deserved vacation. In hit stead they bring in,
oddly enough, a Fisherman to run the nation for the two hundred years.
He finds all is in splendid order on his arrival. ("Oh great, a perfect
situation where the only noteworthy thing I can do is screw up!")
Hmm... our 'max rate' for steady-state science is merely 20% (15 turns vs 39)
We push to 40% then will back to zero and cycle...

260 AD (1) - Ninevah pops Spearman, starts Worker. We have 41 mil units and
need 44 for 2 per city. That leaves Havana to pop us 3 more.
Cetacean whispers... "psst!! 38 shields, whip me!" But the fisherman is
appalled! "Whip you?? So you can build what, wealth?? That will only stunt
your growth and is unneeded. Build my child, build!" Cardenas also beckons
with 21 turns to harbor. But... it's got everything else it needs, and will
take 50 for FP so why rush? Let it heal! Roberto and Martino, otoh, have seen
less of the whip and can stand ONE more, with it's one shield output. Rosa is
spared only by request. It's 3 shield output save it. Later on, compare
happiness of Rosa and Roberta, who differ in one whipping right at this
juncture.

270 AD (2) - Cyreno grows, what to do. The plan of whip-granary-switch to
harbor sounds good, frontloading the whipping, with no more to be done,
letting the city complete the harbor in its own time. Roberto and Martino,
done with the whip, now kicks back to complete a library on their own in
forty yrs. The extra horses in Havana are dispatched for MP duty.
I almost miss Ninevah being unhappy.

280 AD (3) - MMOW. Ninevah and Ur swap a shield.

290 AD (4) - Cyreno WWx done. He has 20 years both to grow and finish
the harbor, so that will erase memory of latest whip. Ninevah-Ceta
ping pong continues, as does the bloody turnip science drill.

300 AD (5) - Ur about to finish harbors, takes in some extra food. The
mine does NOT take Charisso to three shields (corruption) and so it
decides to a half-whip of the harbor instead (switch, whip library, switch back)
Decide to start a half-whip of Guantanamo's harbor too. (Lola will get
same after her temple done.)

310 AD (6) - Ur finishes harbor, starts... placeholder :p (Keep at 8, eh?)
Fort Knox finishes Temple (finally!) and starts granary.

320 AD (7) - Fishing vacation.

330 AD (8) - Ellipi finishes harbor, and with zilch left to build, considers
wealth to ease the crunch but interjects a worker order first.

I 'investigate' the sadness at Ice Palace. By sliding MP out,
cranking down luxury, the sliding back to restore, I can see that Ice Pal
has memory of TWO whippings at this stage. Pop 4 would be 3 due to size,
two for the whips, vs the temple and two MP, and one from luxury. Can't
quite cover it with our going 20% luxury rate. We can in fact handle it at
size 4 now with our going 20% luxury rate. I let it grow. I also see in
this test that Akkad has no memory of whippings (huh?!) Ceta has a memory
of 1 whip, Holguin has none. Rosa and Cardenas have forgotten.

Anyway, the quick test to see if you can rise a size w/o unhappiness
is to slide one MP out, see if any unhappy faces, and return him (it's
via road obviously).

340 AD (9) - More fishing.

350 AD (10) - Lola finally finishes her temple, and begs the next leader
to whip her in WWW fashion! Cetacaean also finishes its harbor.
Treasury at 21, expenses net 20 with 'up' sci rate of 40% (darn, 2 turns
if we could only sustain it). At zero sci though it's 29 turns. Hmmm, that's
only ten turns less than it was 10 turns ago. Ah, sweet, it's only
4 turns away at 'Steady-state', 20%. So over this reign the flipping
saved one turn (14 vs 15 turns). The turnip bleeds, just one drop :hammer:
Actually, very good chance that that '4' will turn into 3 as you almost
always get to drop back at that last turn when it's due. Soon... (well, 40 yrs)
the Republic!

EVERY city now has two MP units stationed in it (Knox's is on the way)
There's just one 'extra' unit which can be stored in Ur or Havana,
or replace a warrior. Havana and Ninevah are producing one extra for
Havana and Ur. Until contact is made, that should be enough.

The amount of whips left, overall, is small. Most have had their 'three'
and need to heal for a good while. The only ones left I see are Lola's
and Tamarino's harbor, and Knox Granary.

I know you'll check out the cities, Ur will need definite attention (and Ninevah
might if it reaches 6), but this turn its generating the cash to keep us positive. You can probably eek out some more cash over the rock.

So, do we see a few hundred years of peace or does someone land on our shore
next turn? (I SURE hope the former) Does us getting the GL in any way
"announce" us to the world?

Good luck,
Charis

Here's the situation in 350 AD, as we sit in perfect isolation, awaiting our Forbidden Palace 36 turns from now :hammer:

Charis

One thing I intend to do with military is continue to build spears at Havana. These will continuously be sent around to replace warriors, which can be trucked to some needy village and disbanded for 2 shields. What else is Havana going to do? Build wealth? Workers? We will have the economy to pay for some troops. I'd rather build infrastructure than troops, but I'd rather build more troops than sit on wealth in major cities. Worst case, build spears and send them around to be disbanded for five shields in needy locations. That's only if lack of contact drags on and ON, though. I don't think it will come to that. The AI's are so expansionistic, somebody ought to find us by the time our FP comes online. This IS, after all, an 80% water map, so they won't be endlessly occupied like they were in RBD3.

Some more tips: check the advisors. Science advisor will tell you if you are "technologically advanced" "moderately advanced" or "as backward as a pushcart going the wrong way down a one way street". :lol: Trade advisor will clue you in to who would want to trade for luxuries/resources we have sitting around. Military advisor can let you know what government each opponent is in.

Oh, and good one with the "move the military out to have a look" trick. I've done that on scattered instances, but not quite for the same purpose. I'll keep an eye on our whipped cities and see what comes of it.

- Sirian

Inheritance: Nothing significant to report, all is well in Cuba. Previous Leader left nothing to nit over. (No, really!)

360AD: MMOW

370AD: MMOW.

380AD: After 30-0-30 science, we discover Philosophy, drop to zero research, send a small team of elite alchemists to Fort Knox to mull over possibilities for improving our government.

390AD: MMOW. Yawn. Click next turn, expecting five more turns of MMOW. A galley moves into our area via sea currents from the west. Um... it has more than two hit points.

Still in between turns, we THEN get news that the Zulu have completed the Great Wall. (Wow! The Zulu?? Oh man).

Wait! Still not done! One of "our" four barb galleys attacks the German "intruder" and gets slaughtered.

400AD: A new era has dawned! We are too poor to establish embassy, but time for some intel gathering. F8 yields cultural dominance for us (no surprise), also score dominance, but they have been slowly catching up since that last flurry of settlers in the north. It does appear they may one day pass us.

Now the bad news: we are also the first civ THEY have contacted, and we need two contacts to make the Great Library active. Also, they have every tech we have, so we can't sell them anything, and we also have every tech THEY have. Nothing else I can do.

410AD: Establish embassy in Berlin, it is QUITE some bit of distance away, and landlocked. Looks to be on a river, was size 8 I think. 9 culture per turn, every improvement we have plus courthouse. Only about 350 total culture? Most of those improvements are recent, I would suppose. I am dismayed to find market value for RoP at only 30 gold to us. I ask for 20 and they agree without complaint. Attitude improved to polite.

420AD: MMOW.

430AD: Second of "our" galleys attacks. German ship now elite.

440AD: MMOW.

450AD: Third galley goes down. Still not a scratch on the Germans. (If you think the fourth and final galley will take out the Germans, I have some tropical beachfront property to sell you in Santa Lola. :lol: ) My turn ends.


I built a lot of walls in the south, had most of them going before the Germans arrived. Their galley is circling us clockwise, and let us pray they find another civ soon. Wouldn't it be ironic as all get out to have company, but just ONE other civ until way way late. Gah. Pray it ain't so!

San Cyreno could whip toward a granary, either front or back end, your call. I'm astonished to say it, but we have almost completed work on our island. (How can this be?? We seemed so far short not all that long ago!) What we will do with all those extra workers when we switch govt, I have no idea. :) There's not much sense mining the tundra (in most cases). We'd only plant over it anyway.

I built a number of spearmen. Disbanded four or five warriors, have others moving toward the disbanding area. Cyreno was helped by this process. The Germans have made me nervous, a militaristic civ. I think we should run 3 spears and a horsie in Ur, just to make sure they understand it's defended. Holguin actually looks like a possible courthouse candidate! Maybe it will shape up when the FP comes in, it IS a little closer, but I have some doubts. Ellipi may also want for a courthouse at some point, it can lose between 20 and 34% of shields, but maybe both of these will ease up with change of govt. The rest all look OK.

We sure could use more tech, to get started on infrastructure improvements. Pending such, just keep moderning the military, and wait and see what the AI's do. Check with Germany often.

One very good sign: "These guys are weak compared to our military!" Hahaha! :lol:


- Sirian

I would say "build some catapults" but... we don't have the tech. :cry:

I just hope more good things happen before FP time and revolt to Republic. If not, we could be in for some hard choices. I think we've done quite well so far, but there are difficult times ahead, it seems.


- Sirian

The best thing is...

One very good sign: "These guys are weak compared to our military!" Hahaha

:hammer: all right! My worse fears of being "discovered" by knights that made our military look like boy scouts, is dashed!

> I would say "build some catapults" but... we don't have the tech.

At one point mid-last turn I sort of startled myself and thought, "oh my, why aren't we preparing catapults", then I remembered that Mathematics had escaped us. It is kinda funny too we're their first contact. What I find REALLY odd though is that their techs are *identical* to ours! Pretty low odds I'm thinking. Question: if they offer a tech trade, decline on basis we'll get it via Library, or take it so we can build something (alas, then so can they). I would guess that if we're hunting for decent choices to use shields on go for it, else not. OTOH, we would expect to pay almost whatever is asked for more contact, because that's how we'll get GL techs.

On the Spearmen at Havana, good idea - I meant to suggest that, replacing the Warriors. Using them as a "shield caravan" is actually a great idea too. As for leftover workers... once we get the ground worked over enough to cover their max sizes, once we switch to Republic and get FP, many workers can join the small cities and get them to max and productive size instantly.
They can be built later at less cost than the shield gain, and with no maintenance in between.

Extra military in Ur, Havana and in 'resource' cities is a must.

Now it goes from a 'pure' building game to diplomacy.
Charis

Looking to...
- develop good relations with Germany giving nothing away
- get Republic in 40 turns
- finish any city improvements left
- get a few extra defenders in key cities
- get some walls up
- consider a Cyreno granary whip

But to start with, I thought very long and hard to squeeze more blood from a
different turnip.

I checked the Ice Palace at the beginning of the turn and saw that it now
only has one whipping memory left, no longer two. At size 3 that makes for two
unhappy due to size and one to whipping, taken care of by two MP and the temple.
At size four we would need a smiley face due to luxury revenue IN the Ice
Palace. At present we have commerce of 3 per turn, minus one corruption.
Moving a worker to a square with gold, we get 4 per turn but two corruption.
With one more worker, all on gold squares, it should be 5 commerce and
two corruption. Three net times 20% luxury gives 0.6 smilies, which are
rounded up. At size four we CAN handle the sadness of the whipping if
we have the workers each on a square with commerce. We can get the same
shield production, or maybe (?!) one more shield, with our choice of from
-2 to +1 excess food. Net difference?? When all is said and done, with no
other changes, not TOO much. I think we get one extra gpt, and an extra food
squares (2.2.1) for Guantanimo Bay, and when FP is done, Ice Palace is size 4.

But there's ONE extra thing to try. This too will be seen as utterly weed
induced or a picomanagement stroke of genious?! There IS a way to speed up
FP production by *four* whole turns... Hook up the iron for the next
20 turns! i) Bringing a commerce point to that square lets us stay content
at size 4 using the square, ii) that runs 10 shield production, with six
instead of five 'actual' shields. That's a 20% bonus cutting the time to
the fp by 4 turns. That's a lot. iii) It let's us make at least ONE swordsman,
and I think (??) the AI's ask the question: what is the maximum attack value
unit they have, when considering a nation's strength. ("The xyz's fear your abc")
iv) We can 'pillage' the road after the FP is up and de-connect the iron.
v) Germany has Iron and won't see us as unwilling to 'share' something we have
and they need. The only downside (if of course I've not messed up the math)
would be if the iron were to run out. Frankly one can't be blamed for that.
It's a low, low probability event (which some of us HATE and others think is
good), which could happen if it's connected now or connected later. Whenever
we hook it up to stay, we're toast if it dies within 20 turns anyway.

The plan is executed!!! (The question is... will Charis be executed?!)

450 AD (0) - Ice Palace takes back a 2.2.1 square from Guantanimo to grow
to size four in two turns, same shield production. Three workers who just
started tasks next to the iron move over to start road next turn.
(Holguin has no whipping memory, so the Library is whippe... no wait.
We COULD, with no problem, but there's actually no gain. We're running no
science, it has nothing better to make, and it would result in a maintenance
cost. Nevermind.)

In between turns, we get this unexpected report...

No weed, at least not yet :P

English destroyed eh?


460 AD (1) - Ellipi grows unhappy and finishes a spearman, so we start a
worker. Cove finishes walls and we start a "cash-horse" (one we will disband
elsewhere for shields). Chupa starts cash horse too. Lola grows to size 2,
should the harbor be whipped? She has memory of one whipping, and is likely
close to forgetting about it. Why reset their memory timer and add a second
unpleasant memory. There are four warriors standing in the middle of nowhere.
They yearn to help complete an important project. So they are sent to Lola.
San Roberto, now size four and with memory of two whippings, is unhappy.
The unhappy whiner is put on tax collection duty.

470 AD (2) - Bablyon finishes Spear, starts Spear. How many more do we need?
With 28 Spears and 22 cities, a lot more. 14 to build, at least, replacing
about 13 warriors. For workers finishing roads in tundra, I mine spots
which could be chosen by two cities, for flexibility, and leave others
to wait for forestry. Ice Palace is now size four and shifts citizen from
iron square to a forrest with road for the commerce. Phew! We ARE content
with that maneuver. 25 turns from FP, let's get that road online!

Cyreno grows to size two and is at 38 shields. (Is that asking for a whipping
or what? A granary is needed, and is a logical choice. Front whip or rear
whip? Depends when last one was done- if very recent, whip now, if >10 turns,
back whip. It has memory of one right now. The annals report a temple whip
in 110 BC, and partial harbor whip in 290 BC twelve turns later. That was
18 turns ago. Ah, excellent! Should be erased in about 2 turns, we'll whip then)

480 AD (3) - Between turns the Chinese city of Xinjian completes the Hanging
Gardens. The iron road comes online and instead of 24 turns to the FP, now
we're 20 turns away! :hammer: (Odd minor point... the road appeared right
at the start of the turn. Perhaps automated worker improvements are
factored in before happiness calculations. Sorta like food before production.
Hmm... would an automated irrigation set to finish kick a city one food
short up to a new size? I'll have to test that). We start to make our
four requested swordsmen. (Can sell 'em later ;p) BTW that's three wonders
for China, one each for Aztecs, Babs, Zulus and Egpyt. Seems a half-military
half-builder game. Our ranking is 1000 compared to Germany's 757, nice.
F11... whoa!! Ur is in the top five! :hammer: We're up in approval, pop.

490 AD (4) - Cyreno? Tada! The annals are correct, it has this turn lost all
memory of earlier cruelty. So we whip it! (via barracks toward granary)
Quite conventiently, 20 turns left to finish granary, so when it's done...
so is the memory of THIS whipping. San Rosa has a little party, as three
brave warriors give their all for 6 shields toward her harbor.

500 AD (5) - Havana, our beautiful capitol, expands its influence. At this
the people expand the palace. All else is quiet.

510 AD (6) - Santa Rosa expands. MMOW. Decide to let Knox grow one to get
a whipping in now. (Prolly should have done this much earlier)

520 AD (7) - The Germans sail away! Good, now stay away until you meet someone
else to introduce us to!

530 AD (8) - Knox gets its half whip. That effect will be 'over' when the
granary is complete in 20 turns.

540 AD (9) - The German scientists finally come up with something we don't
know... Mathematics. World Map and 300 gold??? HA!! No thanks, we'll get
it for free as soon as you get your little rubber dingie ship off to the
west somewhere and MEET somebody! What else do we learn? They fear our
"swordsmen" (hehe) and are equal in science and military. (Mil advisor says
compared to these guys in Despotism we have a strong military) In fact we're
at 86 of 88 'free' troops. (Well... they count workers as troops :P No wonder
the Germans fear us! Our shovel patrol could STOMP them!!! :hammer:)

550 AD (10) - San Charisso reaches size 2. You can go for growth in five
turns, or build library in 20, but not both. It's currently set in between.
You can also if desired whip the library (for culture sake and now that it
can grow to six via harbor). In 300 AD it was whipped last, so it's over that.
Hmmm... actually, he's got a warrior sitting there. I disband and whip right
now. :P There is a spearman en route from Havana for San Charisso.
Holguin and Ashur are one food short of growing which would make them
unhappy so I rearranged them to zero growth. Akkad is on high commerce and
one shield, so he's on wealth for one more gold. Cardenas same way.

I see no more whippings to do, unless a courthouse is needed. This is good,
it's only 13 turns before the FP comes online, 22 til Republic. Exceptions:
Tamarino and Knox, our latest built cities will need the whip yet.

We have at this point 7 warriors left, to cash in (or to upgrade for 40 gold
to Swordsmen, not the best use of cash although they would cash in then for
more shields). There's one extra warrior now in Ashur which still has a move
this turn. Send him to a needy project or upgrade.

I don't think I've **ever** seen a road network or such total mining/irrigation
of usable squares by 500 AD. :P

Good luck!
Charis

Not much to report this turn. MMOW.

I managed to sneak some walls in on a few towns (noticed that all walls I'd left unfinished last turn got the veto stamp.) :)

I took your advice with disbanding troops. Rather than build them and disband, however, I disbanded ones already in position then replaced them. All warriors are now history. All nonvet units are history.

Good move with the iron, and the swords. I don't object, just didn't want to start placing it at risk until we could get something useful out of doing so.

I left all cities with 1 shield on wealth. Some libraries got worked on in cities with more shields. Libraries already under construction got boosted with disbanded units, as did granaries.

Reconfigured Ellipi to sustain size 6. Started it on a courthouse, as I think in this location it will pay for itself, and then some, over time.

Germans were quiet. I THOUGHT I was being clever in trying to sell them some of our extra workers, but the option wasn't there. Guess a viable trade route is needed for that.

I urge the German RoP just be left alone. Asking for more cash from them might not be the best plan, diplomatically, and they would only cough up chump change, if that. We're sliding in the F11 stats, but sitting idle will do that. Germany now has both math and Republic, and have completed their revolution. They now seem to be making bookoodles of gpt. One of their cultural borders is peeking from the fog, so they have at least one city just off the edge of our vision. No sign of anybody else, no world news. FP due in 3 turns.

Just be careful with the horsies from Cove, they are not veteran, so those can't "replace" others you may disband. Also, we are just one unit under the maintenance cap. I actually PAID some maintenance on my turn before all the surplus units reached target sites and were disbanded.

I wanted to start building some fortifications, but... we don't have that tech yet either. So for lack of something to do, I mined a lot of tundra. Go ahead and build libraries everywhere in the north once the FP is online. I suggest no more whippings, we're too close to the revolution now.


- Sirian

:sheep:

650 AD (0) - All looks fine. Ninevah tentatively moved to Courthouse.

660 AD (1) - Cyreno size 2 and 39 shields to Library, ready for a whipping.
Checking the records and double-MP-walkout shows we should wait 3 turns
for previous memory to fade. Lola starts a Library in prep for whipping soon.

670 AD (2) - :party: Forbidden Palace is now online! :hammer:
Our excess gold jumps from 35 to 61, a not-insignificant jump!
Ice Palace can now crank a waste-free 10 shields per turn (at no-grow).
That will do it's Library in 4 turns. Guantanimo gets waste-free 5/turn
as it sits now. Decent!! Wait til Republic! (10 more turns) Going to aim
for production of real units to finish in 10 turns or less.
Lola, still at one shield, whips her library. Tamarino starts a library,
we may send him some 'shield-horses' to help it complete.
Ninevah with two waste and two corruption decides to proceed with its
courthouse.

680 AD (3) - All pause to meditate on the awesome wonder that is the Forbidden
Palace. All vow to commit themselves to education and the glory of Cuba!

690 AD (4) - Cyreno forgets what it is like to be whipped. We remind him :hammer:

700 AD (5) - 720 AD (7) - MMOW.

730 AD (8) - Cove takes up science duty for a few turns so Knox can whip
a Library.

740 AD (9) - Germany remains polite, with 45 gold, and the same two techs,
Math and Republic. Oops, can't whip Knox which is only size one. Start
growing it.

750 AD (10) - Ur and Lola expand. Knox and Tamarino finish Library.
1289 gold in treasury +63/turn. Anything built is due in 3 or less turns,
Republic due in 3. The scientist is now in San Martino. (He thought it was
San Martini!!) At this rate wall street would be nice :P Speaking of which
Ur is at 24 turns. We may not research anything by then. But when we do start
researching our own, **EVERY* city has a Library now!! On the Demographics
chart, Thebes zooms to first place (up from 2 to 12 in size) and we're at 3 and
5 with Havana AND Ur. Germany is NOT on the list, but China and Aztecs are.
Our approval rating continues to climb, we're still top in Literacy, and
holding solid in the middle in other categories.

The only real question coming up is which tech next? Actually just two
choices Mathematics and Polytheism. One gives catapults and leads to
Construction, and Currency, the other to Monarchy. Hmm, no choice at all
is it? (Especially with Hanging gardens already built by ) E=mc2!

Usher us into a new government of excellence! (Preferably without revolt.
Mouse click on center square right arrow key combo does this quickly ;p)
Although... we'll only be out of commision 1 turn being religious :hammer:
I think I predicted about 30 extra gpt under republic, but we've bloated up
to about 30 extra units to support, so our gold may not increase much.
OTOH, our science/beakers should go way up. If we're 11th in getting these
last ancient techs, we might care to research our own, maybe in 4 to 8
turns each without much deficit at all, I'm not sure. If not we'll have
nothing whatsoever to build until German contacts someone.

Oh, I hope you like the arrangement of the idle workers up North. Muhahaha!
Under republic with no MP we have the option of moving the second mil unit
to the coast and being unassailable pre-Marines!

Let me toss out a long shot that goes against the "ride-the-GL". what if...
the others STILL have not found each other? If they haven't by now, they
won't until Astronomy! What if we go for break-even science research for the
last three techs in our era at 6-7 turns each for 20 turns. We enter the
Middle Ages, and *we're scientific*. That free tech advance and one more we
research, mean we might (???) get SunTzu or Leo's with good denying power, or
the most excellent Sistine's. We could slow Ur's shield rate down to JUST
make this time frame. In any case, snagging Math and even currency at break
even research rate would give us something to do and keep this route open.
If still no contact by then, we might get a second 'miracle' wonder?!
This seems too low probability, wastes our first wonder, and burns our
cash reserve, so I'm not suggesting it, just tossing it out. If we DON'T
research more actively and no new contacts, Ur will complete the Palace
long before a wonder-tech is learned.

Good luck,
Charis

looking at your world map, I see one thing that you may consider doing. And that is moving the palace to Ashur. It looks to be a rather good site for a palace, and is more central/productive than Babylon.

Anyway, have fun :)

Actually their capital is Havanna, just south of Ashur, which has some decent terrain in the form of flood plains and hills (i.e. makes a good no-corruption city) and is in a reasonably central location already. Probably not worth moving the capital into the middle of the desert...

I came up in several games at once, so... I'll get to this one when I can. I've done RBD3 (that one's going to start taking quite a bit longer to play 10 soon), need to do infantry, got 5 brewing, and maybe more (need to check). Depending on how long those go, I'll fit in another turn here sooner or later.

:fish:

- Sirian

Good deal, this one is meant to be 'filler', behind the others in priority. I just finished a *rousing* rbd3-builder turn :hammer: which took most of the eve.

Oh NO, 3am?!?! Not again! :eek:

Charis

PS Mrs C is gonna lay down the hammer... :hammer:

Charis:

My actions are fairly self-explanatory. I independently came to pretty much the same conclusions you posted and was already planning to get at least math and currency. So on inherited turn, I swapped every city to max shields and put em all on courthouse placeholder, gambiting in the direction of marketplaces.

After 5 turns, our revolt was complete, I bought Math off Germany for 410 gold (barely above market value, but they wanted maps as part of their offer). They then had construction on hand, and I spent the rest of our treasury plus a few gpt for that, and looked at our dismal happiness situation. We lost martial law, so... a lot of cities had to start some entertainment. I saw that collesseums MUST come first before aqueducts everywhere but Havana.

I swapped Ur to high food, it's now growing, and on min shields. I saw more holes in your shore blockades than a sieve, so I just vetoed that and built forts on our two irons, with units on both, and mining the ice "to create jobs" for our people in a New Deal sort of useless make-work way. I merged one worker into San Charisso but we should hold off until cities grow on their own to size 7 before merging more anywhere, IMO. That means running max shields until they have collesseum and aqueduct, then max food until they grow to 7, then back to max shields and fold in what workers we can afford to, happiness-wise.

We can run 20% science at ~break-even. Yet that was only 8 turns for currency, 6 for Poly. I started currency and got 5 or 6 turns in. No more need for sliding up and down, we have enough total trade with Republic that libraries aren't benefitting. In fact, 3 turns at 20% was more science than 1@60%, so I figure just run 20 until growth/markets allow better, with maybe micromanagement on the final couple of turns of research.

I still HOPE Germany will find another civ, but Ur can't wait, so I think researching Poly is in order. If still no contact by then, then research Theology next (assuming we get Mono for free, if NOT, then if we got Engineering -- I've seen it happen -- must research Feudalism to get ANY wonder out of Ur. And if we get Feudalism, then I suppose research Mono, as we will want cathedrals sooner rather than later. If we can make contact, it's all good, but clearly we have to plan for the worst case, as its just too much to risk not to do so. Worst case, we denied the GL to the AI's and get the culture out of it. Heh.

Ellipi has needed to borrow that game from Holguin for 1 turn, it can give it back next turn. You let Chupa grow to size 4, tsk tsk, now it's starving, as Ice palace must take precedence. Only so much food to go around and no way to stretch it, and no time to stop building colleseums to train a worker.

Good luck, and enjoy the change of pace from our previous "we're so desperate, we're building horsies with the intent of disbanding them somewhere else" situation. :)


- Sirian

850 AD (0) - Agree with plan of no-deficit research spending, going soon
for Poly then Mono.

Clarification on one of your post comments. When Germany asked for your Map,
did you give that to them? Getting a map is a definite no-no, I wasn't clear
if you were going the other way and sharing ours?

On Chupa, oopsie on letting him over 3. But I'm confused, you're building a
colosseum there. If it never gets bigger than size 3, why would we .... oh
wait, looked at other cities. All marketplace placeholders (as you mentioned),
nevermind!

860 AD (1) - The crowds roar as the first colloseum arrives in Ninevah, so
the people build the palace some more! They lay a floor to cover the sheer
slab of ice it now lays on... Move currency from 2 turns to 1, on basis of
one extra turns of 10 marketplaces pays for itself.

870 AD (2) - Bismarck says hi, cancels the RoP and says "Can't be done" to
a curious inquiry regarding polytheism. (We'll learn it in 6 turns anyway)
Now just one thing to figure... which of these colosseum's were not-placeholders
but intended?? Almost anyone who could use one could use a marketplace even
more. So only those big cities or too many shields do complete them. Actually
cities are much bigger than what I remember! :P Anything size 6 and looking
less than "chipper" can do it. (13 marketplaces start, 6 colosseums)
880 AD (3) - MMOW.

890 AD (4) - Santa Rosa lands

900 AD (5) - Between Turn notice - Beiing has finished Sun Tzu.
910 AD (6) - Between Turn notice - Shanghai has finished Sistine's (crud!!)
920 AD (7) - That makes research a little tougher. Our only soon chance
for a wonder is Leo's. An Ur has a ton of shields. Can we get to Invention?
Monotheism is (as alway?) the free tech. That opens

Eep! Athens has completed Copernicus?? Well he is looking to kill our
library with the education push.

Unfinished colloseums in production switched to Cathedral.

930 AD (8) - Thebe's of Egypt completes Bach's cathedral :(
940 AD (9) - Takes a nap, pondering how bad wonder race goes...

950 AD (10) - With Ur having 'Palace' built in about 11 turns, it looks
like we didn't get lucky a second time :P We're still a looooooong
way off Leo's (Clearing of Invention). We don't hear when they start
just when it's done.

- You'll need to decide what to do with palace 'placeholder'
- For those finishing cathedrals or colosseums, time now for aqueduct.

Good luck,
Charis

Clarification on one of your post comments. When Germany asked for your Map,
did you give that to them? Getting a map is a definite no-no, I wasn't clear
if you were going the other way and sharing ours?


No, I'm not. There's no rule against it, but I'd rather not let the AI's know what's in our interior. If they can't "see" a resource on their map, I don't think they will covet it. Time will tell. It would only be a one-time cash boon of about 100 gold, tops, and the enemy would know our lands. I intend to try to keep them in the dark. We're aiming for diplo or space win here, so even if we are trailing all the way through the Industrial age, the AI's may go communist and batter one another, and give us a chance.


Not one of those colleseums was intended as placeholder. We need happiness before we can grow the cities any larger, they were all, except Havana, sitting at their upper threshold, unless lux were to be increased to 30%.

Very bad news about the wonders. Our luck on start position, it seems, has been dismal, as the rest of the AI's must have hooked up by now, or at least a pack of them have. Time to halt research entirely and get the most out of our GL, as we will surely make contact with others (as they get Navigation) before we could research to Education on our own.

Hang in there, we don't need no steeking wonders anyway. :)


- Sirian

Not much happened this turn. Progress made on infrastructure, built 5 cata's at Havana. How many more should we have? Up to you. I vetoed the worker blockade again. There were a few tasks to do, like chop down one forest and a couple desert tiles we overlooked, plus I want workers near the tundra to start forestation if we do make contact and acquire engineering. I went ahead and connected the second iron.

I have Roberto, Lola, and Guan on food production, they need to grow. Others are still building cathedrals or are size 6. As a result, Roberto's gold tiles are being borrowed to keep them in circulation. Everything looks OK, buildings-wise. I did waste the Palace on a colleseum, and then built cathedral and market. If you want to put it back on placeholder and try for Magellan/Smith/Newton with it, be my guest. We're back on "Wait Mode", as we await civs with navigation to come find us or the Germans. Still haven't traded our map away, though I DO find it decidedly annoying that the AI's are always going to ask for it, so maybe to spare us the diplomatic headache, we'll just give it to them at some point, or as part of a tech buy post-education.

We're still in the middle of the pack on the F11 stats.


- Sirian

On the courthouses, I was thrown off by this comment in your earlier post:

So on inherited turn, I swapped every city to max shields and put em all on courthouse placeholder, gambiting in the direction of marketplaces.

Part of the confusion was that Cathedrals came so quick, they became an option before the Colloseums were due to finish. At 3 peeps covered, more culture and less shields to make, they seemed to own the colloseums. It also seemed that several of these cities would not be growing a ton more, so did they need BOTH cathedrals and coll's? I might be underestimating the impact of all the sea squares and the railroad bonuses. For cities that were yawning "yes, I wouldn't mind growing to 7 or 8 now" vs those bursting at the seems "let me grow, let me grow!!", the marketplace was chosen. (Which itself might very well provide an extra smiley face for cities with non-zero luxury slider)

> I vetoed the worker blockade again
Hehe, it wasn't so much a blockade as a "I see nothing for these particular workers to do, let me give them SOME temporary use."
I knew they wouldn't last there.

Number of cats, good question! With *NO* navy I think it will become vital to protect our city improvement investments to have a punishing array of artillery around. The downside is the unit upkeep cost. They can also serve a blockade road on the coast.
The 'second troop' in the cities could serve that function as well since they serve no MP value. My fear is that less than two IN a city would beg the AI who can't even see us to view us as a target and come get some. (Hmmm... not a suggestion per se, but I wonder if we lowered city defense at a few places if it might entice contact with other civs quicker ;p)
At a minimum, one per city would be a good initial target for catapults, then we'll see if the economy can sustain more at that point. Their presence will increase the perceived strength of our military and could easily avoid a war or two. That's hard to put a price on, but it seems a nice benefit.

It's unfortunate that it seems Germany and ourselves are both "in the dark" and that the others have found each other. Not totally unexpected, and both decisions to go for math/curr/const and to pretty much halt now seem good ones.

Of the wonders you mention, I like Smiths the best for us - we're in good shape to get and sustain 1000 gold and roll in the interest, far more advantage than one extra 'university'. As for Magellan, at this stage I *want* someone to build it asap! Smiths, Hoover, UN would be my top three choices for remaining ones, longer term.

As for giving our map, I had not intended to, but if we need to it's no biggie. (More a theme or mindset, with how we're playing there's no way Castro would want to give away his map!) Alas, if we refuse every time, will that tick the AI's off? The last thing we need would be a big ongoing black eye, in shooting for a possible diplo win. If it causes them no ill will, I'll live with the hassle of denying it.

I'm wondering something on the Great Library. Does it expire instantly when Education is received, or at the end of the turn in which it does? If the latter, if things delay much more, it would be conceivable to learn Astronomy, Navigation, even Physics on the same round we get Education and 4-5 others! I only ask because I thought I read a post suggesting this was how it might work. I don't really believe it, but... it would be nice!

Charis

You will learn every tech that fulfills the "you have contact with two civs that know it" rule, regardless of where it is on the tech tree. So, yes you can learn techs beyond Education with the GL if you're far enough behind due to lack of contact.

Well, you can learn practically anything from the GL as long as the first thing you get "free" isn't education.. ;)

Hmm, just hope that Germany learns Education before they make contact and that everyone they meet already has it as well, and the GL might not ever stop giving tech if they don't research it themselves. Would be interesting if it is possible.

Well, when I set courthouses as market placeholder, I was not anticipating Germany to have construction on hand. And yes, of course cathedrals are preferable, they cost the same to maintain, give more culture and benefit, and are cheaper to build. What I meant was that every city on the board had more need of happiness help than market help. Markets were the short term choice. In that we must now ALSO wait for both an aqueduct and a happiness building, in all our size 6 cities, means our growth beyond six has been SLOWED, and I am pretty sure that this outweighs the extra gold we'll get from the market in the mean time.

Markets do NOT help happiness one iota unless there are 3+ luxuries online. We're NEVER going to see that, I don't think. We have nothing to trade!

I'm pretty sure we're going to want to build both cath and col in every city, for the culture benefit. Strong culture helps with diplomacy. A market may have been a high enough priority to not wait for both happiness wonders to come first, but I'm not sure you realize just how bleak a "no luxuries, ever" game is going to be. We've lost our shot at the happiness wonders. We're going to be suffering now for the rest of the game. So it goes.

I'm flat-out vetoing the "one per city" catapult idea. 22? We do not need that many. Anywhere from 6 to 12 ought to do it, and in two or three stacks, not scattered all over the place. We're going to have PLENTY of warning regarding AI attacks, as long as we don't pull all our units out of the cities to blockade the shores, and leave the cities so lightly defended that it entices the AI's to come attack us. :rolleyes: If the AI's want a piece of us, LET THEM COME GET SOME. The only civ on the board who could possibly attack us in force is the Germans. Everyone else is too far away, at most they would send a few galleons' worth of troops, and some of them might not even reach us before we could make peace. It might help to put another unit or two into Cove, but that's about it. If we hogtie our economy with too many units, we're going to lose for sure.


- Sirian

Still your turn here, Charis.


IN OTHER NEWS...

I've posted a new article at my site.

Sirian's Great Library (http://sirian.warpcore.org/civ3/greatlibrary.html)

I may soon try to write up some of my learnings and post new stuff to ghe Gambits and Strategy sections.


- Sirian

1050 AD (0) - Things look in good shape for a nice quiet turn. That probably
means something huge is on the horizon to shake us up ;p

> Markets do NOT help happiness one iota unless there are 3+ luxuries online.
I was referring to more income in a city is good, e.g. 20% of 2 commerce
giving zero smiley faces and 20% of 3 commerce giving you one. That's all
I meant by marketplaces giving more smileys.

As for the number of cats, I think we're placing different value on the
avoidance of war. np going for less than one per city though :P

1060 AD (1) - 1150 (10) - Waching grass and aqueducts grow. Nothing to repot.
Catapult production halted after total units hit 100, with 10 cats. Feel
free to make more. For some odd reason, the people cheer this decision
and build on to the ice Palace! Some places that were taking 89 turns
to finish an aqueduct got some shifting for a few more shields (reverse
as needed to push commerce more per city, but if you grow them to the
point where they NEED all their food you can't go back to running max shields)

1100 AD (5) - Aztecs complete Leo in Tenochtitlan. (Come on Germany, get with
it) F11 shows we're holding our own, slipping slightly. Not dead last in
military service. Havana is #4 city, ur is #5.

1120 AD (7) - Ur is done with all improvements besides Barracks, and goes
back into hopeful mode, placeholder palace.

1150 AD (10) - Uneventful end of turn. Germany has met no one and learned
only Feudalism. We're due for that ourselves in about 16 turns. (I wonder
if someone will get Navigation and/or Magellan soon, if so your turn may
be the last in pure isolation. The 2.5 or 3K gold we'll have at that point
should buy a fair amount of tech even if they obsolete our Great Lib)

A small number of medium cities with improvements done are on wealth,
e.g. Ice Palace. Do you make more gold building cash horses? Several
courthouses were made this turn, btw. Even if they reduce 2 corruption to
one they pay for themselves.

One concern, since it might come up soon. If we see German has communication
for sale, is there an order to buy communication and talk to people to avoid
slamming our own Education?? Best to buy out on our turn, or take in another's
turn if offered? Or avoid until they come talking to us? Here's my take...

If we watch Germany and go for communications on our turn, we can buy ONE from
them, buy next communication immediately from the weaker of the two, and repeat
to get contacts with ALL civs, buying each from the weakest we can, in one turn.
We'll get ALL double-known techs that turn - it will include Education but
it won't 'expire' until the end of that massive turn. If we somehow end up
(maybe on someone elses turn) getting contacted such that we know the science
slow civilizations who know up to Education and no further, we're screwed out
of 1, 2 or maybe a half-dozen techs. I think we'll go from dark ages to almost
industrial in that one turn, and it will almost surely come on your shift or
my next one. :hammer:

Good luck,
Charis

Quick nit: trade subtracted for lux comes before applying marketplace/bank, not after, I believe.

You're correct, you definately want to contact as many civs as possible on one turn, to get the most out of your GL.

Hey Charis,

I downloaded the save from Sirians last turn and played a little. Greece was the one to build Magellan's and make first contact with Germany.

With the set-up you guys had (that I tried to run as best I could) once I saw Germany had contact with Greece I bought contact with them as well and then got contact with almost all other Civ's in that same turn.

Talk about a tech-flood!! Unfortunately Education was the third tech to come along in the flood, but everything else happened pretty much as you said. Went from plodding along with the single scientist to only having to research Navigation, Magnetism and I believe one other tech to advance an age. This includes all optional tech's as well.

Quite a jump in tech for one turn (over 10 techs in that one turn I believe). :D

In my game China and I believe Greece were the tech leaders. I hope you do better than I did, although having followed most of the RBD games I believe you will. :) I hope I haven't spoiled things for you two with this post. :( Just thought I'd let you know that your theory does work (at least in one game).

I look foward to reading the further adventures. :)

-Ozy

Ozymandous,

Well... let's just say I'm glad you only paralleled only one turn. It would have been rather bad to have read "I took your last save file and played a bit, would you believe no contact for the next 1000 years??!?!" :blush:

If I need to see how somethingn works I'll try to find a save file from another game that's somewhat related. This is to get data on how the game works in the lack of "Jarulf's Guide to Civilization", not to see how a specific gambit will work in a given game situation. That's best learned the hard way!

The 'guess' was based on the reports of other civs already finishing Leo's, Sistine and especially Copernicus (back in 920), we just CAN'T be too far off from contact with others. And when it does, I have seen post-Education techs pop out of the Great Library, but only on the very turn it expires. Having contact with none-then-all civs seems hands-down the best way to maximize your output. If it weren't for the chance of one or two of the non-leading civs contacting us on THEIR turn and giving us Education but no-more, one might do even better to not buy contact.

So thanks for the input and for the nod "it works", but next time please withold such info if it's based on the actual succession game in progress! :cool: (Fortunately in this case there's no course-altering info or quandries presented)

> I look foward to reading the further adventures
Thanks, things should enter "scramble" mode now, after a few 'zzz' turns.
Charis

I was afraid I would give something away when I posted but hoped it wouldn't be too bad. Oh well, this is why I watch and don't comment much.

Sorry...:(

I'll shut up and simply read from here on out...

No problem Ozymandous :lol:

My comments were more of an FYI about use of saved games, there was no harm, no foul this game :P

We appreciate your input and that of other readers, so please do continue! Especially if you have 'this was like my game where...' advice, nits when I have some rule wrong, or questions (Charis, wth were you thinking when you...?)

:king:
Charis

Well, luckily for all involved, I got the save last night and didn't read any of Ozy's spoilers. He definitely played more than one turn there, though, I think. Germany did NOT have contact information after just one more turn.

I don't mind folks playing from the saves, but please NO comments about anything from such experiments.


So here we go:

Inherited turn: I marvel at the veto that took place in regard to growing our cities. Charis says "to stay on max shields while they still can" -- which is a solid theory -- but, um, they are so NOT close to being unable to run max shields that I lower luxuries from 20% to 10% AND DO NOT NEED A SINGLE ENTERTAINER.

Almost every city in the north is thus reshuffled back to max food. I can at least get 10 turns of that in before the next veto. ;)

I also vetoed the wealth, and used all those cities to make replacements for the MASS of units I just disbanded to speed progress in a couple of key cities, most notably San Charisso and its cathedral, but also a couple others up there, with aqueducts.

Click next turn, and Greece completes Magellan. This makes me sure that contact WILL come on my turn.

1160AD: No contact yet.

1170AD-1220AD: Still no contact. Most of our lagging cities have been grown now, all at 5 or 6. I melded workers into San Charisso, Elippi and Akkad.

1230AD: I spot "Communications" option on German diplomatic screen. 1550 gold to Germany for contact with Aztecs, Greece, China. Embassies established. 330 gold to Greece for contact with five more civs. 18 gold to Rome for contact with Russia. All embassies established. WE ARE NOW BROKE. Well, nearly. 3000 gold goes in a hurry, I tell ya. ;) RoP's established with Rome, Russia, Iro, Japan (all the small fry). Some (very) minor cash recouped.

1240AD: We receive the following eighteen techs from the Library:

Monarchy
Feudalism
Engineering
Theology
Chivalry
Invention
Printing Press
Education
Gunpowder
Music Theory
Astronomy
Chemistry
Banking
Navigation
Democracy
Economics
Metallurgy
Free Artistry

Cuba now FULLY up to date on all known technology.

Greece, Aztecs, China also all up to date, and building Smith's, China starts Shakespeare on this turn.

We broker to Egypt, bringing them up to date for gpt and RoP.

I upgrade our horsies to knights, and many spears to pike.

We broker to Zululand, bringing them nearly up to date for Saltpeter, Spices, RoP, and mucho moolah. Cuban people don't know what the heck to do with "luxury goods" -- they have never seen such things before. :lol:

We broker to Germany, Rome, Iro, and Russia, as much as they can afford at "fair" prices (10-15% below market value). Japan is broke and gets nothing.

Can't re-upgrade the pikes this turn, but I do upgrade most of our cata's to cannon, and a couple spears to musket.

Despite now being able to research on state of the art tech (at FIRST-Civ prices :eek: Yikes!) I leave science at zero to get as much cash as possible to continue modernizing our military. Our worker force is mobilized and told to "plant a tree". National Arbor Day commemorated. "Juanie-Pineseed" becomes folklore.

1250AD: Everybody and her sister starts Smith/Shakespeare, from techs we brokered. Many more upgrades, many many. I do another one or two last minute broker jobs, and we have six (6!) gold left in the treasury, with mucho modernization yet to be implemented. Most of our troops have been picked up and sent to various barracks locations, but leaving at least one defender in every city.

Charis gets to do a bit of shuffle and dance on his turn. [dance]

I also wonder when he's going to notice that a close parenthesis must be separated from his smileys by a space. ;)

I swap every coastal town NOT already past 40 shields of progress over to building coastal forts. Feeble they may be, but they beat zippo, and these are as close to a "navy" as we are ever going to see. These forts require saltpeter, which is ungodly EXPENSIVE to buy (we have none in our frigid land, ooh big surprise there :rolleyes: ) so I figure we have to build the forts while we can. Same for troop upgrades: I've already upgraded all our cata's to cannon. I upgraded as many to musket as our budget could stand. Still have us set to run max taxes, which at bringing in 342 gpt from brokering, plus our natural ability, is yielding I think close to 600 gpt total income. This windfall ain't gonna last forever, so spare the research (we can buy in at lower prices, no sense busting the research curve, at least not yet). We need to modernize, for deterrent value.

As of this point, "we have an average military", or better, compared to all except China and Greece. Rome (a weakling, and probably mostly isolated) is our closest neighbor, as close as Germany or nearly. Zulus are moderately far away but I think they have colonies near us. Everybody else is farther away.

I did not give out our maps to anybody.

I set all our interior cities on banks. Why banks? Because it seems to me that we're better off, for the time being, continuing to make cash and then to buy in (after at least the top four or five all have a tech) at lower cost. Or... we can do some of our own research, but at a slower pace, letting the costs drop before we make the final breakthrough. Last thing we can afford is to rush at first civ prices, then watch our research time drop to nil (meaning we already overspent) as the AI's get there a couple turns ahead of us. Also, we NEED Wall Street, preferably asap.

There are three wonders left: Smith and Shakespeare, now available, and Newton, which they are all at least two techs away from acquiring. I know for a fact, they started Shakespeare only recently (same turn we made contact) BUT... they may have been pushing Smith for some time now. Greece had just started it when I established embassy (I got a look at Athens) and we could beat them to it, but I just have a bad feeling about China and Aztecs. Aztecs MIGHT be at the tail end of a golden age (they ARE, unless they triggered it earlier with Jags or "got lucky" and triggered with just the Colossus). But having built a religious wonder (Colossus) and now a militaristic one recently (Leo), they could have had a golden age running, have built who knows how many shields, and still have six more turns of Golden production left. China's golden age came at the Hanging Garden, if not sooner, but they are the largest civ and MAY have had this tech for a while. It could have been gotten before Democracy, Free Artistry, and Metallurgy... they could be 15 turns into it.

I think our best bet is try for Billy's Theater, END the cascade, then prebuild for Newton and try to snag it too. If we can get Newton, WE might get a golden age. But the cascade must end before ToG is researched -- OR before we finish Shakespeare, which seems unlikely (just 11 turns to go).

So what I'd like to try is to go for Shakespeare's, and for banks, and then start building Newton in Havana (prebuilding, perhaps, if we can) and have Wall Street to fall back on if that fails. Smith looks like a longshot at best.

Judging by the histograph, I'd guess that China conquered England. Or else it had to have been Egypt. Nobody else is large enough. We are still hanging in at middle range on stats, and we are now tied for first in tech (with four, almost five, other civs) though that isn't going to last for long.

I've gotten our relations up to Polite with just about everybody, and took GREAT pains to offer 80% of our deals at non-miserly prices, to keep them diplomatically favorable. I would not be against sucking up a bit (if they demand our map, I'd say it's OK to give it away if you wish). I think our very best bet is to buckle down, ride others on the tech wave until AT LEAST Scientific Method if not longer, and try to make sure we get the UN by having a placeholder ready and beelining for the tech when we get the chance. At least, that would be the plan. :)


- Sirian

Sirian,

Your Cubans are really Babs in disguise, right? That means you need exactly 1 religious and 1 scientific wonder to get a golden age. You already have a scientific wonder, so you need a religious one... unfortunately they are all already built. Your only way to get a golden age now is if you happen to have any bowmen around and have one finish off some weak enemy unit if you ever get into a war. Similarly, the Aztecs could not have "got lucky" after building the Colossus; their golden age would have begun as soon as they built Leo's, unless they had a Jag-inspired ancient golden age.

You might get a golden age if you *capture* a religious wonder, don't know about that (I doubt it though.) It's not too likely in any case since you aren't leaving your rock. :)

Sirian: Um, yes I did play a few more than one turn. :) Eighteen tech's? Wow, didn't know it was that much.

Are you planning to build the Theatre anywhere in particular or just anywhere you can to try to stop any potential cascade?? If you weren't so unsure of how long Smith's had been potentially building would it be worth it to try for it, or not?

Zed: Does it have to be a wonder from each trait? Reason I ask is in one game where I played the Bab's I didn't get a Golden age until I had built BOTH the Observatory and Newton's. I believe I already had either Sistine or Bach's as well. I kept building wonders waiting for one of them to trigger a GA and finally, after building three, it did. :)

Just curious (and slightly confused) about these points.

Hmm, thanks for the stories, I can see comparing what I did in my game compared to what you guys (Sirian and Charis) have done that I still have a long way to go... :rolleyes: :)

An excellent turn, on many fronts! :hammer:

(Zed, I'm hoping/assuming he didn't cash in bowmen, but I was sure to make at least a few back when spearmen were the smarter choice. And yes, killing off something like a 1hp longbowman invader is about the only way he'll score a victory)

Glad too you hadn't seen the 'recon' report :P

> Inherited turn: I marvel at the veto that took place in regard to
> growing our cities. Charis says "to stay on max shields while
It wasn't so much a veto as a small detour. Those worker changes came around turn 6-7 just to get a few more shields in, it wasn't a full-turn veto. One reason was that I would hate to see us come into the modern age, with totally new priorities, and be stuck needing that aqeuduct but with only 8 shields done on it instead of 1/2 or 3/4 done.

> Almost every city in the north is thus reshuffled back to max
> food. I can at least get 10 turns of that in before the next veto.

hehe

> I also vetoed the wealth, and used all those cities to make
> replacements for the MASS of units I just disbanded to speed
good, this wasn't a plan as much as a 'best i can see for these last two or three turns'

> I melded workers into San Charisso, Elippi and Akkad.
One other reason I knew pushing shields vs food wouldn't kill us

> Embassies established.
What's the advantage of us doing the establishment rather than letting them pay for it? Not just for seeing their city? A diplo boost?

> We receive the following eighteen techs from the Library:
Woohoo! What a great laundry list!! :hammer:

Gunpowder, Astronomy, Metallurgy, Democracy and Free Art from the GL, gotta love it!

> We broker to Zululand, bringing them nearly up to date for
> Saltpeter, Spices, RoP, and mucho moolah. Cuban people don't
> know what the heck to do with "luxury goods" -- they have
> never seen such things before.

:lol: Saltpeter???? woo!! In my OCC game, when you got a strategic resource for 20 turns, the entire production and cash focus shifted. You would only have that resource for a very short time and might not see it for another 100 turns. The KEY thing was to on turn 19 or 20, start something that required the resource. You can 'continue' building it although lacking, just can't choose to start something new that takes it.

Zero research for sure for now, perhaps whenever we have a key strat resource. Also good idea on Coastal fortress. Some musket are good, but fortunately riflemen don't need saltpeter, so unless we get invaded before then, total upgrade of all defenders isn't "primary".

> As of this point, "we have an average military", or better
that'll work! (especially on Emperor)

> I set all our interior cities on banks. Why banks? Because ...
Banks seem a good choice, science via banking :P Those will stay unless a 'saltpeter' item needs to be made there first.

> Also, we NEED Wall Street, preferably asap.
Good point.

In position to build a wonder and Shakespeare is our best bet? Oh well. Let's go bust a cascade. :hammer:

It will take me a while to adjust my thoughts to all the new techs and options available...

Charis

Ozymandious,

Oddly enough, while Newton's is a scientific wonder, Copernicus is not. IIRC it's exploratory, probably because it's parent tech is exploratory in nature, and because Firaxis needed to balance out the wonders a bit (there's lots of other scientific ones,) even though the wonder itself is more science-oriented.

Your Cubans are really Babs in disguise, right? That means you need exactly 1 religious and 1 scientific wonder to get a golden age. - Zed

I know I've seen some instances where a GA started without having "both" civ traits built. So I went back to track them down, and found that all of them involved the Colossus and a Commercial civ (India, England, France, the first two with just Colossus, France with that plus Great Wall). Others that I THOUGHT also fit the category turned out to be the case that a UU had already set off the GA earlier, rendering the point unknowable. Several instances where multiple wonders of one trait (Germany with two or three scientific, America with three industrious) had not set off a GA. So it could be that you are right, and the Colossus happens to have three traits: Expansionistic, Commercial, Religious.

Either way, the point is moot. We can only get what we can get, and whether or not we have a shot at a wonder-induced GA has no impact on our ability to try to get the last two midieval wonders. They'd be worth it anyway. We DO retain the option to build Bowmen even though longbows are on the scene (wish I knew what's up with that inconsistency) and we have a few bowmen anyway. Perhaps we have a shot at it if we get invaded some time, though I hope that never comes to pass.


What's the advantage of us doing the establishment rather than letting them pay for it? Not just for seeing their city? A diplo boost? - Charis

Big time. First there's a big boost initially (one reason you often see lots of "polite" after I've taken a turn, as I'll not dilly dally around to scrounge a few pennies), but then we also gain immediate access to RoP potential, which ongoing provides a continuing boost, and in the case of small fry, can pretty much recoup the cost spent on the embassy as well as help to fend off war -- not in all cases, but many.

We're going for a diplo win, and just spent 2k on contacts, no sense quibbling over the cost of a few embassies.


Those worker changes came around turn 6-7 just to get a few more shields in, it wasn't a full-turn veto.

It sure looked like one! Guantanamo was still size 3! Several others were still size four! I don't think they got a single food, you sure you didn't change them at the start of your turn?

Every worker I melded was into a city of size 7+. Going five turns on max food to grow (and get more trade into play) from size 3 or 4 to 6 isn't much of a big deal. Takes twice as much sacrifice after that, so the time to conserve our workers is when the cities are best able to grow for themselves.

Definitely lots of new stuff to be building. Luckily, we don't really need to build more military, just upgrade the ones we spent 1000 years building.


- Sirian

I'd agree about the Colossus seeming to have Commercial as well as its listed attributes. My point was not that it's not worthwhile to grab the remaining wonders if you can (obviously it is worthwhile); it was that you ought not to be surprised if you don't a golden age out of them.

Zed, thanks for the clarification! I guess assuming the Observatory was Scientific what had me in trouble to begin with.. :) (Gee, it boosts science rate in that city by 50% but is not scientific, imagine that!)

Question to Sirian and Charis:

What is the top size you hope to get most of the cities up north? For example, will Ice Palace ever get above size 5? I don't remember railroads boosting food from a forest but I will be the first to admit I haven't looked specifically into that.

I assume the "fishing villages" are mainly for score, diplomacy leverage and to gather as much commerce as possible from less optimal areas of the map?

For city sizes, look back earlier in the thread for the plan. I laid out every single tile assignment for cities in the north. Rails make no difference in the cold, except to pull another shield off a hill, or to make mined tundra equal to a forest.


By the by, Charis, we can swap to democracy at any point, but I figure there's no use until our wonders are finished. If one turn lost cost us a wonder, we'd be beating our heads on the desk.

Oh... and mining one of the plains at Havana could get it to 25 shields per turn, shaving a turn off university and also our shot at Newton -- at no cost. Workers are right there, too.


- Sirian

18 TECHS?!?!?!? I am deeply impressed. :eek:

El Presidente del Charis surveyed the situation and was utterly
taken aback. He had been told things were "different" from the old days,
but the magnitude of the changes was virtually beyond his limited grasp.
In a nutshell... we were not alone... (That is one comical world map
we have though!)

1250 AD (0) - Pres. Charis gets out the veto pen and... puts it down, too
confused to even think straight! :P He curses the backwards Romans for
being so close and not finding us. Since last time we can now build
Longbowmen (and yet as you point out, Bowmen), Muskets, Knights, Cannons,
Bank, Univ, and Shakespeare's Theatre and Smiths. Everyone and his brother
is working on Smiths.

Ugh! Or should I say, bug? Looking at Zulus and treaty I notice they don't
have democracy. What will they offer? Wow, 20 gold and 25 gpt, and their
territory map. Click off that last puppy and... huh? "They'll NEVER accept
that!" Crimeny!! In this instance it's not so bad though, I can manually
ask for 24 gpt, less if I want to be "generous".

In this new world order, do we sell off this last tech we'll ever have "first"??
Seems it could give lots of gold, great attitude, and might allow us to bring
the whole wolrd ahead in research in a way they appreciate us. Alternately,
save brokering techs to get strategic resources. Let's see who else has or is
missing Democracy. Our German buddies didnt get the GL roll-in, they're way
backwards AND poor. Chinese, Egyptians, Aztecs, Zulus and Greeks are the
'players' in this game. Aztecs have *six* extra gems and no sea path to us.
Russia nine extra wines, wow!! Early lumped-resource earth or what??
It seems five civs are below us, hopelessly behind and with nothing to trade,
and five are equal or just marginally ahead. Of those all have democracy but
the Zulus, so selling to them seems wise. It is done. (for only 23 gpt)

Regarding Democracy for us... with a wonder in progress and precious saltpeter
in our hands for a few turns, I'll pass on a revolt for now. (Although, gosh...
it's just one turn for us as religious)

Military? 32 workers, 19 spear(preMuskets), 11 pike(preM), 1 longbow, 11musk,
6 knight, 11 cannon, 3 bowmen (GAwannabees), 4 swords. When convenient
those swords and longbow have to go, and we should update the defenders while
we have saltypeter.

1255 AD (1) - Babylon and Cove start Banks. Here and in next few turns, we do
the 'dance' and upgrade spears, then pikes.

1275 AD (5) - Peek at F4 for a view of other leaders' happiness. Greece seems
a bit iffy. He's cautious, and has Mil Tradition for sale. At 55 gpt, too
much right now, but we take an RoP for slightly above cost at 5 gpt. He's
now polite. (RoP seems sorta anti-isolationist, but we've done it before here)

1285 AD (7) - Zulus declare war on the Chinese (!!!???) Well, I'm delighted to
see someone try to knock down the world superpower a notch, but... is this
going to spell trouble for Zululand? (Will China eat their saltpeter?!)

Crud! Crud! Crud! Aztec's complete Shakespeare's theater in Teotihuacan :(
The Chinese swap over to Smith's. We're short by *4* turns at Ur.
We switch to Smith's, 15 away, but expect to lose. Ack... No one is
building Newton. Could we discover Gravity before anyone builds Smith?
Well... we can go to 90% sci and finish Physics in 4 turns *still* at a
surplus of 38 (due to 365gpt from other civs atm). Four more for Gravity
mean 8 turns. Chance that Smiths will be complete in greater than 8 but less
than 15? Kind of slim. Currently we're running +597, so going 4-turn has a
total cost of 2200 gold, or over 20 turns, we could pay 110 gpt and make
out even financially. (Of course that route gives another civ a lot of cash)
Enough weed economics, we have an advantage the AI's dont, prebuilding.
Since Ur is not capitol we can swap out to Palace and then fairly quickly
get Gravity if we hear "Someone is building Newtons". Only if a nearly finished
Smiths cascades into it would there be trouble. No need to spendrush now.
Just to gauge price, cost of Physics from China is 1300 gold for best deal.
The most efficient research rather than pay would be 1800ish gold in 5 turns.
That seems better than making the strongest country richer. Rather than burn
through this kind of cash, I'll postpone that decision to our next leader's
turn.

1290 AD (8) - Disbanded a swordsman in Fort Knox to shave bank time off 1 turn.
Also backing off total number of mil units to offset gain in modern units.

1300 AD (10) - Finishing up business, nothing too extensive.

Bank status: Havana, Fort Knox, IcePalace. Babylon in 12, Ashur in 14, Akkad in 17.
So in about 14 turns we can start Wall Street. Any cities beyond these going for
bank or univ, if you want an extra saltpeter unit, get 'em while you can :P

Military status: now 98 units, with 44 muskets (2 stationed per city), 13 cannon,
6 knight, 3 bowman. None in production. The Musket about to enter cove is last dance.

Wonders: No one has finished Smith yet. We're 11 turns away, I'm still thinking
we'll miss it. As soon as someone else starts Newton, finish research on Physics
and Gravity and we have Newton in 8 turns. (May want to go for Newton's anyway,
it's better than Smith's)

Diplo: Everyone looks happy and polite :hammer:
Current price on Physics now down to 1000, Mil Tradition to 900. (If you buy
the latter, can upgrade Knights to Cavs and start a half-dozen more cavs,
would last us and mean no more salt needed for quite some time) If you want
about 6gpt you can sell Chivalry to Japan. The physics price above was from
Chinese or Egypt, Greece, the Aztecs want more. Mil Trad for FreeArtistry
and 250 is avail from Zulus. Germany would buy Democracy for 13 gpt range.
There's nine turns left on the saltpeter, so I won't see it again this century.
(Maxing science right now gets us Physics in 3 turns at +34, for cost of 1800)

Finances? All upgrades done, 3514 in treasury and +623 per turn. Is that
fiscally responsible? :hammer:

Others: National Arbor day was a tremendous success. After railroads, we can
chop 'em all down and re-mine :P Every Coastal city has or is finishing up
a Coastal Fortress. The one exception is Ur, busy with wondering.
You may want to take the 1 turn disruption to go Democracy now. (Anarchy,
switch all to entertainers as needed, reverse next turn after choosing Democ)
Almost off topic: patch 1.17f is due soon. Might only fix two 'cheat' bugs
on bombardment and map revealing which would have zero impact on our games.
We'll see in the readme what if anything else changed.

Good luck,
Charis

WTF? I -SAW- the Aztecs start Shakespeare's! Even with a GA running, they were cranking over 40 shields per turn, maybe more, without a factory on hand? Sheesh.

Well, nobody promised us "fair". Heh. :)

- Sirian

Check if they were at war with someone. They may have been at war before contact and gotten a great leader. 40 sheilds before factories sounds a little severe :eek:

Inherited Turn: Ha! Some cities are running too much food. ;) They had to be put back on max shields immediately.

Charis disbanded my unit of longbows? Heh. I paid good cash to upgrade those! It's just so ironic, how I'm leaning toward "lean" while he's beefing the military, then I lean toward beef and he's trimming the fat. :) Well, no matter in this case. I trade Free Artistry and some cash for Military Tradition, upgrade all our knights, then set Havana, Chupa and Icy to cav production. We should end up with 13 or 14 total.

OK, let's see here. China will offer Physics for map and 910, greece and aztecs want 950, Cleo wants 990. Charis is right about handing over a grand to the world's largest civ, but... Greece will get a free tech at Nationalism while China will not. Maybe I should have bought from the Aztecs, but... I cheaped out and bought it from China. Over 1k in cash, but not much over.

Oh now THAT'S interesting. They already have Theory of Gravity, must have just gotten it this turn, as they have not started Newton yet according to F7. Nobody else has it yet. Considering that my "safer" plan of Grab Shakespeare fell through, there's really no choice here at all. 2nd-civ prices? Yeah, costly.

Remainder of our treasury (2600ish) and 48 gpt to China for ToG, miser price.
Alex offers beans, he must be close to researching it, so he gets skipped for the moment.
ToG to Egypt for 60-something gpt, miser.
ToG to Aztecs for 50-something gpt, miser.
Physics to Zulus at diplo price, then ToG for miser price.
ToG to Greece for 20-something gpt, diplo price.

Well not bad, really. 3600 out, 2600 in, we got the tech, and the wonder, for net 1000 gold, as long as nobody renegs before 20 are up. Ur swapped off Smith. Oh neat, due next turn AND no shields wasted. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. ;)

Two techs to Russia @ diplo.
Astronomy to Rome @ diplo.
Sold a tech to Iro @ diplo.
Germany's broke. Japan is scraping together some nickels, I'll wait one more turn.

Might as well be generous with the small fry, where it hurts less, and pinch pennies on the mega deals. Nobody has yet called us "cheap bastards" that I've seen -- like I always get in my other games -- so the effort to bend over backward to give them attactive deals most of the time seems to be working.


1305AD: Newton's University completed in Ur. Set to build its Coastal Fort next.

China has Magnetism now. Uh... no thanks, we'll wait on this one.

I start our workers chopping down some forests. Every tundra tile with a mine on it is virgin, and has not been planted or harvested. Every bare tundra has been lumberjacked. (See? Told you those mines would come in handy: markers!)

Tech to Japan @ diplo.
Two more techs to Russia @ diplo.
Another tech to Rome @ diplo -- OOPS, miser. He moaned about the deal. Guess I miscalculated that one?

1310AD: Ellipi grew too large on Charis's turn. See, we only have these Zulu spices for 20 turns. The benefit is not worth the cost, I only took that one deal for diplomatic purposes. So every city we have currently has more happiness than it's going to. High food cities (Havana, Babylon, Ur) can cope with an entertainer, but all the rest need to be kept in check, or, as Charis pointed out recently, they'll be stuck on less-than-max shield production. Ellipi finishes its coastal fort, so I set it to skim a worker at 1 food deficit.

Slow day at the brokerage house. I think I sold one tech to Russia and one to Germany.

1315AD: Good opportunity to swap over to democracy. Cuba revolts! All cities swapped to max food, entertainers hired in several locations.

1320AD: Democracy! Russia signs alliance with Zulus, declares war on China. Heh. Guess RBD3 is not the only game in which Cathy has lost her mind. :lol:

1325AD: Aztecs build Smith's Trading Company. Yep yep yep, that one was never within our reach. Well, at least not after we had to scrap a wonder's worth of placeholder shields back when the early middle age wonders were cascaded off through five consecutive turns. They sure made hay with their golden age, didn't they? Heh. So as it turns out, Newton's was the ONLY one we ever had a shot at, and good thing the Chinese had the tech ready and we had the cash burning a hole in our accounts, as I was giving serious consideration to rushing two banks and using Ur's progress on Wall Street rather than lose it all.

Well now, Greece and Aztecs have gotten hold of Magnetism. Time to buy in.

1300ish gold to Aztecs for Magnetism @ miser.
We have entered a new age!

Nationalism to China for 87gpt, 100ish cash and RoP. (Below market, sadly, but not by much and it was all they could afford).

Nationalism back to Aztecs (4th prices, Greece already had the tech, as I pointed out that they would) for most of the cash we gave them, about 1150.

Zulu and Egypt too poor to pay for Magnetism at anywhere near the market price.

More brokering with all small fries who can afford anything.

Now... the next big decision. To research or not to research. For is it nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous research costs...

9 turns at 90% science (must run 10% lux or our whole civ would collapse) to get steam. Every civ on the planet is now broke except for Aztecs and Greece. We're sittin on about 4.5k, despite my purchases.

Continue to sit back? But... what if they all research Communism first? Then what? We could be sittin here on our thumbs for 15 or 20 turns.

I leave our fastest two bank producers on banks, so we can qualify for Wall Street soon. (We have three, need two more). Our three cavalry producers are left alone (they are the ones who already have banks anyway). The rest of our cities are swapped to university, except for a couple slow ones still on colleseum or market, or one still on aqueduct.


1330AD: Aztecs declare war on Egypt! (They were not at war with anybody, smegged. They DID have 40 shields per turn at that one city, with their GA ongoing apparently, as they built Shakespeare @ 320 shields in 8 turns). Egypt is a lot bigger than the Aztecs, though. The last time I remember Aztecs declaring war on Egypt at this stage of the game, was my OCC game. The Aztecs were gone a few turns later. Heh.

Oh yeah, those two broke civs, Egypt and Zulu, somehow got hold of Magnetism. I guess they traded for it (luxuries, maybe).

We top out at 703gpt on income from other civs, with about 78 on the outgoing.

1335AD: Our spices dry up. Luckily I was paying attention and none of our cities rioted. Zulu's continue to want to sell us the saltpeter for 24 gpt, but we planned well and have no more need for it. I cancel the deal. About 235gpt of our income from the first round of brokering right after the Library windfall has dried up.

1340AD: Democracy to Germany @ diplo. Germany revolts.

China makes peace with Japan.

1345AD: Three techs, including Democracy, to Rome @ miser, about 55gpt. Rome revolts. Small fry deals keep techs rolling their way, gold ours.

I turn science rate down to 80% because the tech will come in at the same rate there now.

OH YEAH! Forgot to upgrade our muskets to rifle. Duh! Paying too much attention to diplomacy and brokering. :crazyeyes

I start the Rax Shuffle, but Charis will have to finish it.

1350AD: Cleo and Shaka now wealthy enough (perhaps from their old deals expiring) to pay market prices for Nationalism, about 60ish gpt apiece.

Aztecs appear to be losing their war. (Figured that would happen).

Woops, need to pump science back up to 90 for one turn, as there has been a hiccup in the ETA for steam. Yet... there is a problem. Without the spices on hand, there is a fine line to deal with in Havana.

It works like this: We need five happy faces from luxury spending to prevent civil disorder. With science at 90%, the math breaks down that we need to run FOUR flood plains (river tiles) plus all our gold mines, to get 5 happy faces. However, at 80% science, 10% taxes, we only need THREE such river tiles online, which would allow us to put another mine into operation and build our cavalry one turn sooner.

So here's the blood to be squeezed from this turnip: let the cavalry be finished with science at 80% (2 more turns), then swap Havana to University and increase science to 90% as needed to make sure Steam comes in at the best rate. I'm sure this will work, as we only need one more turn at 90% then the rest can be at 80. (It was just last turn that it was claiming we could run 80 the rest of the way).

There is one other micromanagement still in progress. The city between Charisso and Roberto is on high food now. It can run that two more turns, then swap back to hills, for zero waste on its aqeduct (then back to max food until it grows to 7, then back to max shields from there on out). What a bucket of minutiae! :lol:

Whip em all into shape, Charis! :whipped: If we're lucky, we'll have coal. If not... we can still only trade with Germany and Zulus, and could not do so until they had the tech, too, I think.

So pray.

As for the tech, we will likely get it first. Go ahead and broker, to all who can pay full-on miser prices. Check China first, then Greece, would love those two to pay the most. If you can't get into "close to making a deal" but go straight from "this deal is acceptable" to "they would never accept this deal" it's because you've passed the maximum amount they can pay, and they are too broke, wait another turn or deal with richer customers first.

With nonstop brokering, we MAY even maintain a tech lead here. Wouldn't that be something? :)

Your turn should be interesting. Germany and Rome should BOTH be able to afford several more techs when they come out into Democracy, so keep an eye on them in particular (they're broke while revolting).

With 14 cavs on hand, 13 cannon, rifles, and coastal forts, I think we'll be plenty secure. Nobody really close to us is strong -- maybe China's in range -- but we are currently on everyone's nice list, we have nothing of real value on our rock (everybody but the small fry has iron and horses, so they don't need ours). DO NOT disband any more units, we're lean now and just about right to defend ourselves and deter aggressors. Still "average" or better vs all but Greece and China. And frankly, if someone wants to come volunteer to give us a Golden Age, come get some. :lol:


- Sirian

Ya know... we dumped 3700 cash on China, plus 48gpt. All of that evaporated on the next turn, so what did they do with it? I can only think of three things: unit upgrades, cash for luxury purchases, and rushbuilding.

Hmm. I wonder if the AI's are suffering from "Colonel Charisinfantry Colonial Spending Syndrome"??? :lol: If they are blowing these bankrolls on upgrades, or even on pricey luxury puchases, that would be one thing, but if they are using it to rushbuild some low priority projects, that may explain how they end up collapsing in the industrial era!

[pimp] :lol: :smoke: :smoke: :satan:


- Sirian

It would be a waste, but I wonder: if you get a golden age when mobilized for war, whether your production is boosted by 2 shields per square? :) With rails, factories, and plants, that would truly be a sight to behold. :hammer:

Hmm, I just thought of one serious problem. Cascade from Hoover could potentially ruin us! I really wish you had not moved off the river. :)

We have two ways we might deal with it: get to Electronics QUICKLY and wait for the AI's to build it, praying that it comes in before anybody can get to Fission... or... Try to slow the thing down so that we have the UN built before Hoover is done.

I kind of like our chances better with Plan A. If we DO NOT get the UN, we'll be in a space race, possibly in a situation in which we may have problem trading for necessary materials to build an entire ship. Still lots of interesting times ahead, I think.


- Sirian

> Sirian Inherited Turn: Ha! Some cities are running too much
> food. They had to be put back on max shields immediately.

...
> Charis disbanded my unit of longbows? Heh. I paid good cash
> to upgrade those! It's just so ironic, how I'm leaning
> toward "lean" while he's beefing the military, then I lean
> toward beef and he's trimming the fat.

Oh that is a chuckler :lol:

> Well, no matter in this case. I trade Free Artistry and some cash
> for Military Tradition, upgrade all our knights, then set Havana, > Chupa and Icy to cav production. We should end up with 13-14 total

Excellent! Good use of the saltpeter

> OK, let's see here. China will offer Physics for map and 910,
> ... I cheaped out and bought it from China. Over 1k in cash, but
> not much over.

Including our map in the trade? It's fine, just confirming.

> 1305AD: Newton's University completed in Ur. Set to build its
> Coastal Fort next.

:hammer:

> I start our workers chopping down some forests. Every tundra
> tile with a mine on it is virgin, and has not been planted or
> harvested. Every bare tundra has been lumberjacked. (See?
> Told you those mines would come in handy: markers!)

Hehe, neat -- good tip. I was thinking as planting that we'll end up ripping out once railroads are available, but at least we'll get 10 free shields from each.

> 1320AD: Democracy! Russia signs alliance with Zulus, declares
> war on China. Heh. Guess RBD3 is not the only game in which
> Cathy has lost her mind.

I don't think I've seen a single game where she acts sane. That's crazy.

> Now... the next big decision. To research or not to research. For
> is it nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous
> research costs...

Probably telling you what you know but the 'market price' is exactly one half the gold to buy it as to research it yourself. The downside is that it's gold in your foe's pocket, not gold just 'spent'. But if he keeps researching at first civ cost and you keep brokering to 3 and 4, seems good.

As you point out, there will be times for sitting back, but this isn't one of them (with Steam Power ahead and with Communism potentially all that is coming up next)

> We top out at 703gpt on income from other civs, with about 78
> on the outgoing.

700 gpt from other civs???? Wowza -- this is fulfilling my desire for a 'heavy trading game' as well.

> OH YEAH! Forgot to upgrade our muskets to rifle. Duh! Paying
> too much attention to diplomacy and brokering.
Thankfully these don't require the now-missing saltpeter.

> So here's the blood to be squeezed from this turnip
Ah good, I miss the days of turnip squeezing on our rock, what with this 700 gpt surplus around.

Whip em all into shape, Charis! If we're lucky, we'll have coal.

Huh?? Ok...

Charis revolts to Despotism and starts whipping Havana and Ur! :eek:

(Just kidding... yes, I really hope we have coal, and yes others need to get Steam power to be able to trade. Alas if we don't have to have to find a civ with *two*, as well as a free ocean path, to be able to trade)

> With nonstop brokering, we MAY even maintain a tech lead
> here. Wouldn't that be something?

I think it's do-able. Buying top-tech from top foe and brokering to others IF they can pay is a diplo boon for all. Likewise selling tech we discover ourselves will be nice. It's only at the very last stages of a space race where you need to 'pull ahead' of the top civ.

> With 14 cavs on hand, 13 cannon, rifles, and coastal forts, I
> think we'll be plenty secure. Nobody really close to us is strong -
> DO NOT disband any more units, we're lean now

Me??? Mr "Load the entire shoreline with 42 cannons" Presidente?? No problem there :P The only reason for the longbow disband was to keep total units <100 and to maximize use of the saltpeter. Knight/Cav vs Longbowmen? No brainer.

> And frankly, if someone wants to come volunteer to give us a
> Golden Age, come get some.

Aye!! :hammer: And given our nice guy status, we can sick the dogs on that poor misguided civ and watch it be picked apart within 20 turns. Heck I might make a few more bowmen to be ready!

> Hmm, I just thought of one serious problem. Cascade from
> Hoover could potentially ruin us! I really wish you had not
> moved off the river.

Ha!! Now thinking ahead is one thing, but actually being able to foretell your civ would be doomed due to a freak cascade accident that costs you the Hoover Dam, all in 4000 BC, is asking a bit much!! :P Nevertheless, I'll be more prone to found my capitol on a river whenever possible :P

I'm not quite seeing the full scope of the problem. If we gauge the right time to start UN as palace placeholder at Ur, do we much care what others may do? I ask this at work without looking at the map or situation. Also, do we have NO real cities on a river? (I know Havana is not) Crazy alternative C, do we have time and/or would it wreck Havana to build a brand new city on the river and give over most of the good tiles to it, build it up asap by worker melding, and sending shields for infrastructure production by funneling units over there? (Crazy, I know...)

> Hmm. I wonder if the AI's are suffering from "Colonel
> Charisinfantry Colonial Spending Syndrome"??? If they are
> blowing these bankrolls on upgrades, or even on pricey luxury

Ha! I pity them if so! That guy has a screw loose!
(Although... remind me again who built the treasury up to over 3000 gold and who spend 3K in *one turn* :rolleyes: )

I've done 'some' tech brokering, but the magnitude involved in this game will be good for me to master :P BTW, do we have enough workers on hand to plaster the rock with wall to wall railroad in 20 turns if we have to trade for it? Also each city will want to build (at least start) the improvements that require coal during those two decades. That will likely mean that once we get steam, we beeline Industrialization.

I should be able to play tonight, I've just done a huge round of 'my turns' in the other rbd games.
Charis

Note, the trade with China says "over 1k gold" for Physics. That's because I took the map off the table. I just mentioned it because I was comparing their asking prices before I committed to buy, and they were all, of course, asking for the map.

Nobody yet has our map, and I've had so little trouble dealing with that, I'd say there's no reason ever to hand it out, unless as a concession to avoid our golden age (heh) by avoiding war with someone who decides to threaten us.

No, we have zero river cities, and no now is not the time to wreck our civ to make one. You made that call when you moved off the river and it turned out to be a creek, we'll sink or swim with it. I like our odds better that way than dismantling two of our top cities to make a Hoover candidate. It occurred to me that if Hoover is slow to be built, that that could potentially wreck our diplo win if the research pace is top notch, and right now, it's clicking along rather quickly. In the 12 turns after we got the library, the AI's researched Military Tradition, Physics, and Theory of Gravity, and 10 more turns later, we're almost to steam and China is probably almost to Communism.

Oh and one more thing. :) I DID spend mucho moolah, but note that the treasury has more in it at the end of my turn than it had when I started. :) I've never fussed at you JUST for spending. It's always been the kind of spending that brings too little return on the investment. Like... rushing a temple at Jamaica would have been. :lol: Or... handing off to me dead broke with some urgent spending need looming over us. :) You're doing much better about that lately.


- Sirian

As for workers, we have what we have (30-something). Takes four to build a rail on an easy square, so we could build rails on six or seven tiles per turn, and as a last resort, on the final turns of the deal, spread them all over the place and have ONE per tile, and wrap up whatever we like. Yeah, in 20 we could get at least a military rail finished, and probably most of the urgent production tiles in the south.

As for "timing the placeholder" for UN... how are we going to know when to start? Like playing "The Price is Right?" Whoever comes closest to the actual retail price without going over is the winner? Heh. That's not as simple as it sounds. If we have a multi-tech lead we can be in control, but even then, not necessarily with any great precision. I don't think the risk is particularly high, but then again "more than zero" is higher than I care for. :p


- Sirian

1350 AD (0) - Things sure are moving briskly, muttered the new Presidente.
He scans the annals of history for tips...
- Let Ellipi shrink slowly back down one or pop out a worker
- Finish those last two banks and do Wall Street
- As cash allows, upgrade to rifles
- Finish the rax shuffle (again :P)
- Havana turnip: 2 turns to finish cav at 80%, then Univ and up sci to 90%
- Tamarino on high food for 2 turns then swap to hills to aqueduct then max food
- Pray for coal :P (Deacon!! Where are you Deacon??!)
- Broker Steam around who can afford full-miser prices (China? Greece?)

(BTW we can trade with three countries now, Rome, Germany and Zulu)

1355 AD (1) - Bismarck can't afford the RoP anymore and is cautious. He
can only afford about 10 gold (not gpt, gold) so I give it to him for
free, now he's polite again. Greek ship off the eastern seaboard (about time)
Shaka too wants up, and gets RoP and a few coins for our friendship.
Uh... Egypt too? I sense a trend 8-\ They were paying 31 gpt, no wonder!
She ends up getting RoP and a few gold too. (Why on earth did they take 31gpt
and now wants US to pay a little?)

1360 AD (2) - Havana dance in the fields, eeking out the extra commerce to
push sci back up to 90%.

1365 AD (3) - Havana starts Wall Street, will take 16 turns.
Hmmm, 0% sci will get Steam Power? Looks like a buy-for-1-gold situation.
Bad timing, since this happened when we're 1 turn away from getting it.
Odd... not a 1 gold thing, but 50@diplo from Greece. Still, that's good for
one turn research savings. Bad news... no wait, Great news!! Coal! Smack
dab under San Cyreno! :hammer: For a sec it looked bad because it did not
show up in our resource box. But it won't show up until next turn :) :)
What next? Can anything beat industrialization and factories?
(BTW, on river cities, I could have put Bablyon on the river, but that
seemed too close to Havana for optimal development.

Ok, time to make the diplo rounds to sell steam. China was actually not able
to pay anywhere near full. The Zulus could pay full: spices, 30 gold, 23 gpt.
Egypt 60 gold and 12 gpt, Bismark Free Artistry 17 gpt, Iroq and Japan broke.
All above @diplo. Russia Music theory for 20 and 10 gpt, miser. We pull
in a second luxury from Rome for Free Art and get 6 gpt more, diplo.
I'm used to having like 6 luxuries, where 1 more makes a big difference
(counterintuitively). Here a first or second luxury has almost no impact,
at least compared to 10% lux rate in our big cities. So alas, this trading
was not effective as I hoped it would be, I could NOT cut back the lux
slider, and so did not get the 70 gpt difference that would make. Cove,
San Charis, Akkad and our top four cities are not happy at 0%. What if
I put entertainers there... Hmm, actually not too bad. We lose about 1 turn
on each of those city improvements, and 3 on wall street. That seems worth
the 20*70 or 1400 gold savings of 0% lux. (I figure if I don't drop to 0%
I'll accidently let a city grow, too used to the luxuries ;p)

We go back now to China. His offer, 40 gold and 4 gpt (and World map, clicked
off). Hmmm... what can he REALLY pay? 10? 20? 30? Would you believe 31 gpt in
addition to his treasury? And he offers 4?????? Time to turn the screws methinks.
I back off just 2 gpt off this max price to not appear a slimeball, but make
the deal final at 40 and 29 gpt. "Your terms are acceptable" he says.
I need to study those phrases more. Is there a separate "You're most kind"
"That's fine" and "You drive quite a hard bargain" that mean +favor, neutral
and a loss of favor? Or does the deal itself pretty much always mean neutral
or +favor, even if miserly? We're now +782 gpt from other civs, and at
90% science, surplus of 245/turn. At zero science that would be +939 per turn
(wow!!) At max science we STILL take 8 turns for industrialization, it must
be wicked expensive. Maybe this is NOT one to go max research for -- no one
will be able to afford full price anyway when we go to broker it. Uh, hmmm,
Electricity is even more, 10 turns at 100% rate? (Medicine 7) I'm going to
try an atypical 'middle ground' (I usually prefer zero rate or max).
40% science gives Industrialization in 20 turns, precisely when this huge
ton of deals expires and civs can afford again to pay. That gives a +660
surplus, and gives our next leader the option to acclerate or slow down.
It also will let Greece, IF it burns that way, to pay full price and end up
reducing our time to research it. Also, Wall Street is due in 19 turns, so
Havana can go Factory right after we research it.

Any more cut-n-dry guidelines for figuring out the rates, whether to burn
ahead or wait-n-buy? I don't mind going through this analysis on a case by
case basis, it's just that I'm left wondering (is 20 turns mid-science-rate
the right choice??)

1370 AD (4) - Japan and Aztecs form a Mil Alliance against Egypt. More in-fighting
by the little peoples. Japan then declares war on Egypt. Fort Knox is
hard pressed for something to build. It starts a colloseum, but will never
be big enough size to really need one.

1375 AD (5) - I go back to check Aztecs and they offer about 18 gpt. How much
will they really pay? 52 gpt!!?? Uh, I'll be nice and give it to ya for 50! :P
What am I missing here? Does diplo mean I should take 18? Kicking it up to
53 was 'never accept' which means that crossed the limit of what they could
afford, but since not a "not quite" message, still below 'cost'.

German will buy Physics for a moderate 23 gpt, so I give for 21. The ba$tard
still calls this highway robbery (oops). Why withhold this from Rome? They
can give 16 gpt for Physics, so I take 13. Hmm, called a "gracious" offer.
That's more like it. (Then again, they ARE in awe of our culture, cough)

I was also making the rounds again to see who has coal. Our map is black but
the diplo screen should show yes/no on coal availability for those civs that
have steam power. They don't seem to need it. Nor do the Egyptians, Zulus,
Chinese, or Greeks. Hmm, everyone has it? Well... at least they won't be
coming after us?! We're now at 6.3K treas, +763 gpt from other civs :hammer:

1380 AD (6) - As cities finish items, I try to get them on 18+ turn projects,
to act as placeholders for factories.

1390 AD (8) - The Greeks want an MPP?! Hmm, don't we feel honored?! Of course,
as isolationists, we feel no need for such a pact, Alex, but we do wish
you well! Feeling affection for my "tiny little culture" isn't really the
way into my heart anyway! He remains quite polite.

Ninevah is flat out of stuff to produce. I start a rifleman to cash in elsewhere.

1400 AD (10) - The coal appearing then not being 'really' available, in addition
to 'waiting for next tech to start factories' has thrown me off. Only now does
the vigilant one note he can actually start laying down railroads! :blush:
If I point out the treasury is being turned over to you with 10,178 gold and
+724 per turn, perhaps you will overlook this minor transgression?! :P

The first "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" offer, from Rome.
Uh... go away Caesar. You want Magnetism you say? So you can FINALLY come
visit us in a boat? How much ya got? Hmmm, offering 18, your max (19 is never)
I'll take 17 gpt and all your 38 treasury. Thank you! What does Bismarck think
about this? Magnetism for 110 gold and 21 gpt? For you mein Herr... just 19
gpt! Hmm... you want Metallurgy too? 29 gpt? You got deep pockets, bud,
but for a true friend (and cough, close neighbor) like you, 26 gpt is ok.

- Feel free to adjust workers as needed, especially in light of new rail
going down. Also cut research to zero (>1000 surplus) or 100% FIVE turns
(306 surplus) as you like. A ton of improvements finish in 10 to 20 turns -
if we get Indust tech before then, they can go over to factory and return to
what they're working on now.
- The luxury deals should persist through your reign. If they disappear you
can kick lux to 10% and remove entertainers and come out fine.
- Feel free to look for more diplo. At present, for example, Crazy Cathy will
give around 9 gpt for Banking, Rome 11 gpt for Metallurgy.
- You'll have a busy rail-net term. I've replaced NO mines, so they're still
markers of never-been-forest. Actually, we've done such a MASSIVE job of
planting and chopping, there is a ton of white tundra now ready to be
re-mined as well as railroaded. There are only *3* tundra spots with mines
that have never seen forest, all right outside San Lola. If those get the
plant-chop sequence, we're free to "mine tundra at will" without confusion.

Good luck,
Charis

Just a little picture for the onlooker. In 20 years or so the
landscape will be rather different with all the railroads.

Charis

Charis, I'm pretty sure I remember someone (Sirian?) say that the threshold for "miser" vs. "normal" vs "gracious" is 10% either way. So, if you have a big gpt deal, knocking one or 2 off won't make a difference, you might as well go for the whole amount. If you want a diplo value, you need to knock off at least 10% of their max pay value (for a relations-neutral deal) or 20% (for a relations-improving deal).

I'm not sure I've got that exactly right but if not, it's something along those lines.

Inherited Turn: Lots of goings on here.

OK, Charis is brilliant! (No, really!). The benefit of two luxuries is significant enough to matter. Not in the way he described, no, but all the same, it was a great move and is about to become permanent. One was blah, but two. Two can tango.

OK, what is Charis smoking? (No, really!) :smoke: I can understand forgetting about rails when intent on the brokering. That part didn't help us, but it was merely an oversight. What he's done to our forests... :eek:

"OK, Presidente. Put the chainsaw down -- SLOWLY -- and back away from it. That's it. Easy now. Good fellow there. Easy." He was then put in a straitjacket and hauled away. ;)

This has to be the weediest thing I've seen in weeks. Not in its overall negative effect (it's not that big a deal) but in the "one step forward two steps back" category. It's one thing to chop down forests, and quite another to eat the seed corn! I guess he forgot that those forests serve a purpose in providing shields every turn. Some of the ones he chopped down left half a dozen of our cities not only on lower shields, but STILL MANNING THE EMPTY FOREST TILES. I went through a buch of cities to reassign citizens to still-alive forests, or else to higher food tiles, as I could.

And there's no time to waste on correcting these problems, there's far more urgent duty ahead for our workers. Everyone not building rails was immediately halted and sent south, or to help those who were building rails. MUST... GET... TO... UR.

Economically, we look great. 5-digit treasury! I'd call this a momentous occasion, but... it's not quite. In the absence of colonies on which to be blowing this reserve, it might be a wee bit premature to declare the spendthrift issue closed. :) Still, this is good work.


Inherited Turn, 1400AD: Luxury Rate increased to 10%, all entertainers fired. Science rate increased to 90%.

1405AD: We have 32 workers. Four were left in the north to work on military rails. The other 28 are migrating south at top speed. Rails built along the east coast now stretch south past Babylon, and the group that had been at Ice Palace are one link short of Ninevah now. Diplomatic front: no news.

1410AD: Rail net reaches Ur! Four mine tiles within the city radius now have rails. Make the diplo rounds, everyone's either broke or at parity. Aztecs now have Communism, only civ who does.

1415AD: Rail net at Ur "completed". All 11 land tiles in use now have rails on them. Still a little work left to do to max shields, though. I'm going to mine a couple more tiles and leave options in place. Next up: Havana.

Ur is on placeholder for Suffrage, you see. One should not be dillying around building rails through the arctic when about eight turns might be shaved off the wonder ETA with proper support.

Make the diplo rounds. Ah, Alex has researched Industrialization. We have 3 turns to go, ~1900 beakers' worth.

Well now. Aztecs are only ones who have Communism, Greeks are only one with industry. If I sit back, they will trade, and cut us out of the loop. This is not acceptable. :nono:

2008 gold to Greece for Industrialization.

Industrialization and 4664 gold to Aztecs for Communism

Communism to Greece for 2037 gold, plus 4 gpt.

Communism to Zulus (diplo price) for 89gpt, plus 21 cash.

China, Egypt are broke.

Obsolete Tech to Russia @ diplo.

Havana switched to Factory (Ha! Due next turn with no waste. Second time in as many turns that the timing has broken down perfectly!)

Ur swapped to Wall Street (Havana will beat it to Suffrage, despite ~300 shield head start, with Factory and Coal Plant -- and full rails -- of that I am certain).


1420AD: Havana completes factory. With no rails online yet at any mines, Havana now cranking 41 shields, 1 wasted. Coal Plant due in 4 turns. All desired rail cleanup finished at Ur, the rest can wait. I start building rails to Havana's gold mines.

OMG! The Aztecs are sitting on that cash! Incredible.

OMG! I found two more cities with pathetic shield production because they were still set to work forests Charis chopped down! I reassign one to still-existing forests, the other to coastal waters.

1425AD: China has some credit available. I check and it tops out at 74 gpt. Well... how am I supposed to know what the miser price would be here? Aha. I find a way. I check their map price.

China will sell me their world map for no less than 990 cash. 990! So I put their map on the table and find that they are willing to buy Communism for the map plus 43 gpt. Now 1000 cash = 50gpt spread over 20 years. So I figure the market (miser) price here is 93 gpt. They would pay me 93 gpt for Communism, if they could afford that much.

Well today's their lucky day. I accept 74gpt, plus 102 cash (worth another 5 gpt), to let them have this one at the diplo price.

1430AD: Wall Street completed in Ur. Factory due in 8.

Egypt has captured Kyoto. We now have a new, singular, dot of map info, I presume at the new Japanese capital.

Rome's map is worth 976 cash. Germany's is worth 943. So there you go, Charis. You can use the map and figure when they offer it, they are offering ~50ish gpt. Take the map off the table, increase gpt by 50, and if they can pay, you've got a deal on your hands. If they can't pay, take our marbles and go home -- unless it's small fry and sideline deals. Heck we could afford to give a few techs away to Japan and Iros. Heh. :)

1435AD: Workers are busy busy with rails in the hills of Havana.

OMG! I'm still finding remnants of the Lumberjacking Scandal! :smoke: Ninevah's been working empty tundra tiles this whole time! I move them to fishing the coastal waters.

Three techs to Russia @ diplo prices (but not bad cash, Russia has clearly pulled away from Japan/Iro and is on her way to the Industrial Age! One of the techs I gave her is Democracy, she revolts immediately).

I give Education to Japan, who is still dead broke. I sell it to Iro for 3gpt @ diplo.

1440AD: Havana completes Coal Plant. Rail network at Havana completed. Havana cranking 77 shields per turn, 1 wasted. Havana starts Univeral Suffrage, due in 11 turns -- 2 turns faster than Ur would have been, even with all that head start. Havana's eleven... That's five turns spent preparing, so figure 16 turns. For the AI's to build 640 shields in 15 turns, they would need 44 shields per turn in the applicable city. Possible, but as shield-laden as Havana was, it did not have that many even WITH a factory, prior to the rails coming online. I think we've got this one in the bag, but after losing this race in Rumble, I'll withhold any Namath Guarantees.

China has researched Industrialization on their own.

Magnetism to Rome @ diplo. Rome reaches Industrial Age.

1445AD: Cubans research Medicine. Oh drat, Aztecs have Espionage now -- and no cash! They bought it off someone, has to be Greece. Yep, Greece now has Espionage, and 4k cash. Well, we lost out on one trade, but will make the other two now, and bring the cash wad back to our account.

Medicine to Greece @ 2nd-civ for 3905 cash.

Medicine @ 3rd-civ and 81 cash to Aztecs for Espionage @ 3rd-civ.

Espionage @ 4th-civ to China for 74 gpt and 123 cash (diplo).

Industrialization to Egypt for 16gpt @ diplo, topping off their tank (they were close to researching it on their own).

We start researching Sanitation, due in 6 turns.

1450AD: Rail net for food increases completed at Akkad, for shield maxing at Babylon, and for best-tile increasing at Ellipi, Ashur, and Ninevah. Our military rail net is not in too bad of shape, either. All cities not connected are one link away, and the northern line is one link away from the main line. Charis, you could probably link up all remaining cities in two turns... but there is no particular hurry. I'd recommend building on the basis of what provides the best increase to production/growth.

I've been running a bunch of cities on high food. Our civ is now addicted to BOTH of those luxuries, AND 10%. But this is a good thing, as we're about to hit hospitals. When the luxury deals come up for renewal, we must have them! Rather than end up having to renegotiate every 20 turns, I think it might even be worth our while to find out how much gpt they want, then offer them 25% more than that -- and nothing else in the deal. No techs, no cash, just pure gpt, so when the AI's check for renewal in yet another 20 turns, they find out we're still overpaying them slightly, and they sit there happily and don't bother us. What do you think? It will be your call. At this point, I'd pay for a third, too, if anybody offered one, but we can still only trade with 3 civs.


Still 1450AD: Espionage to Zulus for 65gpt, 16 cash.

Nationalism to Rome for 55gpt, 5 cash. HE CALLED ME A CHEAP BASTARD. Said "your reputation as a tough negotiator". Bah. I bend over backward to cut these chumps a good deal and they call me names. I guess I really am a cheap bastard. :lol:

Japan gets Astronomy for free. (There? See? -- Oh darn, he said "What an unexpected surprise!" Guess all these really high blown multi-thousand-gold deals that I've been pinching have put us over into the miser category, reputation-wise. Well, I don't plan to shave 1000 gold off a deal for a diplo price, so they can bite me. OK?)

I sold Russia another tech, WAY cheap, like half the miser price. (See? I am generous! Oh quit snickering).

Iroquois got Navigation for 7 gpt and 7 cash.

We have ~14.5k in the bank, and with science at 90% and lux at 10%, we are still pulling close to 500 gpt surplus.


Remember the scrape with Hocus? That was NOT because his brokering was a bad deal. Economically, it was quite strong, he worked them over pretty well. It all depends on your victory goals, though. He wanted to head for space race, and squeeze every dime economically. I didn't think we could pull that off, as our lands were pretty badly scattered. I wanted as much military advantage as we could get for ourselves. Remember when someone brokered to Zulu's for massive gpt, and they shorted us by declaring war a couple turns later? We don't have that problem here. In this world, the AI's are going at one another, they don't need to add us to their enemy list. In RBD1, the world was at war in the middle ages, but then France died and it all calmed down, and as it turned out, I WAS right about not being able to be left in peace.

This situation, we have nothing to gain from a military edge. We won't be attacking them no matter what, so what do we care if they have rifles instead of pikes, or infantry instead of rifles, or the extra production of earlier rails/factories to build more units? We can fend off an invasion with the forces we have, now that we have rails. No coal on our land could have been really dicey, but we got past that. Even if the coal dried up now, we'd be OK.

As such, the very kind of maximum-economic-brinksmanship that I didn't think would serve us in RBD1 is exactly the kind of game we have been wanting to play here since the scenerio was on the drawing board. Everything, frankly, is going BETTER than we planned (18 techs from the GL!)

Your absent-minded lumberjacking was quite entertaining. Now I have something to nag about that's minor and inconsequential, but still weedy. I'm pleased as punch! Those fine Cuban cigars, I see. Yep yep. Charis lightin up the weed sticks again. :lol:


On the good side of things, it has occurred to me that Hoover Dam says "within radius of the city". Havana may YET be able to build it, as the river is within its radius, and if so, then moving off the river (to get several extra hills in range) was probably the best move you could have made. BUT... you got lucky with it, my friend. You didn't know the situation with those hills, and given what you knew at the time, I'd definitely have stayed on the river. But this is me acknowledging that the move you made does now appear to have been the best one possible.


Final Notes. Battlefield Medicine: with us NEVER going to be fighting on enemy soil, save that one as a 500 shield placeholder for use in Havana. Ur being our other best city for production, I think it should get a coal plant. The rest... I dunno. If pollution happens at Havana, it must be cleaned up right away, and would take 16 workers to do so on a hill. So... keep the workers in stacks of four, and finish jobs on the same turn, rather than letting some scatter around, as you never know when a pollution outbreak may come, and best to have almost all the workers available for duty each turn.

Good luck on your turn. Stick with max science, use the map if you have to to figure out the Actual Retail Price, and try not to sell anything at less than 25% below the miser price, if you can, unless you are purposely doing it to get extra diplo credit.


- Sirian

Cuba? Uh-uh. You've got Grand Cayman Island over there :cool:

> OK, Charis is brilliant! (No, really!).

Ok, the room did fill with a little smoke on the forests. On the one city
I checked, late in the turn, there was nothing but white left, and no where
better to switch the workers. I'll accept the burden of this shame if it
gives you something to chuckle over as you find other aspects of the game
improving! :hammer:

> This has to be the weediest thing I've seen in weeks.
You don't follow other succession games much if that's the weediest, hehe.

> Ur is on placeholder for Suffrage

This has to be a denial thing, it didn't really occur that would be of any
value! ToE, in same time-frame/era would have been my guess.

> Make the diplo rounds. Ah, Alex has researched Industrialization. We have 3
> turns to go, ~1900 beakers' worth.

Eek! I still have some thinking readjustment to do here. Over 2000 gold to
save us 3 turns?????? Ok, let me see. This can't possibly be about the need
to get it three turns earlier. It's to avoid Alex getting more than 2K gold from
selling it at 2nd and 3rd civ prices, so we actually REDUCE his bankroll by
filling his wallet by 2K? Have they fixed the sell-on-your-turn bug?? I would
have thought that the act of opening up the diplo window to Alex would have
caused him to sell this to everyone, that just because it's your turn you can NOT
'beat them' in selling it to everyone. Has this changed, or was that never the
case? I'm missing something in the logic: Since he can sell anytime, even on
my turn, if he hasn't sold by now, there's no reason to assume he will any time
in the next 3 turns. At that point we sell our own freshly minted knowledge, get
the same price, and Greece gets 2K less. -confused-

This was precisely my fear in going 40% science, 20 turns to complete, the very
last thing I was hoping to see, go half-hearted then just a moment before
completion, pay FULL going price for the tech. Do you pay less if you're
near finished with it? (ie if market price is 4000 gold, and you're 50% research
does the AI value the sale at 2000? As a player, I could care less how many turns
he has less, if he can't pay, he don't get). Barring other evidence, it seems
'half rate' science is seldom the best choice, go zero or max if you can afford it.

Then again, maybe I'm thinking middle age prices. 2K sounds like a fortune, but
it's a 'less than 1 full tech' price.

> Aha. I find a way. I check their map price.

Excellent tip!!! :goodjob: This one is a keeper in the mental files!
For some reason I didn't see a communicative property at work in the offers.
ie if spices=x and map=y, I just didn't think that spices+map would turn out
to be x+y. So they do put a hard value on things like maps... got it.
And order of 1000 gold for a map???? No wonder I first kept thinking
map+5gpt, is that all??! Cheap jerks.

> Egypt has captured Kyoto. We now have a new, singular, dot of map info, I presume

at the new Japanese capital.

lol! If one country goes agressively after another and sends the capitol
bouncing all over creation, we might get to see quite a bit.

> Cubans research Medicine. Oh drat, Aztecs have Espionage

Sheesh, new feature request: a 'newspaper' that tells about new luxs avail for
trade and new techs discovered. It's crazy in a game with many civs to hawk
over the diplo screen that much, in fear of missing a turn 8-\

> I've been running a bunch of cities on high food. Our civ is now addicted to
> BOTH of those luxuries, AND 10%. But this is a good thing, as we're about to hit
> hospitals. When the luxury deals come up for renewal, we must have them!

Good idea since we're offering more generous than diplo anyway.

> Nationalism to Rome for 55gpt, 5 cash. HE CALLED ME A CHEAP BASTARD. Said "your
> reputation as a tough negotiator". Bah. I bend over backward to cut these chumps

Rome??? You want some Caesar... COME GET SOME!!! :hammer:

> Remember the scrape... re: brokering... It all depends on your victory goals
Nod... makes a ton of sense here now that I see it in action

> On the good side of things, it has occurred to me that Hoover Dam says "within
> radius of the city". Havana may YET be able to build it, as the river is within
> BUT... you got lucky with it...
> But this is me acknowledging that the move you made does now appear to have
> been the best one possible.

lol! That would be too funny. Actually, I'm of the opinion that the end (outcome)
doesn't justify (validate) the means (decision). It was, regardless of outcome,
suboptimal in a non-deterministic sense.

As for pollution, ya, I always clean it up with a huge worker stack the very
turn it occurs.

OK, phew... here goes!

1450 AD (0) - I like factory in the Cove rather than bank. The former will
come in at double rate with the former built. It'll take so long you have
time to veto anyway ;p Same for Holguin and Cardenas, Roberto, Rosa, Chupa,
Charisso, Martino, Guantanamo, Cyreno, er... basically, everywhere.
(A little voice saying "I urge you to look long terms" is what spurs this on)
Every single city now has (Havana) or is on factory. :P

I'll get all cities rail connect asap, then make sure to hit 'key squares'.

1455 AD (1) - Zulu announced as building suffrage. Good luck pal. Looks around...
China's world map is around 1100, their territory for just 180. For medicine
they offer basically 18.5 gpt and can afford 24.5 gpt before 'never'. Using the
world map valuation (worth so much I have to ADD money to the table just to
calculate), they think 'miser' rate is 27. Is "diplo" 33% off miser? That
just seems too kind, let's try 25% off miser, which is 21 gpt. (or 10% above
his offer would be 20 gpt.) From earlier, I think up to 20% off miser was seen
as hard bargain. Anyway... 21 gpt it is.
Russians still need free artistry, offer 9, miser at 14 gpt, we take 11.
Egypt offers their world map for medicine, ~50 gpt. Gosh, much more than
China. Ah, wow are they broke! They can't afford a single gpt. Maybe later Cleo..
Zulus offer 64 egpt (equivalent gpt counting 50 for world map), but can
only scrounge cash for 14. Maybe later.

1460 AD (2) - Zulus want to let the RoP lapse unless we can kick in about 15 gold.
Cough, I dunno Shaka, that's 0.1% of our assets, well, ok, have 25. Cleo is
similar and accepts our "gracious" offer. Before turn is up, all cities fully
connected. Now the 'good stuff'

1465 AD (3) - Iroquois and Aztecs sign an MPP. Then a mil alliance vs Egypt,
followed, of course, by Iro war vs Egypt. Egypt starts Suffrage. (Good plan
for them given all their war, but they won't make it) We lost our supply
of spice and silk (I thought that was one more turn away -- in any case,
why didn't they even bother asking us??) I hop on that right away, seeing as
we seem to have become slightly addicted. Zulu spices 17gpt@miser, so I
give them 22gpt. Identical rates to Rome. Hey Caesar, I see you're missing
knowledge of Communism, let Cuba teach you! Hmmm, here is where the 'map' math
seems to break down. He offers 25 gpt and territory map. Unclick map and he
says "never!" He'll give 24 though. Shall we give for 18? Doesn't seem enough,
research it yourself bub.

Charis' new Arbor-day advisor is worried that no new forests have been
planted. So he plants the VERY LAST 3 never-planted tundra squares outside
Lola. Now his 'normal' chain saw guy can feel free to rip down any square
and no more worrying about markers. Besides, Lola can actually use the
bonus shields. In an act that can only be described as comical relief,
the anti-green party cuts down one of the forest that very same turn! :hammer:

1470 AD (4) - Ur finishes a factory, can knock out a Coal Plant in 4 and so
starts one. CIA is a new option, btw (9 turns, vs 18 for palace).

The first of the new 'non-marker' tundra mines goes on the cattle between
Ice Palace and Guantanamo. Before and after are both 2-2-2 squares, so the
priority on this is low low, just when a city feels like it could use the
bonus 10 shields. Much better is mining deforested tundra on the railroads.

1475 AD (5) - Russia and Aztecs sign a mil alliance vs Egypt, then Russia
declares war. Sanitation comes in, next up, Electricity. With comm and
espio already in the bag, we're set up nice for ToE to get Atomic and
Replacement Parts! Not bending the civ around it, just pointing out it's
there for the taking, and moves us closer to Hoover. At 90% sci that's a
8 turn research. Another 8 for sci method is 16. 600 shields for ToE,
will take Havana only 8 turns to build (can placehold on CIA for only 5)
BTW, the Coal Plant description seems wrong. Our 'base' shields in Havana
is 39, but we produce 78, or +100%. With factory as +50%, the coal plant
must be giving +50% of base, not +50% of factory as described.
So Ur's shield rate, base 33, 50 with factory, will go up to 66 with plant.
After corruption that's 10 turns to build ToE, which palace placeholder can
sustain. Therefore we aim to go to placeholder in 6 turns. See? Simple!! This
is not complex "Price is right" stuff! :)

Ok, who can afford Sanitation? What?? Alex already has it?? He didn't
last turn, I checked! Hmm... I don't think anyone else can afford 'market
price'. China offers Territory+80+30gpt (53gpt equiv). World Map math suggests
it thinks miser price is 54 egpt so their offer is good. Real money offer is
33 gpt, with one more being 'never'. They're too poor, we'll try later.
The others can't approach a fair price on anything either, so there's no
bartering this round, perhaps not for a while unless we get to feeling
generous.

1480 AD (6) - First Ironclad seen, outside Akkad. Hmm... the Aztecs offer
the Corporation, for Sanitation and 4K gold. Uh... that's nuts dude.
If we bought it hoping to barter, that would not make sense -- we could
sell to Greece but we're still holding Sanitation until folks can pay.
Having a second expensive tech won't help right now. Let's break this down.
Sanitation fair cost we saw was about 52 gpt. Ah, he CAN offer that straight
up. Miser fee would be 54 egpt. Hmmm... perhaps let the rich guys pay miser
and cut the poorer guys the slack. Give us the full 54 bud! Done.
(Corporation alone is 5100 gold, or 260 egpt. Uh, no thanks, no one can afford
that if we try to broker. We'll wait)

Now the 4th civ rate is closer to realistic for China. Can he afford it?
He'll pay 24 gpt. Half price? I think not Mao. Maybe later.

Two Greek ships off San Marino. You're not thinking silly now are you Alex?
I pity the civ that actually does invade us, and finds themselves with 10 foes!

1485 AD (7) - Ninevah and Ice Palace finish factories. Our main producer cities
are, in order, Havana, ur, Ice Palace, Bablyon, Ashur, Ninevah, Akkad.
The Ice Palace starts Coal plant. The others may wait to see if we can
get Hoover, else later will do coal. Hospitals are now an option.
Ninevah is on Police Station but Hospital would take same time. I'm just
not sure if we can keep happy >12 city. If you think so, swap to hospital.

1490 AD (8) - Havana finishes Suffrage! :hammer: It can knock out a
University in 2 turns and a Hospital in 3. Two turns for hospital? Civopedia
lists it at 200 shields, that can't be right, it's 100. Ur finishes Coal
Plant. I wanted to slip in a 2-3 turn item before starting Palace placeholder
for ToE, so Univ in 2 fits the bill perfectly. No one shifts wonders with
Suffrage done, and a check shows no one is building anything. Any wonder here
on out is basically ours, given our ability to buy cutting edge tech.

1495 AD (9) - Hmmm... Zulu's have electricity. We're halfway there, 4 turns off.
They need Medicine. They'll swap if we throw in 1780 gold@miser. Let's add
10% and make it 2000 (1000 and 50gpt actually). Turn around and offer him
Sanitation for 1000 gold and 9 gpt (one more he can't afford), that seems
fair enough (59 gpt equiv). We now see China has researched Sanitation.
I'm not going to broker Electricity cheaply. China can't afford. Greece can
give 150gold+69 gpt@miser (76 egpt). Not bad, but I'll let our next leader
decide if that works. Germany now has some cash, can afford medicine for 62
gpt (but one more never). World Map shows they would consider 65miser, ah
so 'diplo' is around 46 gpt. We can swing that, Bismarck never 'truly' smiles.
Rome can put up 33 gpt... hmm... that's bargain basement. Ok, we'll help the
little guy. Likewise we give Iroquois Econ at a low low rate. Egypt is just
too poor for Medicine. We unlock the secrets of Physics to Russia@diplo.
Aztecs would trade Corporation for Electricity if we throw in 2000@miser.
So Greece and Aztec deals are up to Sirian to go for or nix.

1500 AD (10) - There's an increasing buzz of ships around our coasts these
days, but they're just fishing.

Review the hospital/coal plant/police station choices and changes as needed.
Key trade deals to consider: Greece wants Electricity for ~62 gpt.
Aztecs can't afford Elecricity straight up but will offer Corporation if we
also pay 2400. (The Zulus and most others would be too poor to then buy Corp)
China has a harbor or path! They can sell us BOTH dyes and incense for
just 53 gpt, or will give both those AND 23 gpt for Electricity.

Being 3rd and 4th luxuries, those would give a total of *4* smilies!
That would definitely allow us back to 0% lux. Seems excellent, but I'll
let you execute that deal.

Scientific Method is only 5 turns away. Havana just now started CIA placeholder
for ToE and is due in 6 turns, perfect! Ur gets to slip in Bank and if it
wants, hospital. Ok, "Price is right" estimate was off by about 4-6 turns.
Still, with them not pre-building that was accurate enough plan. We could
hit ToE completion with Ur in 10 turns from now instead of 6. :P

I would probably avoid the Corporation buy, finish Sci Method and start
Corp. Then we get Atomic and Replaceable, identical to our rbd3 game, and
without the painful 212 gpt maneuver! :P (If instead we've learned Corp
when the ToE finishes, gah, we get Refining and Steel instead! :eek:)
They are too late to the party for Electricity sales to hurt though.

Oh, and we're just a tad shy of 20K gold in treasury, +260ish/turn surplus :P

Rock on! :hammer:
Charis

Excellent! You've got the hang of the miser bartering now, the principle of it. One more point: the "diplo" price is 10-15% below the miser price. I am usually offering about 12% discount. The more I watch the responses, the more I realize that the "random seed" that gets consumed on diplomatic deals is used to determine the reaction. In other words, there is actually a range there, not a set value, in how it determines the reaction. I have seen "Gracious" reaction to full miser price a few times, and nasty reaction to 20% discount once or twice. So maybe that one time I didn't miscalculate my usual formula, just got unlucky.

Considering that 12% gets a diplomatic reaction ~80% of the time or more, I'm going to stick with that. I'll give a full 20-25% discount on miniscule deals, or in some cases give it away if the price is just too low to matter. Anything over about 60gpt, I'll miser, unless a civ can't pay the miser and I fear other deals jumping in there.


Eek! I still have some thinking readjustment to do here. Over 2000 gold to
save us 3 turns?????? Ok, let me see. This can't possibly be about the need
to get it three turns earlier. It's to avoid Alex getting more than 2K gold from
selling it at 2nd and 3rd civ prices, so we actually REDUCE his bankroll by
filling his wallet by 2K?
No. It was about cross-tech trading. Greeks had Advance A, Aztecs had Advance B, both were first-civ. I feared them trading back and forth. That WOULD have put us at 3rd-civ buy in prices on both techs, but are you seeing how this cuts us out of the broker picture on a deal? The extra-to-pay difference between 2nd and 3rd price is less than the profit to brokering two deals at 3rd prices, and also the chance to broker yet more to other civs, since it IS possible that Greece or Azteca may then have gone on to steal the 4th and 5th civ broker deals, with China or Egypt. (At the time, I could not see that they were flat broke). Yet I did make a deal with the Zulus. Imagine if that Zulu cash had gone into Greek pockets? It could have happened!

So this is what I did:
1) Top off our tank on Advance A (Industry) @ 2nd price.
2) Trade Advance A @ 3rd price, plus cash, for Advance B @ 2nd price.
3) Sell Advance B to Greece @ 3rd price.
4) Sell Advance B to Zulu @ 4th price.

Net cost to us: (-2008) + (-4664) + (+2117) + (+1801) = 2700ish for 1.4 techs (we had some invested in Industry).

This did three things for us:
1) It got us the techs for our immediate use. This saved us three turns (or at least one, if we waited a turn hoping to buy @ 3rd prices) on Universal Suffrage. (Why do we want Suffrage? Because we can get it. That simple. That's one civ less able to prosecute wars AND stay in Democracy, it's a boost to our culture and power ratings, and it's insulation for us if someone does come after us. Always get a wonder if you can -- just that if you have to choose, because you can't build them all, then you pick the ones most useful to your goals, either for your own use, or the usefulness of denying it to rivals. Since we could get this one, we wanted it).
2) It got us started on our next research sooner. When we have the economic strength to research at 1st-civ prices and get there first, or get some techs first, that's to our benefit.
3) Some diplomatic benefit for the dealmaking.

Now I count the deal to Zulu in the net, because they had the means to pay full miser price and may (or may not) have made such a deal with Greece.

If I wait, here's what might have happened.

1) Greece and Aztecs trade the tech back and forth. (Almost a certainty).
2) One of them trades one of these techs to Zulus @ 3rd price (likelihood unknown, but I considered the possibility strong).
3) We lose at least one turn on Suffrage and next research project.


What we do not want to see happen: For us to pay current highest price, get no immediate use out of the tech, then turn around and find that lower civs on the food chain have researched or bought in at lower prices, and us not able to make any deals. This does waste cash. So yes, if one civ has a tech, that's not necessarily time to move. Note that the Aztecs had Communism the turn before and I left it alone.

A time that is ALWAYS right to move is when one civ has a new tech, and a different civ has a different new tech. Jump in there, buy both then broker back to both, and jump on any lower deals that make sense. For all the reasons I spelled out.

One more thing: you can't think only in terms of cash. A civ who looks broke may have other assets: resources, military options, luxuries, maps. Those may get thrown in to some of these deals. But it's better, generally, to risk them researching on their own, or bartering their noncash assets, than it is to give them more than a 15% discount off a miser price, for a big deal. More often than not, just waiting another turn or two is a better option. Not always, sometimes they run around you, but if you never hold out for a better deal, you're going to squander the lead. So it's a bit of an art, rather than exact science. The barter is cut and dry, a simple formulaic thing (and often you don't care about the diplomatic consequences of misering, but in this game, we are aiming for a UN win as our best bet). But as to when to cut a discount, to avoid losing business, that's not so clear, and I'm still learning new things about that myself as we play here.

One thing, though: the time to broker to the richest civs (Greece, Aztecs at the moment) is immediately. As soon as a tech comes in. If one of them only wants to offer beans, it means they have been researching the same tech. If the other will pay the full-on miser price, let them do so, and top off the tank to the other at 3rd price.

When guarding a military tech advantage, the absolute worst thing you want to see is your two next-strongest rivals researching different techs! When you find yourself in this position, the best thing to do is to wait until they are one or two turns away from the breakthrough (dicey, takes practice, a misstep WILL cost you both techs to both civs), pick the civ researching Tech A, and broker Tech B to them at the FULL 2nd price. Then you go and broker Tech A to the other one, also at the FULL price. This goes the farthest to slowing them down. They then often get the techs they were researching AS INSTANT BREAKTHROUGH because the research price drops below the amount they already have invested. (This can LOOK like they conducted an instant trade, but it's not so). Or else they need beans to finish off at that point. If they need beans to finish, I let them do so, which buys me one more turn before they start their next research project.

So it's preferable to sell at full price first, top off the tank only as a last resort -- and that also applies to economic brokering as much as military brokering. If two rivals research different lines and you don't interfere, they inevitably trade the two techs, and double their rate of catch-up. This is not good. :nono: So even when guarding a lead jealously, there is a place for brokering, if you are still building up, not actually attacking yet. Civs researching different techs is always a threat, no matter what your goals and priorities. You want all broker deals to lead to Rome, so to speak. Anything that doesn't go through you, is bad, and to be avoided if possible. But then there is also the time when you have to weigh the value of gpt. There are times when gpt is NOT equal to cash, so you also have to weigh your risks of being attacked -- which is what drove my opinions in RBD1.


The bug with trading techs on your turn really is only activated by the autosave. We've avoided that problem here, which allows us to broker techs without them automagically making deals on our turn. If they SEEM to have made a deal, it's because one of our other deals has lowered the cost for them below what they already have invested from their own research, and they get the tech immediately (as if we would, buying it for 1 gold). You see?

So that bug hasn't been plaguing us here, or we'd really be in the crapper. :)


Your turn sounded superb to me. If we can indeed build Hoover at Havana, I think all we have to do is ride it out and hope nobody targets us. Still a lot of things that could go wrong, but I definitely like our chances now. :)


- Sirian

Barring other evidence, it seems
'half rate' science is seldom the best choice, go zero or max if you can afford it.

Seldom, but NOT never. There is definitely one situation where it is the best option: if your research power lags behind that of other civs, it makes no sense to run full research, but you don't necessarily want to run zero, either, to hand them huge wads of cash every so many turns. Running some research gets you partway along, and waiting for them to make breakthroughs and do brokering that lower the cost for you.

This situation tends to come up when the entire world is at parity, with not just one or two tech powers, but everyone strong enough to stay tightly bunched, with the moment one civ makes a breakthrough, the cost reduction cascading down so that ALL the other civs on the planet make the breakthrough instantly, as the second AI civ has enough invested to break through @2nd but not @1st, and their getting it lowers the cost enough that AI#3 gets instant breakthrough @3rd, etc, or some minor deal making catches up everybody but you.

In this case, if you can't hope to make the breakthrough first, and you know that it's either get there first or find yourself sitting at 5th-civ cost or lower, you don't want to be sitting on a pile of research that is way over what you now need. Run mid-range research, then after the breakthrough-and-barter cascade, buy or research the remainder and move on. From this position, you are biding your time, accepting a second-class position and getting the techs a little later, to build your cash AND deny that cash to your rivals... in hopes of then running a deficit at some point and rushing past them (usually at Theory of Evolution). Once you can actually GET to some techs first, then all out broker can bring you everybody's cash, speed you more, slow them down, and get you the economic power to go faster. For a military scenerio, this means trying to get to tanks first. (I have not played out a game, since my very first one, in which I did not get to tanks first).


- Sirian

Great game, guys!

I am extremely impressed at how you play this game! I've actually learnt a LOT from reading your posts and justifications of your decisions!

I never knew about this first-civ, second-civ thing and that prices in negotiations have such an impact on attitudes!

However, I'm not sure whether gpt and cash are equivalent. For example if I offer the Persians 50gpt for a tech, they refuse, but agree to 800 gold in cash. Of course that might've been because I've backstabbed a few civs before...:D

Great Game Guys. I too have learned ALOT.

so far, i've only beaten Civ3 Twice :(
Once with Bismarck, it was a small game with 5 Civs, about 4 Cities each. I won in 2050 by ONE point over the persians :D

Second was a french Game, won through Culture.

It just doesn't click in my mind to KEEP expanding. 10 Cities Settled in 10 turns? YIKES. I just don't have that mentality *Shrug* Any tips on expanding would be appreciated :D

The most common flaw in the approach of new players is slow/low expansion. There's an old adage in the Civ community offered up to newbies as the cure-all for strategic woes:

"Build... More... Cities..."

Getting a few more cities going in the first two or three thousand years makes a huge difference. Irrigate your wheat/cattle, if you can, or flood plains if you have them, so your cities can grow faster. Mine your grasslands. Do it yourself, don't trust the worker automation, at least not in those early years. Unless you are specifically playing a "limited city" playstyle for extra challenge, don't even consider slowing down expansion until you get the notice about "Our People want to build the Forbidden Palace".

Below Emperor, you can even get away with building NO military in the first 1000 years or so (especially if expansionist, maybe build an extra scout or two) and go right to a settler, if you have food bonus tiles in range. Or build one military to scout, then the settler. Or... if you have no food bonuses, then at least get the settler out at the earliest opportunity.

You can build double whatever the number of cities the Forbidden Palace requires, without going heavily into the penalty. That's 16 cities on a standard map, 32 on a huge, and even 8 on a tiny one. More than these numbers will really eat into you with extra corruption, but even that can be managed. Rapid/efficient expansion, without allowing yourself to be conquered through military weakness, is the fine line that players have to walk to succeed in difficult circumstances and/or at higher difficulties.


- Sirian

Inherited Turn: Factories in the north?? :smoke: :smoke:

It breaks down like this: 240 shields for a factory, 160 for bank, 100 for university or marketplace. (Even the slowest city up there had a library already). Most cities need university and bank, or market and bank. That's 260 shields. What do we want a factory for at a city with 6-8 shields when its running zero food, and 1 or 2 producetion when on max food? ... So we can build the university and bank sooner? :lol:

For a game in which we plan to attack, the factories in almost every city might be a good deal, even for a city with just 9 shields. That could be doubled to 18 with Hoover/Powerplant, it might pay off as we build troops. Here? No way, no how. If we do need any more military, we can make it at our few larger cities once they are sittin around with nothing to do (got some in that category already, building police stations). So the factories are nothing more than an albatross up there in the frozen lands. They actually DELAY us building bank/university, delay the culture of universities, would vastly increase pollution instances, and each would cost us 3gpt.

El Presidente Sirian holds a Veto Party. Here's a shot of him stamping "NO" onto dozens of pieces of legislation: :hammer: :lol:

Luckily, not many shields wasted. Poor Santa Lola was the only one, wasting about 34 shields, so I promised the people there a rushbuilt marketplace to make up for their troubles. (Once I came through on this promise, they lovingly celebrated We Love El Presidente Day the rest of my term. :love: ) However, several cities went on bank with universities yet unbuilt, with us running 90% science virtually every turn, or else I would have had to waste about 300 shields from all the cities well past 100 in their box. I know I didn't explain WHY I wasn't building any factories up there on my turn, but didn't think that I needed to. Factories are generally a no-brainer, but like the lumberjacking, if you don't stop to think about why you're doing something, and just run an auto script from what worked best in other games, you may end up doing something counterproductive to your specific goals.

I see Scientific Method due in five turns, and Havana set to build Intelligence Agency in six. I check my math, and 600 shields at 76 per turn adds up to eight turns, so that's 3 more after the tech comes in good. Well, no sense delaying ToE as there's no way we can pull down another tech before then. So I'll just run zero science for those three turns, and select Atomic/Electronic as our two free techs, then pick up from there.

OK, on to the diplomatics. Aztecs have the Corporation. We have electricity, but Greece is almost done researching it. Most everybody on the planet is broke.

Inherited Turn 1500AD:

Electricity and 2322 gold to Aztecs for Corporation.

Corporation to Greece for 79gpt and 24 cash.

I buy two luxuries from China for 60gpt.

1505-20AD: AI's making alliances and declaring war on one another left and right. The sides seem to breaking down like this:

Aztecs, Greece, China, Germany vs. Zulu, Egypt, Russia.

I don't remember where the small fry line up, maybe some on each side, or maybe all with the bigger powers.

Japan has Kyoto back and they made peace with Egypt, Egypt also made peace with Russia.

I noticed that the new food bonus from game tiles (+2 post-patch, instead of +1) has NOT kicked in yet in some cities. I discover that I have to plant a forest within the city radius for the game to start taking effect. I suppose this is because the game has the food/shields stored in some variable and only rechecks it when the land is modified somehow. So I spent the first half of my term building rails and planting forests.

In all these years, the AI's are too broke to make any deals with us. They do some research on their own, and maybe some noncash deals (alliances, goods) and most of the top civs catch up to us on tech. :( Nothing I could do about it.

Somewhere in there, I paid cash for Aztec gems, ~700. We now have five luxuries, but I am still running 10% lux to boost our score. Note on F8, our graph gets a huge jump here as all the new happy people are pumping up our score. Why the heck not, I figure at this point there's no way we'll blow all this cash by the time we get to Fission. The only way we'll possibly run out is if for some reason we can't get enough votes, yet the game keeps going because no one else has enough either. This also means we could afford more military, too, so I set a couple cities with nothing else to do on building some more vet rifles.

1525AD: We discover Scientific Method. I swap Havana to ToE, which is due in 3 turns just as my math predicted. Science dropped to zero.

I do not broker the tech yet.

1530AD: The AI's are catching up on tech. Now everyone out of the big civs except Egypt and Rome has caught up to us! Germany seems to have taken its place on the world stage.

1535AD: Now just one turn away from ToE, the AI's cant steal it from us any more. I broker Scientific Method.

@2nd to Aztecs for 92 gpt, 228 cash.
@3rd to China for 91gpt, 183 cash.
@4th to Zulus for 68gpt, 77 cash, diplo price.

Germany could muster only about 35gpt, and the rest were broke. I opted not to sell to Germany yet.

1540AD: Havana completes Theory of Evolution. We discover Atomic Theory and Electronics by my choice (patch change).

Bah, Germany has acquired Scientific Method. Guess they were able to buy it or trade for it with somebody. We missed out on 35ish gpt, which is about 700 gold, but oh well. I was not going to sell to them at that much under the market price.

Havana needs a hospital and we have a two tech lead on Electronics. I can get the hospital in just two turns if I run six food deficit both turns. On high food, that 12 can be made up in one turn, and that's the turn after hospital completion that Havana would have to wait to grow on anyway, and it can spare ONE turn on low shields and still build Hoover in just 11 turns. So I can either delay its hospital another billion turns while it builds another wonder, or get it out of the way first and have the city growing. I run the deficit. Heck, even if we were somehow to lose Hoover (ain't gonna happen) it wouldn't matter anyway. The main thing is to get it out of the way to avoid cascade with the UN.

I set our research back to 90% and choose Steel, because it's either that or Radio. I know the AI's will research Refining (are already on it) and Replaceable Parts, so rather than chase them, I opt to make progress on a line they won't be working yet. I figure Steel now because we can divert to Radio while they are all bunched up researching Combustion for us, after we broker Steel to them.

Oh yeah, in between turns this last time, Greece aggressively moved an escorted galley into our waters. (Galley, not galleon). I don't like that one bit, as we still have 12 turns left on a gpt deal we made with them. If they are going to land and start a war, its not going to happen during my turn while they are still owing us money. I mobilize cavalry and cannon units to organize a complete blockade of our shoreline everywhere that they could possibly reach in one turn with their 3+1 galley movement (they have Magellan).

1545AD: Greece stays near our shore, while every other civ has always maintained respectful distance, or at least moved back away from our shore after just one turn. I am definitely thinking they plan to invade us. We could surely knock off whatever they land, but they may be in MPP's with somebody (I think they are) and also they still owe us money. We can run this blockade on part of our shore, rolling it along each turn to respond to where they move, indefinitely. It would only be if they brought more ships, or if we CHOOSE to let them land with this one, that they get onto Cuban soil.

1550AD: Greece still hugging our shore. I continue the blockade. What happens next will be up to Charis. I just hope he doesn't go into complete panic mode and move every worker and unit we have to the shorelines. ;) The rolling blockade is doing just fine for now, as long as we are attentive with it, although me might benefit from building more units so that we COULD block the whole shoreline without having to park our workers.

I check the diplo screen and Holy Crappola! Everyone and his brother now has both Refining and Rep Parts. (Zulus did not have refining).

I roll through listening to some offers and find that Germany (GERMANY!!!) is the richest nation on the earth now (after us, of course). Like... wow. Times have changed. Greece is busting a gut and China and Egypt are broke.

Atomic Theory to Germany at full miser price: 203gpt, 108 cash.

(Yes, 203 gold PER turn for one tech @2nd cost).

Atomic Theory to Aztecs for 167gpt, 212 cash, diplo price.

Atomic Theory to Zulus for Replaceable Parts, 47gpt, 31 cash @diplo.

Replaceable Parts to Rome for 53gpt.

Atomic Theory @5th cost to China for Refining and Right of Passage, @ diplo.

Greece gets squat. He's broke. I could sell for ivory and boost our score some more, but with his ships prowling our shores like that, he can go bite me.

As a final move, I meld 8 of our 32 workers into northern cities. Several are now at their max sustainable size. Those who are not are mostly those who got food boosts from the new game bonus. 24 workers can clean pollution from three grassland tiles, or one mountain. So I'd say not to meld any more for the time being.

All turn long, the small fry were flat broke. I gave a tech to Iro's in there somewhere, and they have since reached the current age.

Whatever happens, don't broker Electronics until we complete the dam. I would also ask that you not veto my factory vetos, and let the north finish its banks and universities. There's nothing up there for us to gain from factories except more headaches.


Havana is on high food for one turn, so are Akkad and Ur. Cove is on high food, too, it's done with all essential buildings. I upgraded all our cannon to artillery, and some of our rifles to infantry. Yet again, you get to do the unit shuffle on your turn. :)

We have one rubber and one oil. Let's hope that oil doesn't dry up, as we can build some planes/tanks with it if it stays. You COULD opt to disconnect it (pillage the tile, near Chupa). I don't particularly care. I'm apathetic about that game feature, so much so that I consider it broken, there's no sense to it. It's just completely random, and decided by luck two turns before it disappears. Not only that, but it just MOVES from one place to another, like the Black Fortress in the movie Krull. It's not as if the resources actually dry up. They just flit around. I hate it. I hate all such luck factors in a strategy game. It's not like the combat luck factor, which you can usually overcome with decisive force, or the luck of the start position. Those are essential to the variety of the game. With these moving resources, huge segments of the game turn on a simple dice roll, and that's not my style. If some of these resource deposits had specific amounts in them, and the game would keep track of your use, and let you know when you get close to running out (not just "Hey, we're out") I might find it interesting. I've seen games that do this (Heh, Warcraft is a good example). This... just plain sucks. In my private games, I have no qualms about reloading to undo a resource disappearing. I don't always do that -- sometimes I bite the bullet and live with it, or if I am playing a tournament I live with it. But it still takes away from my fun.

Here... it would probably be most prudent to disconnect it. What I find so ridiculous is that this actually works. Our civ isn't USING any oil on anything, yet tearing down the road to it can prevent it from randomly moving somewhere else on the map. How... absurd. I leave it up to you, pillage it or not as you see fit.


We're nearing what should be the end of this game. Diplo is the one thing I've never done before, though, so I don't know exactly what to do to improve our voting odds. If by chance Greece or anybody else lands on our shore, box them in with infantry, don't let em have their pick of where to attack, raping us via the Right of Passage. If you want to crank more units, feel free.

Now that hospitals have started coming on line, managing the cities should be interesting for a while. Good luck.


- Sirian

Here's the file:

> Inherited Turn: Factories in the north??

Reasoning is simple really. If it's going to be a diplo victory,
the game is not far from done, and the extra moderately early univ or marketplace will have no impact. If things go sour or we don't get UN for whatever reason, I don't want to kick myself over lack of factories at that point. Still.... they are useless enough deals that I don't argue the veto one bit.

> I see Scientific Method due in five turns, and Havana set to
> build Intelligence Agency in six. I check my math, and 600
> shields at 76 per turn adds up to eight turns, so that's 3 more
> after the tech comes in good. Well, no sense delaying ToE as
> there's no way we can pull down another tech before then. So
> I'll just run zero science for those three turns, and select
> Atomic/Electronic as our two free techs, then pick up from

This scared me!! Last patch, you would NOT have gotten Electronics, as it "finds" the two at once, not one after the other.

> I noticed that the new food bonus from game tiles (+2 post-
> patch, instead of +1) has NOT kicked in yet in some cities. I
> discover that I have to plant a forest within the city radius for
> the game to start taking effect.

Interesting to note, and keep in mind for other rbd games (no pun intended!) :lol:

> 1540AD: Havana completes Theory of Evolution. We discover
> Atomic Theory and Electronics by my choice (patch change).

By your CHOICE?!??!! Woo!!!! It's a REAL wonder again!! :hammer:

> Oh yeah, in between turns this last time, Greece aggressively
> moved an escorted galley into our waters. (Galley, not galleon).

Hmmm... what are they thinking? (I add this to my: when-game-is- done-replay-this-and-see list. I have no intention of finding out this game)

They'll not see Cuban soil, or "No me llama el Presidente!!"
I'll just dispatch those workers right away!! (j/k)
Actually, the 'moving' blockade is perfect, at least until they
assault from 3 directions.

> 1550AD: Greece still hugging our shore. I continue the
> blockade. What happens next will be up to Charis. I just hope > he doesn't go into complete panic mode and move every
> worker and unit we have to the shorelines.

What, me?? :rolleyes:

> although we might benefit from building more units so that we
> COULD block the whole shoreline without having to park our
> workers.


> I roll through listening to some offers and find that Germany
> (GERMANY!!!) is the richest nation on the earth now (after us,
> of course). Like... wow. Times have changed. Greece is busting
> a gut and China and Egypt are broke.

wow... never expected them to be a player in any way. Perhaps
their staying out of world wars was key? Have the 'faster' guys gone Communist?

> Atomic Theory to Germany at full miser price: 203gpt, 108 cash.
> (Yes, 203 gold PER turn for one tech @2nd cost).

:eek:

> Greece gets squat. He's broke. I could sell for ivory and boost
> our score some more, but with his ships prowling our shores
> like that, he can go bite me.

:hammer: That's the spirit!

> Whatever happens, don't broker Electronics until we complete
> the dam. I would also ask that you not veto my factory vetos,
> and let the north finish its banks and universities. There's
> nothing up there for us to gain from factories except more
> headaches.

No reasonable plea from an outdoing leader is rejected... np...

> We have one rubber and one oil. Let's hope that oil doesn't dry
> up, as we can build some planes/tanks with it if it stays.
> You COULD opt to disconnect it (pillage the tile, near Chupa). I
> don't particularly care. I'm apathetic about that game feature,
> This... just plain sucks. In my private games, I have no qualms
> about reloading to undo a resource disappearing. I don't
> always do that -- sometimes I bite the bullet and live with it,
> or if I am playing a tournament I live with it. But it still takes
> away from my fun.
100% agreement on every point! Glad you mention doing that. I'll reload in private fun games, and bite the bullet and gripe in tourney style games. I'll probably leave connected in any case.
In last several games, I've not seen a resource jump out of your territory, just different square within your territory. So for us, IF that is true, it would have no chance to hurt us.

> If by chance Greece or anybody else lands on our shore, box
> them in with infantry, don't let em have their pick of where to
> attack, raping us via the Right of Passage. If you want to crank
> more units, feel free.

Ah?! I *can* make one artillery per city?? yay! Consider it done!

May not have time to finish tonight, but tomorrow otherwise.
Charis

You guys are looking to come out of this OK. I had my doubts when I first started reading this game.;)

FYI on diplomatic victories:

I won a diplomatic victory yesterday and I did pretty much what you guys are doing. I kept my nose clean. I traded to everyone. I even gave then presents to sweeten them up. I didn't bother with miser vs. diplo prices, however.

The map was custom, but basically every civ had their own island (including me). They ended up fighting over small island colonies with resources on them. I built a strong, but defensive military and did not take any offers of MPPs or alliances. I made sure I built the UN and voted for myself. Never, never, never abstain. I did that once, just to see what happened, and I lost by one vote - bye, bye game. BTW, if you're not powerful, and you didn't build the UN, you may not even be on the ballot.:mad:

Good luck!!

The thing I have noticd about Diplo victory is that it is incredibly easy to "buy" favor. Perhaps historically accurate ( :hammer: ), but it kind of took the surprise out of it. On the game (It was regent, small map, 5 civs i think), I called for a vote. I got 2 votes, Bismark got 2 votes, and 2 abstained. So, I just gave each civ about 20 gpt, and next time the vote ran around, I won.

So, I think that it is in the bag for you guys.



[dance]

Just my 2 cents!

:slay:

I have been following your game, just waiting for you to get into a war :D to see how you would handle that.

In one of my recent games I was in a situation where I had a huge land army but no fleet after a big land war. I was then attacked by Romans and Chineese, both with large fleets.

I managed to sink a few battleships with artillery + cruise missiles, but they soon learned to go in, bombard, go out two squares. At least that limited the damage they could do because they couldn't reach very far into my territory.

Then they invented carriers... :spank:

1550 AD (0) -

This will either be a very quiet turn, or a VERY interesting turn, all
depending on what Greece does (or more accurately, is allowed to do).
Looking this good right now, quiet works for me.

Most are in democracy, although I note Egypt and Zulus are communist.

Hoover is due in 13? Neat. OMG, from a flat start?? Even better!
Seven techs away from UN. BTW, it's hard not to 'rush' everything in sight
with 20,000 gold in the bank! :P I do hurry a few things to start getting
some extra units built.

1555 AD (1) - Monty wants to see us to end RoP. For 12 gold he's delighted
to continue it. Ur starts the CIA. Hmm... I know a cute unit to build for
this exact purpose. Bowmen? Want some? Come give us a GA!
(Maybe Greece is heading for Rome?)

1560 AD (2) - Indeed they sail on past us, to the east. Japan and Aztecs
signed a mil alliance against Russia, then the former declares war.

1565 AD (3) - The Green sailors now cut due South (trying to dupe us?!)
China and Zulu signed a peace treaty. MMOW and coastal line up.

1570 AD (4) - The Greeks sail out of sight, to the East again.
We have "discovered a new source of saltpeter" :lol: Outside Ashur.
Sheesh. Irony is, it doesn't matter not one bit. If it did we would never
get such a windfall, says Murphy... I wonder if an AI covets it, hehe.

1575 AD (5) - Bismark wants 20 more gold to continue the RoP. (Do they have
any idea what our bankroll is like?) Caesar doubles the price on spice
to 49 gpt. Zulus do same. Egypt wants an embargo of the Iroquious. Well,
uh, we're not shipping them anything, can't help you! :P
Steel learned, Combustion is next.

Tech check. Russia and Egypt need SM, Corp, RP. Japan needs magnetism and
can't even afford that! Aztecs need steel and electronics but can't afford.
Zulu want steel and electronics and CAN pay. Iro are just entering modern era
and can't pay. China needs steel and electronics, and can almost pay.
Rome needs steel and atomic and can't pay. Greece needs steel/electronics
and can pay in ivory. Germany needs steel/elec but can't pay. Seems good time
to sell steel, Zulu and China and down. Zulu miser rate is 130 gpt (!wow)
If they'll pay that, it's not the time to be too nice. Shave a hair off.
China pays 65, max they can afford. Alex is broke, can only afford Ivory
and like 30 gold. But wow with this many luxuries, that's worth 110 gpt to us.
The others will have to wait.

1580 AD (6) - Eep! The saltpeter arrival turned our bowmen production into
longbowmen? Feel free to sell those 8-\ This seems buggy.

1585 AD (7) - Egypt and China signed a peace treaty.
Wow the turns are getting long. It's almost 2:30 am so I'm going to
pass after next turn, a few short.

1590 AD (8) - Russian and Zulu ally against Iroquois, then Russia declares
war. Iro then signs a peace treaty with Egypt.

Feel free to either take 10 or 12 turns, either is fine.

Good luck,
Charis

This puppy's winding down. Not much to report. :)

Inherited turn, 1590AD: we need 5.5 techs to win the game -- Radio, Flight, Mass Production, Motorized Transport, Fission, plus the rest of Combustion. At this point, I think it's time to stop the economic brokering and move on to tech lead protection.

I veto Battlefield Medicine at Ninevah, we need that option to speed the UN at Havana, which cannot prebuild a Palace.

1595AD: I set about to finish the last few forest railroads, then to reforest all our tundra tiles. I set out to build enough new units to line our entire shore with defenders. I check and find nobody is even anywhere near CLOSE to a breakthrough on Electronics yet, so I'm happy to let them all keep researching on it.

1610AD: We discover Combustion. I check and find that Alex is researching it, but nobody else seems to be. Darn, if only they had all researched Electronics, we could have really nursed this lead big time. Well, no matter. I'll keep an eye on it, and when someone gets within one or two turns of discovery, I'll broker to the whole lot and they can start over on the next research project. I start us on Radio at 100% science.

1615AD: Our oil supply packs its bags and moves to some other country. THE dumbest thing in the entire game, no doubt about it. Maybe if they put some care into it, consumable resources would make some kind of sense and could be interesting. This... is pure crappola, a cheap dice roll stunt of the kind I could program into my own games at age ten, back when 8k memory on a home PC was State of the Art. If they aren't going to invest more effort into this disappearing resource idea, they ought to scrap it. I know I could alter this, but then I wouldn't be playing by the "standard" rules any more, which matters to me. You can bet I'll scrap it in any mods/scenerios I make, though. We haven't so much as used a drop of oil and "it's been consumed". :rolleyes:

1630AD: Some of these guys are getting close to breakthroughs, now offering less than a world map. I can wait a bit more, though.

1640AD: Alex is one turn away from Combustion (two at most) and Monty is definitely just ONE turn away from Electronics. I held off my whole turn, but now its time, as either way, regardless of what I do, all the AI's are going to have both techs next turn.

I brokered in the best order I could find, squeezing about 700 gpt and 20 turns of oil out of the lot of them. Rome and Germany only got one tech, Egypt and the other laggers got nada.

We're two turns from Radio, and I've lowered the tech rate to 80% to get some temp boost in score from Lux at 20%, but go ahead and pump it back up to the best research rate, even if that's 100%. We can handle it, as long as the luxuries keep rolling in. Oh, and heh, gpt income from the AI's was over 1300 at the end of my round.

Our entire shoreline is now fortified, rails completed, forestation completed, rifle upgrades completed, and I rechecked "Always Build Another of the Same Unit", since it's just MADDENING the randomnity and stupidity of the automated selection process for what to build next. So there's not much to do on your turn except clean up pollution, deploy new units, avoid building Battlefield Medicine, and NOT broker techs unless somebody gets close to their own breakthrough, which now shouldn't happen until the end of your turn, if at all, regarding Radio.

The AI's MAY break through for us on either Mass Production or Flight, saving us one research project. I'd say we should probably go on to Mass Production, then Motors, in the hopes of them grabbing Flight for us and us buying it on our way to Fission. We definitely want to nurse as much tech lead as we can, since we ARE going to be vulnerable on the UN -- we can only get in 5 turns of prebuilding, and it will take at least 12 turns to build. If we could get our tech lead up to 12 turns, that sure would be nice, but the more the better. There's always the risk of someone churning out a Leader in one of their many wars and rushing the UN, I've heard about that happening. If we don't get the UN, we would have to push on to Space Victory, and that would surely be a lot more hairy for us.


- Sirian

Originally posted by Sirian
I rechecked "Always Build Another of the Same Unit", since it's just MADDENING the randomnity and stupidity of the automated selection process for what to build next.

I don't like how they changed this in the 1.17 patch. Before, with both the options affecting build orders selected (I forget what the other one is called -- "ask for orders before unit construction", or something), you always got the popup window for confirmation when a city started on a new unit (with the same unit selected as default, if possible). In 1.17 with both checked, it doesn't bring up the popup window unless it can't build another of the same unit, which is most annoying if you have most of your cities churning out repeat units but with one or two that you need to change.

At least, I find it annoying :( So I've stopped using this option. It's less hassle having to select the repeat unit from the pulldown menu on cities I don't want to change, instead of relying on catching later that I need to go in and change production and not build another settler in that one city I temporarily pulled off infantry production.

--
Jaffa

Tnx for the veto on the battlefield -- I forgot that would be needed as a prebuild in Havana. Isn't in an option to set Ur on very prebuild of 'Palace' much earlier? If it's a case of 'we would probably waste a lot of shields guessing' when vs. 'Havana will just plain be faster', wasted shields aren't a big problem here.
(GL rush? ugh... that would be very hard to guard against.)

Full agreement on the insanity of 'using up' a resource we didn't touch. I'm glad we have no need for it and you could stomach letting it stand. (If it cut us out of aluminum during last 10 turns of a space race you could bet I would reload, although I would state I did so)

Reforestation??? I don't get it. :confused: With railroads, forest and tundra/mine are identical - it's only with "roads" that the forest is the better choice. I purposefully got us to the point where 'all' squares were forested some turns ago, so that any 'ice' square already got its shields worth and needed a mining. Let me know if I'm missing something, but reforestation now would be a purely cosmetic thing.

I will echo Jaffa's comment. The reason "build same unit" is unchecked, and will always get unchecked on my turn, is a change in 1.17. It now OVERRIDES the other checkbox "always ask production when unit complete". I noticed this last game, for the first time, when instead of a popup dialog I simply saw in small white-on-black letters "San Charisso built a bowman". This had gone on in other cities and I think I missed a few. I've also had a game crank out an extra settler with this setting, something I very much didn't want.

Under 1.16 it was a helpful option, saying "Completed a tank, build a... tank?" and if you meant a city to be a troop cranker, just hit return.

Now the far bigger pain has become having to hawk over watching all the small messages and wondering if you missed a build completion. With 'build same' overriding 'always ask', it's now a big :nono:

Charis

Originally posted by Charis
Reforestation??? I don't get it. :confused: With railroads, forest and tundra/mine are identical - it's only with "roads" that the forest is the better choice. I purposefully got us to the point where 'all' squares were forested some turns ago, so that any 'ice' square already got its shields worth and needed a mining. Let me know if I'm missing something, but reforestation now would be a purely cosmetic thing.

One difference I can think of. Under bombardment, a railroad+mine square loses production on the first successful hit. A forest square with railroad stays at full production until you get two bombardment hits (and won't ever lose as much production).

About reforestation:

Don't know what Sirian's rationale is but here are some advantages/perks:
- Better defense in case you get attacked
- Helps deal with global warmimg -- global warming clears forests (which are replaceable) before turning grasslands to deserts (which are not)
- Looks nicer
- Gives workers something to do

Anyway, my 2 <insert Cuban currency here>

Ah, question and comment on this.

I assume that you two who don't leave this box checked usually want to build one unit of a type then swap back to what the city was producing before, correct??

If this is the case, and the city in question will build the "special unit/improvement" during your turn why don't you use the build-queue and swap back to whatever unit you want the city to "regularly" produce when the "special unit" is done???

I mean as many times as I have read of 10 turns taking 5.5 hours (or more) to complete you can't tell me this is that hard to do for people with such micro-management skills. :)

Not meaning this to sound harsh, but wouldn't it be easier to you and others (who like this option) to select the one or two different units, load them in a queue and then follow them with the unit you want to regularly produce and be done with it instead of having to wade through all the pop-up windows asking what to build next?? Not counting the possibility that you might miss a city and waste turns/production making a unit you really didn't want or need??

Anywho, just asking, thanks for listening. :)

Oh, and are there any other RBD games planned after the current spate expires? Of the five or so currently running, including this one, almost 50% of them seem well in hand and on the downhill aspect of the game so to speak. :)

There's no way I'm operating without "Always Build Same Unit" checked. The game pulls ALL KINDS of headache crap stunts otherwise. (For example, forcing me to uncheck Battlefield Medicine as a build option about 10000 times per turn, during this Cuban game). Paying attention to what's being built where is far far less hassle to me -- and less hassle, also, than changing the six or eighteen or nine hundred things the AI insists on building that I don't want built anyway. When I have a city building units, it is usually because THAT particular city will build that unit with few if any wasted shields, and I want it to stop a whole lot less often than I agree with what the AI picks to build. (Like, about twenty to one ratio). Settlers I wouldn't forget, because when I move the settler itself, I would stop to change the city orders.

However, I can see the point raised by Jaffa and Charis, and if they want to play with the option disabled, we'll all just have to check preferences at the start of each turn and choose the ones that suit us.

Ozy: the queue blows, sorry, it's broken. Whatever is set to be built second CANNOT be changed to be built first, nor can anything be erased off the queue (why not? No idea) and I'm rarely that sure from turn to turn that my build priorities won't change by then -- in an SG, too much queueing is discourteous. Might be less so if the queue option wasn't flawed.

I'd almost venture to say, that Battlefield Medicine in this game at Ninevah wasn't even a conscious choice -- Charis probably just let it pass when the AI picked it, as the AI INSISTED on starting it over there three different times, until I realized that all the new make-work for me was coming from Same Unit being unchecked. If they broke this option in this patch, that's unfortunate. Are we sure it's broken? Maybe click and unclick the other option, and see what happens? I know the Music often has to be clicked a few times to get it to start/stop.


- Sirian

k, getting to see these views a little better now that they're explained.

For Sirian, the hassle of constantly saying "NO!!!! I don't want Battlefield Medicine, stop asking me! I'm cranking out a cav every two turns, can't you see that?!" is enough to cause premature grey, and the 'build same unit' box is a 'must-check'

For me and Jaffa, the pain of "oh crud, another settler?? Did I ask for that??" and the uncertainty of "Did I switch production in the cities that were making 'a unit or two' or not, shoot, now I have to check production in ALL cities... again..." makes this a 'must-uncheck' feature.

Sadly, in 1.16, we could both be (relatively) happy with the box checked.

However, I can see the point raised by Jaffa and Charis, and if they want to play with the option disabled, we'll all just have to check preferences at the start of each turn and choose the ones that suit us.

Nod. Best solution. And I'm getting more used to checking the prefs first up anyways. I love the music, hate having it off. In one (most?) games the person behind me turns it off :P I also dislike animation of friends move, especially large maps/late game.

BTW, if I *do* want a unit or worker farm, I just use queue- hold shift key and spam click the unit I'm cranking. Otherwise I don't use queue much (don't like you can't easily undo)

Battlefield Med? Heh, no that was a conscious decision! ;P I wasn't thinking of using it about the only placeholder the palace could use for UN. I'm more in the mind frame, of having Ur prebuild the whole thing, and complete it the turn we get the tech. In either case, a wrong move to start BatMed.

*TIP* (new in 1.17??) If you hold "shift" during the AI's turns, it skips the animations regardless of setting. So if you see someone else turned it on, or you for this turn don't want to see everything, just hold the shift key down for a few seconds.

Charis

Prebuilding at Ur would be nice, but Ur is so far behind in shields, or was, I think the idea of "timing it to come in the turn after we get the tech" is probably fantasy. Won't hurt to try, though. If it shaves off any turns, it's a plus, and we have nothing else to be doing. I'll leave you in charge of when to start the prebuilding. :)

As for the music, I can't stand the modern music, and my box chokes on the game (and causes musical distortions) any time after industrial anyway. I don't mind the ancient and midieval musics, usually.

- Sirian

Ah, I knew there was a way to get rid of items in the production queue. Shift-click adds something to the queue, but to remove it...

click on the item in the 'list above', where it shows a number in front of the improvement/unit. Then hit the delete key.

The queue still needs work, but that makes it usable instead of horribly unuseable.

Charis

I simply have all music/sound effects turned off. On my machine, it is inevitable that within 20 minutes or so the background music will hang and get stuck on a 2-second loop, at which point I need to either restart Civ or I need to turn my speakers down. So I just disabled all the audio features, and if I need to hear music, I turn Winamp on (though at a palpable performance hit).

Is there any way to substitute out the background music choices? I assume there is, but I'm curious how flexible it is (like, what format do the files have to be in? And does it only take single files to play as the background, or can it take playlists? Either way, if I could have my "Rhapsody in Blue" mp3 file as the background music, I'd turn the sound effects back on, the ambient music for ancient and medieval is nice, but it's no Gershwin).

You can also use shift-delete to clear the queue.

Ah, more keyboard-shortcut-only features. These options ought to be present in the GUI too.

click on the item in the 'list above', where it shows a number in front of the improvement/unit. Then hit the delete key.

Bless you child!!:goodjob: I *KNEW* I saw something somewhere about dequeueing, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was...

I believe the "delete" option for the queue may have been first implemented in the 1.16 patch, I don't think it was in the original game.

Shift-left click: adds items to the queue.
Shift-delete: clears all items from the queue.

Other things to do:

Highlight the item you want to get rid of the press "delete", that item only will be removed reom the queue.

Highlight an item you want to swap (that isn't in the queue) and shift click on something else and the two items will trade places. This is usefull when some new improvement come online.

I believe (haven't tried it in the 1.17 patch yet) that if you are building one unit, but have another in the queue, that the unit in the queue will be the last unit built and continue to to be built if the option is checked. I'll check this tinoght when I get home from class and report back. If this has been changed then sorry for my earlier post. If it still works that way this would be an easy solution to the "I only want one of these and then go back to regular production" problem that Charis and Jaffa (think it was Jaffa) had issues with.

Oh, and as far as using the queue in a SG, well that is an obvious no-no, but if you will build the current improvement on your turn and KNOW for sure what you want to build next then why not? :)

Maybe I am just lazy. :P

The other thing I like about having the popup for unit completion always appear, is it gives me a nice indication of how many new units I have available this turn. Especially useful in times of war :)

Though I can see some circumstances where I would prefer the new behavior. In the end-game of large-map games (*cough*LK6*cough*) where victory is already in the bag, and all you want to do is get there as quick as possible, anything to reduce the number of clicks per turn is good.

--
Jaffa

Charis, in case you overlooked it, somewhere in there is posted the current file, from 1640AD. :)

Will try to get back on year-track by going 12 turns this round.
Was uneventful...

1640 AD (0) - Lookin' good! If they want a piece of us they better
bring Marines! :P And oh my, compared to recent 'Infantry' game, that's
just a sea of happy faces. With the border secure, not sure why still
cranking out units, but with our treasury I'll leave 'build last unit'
going this round. Hmm, Ur is top city #3, Havana has left the chart.

Time to strike out and predict the year UN will be built, eh?
Ur can take from 10 to 23 turns to build the palace, by making shield
citizens into specialists. Battlefield Medicine takes same time, and is
500 shields. Havana can build BM in 6 turns. (Rates are 50 vs 90 per turn)
The UN requires Fission and 1000 shields. Since we can prebuild only 500,
we'll have 500 to complete after Fission is learned. It will take 10 turns
in Ur to complete and 6 turns in Havana, so Havana is indeed the right choice.
When you have 6 turns left to complete Fission, it's time. My thoughts on Ur
presupposed it took much longer to build the palace. If it took 1000 shields,
you would prebuild in Ur 20 turns before it completed. Plan 8 turns for
Fission, 7 for Mass Production and 8 for Motorized Transport, 8 for Flight.
That's 31 turns to complete (and 2 more to finish radio). I would then start
prebuilding in Ur in about 15 turns and adjust shields to get it completed in
18, so there's leeway to either speed up or slow down. Anyway... Havana it is.
I predict Fission learned in 33 turns, in 1772 AD, and UN completed by us in
Havana in 1784. Let's see how bad a guess that is.

1645 AD (1) through 1666 AD () - You're right, very little to do.

1660 AD (4) - Japan and Zulu sign a peace treaty. (Were they fighting?)

1670 AD (6) - Japan and Aztec ally against Egypt, and Japan declares war.
Montezuma can't understand why we won't accept his territory map as
payment for our Radio tech. I merely chuckle. No new techs by anyone.

1675 AD (7) - Iro and Russia sign a peace treaty. (Gosh, we're glad we're
isolated. It sounds like an ornery world out there!)

A palace expansion in recognition of the glory of isolation!! :hammer:

Hmm... Alex wants to renegotiate our ivory. Except he wants Lump Sum,
wants nothing to do with a greater value in gpt?? We get our ivory
back for 750 gold and 5 gpt or so.

1680 AD (8) - Solid offers for Radio from Zulu, China, Germany, Rome, so they're
not close yet. Alex's offer is low, he's closest. I don't sell any others.

1685 AD (9) - China declared war on the Greeks. :lol:
Iro and Aztecs ally against Egypt. Also Germany and Aztec against Russia.
Germany declares war on Russia. I just hope no Great Leaders.
Another Palace expansion.

1690 AD (10) -
1695 AD (11) - Zulu and Aztecs ally vs Russia, then Zulus declare.
Huh??? Now all of a sudden, Alex will offer 106 gpt plus WM for Radio??
Alex, you're on the weed, man! :smoke:

1700 AD (12) - Zulu and Greece ally vs Iro, then Greece declares.
Zulu and Aztecs ally vs Egypt, then Zulu declares. China and Aztecs go MPP.
Breakout of the final World War, methinks.

Still no one real close to radio. China down to offering only World Map,
and Germany goes that plus 50 gold.

Feel free to go back to units if you want, instead of wealth, especially
after tanks become available. Cetacaen is in minor food shortage.

Good luck,
Charis

Inherited Turn 1700AD: Not much news, tinkered with a couple of things.

1710AD: The AI's have not only discovered Flight, they have cascaded it. Either they traded it around, or the lowering costs cascaded one breakthrough after another, or both. Five civs have it now. I check our prices on Radio and Germany looks to be one or two turns away. I decide to broker now.

Radio @ 2nd to China for Flight @ 6th, 835 gold, 47gpt.

Radio @ 3rd to Greece for 194 gpt

Radio @ 4th to Rome (yes, Rome) for 760 gold, 125 gpt.

Radio @ 5th to Germany, topping off their tank for peanuts.

Everybody else was too poor, so sadly they were able to trade around amongst one another and this is all we got. Still, this beats nothing.

I then swapped our production over to fighters, while we still have some oil.

1715AD: We discover Motorized, enter Modern Era. Fission now due in 13 turns at 80%, 11 @ 90%, 10 @ 100%. I put us to 100%, which cancels WLTPD all over our lands. Oh well.

Our fighter squadrons begin conducting Recon Missions out over the waters, to extend our known world. (The rule was, no map acquisitions and no ships).

We have some aluminum! Our fighter production swapped over to jet fighters.

1720AD: Everyone in the world wants to renew our luxuries deals, at now muchly-inflated prices. Yeowch! I buy. What choice is there?

1725AD: :lol: One German City is in range of our jets, thus also bombers, helicopters and paratroopers. There's no way, after investing so much into diplomacy, that I want to do anything other than finish the UN and file this away as my first diplo win. BUT... I have to admit, there's a signifcant appeal to the idea of a massive airdrop into Germany and, within the restrictions we chose for this variant, seeing just how far we can conquer. :lol:

Maybe we can goof around with that in the postgame. "Yes, lemme play just a couple more turns." ;)

1735AD: Our oil is about to run out. I have been building nonvet planes just to have planes. We now have a semi-decent stack of bombers and jets, and also tanks. I set every city on the board except for Havana (which is prebuilding for UN now) and Santa Lola (which is STILL trying to build its bank at 4 shield per turn) to some kind of plane or tank.

Oil renewal price is about 100gpt, so they can bite me. :crazyeyes

1750AD: Our jets have nearly scouted to the limits of their range. There are a couple fog spots off the far end of San Tamarino that were missed, but that's about it. Nothing but water in every direction except Germany, where we have gotten a good look at two of their cities, and a peek at a third.

I am finally able to reset science to 90% and still get Fission in the same time, allowing us to get back that crucial 10% luxury that will boost our score and give us WLTPD's.


Note to Charis: see, here's why I called your prediction of "timing the placeholder for UN at Ur" a "fantasy": too many variables. I could only chuckle at "7 turns for this, that, the other, and Fission". Prices go way WAY up in each new era for tech, and I knew it would take nearly double time for Fission, which it does. Then there was the wildcard of when/if the AI's would research Flight for us. Possible that they wouldn't have, or that it could have taken longer.

Trying to time it within a few turns, maybe. MAYBE. Trying to time it to the precise turn, without going over, that's a task.

The UN is due in 9 more turns (I believe, maybe 10), the tech in 3 more, the placeholder runs out of time in 4 more. So whatever you do, the tech has to come in in 3 turns, or we'll be delayed.

The game ought to end on your round, unless for some reason we don't get the vote. Maybe give everybody besides China some free cash (not TOO much, now) the turn before. Make sure to save the game. :)

There's the chance that we won't win on the first vote. What to do then, I have no idea. Let's just hope it ends on the first shot.

We're now running 500gpt deficit.


- Sirian

The final diplomatic struggle... The UN was within sight, would this
be a final solution to world peace, brought about by the ONE great civilization
that had ne'er soiled itself with the stain of war?!?

I must start off with some comments on the wonder prediction. With three
turns to go on Fission and seven more to finish building, we'll likely get
the UN in 10 turns, or 1770 AD. I'm within 7 turns, which is almost exactly
what the tech savings was from our opponents researching Flight. My number
was 'conservative' meaning "no later than". I debated whether to assume Flight
could be bought in less turns that it took us to research. In retrospect that
would have been smarter, *and* gives you the option of "slowing" building by
shifting the workers off shields. Running max shields you can do no further
to speed it up.

Maybe the chuckling or call as 'fantasy' is in differing expectations

Trying to time it within a few turns, maybe. MAYBE. Trying to time it to the

precise turn, without going over, that's a task.

Well, ya :P I had no expectation it would be correct to the turn, but was just
trying to show two things: i) 'doing the math' on shields and turns and tech to

answer the question "what city to build in" and "when to start pre-building" are

good questions, and ii) using the shield production 'range' to your advantage.
I didn't do well on the latter, because the estimate was maximally conservative
and the shield rates were maximum. Assuming some time would be cut on flight and

starting the prebuild earlier is what I should have suggested, since you can take

some workers off the max-shield cities to slow rates if needed. I also should
have pointed out it's not a static estimate, but a dynamic one that accounts for
new information.

Let me try an example: you have a wonder coming up that with your 'normal' max

shield rate would take 30 turns to build it, when do you start prebuilding?
Although an 'exact' turn is fantasy, it's either a stab in the dark, or you
don't prebuild, or you start so late you jeopardize being beat. I would look at
how many turns to get the tech and build it. Say it's currently 35-60 turns
(35 if things go well and you can buy a key tech from AI, 60 if not).
How much can you slow down shield production and not starve? If it's a MUST have
wonder and you expect tough competition from the AI, you start right now. If
it's a 'keeper' but you don't want to start so early you lose 20 turns of
productive output... you might start prebuilding in about 10 turns. Turns to the
tech then are 25-50, turns to build enough shields: 30-60. As time goes on both
of these ranges narrow, and you adjust shield production if needed. These values
may in ten turns become: tech in 20-35, finish build in 20-40. Then in 15 more
turns you see it will take 10 more turns to get the tech, and slow down shields
just a bit to finish the build in 11. The shield shifting is dynamic, and the
prediciton changing, but you can't get around 'when' to start the prebuild.
Either you 'wing it' or make an educated guess.

: : Charis the engineer gets off his soapbox, having already said more than
he needed to without shedding too much more light on the subject :P
Future era races are so different anyway, I mean, sheesh, from time you get
tech to finishing a big shield wonder is only 7 turns.

1750 AD (0) - Wow, we DID have aluminum! (And (cough) oil til by not
using it we used it all up (cough)) Treasury over 30K.
And we're building cruise missilse and flying air-CAP superiority
missions!?! :spank: We've come a long way baby!

1752 AD (1) - Ouch, just in time for a victory, that was quite a long time
for invisible intra-turn AI battles.

1754 AD (2) - Zulu and Roma ally against Japan, the Zulu declare war.
Greece and Iroquois sign peace treaty, as do Aztecs and Egypt.

1756 AD (3) - The World learns how to split the atom! Fissino has arrived!

Fidel declares the world is in desperate need of a permanent solution for
world peace and humbly suggest the formation of the United Nations!!

Do we have any Uranium? NO Who does? No clue, it doesn't glow in the
dark quite enough for us to see it

On a lesser note, China has discovered the secret of Amphibious Warfare.
(The neighborhood watch patrols take note!) We start computers, not that
it should matter... We also start a few SAM missle batteries (heck, we
ARE Cuba) Ur is put on Battlefield Med placeholder for Seti. I kick back
back shields to make it due in 11, since tech is due in 10. (-500 gold per
turn deficit? Not a problem!)

1758 AD (4) - Russia and Aztecs call for a truce, and agree to meet in a few
short turns at the upcoming inaugural UN summit.

1762 AD (6) - Japan and Rome, Zulus and Egypt get wind of the upcomming summit
and call a truce.

1764 AD (7) - England and Greece do not hear, they ally vs China and declare.
Egypt declares war vs China. We lose our Greek Ivory. We were getting it
for only 6 gpt?? Now it's lump 1250 gold@diplo.

Nasty minor bug!! With "Confirm production after build unit" and "Always
build last unit built", the latter overrides is causing new problems.
I check cities and see we're making 5 ships (!!!!!!) Huh??? I sure didn't
set them. I wasn't prompted for them. Well in all cities where we finished
a tank, oil was no longer available and it *quiet* chose to build ironclads
and galleys. Next turn I turn off "same unit" and sure enough, I get a
"Finished tank, build a... Ironclad?" popup dialog.
The governors are found and shot! :hammer:

More wars and rumors of wars. Can longer keep track, it's a ZOO out there!


1768 AD (9) - Drumroll please... United Nations is due next turn! :hammer:

[dance]

We hereby bequeath to ...

... Russia. The gift of Electronics.
... Japan. The gift of Refining.
... Aztecs. A grand! (1000 cash)
... Cleo. The gift of Electronics. No wait, she counters with "then I just MUST
share with you the knowledge of amphibious warfare." Well, ok, Cleo, but
please, I insist, take this freewill gift of 500 gold as a love offering!
... Zulus. 1000 gold
... Iroquois. Knowledge of Refining.
... China, and Rome, and Germany ... 1000 gold.
... our buddy Alex... 1000 gold.

(The only tech they don't all have listed is motorized transport, which
means no future techs either).

[TWO SAVE FILES - One is Pre-suck up, the other is end of turn with all this
diplo. Run the latter, hit return on production choices, then do the vote]

1770 AD (10) - Finally, the year of the big summit!! No less than 5 pop ups
to announce various alliances and peace treaties and such...

A vote is called for at the sacred chambers of the United Nations.
our good friend Chairman Mao is listed on the ballot, but truly, the
hearts of the people point all to one direction... Cuba!!!

"Nosotros queremos el Presidente Fidel Charis Sirian Castro de Cuba!!!!"

There is brief outrage that the vote was NOT unanimous, after *ALL* we did
for these people!!!

Our good and respected friends, Catherine, Tokogawa, Cleopatra, Shaka,
Caesar, Alexander, and yes... Bismarck, vote for... CASTRO!!! (As do we)

The following treaturous slaughterers of babies and opponents to all that is
just and good, somehow are listed as voting for Mao !!!
China, Montezuma of the villainous Aztec people, the rebellious and two-faced
Hiawatha. We put in a protest that he tried to bribe these native americans
against the born leader of the Western Hemisphere (actually, I went back and
looked to see if they were mid-alliance. There were too many civs to see -
Aztecs and China had no alliance, but China WAS at war against almost all who
voted against him. Did our kindness have THAT little impact that it really
came down to- who was #1 fighting at the time of vote??). But in any case...

Secretary General of the UN Castro declares world peace and victory!!!

:hammer: [dance]

Shaka sends a plate of hero cookies, and poor Elizabeth... wants to go again!
Top five cities are Thebes(26), Beijing(21), ur(21), Tlatelolco(19), and
little Athens(9). We were ranked first in approval rating and Literacy,
No.2 in GNP, Mfg Good, life expectancy, and ... Mil Service! Hehe.
No.3 in income and population (!) Score-wise, we actually shot up to second
slot behind China. 3326 vs their 4038. We could certainly of artifically
pumped that a lot higher. Our next nearest competetors were Greece at 2854
and Egypt at 2512.

History will remember us as...

Castro the Magnificent!!! :hammer: Hot dang, not bad for first real
emperor game! The score is just a touch behind rbd1, a good bit behind
rbd2, and higher than almost all of my solo games.

Epilogue...
Sirian, you mentioned trying to see just how well we might be able to
do by pure aeriel and paratrooper conquest. That's an *extremely* interesting
question, but one majorly hampered by the AI-turn time factor. These turns
are outrageously long on my machine, a 1.2 gig P4 with 1/2 gig ram. Ugh!
I don't think I would be able to go long enough to see much doing that.
Since even before the game began, I intended this as a "repeat" game,
go around the first time just as we did and seeing none of the map at all.
Then second go around, switch from "isolationist" mode to "Superstitious
Communists". Up til about 1500 that was still looking very good, but now
the time-factor of turn length past 1750 may crush the idea. The variant
rules laid out would turn it into a space race, with no settling off the
original continent, although naval and aerial invasions with razing ok.
It wouldn't be sufficiently different from this game, and would lead to
a reeeeealy slow ending due to the map size. Boo...
If you or anyone else press on a bit to test an air war, do post your
results!

If you look over the map and the replay, it's very interesting. Actually
though if you think about it, no surprises. One country kicked butt (China)
and one got eliminated early on, while no one else got eliminated.
Well only ONE continent was shared by two civs: China and England.
The relative strength of each civ at the end was almost 100% correlated
with their land mass area. We had a very average rock in size, and slightly
but not horribly worse than the others. Egypt may have had the best
"solo" continent for size and terrain. Greece had a good one too.
Germany was lucky in that the island next to us was uncontested by us.
(It's not their homeland, btw)

Thanks for the game, very well done! I think we could have done far worse
and still gotten the UN victory, given our big lead at the end and our
financial dominance, but I had a real sense of "executing" extremely well,
making the best out of what we got and squeezing blood from our turnip :D

Charis

The save-file after the victory...
1770 AD

Sirian, if you did want to toy with air warfare, you might want this save file - it's before we blew our techs and cash on ineffective bribes, also 1768 ad

For completeness sake, here's the save file right from the start, at 4000 BC.

Charis

PS Thanks to all lurkers who have popped in and shared your comments and/or thumbs up :hammer:

Great job.:goodjob: . I wouldn't have figured that the first RBD game completed after #2 would have been number SEVEN. I think we'll be seeing the end of a couple of games in the next two weeks, probably number 4 and the builder game if any ruler gets hungry and eats Japan (And I remember when those stuck-up SOBs were demanding that I give them contact with the Russians...one of these days, I'll give them contact, all right...:rolleyes: ). Maybe if I can finish some of these games I'm in I'll join the next evil plot that RBD is offering.

Carbon: this game is right about the same game-date as the rest of the current batch. It just ended quickly. Diplomatic is either disabled, or not plausible/being-considered in the other games, though.

RBD3 could be finished now, if we had chosen for it to be. But I don't have a single Histograph win yet, and perhaps I should have disabled Domination and Conquest for RBD3, since I should have seen the military dominance as a possibility, and that would have let us conquer more land without having to pause like this to avoid Domination. Oh well, too late now. :)

- Sirian

We won! [party] Weeeeeeeee... WONNNNNNNNN!!! [pimp]

Haha, not bad for being born on a snowball. :)

Castro the Magnificent!!! :hammer: Hot dang, not bad for first real emperor game! The score is just a touch behind rbd1, a good bit behind rbd2, and higher than almost all of my solo games.

Yep, much higher score than I expected. The thing is, we would NOT have gone up in score, I believe, but down, with more time. We have had this much territory most of the game. We actually finished early enough (almost 200 turns to go to 2050) to get some bonus points for early finish.

I checked my high score panel, this game comes in 7th out of 17 finishes. Here's a picture and a list of the games I've finished, the top ten, plus the rest assembled with screwy numbers due to paste job.

1) Apolyton Tournament 5 - earliest submitted finish
2) RBD SG2
3) Rumble in the Jungle - First Emperor Game in 1.16f
4) Emperor of France - First Emperor Game ever, 1.07f
5) Apolyton Tournament 2 - highest submitted score
6) RBD SG1
7) RBD SG7 - CUBAN ICEOLATIONISTS
8) A Harsh People (3rd game ever for me, and a mega comeback)
9) Apolyton Tournament 3 - 3rd earliest finish
10) LK7 SG (my first game ever below Monarch -- and my last such too!)
11) Apolyton Tournament 4 - earliest conquest
12) First World - my first ever game of Civ3, lost the space race in 1995 by just a couple turns.
13) First Game in 1.16f - free settler from hut in 3900, most crushing victory, retired early. Boring.
14) Last Game in 1.07f for me, retired to upgrade to 1.16f
15) My OCC victory.
16) 2nd-ever game, never finished, retired when I patched to 1.16f.
17) Rumble in the Jungle II - a most heinous start I could not pull out, first game in 1.17f

I've also have maybe a dozen game starts that got abandoned for various reasons. Not being what I considered either sure wins or sure losses, nor even whole efforts, I did not retire and record them.

I have a few games still in progress, such as my solo Builders and Infantry games, and some nonvariant Emperor games.


- Sirian

Charis: well, that was much fun. I think the windfall of nabbing the Great Library unexpectedly, then getting a whopping 18 techs from it after sitting around for about 1500 years waiting and waiting, made the most difference. If we had had to claw our way up like the Iros and Russians did, we might have had more problems.

Watching the replay, I was surprised at how little real action there was, with all that warmongering. Rome lost one city on their continent, but got it back, and Egypt only ever managed to take and retake Kyoto several times, but no more. Iros were losing it at the end there, but the rest was all colonial squabbles, that I could see. China took over somebody's island near the end, but not a homeland. Other than England being conquered, it was a whole lot of hubbabaloo. Realistically speaking, that's just the kind of world where a diplomatic solution would make sense. Too bad in real life we can't just build the UN and declare victory. :lol:

The long turns are the main reason why I avoid huge maps. The huge maps can be a load of extra fun, but requires patience in the extreme. Helps to be listening to music in the background, or have something else to partially occupy your attention while waiting for the long process to complete. That's too much for a normal game. Large can bog a bit too, but is much more tolerable. Something about that jump to huge size just creams the AI. Like it has to calculate more pathfinding, and more complex paths, and once rails come online, and with so many units being checked, it just CRAWLS. Not good for most succession games. I had hoped that being isolated would help reduce that, but it didn't You think your 1.2G is bad, I suppose it must be markedly better than my Duron 600. :)

So yeah, as curious as I may be, I'll pass on the military epilogue. Still, but for the dragging delays, it would have been fun to try.


So... are you interested in another 2-man "while we're waiting on the regular RBD SG's we have something to pass the time with" variant events? Shall we go again? If so, at what? If we do, I want to start the next one, make SURE we don't move off the river. :lol: ;)


- Sirian

One more note:

In addition to being my first diplo win, and first isolationist game, this was also the first game I've played with:

* NO wars
* NO golden age

I think the only other game I've played without a great leader was my OCC. We never bothered to use the one in RBD1, but we got him. Hmm, there've been no leaders in RBD4 yet, but there's still time. :)


- Sirian

Yay! Cuba saves the world from nasty vicious warmongering AIs!

Good game. Most instructive :)

Great game fella's. Was a lot of fun to read about. :)

I downloaded and played the last save from Sirian and Charis was right, it was slllooooowwww.... Too bad on that however I was hoping you guys would play past the end and whip some butt with paratroopers, et al. Although I thought you could keep captured cities (just not build boats).

Look forward to reading another great game, and by the way Charis, you didn't have to give the other Civ's anything, you should have still won, at least that's what happened when the UN was built (after 30 minutes real time, ergh) in the game I played. :)

Thanks for the story!

I'd just like to comment on the irony about how absolutely pissed all we players get whenever some random minor AI happens upon the UN wonder and grabs a diplomatic victory, suddenly ending the game.... yet that's exactly what you two just did to the AIs here.

Congratulations on your victory!! :goodjob:

Great game!

Inspired by this game, I started my own sp 'isolationist' game, but not as strict as yours. I just edited the starting locations so that I would end up on an average continent (on a very huge map 256x256) on my own. But I allowed myself to build ships and colonise nearby islands.

I built the Great Library, following your example, but unfortunately, no one was advanced enough to find me on my continent before I had to research Education... :(

I was surrounded by ocean so my little triremes kept sinking in search for intelligent life (only small rocky islands with lots of barbarians). :(

Judging from the wonders which the other civs were building, I was terribly behind in tech race.

The first contact was made when I just crossed into Industrial age!! By that time the AI tech lead has narrowed because I was in Republic all along and did not have any wars. Since I was rich enough I could buy all the techs which I ignored in Middle Ages (such as Chivalry - pointless, since I did not have horses, Music Theory - pointless since JS Bach was already built, etc).

Now however I'm frantically searching nearby islands for coal, since no other civ wants to sell me coal. So I've still got a long way to go.

Originally posted by T-hawk
I'd just like to comment on the irony about how absolutely pissed all we players get whenever some random minor AI happens upon the UN wonder and grabs a diplomatic victory, suddenly ending the game.... yet that's exactly what you two just did to the AIs here.

Ah, sorry, did you miss this part of Charis' post??


We were ranked first in approval rating and Literacy,
No.2 in GNP, Mfg Good, life expectancy, and ... Mil Service! Hehe.
No.3 in income and population (!) Score-wise, we actually shot up to second
slot behind China. 3326 vs their 4038. We could certainly of artifically
pumped that a lot higher. Our next nearest competetors were Greece at 2854
and Egypt at 2512.

Doesn't sound AT ALL like "Cuba" was a "random minor" Civ, especially when they were top 3 in virtually everything. Now if they had been dead LAST in everything then you might call the end of this game irony, but otherwise, this is simply a good ending to a great game.

Okay, the "random minor" part isn't accurate, but that isn't the point. The point is that it's a travesty of game design, an arbitrary random loss, better-off-disabling-diplo-victory when an AI suddenly ends a highly competitive game... but it's a glorious victory, triumph of ingenuity, hah-take-that-you-AIs when done by a human player.

I'm not trying to start a flamewar, really I'm not, but just wondering a bit at the logic involved here. IMO, the win was as unfairly cheap as when an AI does it. (Just the victory condition itself, mind you, not the conditions leading up to it, which involved some fine play and placed you in decent position to make a space race or score victory run. I just don't think you had actually won anything yet.)

IMO, the win was as unfairly cheap as when an AI does it.

Who says the AI's are "unfairly cheap" if they can pull out the vote against you? If that happens, you screwed up. Period.

You have five ways of dealing with the diplomatic victory option:
1) Build the UN yourself. You control it, that's the best option.
2) Be the diplomatic prince of the game. If a majority of civs are in your favor, then even if someone else controls the UN, they won't dare hold a vote.
3) Win the game before the modern age arrives.
4) Prevent anyone else from obtaining the UN. Raze the cities where it's being built, or destroy it once it has been built. This is not an easy task and holds lots of risks, but is possible.
5) Disable the diplomatic option.

With all those choices, a player has nobody to blame but himself if he loses on the vote. Personally, it has never happened to me, and I have been in the situation where someone else built the UN. I wouldn't put Complaining That The Diplo Win Is Cheap as an item on the list of options for dealing with it. ;)

Frankly, the reason this is the first time I've ever won by the vote is that, with my playstyle and leanings, I consider the vote a high risk contingency. You can't afford to have made lots of enemies, and rare is the game that goes by for me on Monarch/Emperor where I haven't gotten into some big wars, even though I go well out of my way not to stain my honorable diplomatic reputation. So I pick from the five options, and choices 1 and 3 are my priorities. Just one more thing to factor in to the game plan. There is always option 5, as well, so really... no use to calling it cheap. If you don't want to deal with it, turn it off. That simple, right? :)

If you want to call our game plan, performance, results, or anything else here, "cheap", that's your prerogative, but don't be surprised when Charis and I beg to differ. We played a rough difficulty level with impoverished lands and coasted to a handy victory. There's no doubt that we were the commanding diplomatic, scientific and financial power, could have handily beaten ANY other civ on the planet militarily IF WE SO CHOSE, stayed out of the fray of petty squabbles over irrelevant colonial lands, and were no slouch with our culture. I consider the result logical. The pen truly can be mightier than the sword. :D


- Sirian

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sirian

Who says the AI's are "unfairly cheap" if they can pull out the vote against you? If that happens, you screwed up. Period.


I've seen much complaining from other players about the diplomatic victory, and seems like the most common opinion is just to turn it off. I hadn't realized you weren't in that camp.

And notice I worded it "as unfairly cheap as" -- if you think it isn't unfairly cheap for the AI, then by extension I wasn't calling your win that either :D

FWIW, this entire game was definitely played in the *spirit* of the diplomatic victory by the winning civ, which is VERY rarely the case when an AI grabs the diplo win.

If you want to call our game plan, performance, results, or anything else here, "cheap", that's your prerogative,

I was trying to make it clear that I WASN'T doing that, in my last parenthetical comment. Should I invoke the old Lurker Lounge flames about "read the entire post before responding"? :) Nah, I'll just go ahead and compliment you again on a well-played game, with a truly astounding exploit of the Great Library.

Thanks T-hawk for the nice comments (I didn't take it as a flame, except on first skim). :cool: Diplo win, both for AI and for player really is an odd lot, eh?

I've never actually seen the AI snatch a diplo victory, although when enabled fear of it does move me to be sure to get the UN.
I think Firaxis did an excellent job of being sure the earlier cascade would NOT extend to the UN, making it a "yours if you want it" wonder.

If an AI was strong enough to secure the vote victory and did so without making enough enemies in the process, more power to it! I'm particularly pleased with a diplo win in our game for the following reasons:

- It was a goal from the start. Not a "ugh, we'll never win by conquest, space or culture, we better hope to snag a cheap diplo win"
- The trades, exacting attention to our offer prices offered, carefully avoiding taking or giving any map, took alot of work, and were executed in a way to maximize our diplo chances.
- Getting the Great Library was a shocker, but in reality came about from a very nicely executed infrastructure build order
- Getting the most *OUT OF* the Library, while not falling so far behind with nothing to build, also took some hard decisions on science rate
- Getting *18* techs out of the GL on one turn was in part, a very lucky stroke, but also could have easily been blown by not watching communications like a hawk, or failing to make contact with all civs in one turn, on our turn
- I've never even imagined getting 30K gold in one game, or being THIS dominant financially. This with ZERO luxuries on our island and a huge initial science deficit
- Despite being diplo and trade meisters, our island was impregnable militarily. Anyone who wanted a piece of us needed our permission to land (by removing the shoreline patrol), would have set off our GA, and would have resulted our unleashing about 10 other civs on them
- I've never had a victory with not a SINGLE combat with the AI
- Looking at the constant barrage of alliances and backstabs and leaders being called cheats, truly we were the one nation that anyone could trust, and could get not just a fair but a generous deal with
- Space victory was ours for the taking if we wished, or if not for our self-imposed restrictions, domination. (If this in doubt, think about what 30K gold would do in a tight space race with espionage, or what 30K would do for rapid development of an invasion force. Think of what it does for alliances -- with that cash and our rep, we can get ANYONE on our side against any other civ, that's huge). Diplo was just the most fitting, by far.

These points aren't counterpoint, per se, because no one's disagreeing :D But I did want to point out why I was so pleased with this particular game, and the fact that it was a diplomatic tour du force (more Swiss than even the Swiss!). :hammer:

Thanks again,
Charis