We are going to try Always War at Emperor level with 5 cities

Parameters:
Patch: 1.22 C3C
Level: Emporer
Variant: Always War No initial trade
Loose 5CC - we must have only 5 cities when we end a turn
Civilization: Ottomans
Water: 70%
Map Type: Continents
Size:Standard
Age: Random
Temperature: Random
Climate: Random
Barbarians: Sedentary
Rivals: Random
AI Aggression: Normal
Victory Condition: Standard
Culturally linked starts: OFF
Respawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On
Requirement to play: At least one win in an AWE game.

I will be away this weekend but hope to be able to post and reply.

Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike
Obormot
M60A3TTS
Greebley

Here are things we need to decide:

1) What Civ do people want to play?
2) True 5CC allows for a maximum of 5 cities at any one time. There is a variant that works well with AW where the requirement is that you must have 5 cities at the end of your turn. In other words you can capture and abandon cities during a single turn. The advantage is a pretty big one - if you capture 3 cities on one turn you can form a second army. If you capture 7 cities in one turn you can form a third army, you would need 11 cities for a 4th, etc.

Trying to grab multiple cities is a lot of fun and adds to the game IMO. On the other hand, I don't know of any AW games that have won as a pure 5CC on Standard Continents (though they probably exist)
So the question is whether we want a slightly easier challenge or a harder one? I like both so it is hard for me to vote. How about the rest of you? Which would you prefer?
3) What % water would we want? My thought it to go for 80% if we play strict 5CC and 70% if we play the looser version.
4) I generally prefer playing AW on continents as it means you have to think and plan ahead. If someone feels strongly about playing pangea we can discuss this as well.

I'd vote for Ottomans (very strong UU), loose 5CC (it's really fun to coordinate those captures) and 70% continents

Lurking, this shall be good.:) good luck!:thumbsup:

Sipahis rock (and ottoman traits too), but to take real advantage of them we'll need to get MT before AI gets rifles and that means fast research along the bottom branch in the MA, not just relying on TGL. I like that kind of game, but it may be very difficult with 5 cities having to pay huge army support. Maybe we can try india, we'll have another superb mounted UU, but one that comes much earlier. Ottomans are fine with me too though.

I don't know about the variant version. Extra armies is nice and keeping cities for a turn before hitting enter may help with troop movement. But if you want to play strict version that's also fine.

The problem with 80% water is that we might get contacts really soon on that kind of maps. I would go for 70% water.

Loose 5CC, 70% water, and continents are fine with me. Regarding our civ, though, I'm concerned that since the game will probably be won or lost early, the Sips might come along too late to matter. Predictable though it would be, perhaps we should choose one of the early-conquest standbys, say the Persians or the Iroquois. [Cross-post with Obormot--not easy to do at 4:36 in the morning. :lol: ]

It's 12:45 here :)

Ok, I am back. Lets try the Ottomans at that seems to be the consensus - we can always try another game if this one fails.

We will go with the Loose 5CC - I agree it is a lot of fun :hammer: - and 70% water.

It is late tonight so I will likely start this up tomorrow or Tuesday.

Updated first post

I want in if the slot is still open.

What experience do you have with always war games?

None. Is that significant?

What experience do you have with always war games?

If the last spot isn't yet taken...

I do have at least one win in AWE.

I want in if the slot is still open.



None. Is that significant?

Always war plays a bit differently. This variant requires some expertise in getting very low kill ratios. This could also be a difficult game to win and a single player getting larger losses could kill it.

As such I think I do want someone with at least one AWE win. I don't like discouraging new players, but this game is probably not suitable for learning Always War games. I do encourage you to join another such game. AW is fun.

M60A3TTS,
Ok you are in.

The start was non-straightforward enough, that I thought it worth posting the 4000 BC screenshot to discuss the first 20 turns.

I moved the worker (only) and haven't made a decision to settle yet. I am unsure on when is best to cut down the deer forest. It may be that I should have immediately moved the worker on the deer - I thought of that, but that reduces the shields at the beginning which may not be best.

In any case, I will wait until tomorrow to play so feel free to comment.

Note that the worker and the settler are on bonus grasslands.

Here it is:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_BC4000.jpg

I'd chop the deer and irrigate. With 4 BGs showing and 4 forest tiles, plus the 3 grass tiles in the fog that may have even more BGs, I don't see production being an issue.

Good idea to post the starting screenshot, i like to discuss some details in SGs :)

We shoul definitely chop/irrigate the deer, but the question is when is the best time for this. Since irrigated game is exactly eqavilent to irrigated wheat i think we should improve the wheat tile first - same food in less worker turns.

To get wheat irrigated ASAP i would move the settler 1 tile E and settle on the BG so that we can get the wheat tile irrigated ASAP. Wasting a BG is not much of a concern with so many other BGs & game forest that we can use for shields before chopping, but fast early growth is vital.

After that i think we should improve several BGs, and get some production quickly to build some defenses. I think that with all the shields we have and playing AW building barracks early is a good idea (perhaps after 1 warrior) and then we'll be able to build a vet spear to protect ourselves from initial AI stacks.

I don't know if we want a granary in the capital or not, we only need to pump out 4 settlers, but on the other hand with limited number of cities we want existing ones to grow faster the usual. We'll also need some workers.

No sure about science. Played too much gotm and no AW lately so first thing that came to my mind was republic slingshot :lol:. Perhaps IW then Literature would be better.

agree with settling one tile east, all the non BG are without river access :( So, no choice but to waste 1 BG. Irrigate the deer after chopping (chop used for granary or settler).
We need to scout the territory since settling optimal cities will be crucial here.

As for research, I'd say IW then literaure and the GL slingshot? Or do we try a philo gamble?


another comment: I read yesterday a little on the RBCiv forums and they might be right. Civ4 SG's suffer from too little discussions, so let's keep on discussing here about strategies and moves. :goodjob: for showing the starting position for discussions!

I would chop the game forest a bit later and i would either time it so that the chop is completed just before the granary is built, or after a second town that can share the tile is founded. There is no use for one town to work 2 tiles with +2 food and no shields when it is small and has no granary, +6 fpt is inefficent (only a little better then +4 fpt that we'll have from irrigating the wheat only) and we'll loose some production which is necessary for an AW game start.

I think that since we chose ottomans, the best startegy for us would be to get fast self-research to take advantage of the sci trait and the UU. I would still build TGL in an AW game to get techs from the AI, but i would not stop research after building it, it is only emperor and the AI will be slow and we better get to sipahis soon. I would proceed and research techs that the AI ignores like currency to get into MA faster and then beeline to MT. Attempting to get philosophy seems to be a good idea, but then we better get and expensive tech from it. So if we go for philosophy we better research math before it so that we can take currency for free. Math is also good because it allows to build cats. So i would go IW, Alphabet, Math, Writing, Philo, Currency (hopefully free), Literature. If we want a granry we should insert pottery after IW. Before deciding whether to build it or not i would explore the area around the capital a bit.

I agree with the emerging consensus--settle where the worker is, research IW, wait a bit before chopping the deer forest. We have to kill a BG to get a river site in range of the deer and the wheat, so there's no use worrying about it.

Ya, I like the move to the east too. The town will have a lot of hills which will make it strong in the long run.

Researching IW first sounds fine to me. I will do some limited exploring of close by. We can be more extensive once we feel we have a solid hold on the capitol. It is easy to lose a game in the first few turns and I want to avoid that.

I was unable to play last night. ThERat, why don't you start us off as I may have to work tonight. I will attach the save. If the save hasn't moved the worker, then move it as in the picture above.

Roster:
ThERat - Up
Northern Pike - On Deck
Obormot
M60A3TTS
Greebley

ok, got it, but it's too late for me to play now...will start tomorrow night then

forgot to ask, do I start with 20 turns? Had a look at the save last night, I would do the following for my opening 20 turns:

build a spear (not warrior) for defense, warrior for some scouting, then rax and spears before next settler.
worker irrigates wheat then mines BG's.

Research IW -> wheel or WC

If we really want to get something good from philosophy we need to skip stuff like warrior code and the wheel. Of course if it turns out that there is no iron nearby researching warrior code will be a must, but if there is iron i would skip it. I would also skip the wheel in any case. Spear and warrior before barracks sounds good. After barracks we may want to build a granary and not a settler, depending on what we find. We'll have very good production in the capital, so a granary first seems to be a stronger opening even for 5CC. But of course if we find a really nice city site we can go for settler first. I think we should decide on how many units to build before that settler later.

Ya go ahead and play 20.

We are going to want wheel at some point to know where the horses are. We can wait a little bit on that though - we don't need to know until we have 3 or so cities.

Are we allowed to open the diplomacy screen in this game?

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_BC3000.SAV)

moved settler east as agreed
since there was a hut nearby sent worker on detour and got this
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr103900.jpg

built spear -> warrior -> rax

popped a 2nd hut
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr103200.jpg
:dance: now we can build granaries

explored a little and might have found the location for our 2nd city
rax is due next turn, then we should build some MP spears.
We are growing that fast that we might want to pop a settler before granary
IW done in 16, then we might want to go for philo gamble or go for WC first unless we have iron nearby

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr103000.jpg
the red dot looks like a good city with wheat and fish, 2BG's and 2 hills, that can be a production powerhouse
it's coastal too, I think this city is a no brainer
The other red circle could be another location with cow and gold

Nice turns. Two techs from huts one of which is pottery and nice food bonuses - great news!

I don't really like that coastal town as our second city because of the jungle (or is that forest?) and only one BG. Food and fish are nice, but provide only food and we need some production quickly in AW. Another drwback is that we'll have to build a useless 60 shield temple there or wait for literature to work the wheat. That place is nice for a worker factory though and we may settle it later. I would explore in the cow direction and plant a town there before a granary if there will be a nice city spot there. Otherwise i would go for a granary first, and explore a little more while it finishes. I would build a warrior, not a spear as second MP because it is cheaper and can be upgraded if we find iron. One spear is good enough vs. AI starting warriors.

Ya, I agree with Obormot. Lets send the warrior up to see what is near the cow for the second town up there. We won't need water for a while yet.

A warrior for the next unit also sounds reasonable to me with the hope of an upgrade. The only risk is if we have a neighbor that starts with Archers, but we should be able to build another spear in that case.

I like the "No looking at diplomacy" option if ppl want to go for it. I guess we can vote (with my vote toward "No Diplo Peeking"). Whatever the majority prefers.

Roster:
ThERat - Just Played
Northern Pike - Up
Obormot - On Deck
M60A3TTS
Greebley

No diplo is fine with me. And scouting to the NW should be ok. Plenty of food to go around at this point.

I would vote for allowing looking at diplomacy because i don't like playing blindly. It would be nice to see when AI get writing for example if we are going for philosophy. But if you prefer no diplo that is also fine with me.

No diplo might be a little tough for 5CC AWE, but we can try. I don't think we will upgrade much stuff since in AW, your aim is to maximise research at all times. But, of course we can build an MP warrior.

By the way, maybe we should build walls in our capital as well for higher kill ratios. Won't cost us much and will pay in the long term unless we plan to go beyond size 6 soon.

The red dot has at least 2 BG, not one. But, Obormot is right that in the short term, we have no access to the wheat.
Scout the cow area for a good 2nd location, red dot later on then

If it was a normal game i would build a town exactly between the gold hill and the cow - so that it gets the cow immidiately and can share the wheat with the captial. This way we get both towns up to +5fpt after chopping the game forest and transfering the wheat back and forth between the two cities. But with limited number of towns we may want to spread a bit further to get all the good tiles. I guess the exact cow city placement will depend on what we find after some exploration. If we miss some good tiles by settling near the capital we should place the city at the red circle, if we don't miss anything really good we should place it between the cow and the gold.

2590 BC--warrior only has moved (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-2590BC.SAV)

3000 (0): Not looking at the diplo screen suits me.

Istanbul barracks --> spearman. With the town at 7 spt a three-turn spearman is a more efficient build than a two-turn warrior.

A Mongol scout appears, and we declare war.


2850 (3): Istanbul spearman --> settler. The cow site looks very good, so a settler before the granary should be the right play.


2670 (7): Istanbul settler --> warrior.


2630 (8): Our exploring worker discovers ivory.


2590 (9): That's just eight turns and a little of the ninth, but I'll turn it over here, because the decision as to where our second city will go is a fundamental one and requires discussion.

My preference would be to use the space NW of the capital for a single powerful city at site 1. The sacrifice here would be that we'd probably never then build a city in range of the western gold hill.

Site 2, on a BG, would take in both gold hills, but at an effective cost of two BG, since it would then be difficult to get the BG two directly north of the capital into the radius of a good city.

Settling both 3 and 4 would be a valid option, but we wouldn't get immediate use of the cow, and the value of 5 (Rat's site) would be much reduced, since it would have to share the wheat tile.

Rat's idea of getting walls built in the capital is a good one, though I'd like to try to sneak a granary in first, after the present warrior build.

We haven't seen any Mongol unit but the scout so far.

The choice:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-2590BC.JPG

I vote for 1 and later 5

1 looks very good though some overlap, but it will give us great shields and commerce

Exploration further east to check which is the best ivory spot

Since we have ivory, we need maths for SoZ

I suggest going 2N and settle on the BG, because although that's a loss of a shield, on border expansion we have the cow and more importantly the ivory for SoZ. Plus we still have the gold tile and a harbor site. At 5CC we should settle near luxes where we can.

I think we need to get the cow immidiately, so i would settle at 1 or 2. I love gold hills, but i'll take 1 because of the 2 BGs and easier access to ivory. I don't think 2N is a good idea because we can always hook up the ivory with a colony when the prebuild is almost done.

I got the save and here is my plan for my turns:
- Settler goes to 1.
- Worker finishes improving the BG and brings irrigation to the cow.
- New town builds warrior-worker
- Istanbul starts granary after the warrior.
- Exploring warrior goes around the capital to look for more city sites (we need to find 2 more good spots). Then i'll send him along the river.
- Research Alphabet after IW if we have iron, WC otherwise.

I'll wait a bit for more inpuit before playing though.

I really don't see what #1 buys us. What does the extra food for growth do when we are only building a handful of cities?

Yes, but we need big cities, not villages! The faster we get those 5 cities to size=12, the better, so growth is still very important.

Also the Cow will support us working the hills and forest and we don't need to irrigate. We can always convert food to shields that way.

OK, so i'll start playing now.

I played my turns according to that plan. We have no iron, so i researched WC after IW and it is due in one turn. The 2nd city was founded at site 1, it is now connected to the capital and the cow will be irrigated in 2 turns. Istanbul finished the warrior and then built a granary as planned and also a spear because the mongols started coming in numbers. So far we killed 3 mongol warriors and quite a few more units are coming including 2 archers (one of them is hidden in the fog, but our exploring warrior saw him). I started a settler now, but more cautious players may change it to another military unit, loosing some food from growth to size=7. Istanbul can produce a settler in 3 turns now and hire a scientist for 1 turn. That is what i would do. After that we can build a unit and a settler again. I found a decent spot for another city down the river - floodplains, 2 BGs and hills, but we need to explore a bit more to decide on exact placement. I would settle it before the wheat city, if we build it on a hill and build walls there we can make a nice kill zone. I think we should send the warrior south now and climb the hill and the mountain.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-2150BC.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-2-2150BC.jpg

Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-2150BC.SAV)

Tight build in 5CC is bad, AW or not. If the strategy is to build cities only for survival now, I see the point. Cities can be relocated later.

I think Greebley played in some LK-games (5CC) I played in too, if so, he would see my point. Later in the game you want all cities working max possible tiles.

Good luck anyways, I follow this. :)

Well, 5CC or not, the game is (usually) won or lost before sanitation, so i don't think 20 tiles per city is necessary. We should still use a loose placement though because we want only the best 12 tiles for our 5 cities. But that seems to be true for our placement so far :) BTW, Istanbul and Edrine now have only 2 tiles overlap and if we found at the yellow dot (for example) that city will also have only 2 tiles overlap. And the other city near the wheat and fish won't overlap at all. So I don't think it'd be worth relocating anyway.

I am on turn 7 and found a couple iron sources. Unfortunately, Mongols own one of them. We have a settler, but not sure where to put him. Thoughts?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/iron_found.JPG

With the information i have i would settle at the yellow dot on my picture. But i don't know where the iron is. Can you post a screenshot?

Settling the Iron right away doesn't always work so well - it is better to settle the town in between first.

I would go for either the Yellow dot or SE of the yellow dot. SE of the yellow dot is a bit more balanced between an iron town and the current town, but has more swamp and marsh to clear. It is also not on a hill.

The final two towns would then be south of the iron and the point we mentioned on the coast.

I would concentrate on workers rather than settlers (unless you already have). We have a long road to build to the iron and should get it up soone than later. That way we settle the iron around the time we connect it up. We will also need lots of workers to clear the jungles for that 4th iron town.

For the iron town itself I would settle next to the lake just S of the iron so it also gets the deer right away.

With the information i have i would settle at the yellow dot on my picture. But i don't know where the iron is. Can you post a screenshot?

I had my browser set up to show only cached images and didn't see that you already did :blush:. I would go for the yellow dot, 1SE we loose 2 BGs although not having immidiate access to BGs is not good. In that town i would build walls, then a couple of workers and then library to expand borders and get the BGs. I don't like the iron location, perhaps it is better to hook it up with a colony? (or build a temporary town and switch it to a colony later). I think that our 5th city should be somewhere in the east with all those BGs and hills. Agree on building lots of workers now, Istanbul can build a spear/archer and a worker every 3 turns.

I agree with the yellow dot, the tile south of the iron, and the coastal location to the west of the capital as city sites. I'd like to get the coastal city built immediately, before we start cranking out workers, since it wouldn't be under any threat. We might even start pre-building SoZ there.

settle yellow dot as #3, then coastal town #4 and then iron city #5. Location between lake and iron so we can also get the deer.

I would swap research to maths for cats (really important) and SoZ. As NP pointed out, that coastal town could prebuild the SoZ.

Unfortunately the incense we can see is a little far away. But, we can hook it up with a colony.

I'd say forget about philo gambit, go for maths, wheel (we need horses for sipahis) then literature for libraries, then currency for markets (unit cost will kill us in this game).

Another thing, we should try and keep lux as low as possible, thus 2 MP's in Istanbul are crucial, I would send that warrior back to town until we have sufficient units there.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1750_BC.SAV

Pre-turn, move the elite spear onto the hill opposite the Mongol archer.

IBT- Warrior suicides vs Istanbul.

Turn 1- Move our other spear into the town, although he isn’t probably needed

IBT- Mongols suicide another warrior

Turn 2- A little scouting.

IBT- Istanbul settler>spear.

Turn 3- Spot iron to the SE of Istanbul, but it is 8 tiles out. There is another source inside the borders of a Mongol town- definitely need resource denial there.

IBT- Trade an archer for spear at Istanbul.

Turn 4- Moving the settler SE

IBT- Mongols throw away another warrior. Archer backs off to heal.

Turn 5- More scouting

IBT- Istanbul spear>spear

Turn 6- Move lux 20-30% to keep the populace happy.

IBT- scouting

Turn 7- Consensus on where the next city goes is Obormot’s yellow dot, so move in that direction.

IBT- Quiet, the archer has parked himself next to Istanbul again. Start an archer in Istanbul that already has 2 vet spears in defense, now at 11 spt at pop 6.

Turn 8-10. More scouting and the settler finishes up on yellow dot. Next up can plant the town. And done.

I probably built an extra unit or soto be on the safe side. Starting a settler for city 4 now in Istanbul. The bank is almost empty, but City 3 will cut down on our support costs. Alpha in 6 on our way to math.

I would swap research to maths for cats (really important) and SoZ. As NP pointed out, that coastal town could prebuild the SoZ.

That town should build a cheap 40 shield library before SoZ so that it can expand and work better tiles (wheat for growth and BG for production).


I'd say forget about philo gambit, go for maths, wheel (we need horses for sipahis) then literature for libraries, then currency for markets (unit cost will kill us in this game).

Philo is cheap, so we don't really loose that much by going for it. But i agree that we should research other essential techs first. The question is what is more important now. I would go for Literature cause expanding borders is absolutely necessary for our cities to be productive - the yellow dot city would get 3 BGs and the western city would get wheat and a BG. We can go Writing->Philo and take Literature for free, but i would not do that because Literature is very cheap. I would research Literature after Writing and then Math for cats and SoZ and then take Currency for free. I also think our northern city should start TGL prebuild sometime soon. The AI may beat us to Philo if we take such a long route though, but as i said we don't really loose much, philo is quiote cheap and we'll need Writing for Literature anyway.

just to remember:

Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike
Obormot
M60A3TTS
Greebley - up

I agree with your research part, Obormot, but we need cats as well for better defense once swords will appear. As it is, we only have archers/spears and nothing else to fight at the moment.
Thus cats and Acav would be a good addition. Well, I guess the TGL is more important, hence agree on writing literature before wheel/maths

Well its not easy to choose between math first or literature first. TGL and SoZ can wait, we can use 300 shield palace and 400 shield pyramids for prebuilds (though the latter is a bit risky), so it is cats vs border expansions.

Roster:
ThERat - on deck
Northern Pike
Obormot
M60A3TTS
Greebley -up

Do we want to know where horses are before we settle our fourth town? It might make a difference.

we should start to prebuild the TGL, then we can go for the wheel as well. Shouldn't be an issue. Our capital can produce troops and settlers/workers while our 2nd city works on TGL. I don't think it will hurt to go for the wheel before writing/literature.

For tech I went for Mathematics next. I am not sure this was the right choice - we can easily switch to Writing I have researched a few turns only. It is about 20 - 25 turns to math or writing with math being slightly more expensive.

Killed one Enemy Archer and lost a Warrior. We also lost a warrior north of our Capitol There are two Barbarians up there wandering around.

We now have 5 workers. 4 are building the road to the Iron. We built our 4th town and only have 1 more to go. This is why I didn't bother with wheel, it won't affect our city placement.

There were a 2-3 Mongol Archers wandering around, but they didn't really come after us much.

The capital is size 4 because we just built the settler.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_BC1500.jpg

got it,

I would tend to swap to writing and literature and start a prebuild in Edrine. The other cities shouls be good enough for troops, especially our capital. We might even want to build a temple there to reduce luxes.

where exactly do we want to settle the last spot? Is it the tile between the iron and the game?


actually another interesting plan would be to found the city on the hill northwest of the iron at Kazan, take it out with a archer rush. This town would open up far more territory including the incense.

where exactly do we want to settle the last spot? Is it the tile between the iron and the game?
The tile south of the iron, which I believe is the same thing.

It's time to chop Istanbul's deer forest and get the town to +5 food.

This is obvious, but Edrine should switch to the palace pre-build right now, not after it completes its barracks, which would be useless during the long GLib build.

I know it's standard play, but I don't much like the idea of sacrificing ten turns' growth to get a worker out of Iznik, when they cost three (or two) turns' growth at Istanbul.

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_BC1250.SAV)

Pre-Turn
stayed on maths,
founded Uskudar #5 and final town at the original proposed site

then we went through some dicey turns, defeated 4 warriors + 2 archers on defense, lost a warrior

we have 1 sword now at Bursa, Istanbul has to produce a few more
I ran 1 scientist in Istanbul since we can't get 15spt anyway and this saves us valuable science output

4 workers that connected the iron are trapped at the #5 site due to many Mongol troops

maths is due in 2, then writing -> literature, Edrine is on a pyramids prebuild while Iznik is on a temple
(this we could change if we feel we need a rax

our empire
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr111250.jpg

a closer look at the razor thin situation at Bursa
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr111250b.jpg

I think we should swap Iznik later on to the SoZ prebuild once it has grown. I am also not against temples, they aren't useless here since so far we have 0 luxes

I also think we should chop the deer and produce some workers in Istanbul from time to time, but don't build any workers from other cities, Istanbul will grow much faster with a granary and 2 food bonuses and we better keep the towns at more or less the same size to keep lux low. There is no need for temples when growth speed is synchronized, just build a workers in towns that grow too fast and join them to towns that grow too slowly. A temple gives one happy face and costs 1 coin to support, it is only usefull when one town is bigger then other which can be avoided by carefull planning. But i think that western town should build a library to expand its borders, i didn't do any calculations, but it very well may be that this 40 shield will pay off and it'll build SoZ faster that way ;)

agree on border expansion via a library in Iznik rather than a temple. However, literature is some turns away. We need to keep science as high as possible due to the prebuild.

Maybe we can join some workers to Iznik later on, we still need to improve our land a lot, Bursa is working unimproved tiles.

We also need to deny the Mongols their iron source. If we can keep them using archers we're much better off. Didn't see any report of the pink guys. Are those Incans?

Agree, if we can spare a couple of spears then we should send them over to Kazan and fortify them on that iron :)

We also need to deny the Mongols their iron source. If we can keep them using archers we're much better off. Didn't see any report of the pink guys. Are those Incans?

I realized I missed the most important part of my report and was going to report it but ThERat already played.... I met France during my turns and declared war. Apologies for forgetting that important point in my log.

Another important point is that the road from Istanbul to Bursa is useless for getting between the cities. We only went that way because it connected iron faster. We really need a better road there - otherwise it is 2 moves between the two towns in both directions.

I'm not convinced that Edrine should prebuild for GLib. If our workers are way over at Uskudar, it will be a while before Iznik has any real output for anything. And there is no guarantee that the AI doesn't have its own ivory source to build SoZ. Our iron road is tenuous. If we lose it, a good Plan B for offensive units is ancient cav, but that means we need SoZ sooner rather than later. Why not have Edrine build SoZ? At this level, Istanbul should be able to build the GLib from scratch by merging workers to Pop 12 once we hit literature.

Well its not easy to decide. I don't want to build a wonder in Istanbul because it is our fastest growing city, so it is best to build workers there. But getting SoZ earlier is nice of course. There is another option to build both wonders in Edrine. But it looks like we can wait a bit before making the final decision because we'll build at least one wonder in Edrine anyway and we can decide which one later. And Iznik should expand borders before startng a wonder anyway. We may just continue playing for now and decide a bit later.

I've got it.

I'm not convinced that Edrine should prebuild for GLib.Well, Edrine has some nice production already that seems to tie in with the writing/lit research. I agree that we could build SoZ in another city than Iznik. We could use the capital for that. Or Edrine again. Edrine has a disadvantage that is pop 6.

As for the iron road, there isn't a need to worry too much. The AI will never pillage road outside your borders, currently we need to worry only about 1 road tile and the AI seems to prefer to city or climb the hill next to it.

Once Istanbul has churned out a few swords (maybe we are lucky and get an army as well), we should be able to keep the iron.

1000 BC, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1000BC.SAV)

1250 (0): We defeat three attacks on Bursa by Mongol archers, though it's close (3-0).


1225 (1): Mathematics --> Writing, due in 14 turns at 50%.

Istanbul swordsman --> spearman (to sit on Kazan's iron).


1200 (2): Uskudar walls --> barracks.


1175 (3): Istanbul spearman --> swordsman.


1150 (4): Two French warriors die attacking Uskudar, and the spearman there promotes to elite (5-0).


1125 (5): Not much.


1100 (6): We move two spearmen onto Kazan's iron, which isn't hooked up.

Two French warriors fall attacking Uskudar (7-0).

Istanbul swordsman --> swordsman.


1075 (7): The last of our four workers trapped around Uskudar escapes. These workers were able to do some useful work while in the area, though one road they built was soon pillaged.

One of our spearmen repels the attack of a Mongol archer near Kazan (8-0).

The Vikings complete the Colossus.


1050 (8): With some offensive units now available, we cut down two Mongol archers around Uskudar (10-0).

Well, here's irony--having founded all five of our cities, we get a settler from a goodie hut just beyond Kazan. :lol: At worst it'll be two free population points, if we can get it back to safety.

Istanbul swordsman (with forest chop) --> swordsman.


1025 (9) - 1000 (10): Not much.

Four elite victories this round, all defensive, didn't produce a Great Leader.

With five turns to Writing and 28 turns left on the Pyramids, the GLib pre-build in Edrine seems to be on schedule. The only downside is that we're at 40% lux to keep Edrine happy at size six.

It's hard to make exact calculations for Iznik without knowing how corrupt it'll be at higher populations, but it looks as though we can have the Statue there in 42 turns at worst if we don't build anything else first. (This implies mining two of the town's hills.) I don't think that waiting for a cultural expansion, which one way or another would cost about 60 shields when the Statue only requires 200, could be quicker. So I've got a palace pre-build going in Iznik, although there's still time to change it to almost anything if the team doesn't like the idea.

Our hut settler and the spearman escorting it are taking shelter on a mountain east of Kazan.

The east:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1000BC.JPG

I got it. I think i'll just calculate what is faster in Iznik - library first or SoZ first.

Some good turns. We have consolidated our position and it looks like we will be able to go on the offensive pretty soon. SoZ will really help as well if we can get it.

Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike
Obormot - Up
M60A3TTS - On Deck
Greebley

OK it is time to make a decision about wonders, so lets see what's going on in our cities.

We have 6 workers now. It is not bad because we are industrious, but with only 5 cities we want to grow even faster then usual. We also have more roads to build due to loose spacing and we'll have to build a few colonies to hook up luxuries and maybe horses. We also have some nasty jungel and march tiles in our borders. So i think we need quite a few more workers.

Istanbul is now making 10spt and 5fpt at size=8. We can build a sword and a worker very 4 turns there. We can also build a wonder there, if we improve hills we can get it to 15-20spt. A library there will also be nice even though it doesn't need to expand borders - it'll help a lot with research cause Istanbul produces almost 50% of our beakers.

Edrine is building the Pyramids now and has accumulated 151 shield. It can buil TGL in 28 turns or SoZ in 6 turns. We are running 40% lux now because of that city. If we lower it to 30% and hire a scientist in Edrine instead of working the forest tile we gain 3 beakers per turn and 2 coins per turn (Writing 1 turn faster). The wonder build in Edrine will only be slowed a little bit, because one of the shields was lost due to corruption and food doesn't matter cause it is at size=6 and needs an aqueduct. Basicly trading 1 shield for 5 gold - well worth it imho.

Bursa is building barracks now, but it is not very productive now because of poor tiles. It can get access to 3 BGs after expanding borders. So i may switch barracks to a library if the situation on the front will be more or less quiet. This is also the city our free settler should join, because it is the only one without a food bonus and the closest one.

Iznik is building Palace and has accumulated 22 shields. I really don't like that build - it takes more then 40 turns to build SoZ and more then 40 turns to get access to wheat and BGs.

Uskudar has some nice tiles, but is very corrupt. It should buil a courthouse quite soon. A courthouse in this case will help more then usual, because most of the corruption is distance corruption, while in a normal game at least halve and usually more is rank corruption. A corthouse cuts distance corruption by halve and only reduces rank corruption slightly. So in case of 5CC it should be much more effective then usual. A library there will give 1 BG, 2 forest and one grass tile. Not very urgent, but still nice to have.

OK, after thinking about this for a while i think that M60's plan is the best. I'll switch Edrine to SoZ and Iznik to a barracks->library and start TGL later in Istanbul. This is the most efficent way: we get SoZ almost 30 turns faster (!), that's 6 more ACs. If AC=knight that's ~400 shields saved. We get TGL at about the same time because Istanbul should be able to build it in 30 turns, maybe even faster if we improve the hills. We won't waste food in Edrine that cannot grow now, but can put it on workers instead and later build an aqueduct. We'll get the good tiles around Iznik earlier. Finally getting ACs earlier will allow us to build libraries instead of units in our other cities. So basicly all our cities will benefit from such a switch :king:. We'll loose ~30 shields in Edrine because it'll take some time to connect ivory, but i think it is not that important compared to all these benefits.

1000BC, end of NP's turn
- switch Iznik to barracks (if we go straight for library we'll loose shields).
- Continue building the sword in Istanbul. I don't want to start TGL prebuild yet, but do several worker-sword cycles because we might need some troops urgently and the workers may very well speed up the build and regain lost turns.
- Hire scientist in Edrine and lower lux.
- Settler/spear pair start moving.

975BC
- Send 2 workers to hook up ivory ASAP. The new sword from Istanbul will protect the colony.

950BC
- Istanbul builds sword and grows, worker next. Lux raised for a turn.

925BC
- One french warrior commits suicide at Uskudar. (1-0) Mongols are chasing our settelr pair, but have no chance to catch them.
- Istanbul builds worker, starts another sword.

900BC
- Writing is done, Literature is next, due in 13 turns now.
- Mongols stopped chasing our settler pair and they have a stack of 7 archers that can arrive at Uskudar in 3 turns. I sent some reinforcements there.

875BC
- A road from Istanbul to Bursa that doesn't cross river is done.

850BC
- Istanbul: sword->worker, the last one before switching to TGL, i think.
- Iznik: barracks->library prebuild.
- Our sword dies attacking mongol archer, another sword kills mongol archer, our archer kills mongol archer near the iron hill. (3-1)

825BC
- Istanbul: worker->TGL, due in 37 turns now at 11spt, but that would drop drastically after i MM for shields when Istanbul growth. It will take not more then 25 turns.
- The free settler arrives at Bursa, but i change my mind and decide to join it to Iznik, it is currently our smallest city and the wheat tile there is blocked from the river by 2 mines and it won't be able to catch up in growth quickly.

800BC
- The mongol stack attacks Uskudar, we losoe a vet spear and kill 5 archers. (8-2)

775BC
- Bad news: the mongols have another source of iron because i see 2 mongol swords. One of them is now near Uskudar, the other one will arrive next turn. Our sword dies attacking mongol sword. Another sword finishes him off. Our archer kills mongol archer. (10-3)
- Ivory is connected and SoZ will be done next turn.

750BC
- SoZ is built in Edrine. Start barracks there so that it produces veteran ACs, due in 4 turns with a chop, so our first AC should be veteran. After that Edrine should produce some more workers.
- TGL is due in 21 turns in Istanbul currently. We'll loose some shields if someone completes the Pyramids before we learn Literature (7 turns left), but not much.

All recent mongol atatcks were at Uskudar. There is a stack of a sword and 2 archers next to it now, we have a spear, 2 swords (1 of them wounded) and an archer inside and a spear on the iron hill next nearby. I'll leave it to the next player whether to attack with our sword and archer or not. Bursa and Uskudar are building swords currently, but i think at least Bursa should be switched to a lib unless there is an emergency. The free settler is in Iznik and should join the city after the cultural expansion. Alternatively we can wait for it to get to size 7 before joining to save some food.

Some screenshots:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_750BC_1.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_750BC_2.JPG

Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-750BC.SAV)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Got_us_some_help.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_550_BC.SAV

IBT- Mongols come after us in Uskudar and we get a glorious victory from our Great Leader Orhan. :D Now to go find some cav.

Turn 1- Some tile improvements

IBT- worker stuff

Turn 2-4 like turn 1. Mongol archer and sword back at Uskudar. Rush a sword there.

IBT- Mongol sword and archer die. No losses. AC-1 out the gate.

Turn 5- Load AC-1 into the army. Osman’s Imperial Cavalry to Bursa. Kill French warrior and bump a sword to elite.

IBT- Quiet

Turn 6- Have to move the army out of Bursa. Can’t take a chance however small, that the one AC would lose. Once #2 fills the army, we have some flexibility.

IBT- French archer dies vs. spear. Pillages road tile. Lit in, science to zero.

Turn 7- Elite sword does no damage to Mongol reg sword. That was ugly. Merge the settler into Istanbul, that shaves two turns off Glib, now due in 12 at 20 spt. Lux to 40% Put the Edrine scientist back into the fields.

IBT- Ouch, trade another sword. :( Mongols land another by Uskudar.

Turn 8- Quiet

IBT- Mongols lose another sword, French another archer.

Turn 9- Kill a French archer at Bursa.

IBT- Mongols bring up more troops at Uskudar. Now a sword and 2 archers. AC#2 in.

Turn 10- Load AC#2 and kill a French archer at Bursa. That clears the area for the moment. And done.

Next up can use the 5 workers to get Bursa up to a decent production level from the current miserable 3 shields. Glib due in 9. Then we can spin off some workers in Istanbul, or keep it at 20spt and crank out MI every other turn once we hit the MA. Of course feudalism may still be a ways off. My little foray didn't pay off at Uskudar, so maybe we just keep to a hedgehog strategy. Temujin is sending a pretty steady stream there.

AC army and TGL in 9 turns is great news, but why did we build a temple in Iznik? :confused: And Edrine is wasting food, why not build a worker there from time to time, even if we don't improve anything workers are still very usefull because we can merge them. We should also build a road to connect the incense. Bursa and Uskudar should build a library to expand borders now that we are more or less secure. Other cities should build libs too they are cheap for us and we should prepair to do self-research once TGL is obsolete (and even better to start self-research earlier). I don't want to see any rifles once we get sipahis, that would be a terrible waste of such an awesome UU :cry:. I think i wrote too much stuff in my previous post and nobody actually read it because it was too long :lol:

AC army and TGL in 9 turns is great news, but why did we build a temple in Iznik? :confused: And Edrine is wasting food, why not build a worker there from time to time, even if we don't improve anything workers are still very usefull because we can merge them.

I think i wrote too much stuff in my previous post and nobody actually read it because it was too long :lol:

When I got the game from you, the temple was already under construction. :p

Edrine is wasting food, but it's at 10 spt. We have to build troops somewhere,esp with Istanbul busy with the GLib. A worker from time to time isn't a bad idea, but we need to get these bad guys off our backs too.

And I did read your post all the way through, and appreciated the detail and screenies. :goodjob: We should be able to make some headway once the AC army is up to strength and the GLib is in. Then we can kick more workers loose to improve the terrain.

The temple was a library prebuild, i think i said it somewhere. Maybe we got literature too late and could waste several shields by switching, but then wasting 60 shields on a temple to save those few shields is not a great idea too :p


Edrine is wasting food, but it's at 10 spt. We have to build troops somewhere,esp with Istanbul busy with the GLib. A worker from time to time isn't a bad idea, but we need to get these bad guys off our backs too.

If we build a worker there when the box is full or just one turn from growth we'll only have to spend one turn at size=5 and we'll still get the shields from growth thus staying at 10spt :p 2 swords + 1 worker cycles will work nicely there, though we'll still loose a little bit of food. An MDI + worker will work perfectly. After several such cycles we can start an aqueduct there (assuming we get construction from TGL). We really need to limit the number of units we build in this game or unit support will kill us.

BTW it looks like now we need workers and libraries more then troops now. We all know that we need to constantly grow stronger economicaly to win and since we can't expand here we can only get stronger by building infra and increasing the size of our cities. I think the best we can do is defend with a relatively small number of good units, propably knigths and ACs and use the army for pillaging. I think we should not build cats - they are only effective in big numbers and we can't afford that. We should also replace our swords with horse units as soon as we can. This is of course if we have horses.

I simply don't agree that a temple is a waste. Yes, we need the library for research. But we're not researching at the moment. We won't be researching for a while yet. At least I believe that's the strategy. We have time to get a library in Iznik in time when we start researching.

As far as the Edrine worker idea goes, that's a very good idea. But the go-go growth strategy is going to come up against the reality of our present one-lux situation. We can't run 30-40% lux rate indefinitely either which hurts as much as unit support costs. I think we do need temples. And cathedrals at some point if we're going to have the big cities being discussed.

If I'm way off here, someone please say so, as I haven't done a lot of limited city warfare.

Well, a temple is not really a waste, it gives us one hapy face and takes one coin. After we build a library we'll be able to convert 1 gold into 1.5 beakers thus the temple will be generating 0.5 gold per turn, 1 gold per turn after uni. And it also gives culture. But that is pretty much all it does.

The lux rate is indeed a big problem that makes growth less valuable, but still growth will never harm our research as long as we work roaded tiles and keep all cities at the same happiness level and it will only help if we work roaded tiles along the river. And it increases production which we can use to build stuff like markets and unis faster.

I have never done a 5CC conquest too, but i suspect that we might have some problems once TGL is obsolete. Lets say we manage to clear our starting continent with knights and ACs, but then TGL stops working and we cannot research, we still have knights and the guys on other continents have rifles - that will be ugly. So i want us to start thinking about infrastructure and research in advance. At least when there is no real emergency on the front.

Our UU with Cannon support will be able to make progress against Rifles - or even infantry although that requires a lot of cannon.

I think we want to clear our home continent as quickly. We need Mil Tradition and astronomy, maybe Nav, or Mag. It would be nice to have everyone off our continent by then so we can start the invasion.

Clearing the continent is nice, but we don't get real benefit from it like in a normal game because we cannot settle the land, so i think we should not push too hard on military at the cost of infrastructure, with limited cities infra is much more important. I think we need libraries soon in all cities because they are cheap and we may want to start research as soon as we hit MA to get sipahis earlier (i know we can kill rifles with sips using arty support, but it'll be so much more fun to cut through AI muskets). the 2 cities without culture should propably build them immidiately to expand borders, others should also build libs (except the one that doesn't have fresh water) but a bit later. We don't know if we need Astronomy or not, maybe the other continent is reachable by galleys.

I think we need libraries soon in all cities because they are cheap and we may want to start research as soon as we hit MA to get sipahis earlier (i know we can kill rifles with sips using arty support, but it'll be so much more fun to cut through AI muskets).

I think on a pangea you may have a point, but not in this case. The issue is that we aren't going to out-tech the AI on the other continent as long as they are isolated from us. Those civs aren't yet locked in an AW environment, and will almost certainly be more advanced than ourselves as they're peacefully trading with one another. That's not a problem as the GLib should give us one last burst of techs, but if our cash is depleted through self-research, the strength of what we send over will be smaller. Don't forget the extra cost of the UU will kick in as we upgrade the knights.

Now if another civ shows up in a galley, then the picture may change. But if there's no more contacts in the next couple turn sets, it's likely just us and the French and Mongols for the time being. And I agree with Greebley that we should take the fight to them. Their potential for growth is likely higher than our own due to the terrain. If we stay defensive for too long, the two AIs will be getting to their own UUs which doesn't help our cause.

The level is only emperor, i don't think they will be too far ahead. And they'll research both branches of the tech tree, while we beeline straight to MT. It is definitely possible to get to MT before rifles. But even if you are right and they'll outtech us and we'll have to fight rifles with sips that's certainly better then fighting infantries with knights which very well may be the case if we don't grow and don't build infra :lol:. And i don't say we have to stay in defense and build everything, but libraries in southern towns definitely have a higher priority then troops, and so is building workers and later an aqueduct in Edrine. We don't need markets because we have only 1 and potentially 2 luxes and we only need 1 aqueduct and our libs cost 40 shields, so there will still be plenty of time to build troops.

I think how we play tactically is more important than the troops we lose by building infra. One can stay behind walls entirely or one can risk some pillaging, but take the attack to the AI. For example, is our army going to be offensive or defensive? I say it should be offensive and start going for the enemy as soon as it has 3 units. We can survive without it. Defense is a bit harder, but in the long run we gain.

So ya, we do want some infra, but I still want to go on the offensive. Even it is only with the army.

I would use our free units we get until metal for offense and raze, pillage the enemy. At the same time we can nicely build up our core, getting them up to size. Libraries should be fast and no issue at all, we want markets now that we do not need to research for a while.

If we take out our foes on the continent, chances are that we will get a huge surge in techs once the enemy shows up. That is provided they can't reach us before they have magnetism. Someone surely built the Lighthouse, that nation should be able to get to us though.

Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike
Obormot
M60A3TTS
Greebley - up

since there was no 'got it' message I am posting this :)

For example, is our army going to be offensive or defensive? I say it should be offensive and start going for the enemy as soon as it has 3 units.

I agree. The 5CC condition doesn't change the basic rule of AW: if we aren't advancing, we're losing.

Also, we need to capture 3 cities in one go at a certain time to grab a second army. This would be possible with a nice offense. That army should be kept empty for sipahis. Maybe we could even grab later on a total of 7 cities for 3 armies.
Those 2 armies should not be filled with too many units so that we could transport it overseas and pillage and raze hell there.

I think clearing our home continent won't be possible until RR, we will face too many new towns in the meantime. But, we can raze the core and make sure that Mongols and French aren't a threat at all.

By the way, are we allowed to check the status of the AI? Examples, the techs they have or the amount of gold (would be very important for cash rushes). I think that restriction makes the game too tough.

I agree. The 5CC condition doesn't change the basic rule of AW: if we aren't advancing, we're losing.

That is true to some extent, but not completely. In a normal game advancing makes us stronger and the AI weaker, but in this game only the second part of it works.

Certainly send the army to raze their cores and pillage their iron after the third AC is added. Certainly build enough units to be able to defend and some more if we can secure some luxuries by razing a couple of towns and protecting the area. If we get an MGL we can try a multiple capture operation. But don't devote everything to the offensive push like we did in previous games.

I think that libraries to expand borders in 2 southern towns are a must. Some workers in the northern town are also a must, we have lots of land to improve. Later we'll replace native workers with slaves and merge the natives. After that we should start an aqueduct there. The southernmost town should also build a corthouse after the library because it is almost 50% corrupt and in our case with low rank corruption and high distanbce corruption it will help much more then usual.

Other infra builds are not urgent because of temporarily stopped research, but i would also build a library in Istanbul and a library and harbour in the western town if we can spare some more time for building infra.

To advance more quickly we want to fill a second army right away. I would rather fill it and then keep the last 3 towns to all fall on a single turn. At that point we disband oldest army and build the new. Alternatively when we are "in control" of clearing the continent we disband both and use an existing leader for an army. We then do as above after we get a new leade via leader fishing.

This is one example of where "how we play" is as important than "what we build".

Yes, i agree with you here. I think there was some misunderstanding. I do agree we should try to advance forward and cripple the AIs as usual. What i meant is we need to build more infra then in a normal game. BTW do you know that you are up now?

hmm... Not sure what happened to my "I got it". Ya I did know and thought I had posted.

I keep forgetting to say this. Since there wasn't unanamous vote in favor of the hidden diplomacy (a no vote by Obormot) we will play without hidden diplomacy. We CAN look to see where our opponents are at. Later on we may choose the hidden variant if we want 'greater challenge'. Sorry on being slow on responding on that issue.

Early: I am not sending the army out quite yet as it only has 2 unit in it.
Uskadar seems to be the target of choice for the Mongols who are sending most of the units. We get some bad RNG losing an Elite Spear and Elite sword. We kill a number of archers and a few swords (about 1 a turn).

The following picture is pretty interesting. It shows that someone just built a town near us who we haven't met. It also lists the opponents. The Vikings are on the list. We need to be careful with coastal cities.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_BC490.jpg

Mid: Edrine was at max size so I slipped in a worker build.
More swords are coming at us. Another Spear is lost. Many of the battle are "near things" with us having 1 hp. Slightly worse luck on a few battles and we would have been really hurting.


Late:
410 BC: Kazan is destroyed by the army which now has all 3 units.
Clearing a jungle nets us a BG :D
Another spear is lost to an Archer.


Find Iron. It is close to the first place we look.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_BC370.jpg

Here is a picture:

370BC: We get the Great Library

IBT: We get all ancient techs except Polytheism, Republic, and Currency. Mongols don't have currency.

350 BC: Raze Tabriz.

Notes:
Built several workers during the turn.

We need more catapults. I would put a second town on it as soon as something finishes.

Uskadar was the focus off all the Mongol attacks.

I checked if the Mongols still have Iron. They do.

I did not meet the purple civ (India I bet) yet.

The most swords we saw in one turn was 3. There is a lull at the moment.

Connecting the incense and putting 2 spear on it would make sense when we have the units.

Almost all the units sent at us were Mongol. France may very well be at war with someone else.

As you can see from the picture I went for the Aquaduct right away. I agree on Obormot that there are some essentials to get immediately. The Library in Bursa also is rated high for the border expansion ASAP.

Uskadar needed a Spear so it just started going for its border expansion. A temple is actually better for this town. It is not going to be a happy camper. Note that some of the unhappiness (it has a tax man) is due to cruel oppression.

The army very obviously should be razing Mongol cities. We are close to the capitol I suspect looking at the boundaries. I would heal and then go after it. Weakening the mongols seems top priority to me (before we meet purple). Note that noone sailed by our coast so they must have come via galley or our continent is much bigger in the west than we expected.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_BC350.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_BC350a.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_BC350b.jpg

Here is the save:

Note that I think we should irrigate the square near Iznik that we are currently clearing so we can Irrigate the wheat.

in case we have monarchy, are we going to revolt as soon as possible

And by the way, that town is Viking, the city name is a give away...got it

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_BC150.SAV)

Pre-Turn
ok, we do NOT have monarchy yet, so a revolt has to wait

IT we defeat a Mongol archer, but another covers our iron and Uskudar revolts due to that

1. 330BC
defeat the iron covering archer
defeat 2 French archers in the field that threatened our workers
send a sword back to Edrine since a French galley appears and might drop something

IT France lands 2 archers next to Edrine
and a Viking galley shows up
we get polytheism from the GLib

2. 310BC
defeat 1 archer, but the other can pillage
decide to use the spear to attack and defeat 2nd archer, no pillaging :)

send new sword to Iznik in case the Vikings land some units

IT we get republic, not that we need it, I rather have currency or monarchy
Bursa finishes the library

3. 290BC
our army defeats a sword and moves towards Karakorum, spot workers and a settler pair

4. 270BC
we get a border expansion at Edrine and 1 ivory is within our borders
army crosses river and takes out 2 spears, a sword shows up, this place is awesome :eek:
yummy, no wonder they are so strong

5. 250BC
quite a few French units at Bursa now, we get another Acav, that will help us.
take out 2 archers and a spear, leave the ACav in Edrine since the Viking galley is there now
attack Karakorum
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr11500.jpg
now this must hurt them with such a fantastic site
send our army to safety and hope the 3 slaves will survive

IT lose a 3hp sword in a forest to French archer
Bursa's borders expand and Iznik get a library
Vikings finish the Great Lighthouse

6. 230BC
2 cats fail to wound a French pillager spear, Acav then loses against it, elite sword manages to take it out
at least our 3 slaves are still around and run for cover
there are now 2 stacks near Uskudar

IT Mongols lose 2 swords at uskudar, Egypt finish the pyramids and French start Great Wall, that would be no good

7. 210BC
quiet turn, chase a Viking settler pair north of Edrine

8. 190BC
destroy newly found Alesund, army is back to pillage and attack
it promptly spots a settler pair

9. 170BC
Edrine finally gets it's aqueduct
take out 2 French archers, army defeats settler pair and an archer near Ta-Tu
Istanbul is size 12 and can pull 21 shields, swap to libray since that needs exactly 21 shields

IT again lose a sword against a French archer, Vikings land a warrior and have one more coming from Hareid

10. 150BC
freshly produced Acav takes out Viking warrior
raze Tatu for another 4 slaves
we will need courts as well after all the libraries, Uskudar will finish it's library in 3 finally
we might want to slot in courts whenever the situation allows that

our land from far
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr11150.jpg

our army with 6 slaves underneath
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr11150b.jpg

realized that I did not irrigate the wheat at iznik, next player please do so.

Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike - up
Obormot
M60A3TTS
Greebley


Once our workers have done the major job and are replaced by slaves (we have 2 within our borders and 3 more soon reaching + 6 under the army cover), we should merge them in our slow growing cities

I've got it.

It is good that we managed to build infra while steels advancing and razing their cities :goodjob: :D

Uskudar needs a court, other cities can live without it. We may want to build libraries in Istanbul, Edrine ans Iznik too (EDIT: i see we are already building a lib in Edrine :goodjob:). And harbours in coastal cities for high-commerce water tiles to help with our research would be nice too.

After somebody researches currency for us we may want to resume self-research to get sipahis earlier. I think that will depend on the AI techs - if AIs get engineering as a scientific freeby (only sumerians are scientific, so the odds are not very good :() they go invention->gunpowder way and we can just sit back and wait for those techs. But AI tend to avoid engineering and if noone gets it for free they can beeline to eductaion. In the latter case we better start self-research as soon as we enter MA.

And do we sant to build Knights Templar?

My biggest concern with self research is that I am not at all sure we will get to techs any faster if we research.

We needed polytheism and Currency to get to the next age on my turn. Did we get polytheism yet?

we got polytheism due to the Viking contact.

I would not go for self research until we can see what's happening, for example education is near and we still do not have gunpowder.

All our cities will have libraries in 3 turns, the rest was built already. I am keener on markets, but currency isn't around yet. This is the time for us to go for troops and harm the enemy. The Mongols should be really hurting and if we could get another leader, we might be able to capture 3 towns in 1 go.

When I want to get ahead in techs I will often start up research as soon as an AI get theology or if 2 AI get gunpowder (i.e we get it from the GLib). That way if they head down the education path I am ahead.

Since the AI will target gunpowder over Theology or education (it gives a unit so is rated high), Gunpowder is very likely to be gotten from the AI.

This assumes we know stronger AI. We may even want to try to reach them. If we only know weak AI, we have the question of waiting to instantly catch up to the first 2 AI we meet, or stiking out ourselves. I am guessing we only know one strong AI so far. France and Mongols will be behind and beaten. We do not want to wait for those two.

My guess though is that any research we do ourselves will turn out to be useless in one way or another. The GLib will put us at least as close as our maximum research.

There is a trick here as i said. Both invention and gunpowder have very high priority, so if we see an AI with engineering we should sit back and wait for gunpowder. But if nobody researches engineering or gets it for free they can very well just skip it and beeline for education :mad:. I think that happened to us in one of the games.

Sometimes the AI takes each one different path, so one AI could be doing a Education beeline, and another could be doing a Gunpowder beeline. Also, sometimes the AI researches Invention and doesent bother with Gunpowder, but thats a small chance of happening.

50 AD--army still has movement (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-50AD.SAV)

150 (0): Iznik swordsman --> swordsman.


130 (1): Istanbul horseman --> catapult.


110 (2): We cut down a French settler/spear pair near our ivory colony (1-0).

North of Bursa we slay four French archers (5-0).

We kill a Viking warrior around Iznik (6-0).

We take out a Mongol swordsman north of Uskudar (7-0).

Istanbul catapult --> catapult, Edrine library --> horseman, Bursa horseman --> swordsman, Uskudar library --> courthouse.

The jungle burn next to Istanbul reveals BG.


90 (3): We destroy another French archer north of Bursa (8-0).

The Mongols become fixated on a spearman I'd advanced onto the mountain SE of Bursa, and lose three swordsmen attacking it (11-0).

We get Currency and Monarchy from the Great Library, and Feudalism as our free MA tech.

The Egyptians set off a Wonder cascade by completing ToA--Great Wall to India (so the French miss it), HG and Mausoleum to Sumer.

Istanbul catapult --> temple.


70 (4): Our army razes Mongol Hovd, held by two spearmen and a swordsman (14-0). We capture one worker and gain another from the razing. The army is now escorting eight slaves.

We smite a Mongol archer north of Uskudar (15-0).

We revolt to Monarchy, and draw three turns of anarchy.

The Mongols fail narrowly when a swordsman attacks Uskudar, but otherwise just shuffle their units in the area, though they've got a lot (16-0).

The Statue produces an AC.


50 (5): Northeast of Uskudar we eliminate two Mongol swordsmen and a Mongol archer (19-0).


30 (6): On the Uskudar front we smash another three Mongol units, two archers and a warrior (22-0).

Around Bursa we trample a French spearman (23-0).

We enter Monarchy.


10 (7): Our army crushes a spearman in Mandalgovi, and a Mongol swordsman en route (25-0).

We rout another three French archers around Bursa, and a spearman (29-0).


10 (8): A forest chop next to Istanbul reveals another BG.

We finally get Iznik's wheat irrigated.

Our army extirpates the final two spearmen in Mandalgovi, and we take/abandon the town (31-0).

Two more French archers fall on the approaches to Bursa (33-0).

The stack of eight Mongol workers reaches our lines near Uskudar.

Istanbul temple --> MDI, Edrine and Iznik MDI --> MDI.


30 (9): We bullyrag another French archer near Bursa (34-0).

The Statue produces an AC.

Bursa MDI --> pikeman.


50 (10): For a change, we liquidate a Viking and a Mongol archer around Bursa (36-0).

Three elite victories this round, one of them defensive, didn't produce a Great Leader.

Our army, which still has its movement this turn, is in a central location, so we can discuss whether we want to send it back south to (possibly) finish off the Mongols, or north to start working on the French. Since the French don't have iron and the Mongols may still have it--new Mongol swordsmen are still showing up, anyway--I'd resume attacking Genghis, but it's a close call.

We're producing one MDI per turn, even with two cities working on other things. This is easier to say than to do in AW ;), but if we can keep the MDI together as a strike force rather than letting them get caught up in local defense, we should be able to attack northeast towards France in about ten turns.

In three turns our road system will reach a hill tile next to the incense in the NE. It shouldn't be hard to establish ourselves on the incense--bringing in a native worker for the colony--provided the French continue to fight with archers and spearmen.

The Mongols and the Vikings have both been landing at spot 1 north of Bursa recently.

In three turns or so we'll be able to start irrigating Edrine's plains tiles.

Since we're in a slight deficit even at zero research, I haven't spent any of our nest egg upgrading swordsmen to MDI.

The action:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-50AD.JPG

I got it. As i feared our research potential is nonexistant now. We need to do something about it. I'll see waht we can do.

I guess there are 3 issues that hurt our economy

1. lux is very high, but once we hook up the 2nd lux it should get better
2. markets, we just got currency and do not have enough of them
3. units, we have too many units, let's make use of them and go out burn the AI to the ground thus, making use of them and burning then. I wouldn't hesitate to merge our workers into our cities now that we have a steady supply of slaves.

Markets will definitely help both by us not building more units and increasing our gold.

We want to fight the enemy early though so I think we should continue to build units and use them taking out the AI. It hurts our economy, but letting the AI grow is worse. We want as few enemies as possible when they do get Rifles. To me this is the way to play it even if it does hurt our research now.

This is in part why I didn't think we would be able to out-research the AI to any techs - unit support is a serious issue in 5CC AW. We can produce so many units that no unit losses is very bad for us. We need to use them on offense.

As we get techs we can grab the Infra they bring. Otherwise I would churn out units and take the war to the AI. I am hoping neither the french or mongols ever get to gunpowder & we will need to meet another civ to get the GLib to work.

Last time i wrote lots of stuff that nobody has read, so this time i won't write anything, just post a couple of pics :p

In 70AD a glorious victory over a redlined french archer produces an MGL.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-70AD-1.jpg

In 130AD i found the mongol iron city and razed it. I skipped the other cities because i'll try to arrange a tripple capture :evil:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-130AD-1.jpg

Also in 130AD i send a galley on a suicide run after border expansion in Iznik reveals a promising location. We meet Egypt and i declare. The galley survives and continues to explore north. It looks like the other continent is only reachable with the Lighthouse.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-130AD-2.jpg

In 230AD the galley meets the sumerians. Next turn we get Monotheism and Chivalry from TGL. Monotheism was their free tech and this is very bad because we may not get even engineering from TGL. Someone is already building the Sistine Chapel.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-230AD-1.jpg

250AD - triing to arrange a tripple capture. Could have eliminated the mongols long ago, but they have only 2 big cities, the third one will autoraze. The AC stack is also a bit damaged by mongol archers.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-250AD-1.jpg

The third city should be captured from the french, our stack of MDI and cats approaches a french city. If it is size=1 we'll have to find another target.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-250AD-2.jpg

Our core now - i've been building mostly infra and we can now research engineering in 30 turns or so without deficit. This is still very bad, but a few more markets will be built shortly. I would disband our most useless units now (like cats :p) and merge the native workers. Istanbul is building KT, i started it after a market before any AI did and Istanbul is a shield powerhouse, so we should get it.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-250AD-3.jpg

Minimap:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-250AD-4.jpg

The save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-250AD.SAV)

Last time i wrote lots of stuff that nobody has read, so this time i won't write anything, just post a couple of pics :p

The last time I played, it was evidently too quick on the heels of Obormot since it did not allow for adequate time for everyone to comment.

I'll play in a day or so to allow players, princes and potentates to add their two cents. :D

it would be nice to have a 2nd army, however, do we keep it for sipahis or fill it with knights?

Maybe we fill it with knights to go fot the even better 12 town slingshot?


Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike
Obormot
M60A3TTS - up
Greebley

OK, i have another question about the rules: is suicidal ship-chaining allowed? If it is we may get an army over to another continent for pillaging while researching the needed techs. Otherwise we'll have to wait for astronomy anyway.

In any case we'll need astronomy for the main invasion force because we simply cannot afford so much galleys in 5CC. Since the AI have theology TGL will soon become obsolete :( Our research is slow and AI still don't know gunpowder, so i think we'll have to invade with knights. I think lets wait for the AI to give us education and then research astronomy. While waiting for astronomy we should kill off the french. I would finish the market builds, join native workers and disband some units to increase the research rate. I think cats should go first - we don't need a very high kill ratio in this game because the number of units is limited by unit support and we'll just replace the losses by building new units (knights vs. muskets without arty may be painfull though). After cats we should replace cheap units like spears, MDI, swords, archers by a smaller force of good units (knights, templars, ACs). Once we get education we may build unis.

Definitely fill that army with knights. Our research is terribly slow. It takes us 30 turns to get engineering without deficit. OK, maybe after building the markets, joining workers, etc. we'll reduce it to 15 turns. Still it is too long to wait for sipahis. We may just disband the AC army once we get MT and do another tripple capture.

Certainly one jump chaining is allowed since this uses the natural movement of the unit. This allows us to move 3+1+3 = 7 squares.

To do that one you move out the ships 4 squares (some sink) then in one turn you move boats out 3. All units jump a single square into the ships that are waiting and then move 3 more squares. All this doesn't use the "illegal" part of ship chaining so is 100% ok.

If we need to suicide chain for more than 7 squares, then we are using true chaining since they are jumping more than one boat. My thought was that if it is this far you lose too many boats to make it worthwhile even if it is legal. We can discuss that though. Ship chaining is probably the exploit which I care least about - it doesn't seems as exploitive as (for example) negotiating for peace to avoid a broken rep which is generally allowed.

It doesn't seem exploitive to me because it requires lots of resources, it is not something you get for free. This is unrealistic though, but who cares about realism? ;)

My thought was to get the army over to the other continent via a ship chain so that we can start pillaging sooner. That won't require that many boats. The main invasion force should follow after astronomy.

Greebley, did you ever go back and do that 31 civ pangea game?

Not yet, but I still would like to do it in the future. Decided to go for the less time consuming 5CC first after various discussions.

Does anyone care about the ship chaining exploit? (think it damages the game?) If so i would say we shouldn't do it. If noone else cares then I am fine with dropping it as an exploit. You still use up boat movement so it isn't really unlimited movement is my reasoning. Sure a few units have unlimited movement, but lots of units means lots of resources tied up in it.

OTOH, I want to play an exploit free game for everyone and not just me. Thus a single "no chaining" vote and we won't do it. (sort of like Obormot's single no vote on closed diplomacy nixed that).

it's fine with me, but why would you need that anyway? Are we planning to send our knight army over to their continent for pillaging? This would mean an army filled with 1 knight and 2 more on another boat? We would need 6-7 boats for this as I guess 2-3/5 would sink.
But, do we have a safe landing spot where we can drop the units?

Sending an army to pillage a continent would be an exercise in futility, like trying to scrub a gym floor with a toothbrush. The AI will quickly restore the tiles once our army moves on. We need to define what the end game is. Are we turning off research after MT and going all out for domination at that point?

And knights vs muskets w/o arty isn't painful, it's suicide.

Looking at the map it doesn't matter if we chain. We could also get across without it.

I don't even think ship chaining is an exploit, though I avoid it games where that's the policy. One of the basic factors in history is that until railways, water transport was phenomenally superior to land transport--by a factor of about 100:1, where cost was concerned. The game models this reality better with ship chaining than without it, so what's the problem?

Sending an army to pillage a continent would be an exercise in futility, like trying to scrub a gym floor with a toothbrush. The AI will quickly restore the tiles once our army moves on

Yes, but if we do everything fast we can get the army over before muskets and raze their towns. If we raze a core of a civ that would be helpfull. I think we did transport armies to other continents before even finishing cleaning the home continent to start hurting them earlier and it proved to be a a good strategy.


We need to define what the end game is. Are we turning off research after MT and going all out for domination at that point?

I think MT should be the endpoint. But depending on how things will go we may want to get rails and RP. There is also still a long way to MT because TGL may soon become obsolete without giving us even engineering. We should have started a 50-turn lone scientist run on engineering just in case, but it is too late now.


And knights vs muskets w/o arty isn't painful, it's suicide.

It's not that bad, you just need a steady supply of reinforcements :rolleyes:. Well, i am not saying we should not use arty, but for now we don't need it and once we see muskets we better build trebs from scratch then upgrade existing cats given our money problem. So i still say we need to disband our cats now.

Sounds like noone minds ship chaining so feel free.

I wouldn't be adverse to building some more boats and mapping out the other continent while we clear our own continent off.

Getting a pillaging/razing knight army over to the other continent seems a good idea to me. A knight army can raze cities - This is especially true if noone has engineering yet as all we are fighting is pikes. I would send some pikes over as well as knights. The pikes absorb the initial attack on the first round.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-350AD.SAV

IBT- Mongol archer forces horse to retreat at Darhan

Turn 1- Kill Vike archer w/ sword clean 1-0 by Edrine. Kill 2 spears at Mongol capital. (3-0). Kill 2 Mongol archers at the cost of an AC. (5-1).

Turn 2- Kill 2 French archers and a spear by Besancon (7-1). Capture the town and raze. Redline the army, but kill 2 spears and an archer and we get 23 gold from the Mongol capital (10-1). Capital moves to Darhan. Dalandzadgad loses a spear to our AC (11-1).

IBT- Lose an MI by a French archer. (11-2). A bit of a problem, the Vikes land 2 swords and two archers by Edrine.

Turn 3- Kill 2 Vike swords at Edrine w/o loss (13-2) Kill French archer (14-2). Find the Indians with a galley and declare.

IBT- Our incense colony is overrun. :( We learn theology.

Turn 4- Kill the remaining archers at Edrine (16-2). Kill French spear (17-2).

IBT- Trade an MI for a French archer (17-3).

Turn 5- Destroy Darhan defended by 2 spears at the cost of an AC. (19-4).

IBT- Knights Templar in. :)

Turn 6- Kill 2 French archers and a Mongol one. (22-4)

Turn 7- Kill 4 French archers (26-4). Get pillaging spear onto French iron. Restore our incense colony.

Turn 8- Kill 4 more French archers. (30-4) Pillage their iron colony. :p

IBT- Mongols capture one of their workers back. That was deliberate, as it pulled a defending spear from the capital.

Turn 9- Kill another French archer (31-4). Kill 2 spears at the Mongol capital. (33-4).

IBT- Egypt building Copernicus. :(

Turn 10- Capture the Mongol capital and get 23 gold. (32-4) Temujin is out. :D Lose a sword clean at Hareid. (32-5) Add 5 French archers to our trophy case. (37-5). And done.

Upgraded some troops also. Our galley seems to be getting ignored as it maps out the other area. The French are a real PITA. No lack of archers as you can tell. They keep streaming down the Besancon Turnpike to the north of our incense colony. We’re starting to generate some knights now, so we should be able to make better headway. I think the French just had that one iron source briefly that we’re forted on. We need to keep that out of their hands. The army is healing to the east by the ex-Mongol empire.
Also not good news is the Vikings landed those swords earlier. Although they died, their grandkids will be much more formidable once they get invention.

Ok, I got it

We didn't try to get 3 towns at once for the second army?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/One_down_and_seven_to_go..JPG

Ok, I got it

We didn't try to get 3 towns at once for the second army?

I didn't have any confidence of pulling it off with the limited troops we had, so I opted on killing him as soon as possible. You should have an easier time doing it against the French now that we can build up the military.

Ok I have played and made some progress.

Early: Razed the french City of Amiens.
Started marching northward to battle France.

Mid: Raze the French City of Cherborg.

Late:Destroyed the French Ivory Colony
Destroyed the French city of Grenoble.
Attacked Hareid, but lost all 3 battles - even the one that was knight vs 2 hp spear, so that town lived.
Destroyed an Egyptian city.

Notes:
Landings Were near Edrine at first, but then start to land near Uznik

I used our leader on the Heroic Epic. The idea was that we could get another before we could raze 3 cities in a turn. I was hoping I would renew the leader but no such luck even with a decent number of elite victories.. I really hope the next player gets one or I chose wrong.

We are researching Astronomy. Egypt is doing really well and we need to slow her down - She has both Banking and Astronomy over everyone else and has had Astronomy for a while - for example she settled 3 turns ago. However no AI has Engineering yet. This means they have a ways to go to Muskets and knights can do ok vs pikemen only. We need astronomy to get across without it costing a lot of boats. On the pluss side Egypt is very close.

I think we should work on getting a second Army and pillaging/razing Egypt as well. Step 1 is getting a leader.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_AD450.jpg

If we weaken France a bit more, I think we can turn on Egypt next.

Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike
Obormot
M60A3TTS - up
Greebley

guess your Roster is a little wrong, anyway, I got it...

Roster:
ThERat - up
Northern Pike
Obormot
M60A3TTS
Greebley

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-550AD.SAV)

Pre-Turn

IT Vikings land 2 units in our south

1. 460AD
the RnG isn't really kind to us as 2 knights retreat versus their sword and MDI
another sword then loses to them
our galley discovers fur pretty close to our land

IT Egypt now lands 2 units next to Iznik

2. 470AD
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr10470.jpg
we need to take out 3 cities at the same time, identify them and set up for the attacks

3. 480AD
join 2 workers into Iznik and defeat some units
turn 2 citizens into scientists at iznik as I do not want to increase lux

4. 490AD
set up for the 3 city gamble next turn

5. 500AD
Egypt again landed 2 warrior next to Iznik

the gambit:
take Hareid defeating 2 defenders, capture Avignon taking out 2 defenders and take Dijon with 2 denfenders as well
:dance:

form our second army that needs to be shipped over to the other continent
abandon all 3 cities

take out a Viking settler pair
game crashes :eek:

also we have a new foe, France, declare on them

IT lznik is the hotspot, 4 Egyptian and 2 Viking units land there
Egypt finishes Bach
quite a few French units are near the incense

6.510AD
fill army with 2 knights and help defeat all 6 units

7. 520AD
this is getting tougher, French have a lot of units close to our borders, 13 to be exact and Sumer landed 4 units
next to Iznik
recall our army from French border to help out
take out 3 French and 3 Sumer units, not enough though

IT Sumerian horse suicides and we get astro, engineering next in 10 at deficit

8. 530AD
take out 4 French units
we need now 3 caravels for units to ship over to Egypt

9. 540AD
Raze Lyons and while mopping up another archer we get a MGL
lose a knight trying to take out a Egypt settler pair, mind you it was a warrior
we now have 2 caravels, and are building another one
we should send the army and some knights to accompany

10. 550AD
finally manage to connect fur
defeat a few French and 1 landed MDI from Vikings

reduce lux to 10%, we can now run research at 40% at no deficit

this is where we should aim for with the caravels, the mountain next to, I guess Pi-Ramesses
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr11550.jpg

our research is still very slow, we need to aim for MT of course, but that will take a while. Thus it is absolutely crucial that we can send over the army.
With the home continent almost mopped up, we will have a hard time to get 12 cities in 1 turn, I'd say almost impossible.

Also, long term we might not have the chance to stop at MT but need steam for rails to be able to control our own continent

Good work rat. I am glad you were able to get the second army. We need to pillage Egypt to slow them down. It is our only chance to get to our UU soon enough

I think we will want to turn off research long enough to upgrade our knights to Sapahi, but then continue research as you state.

I am assuming we finished all the universities. We should decide if we want to go for banking first. If we are running high gold, it may get us to MT faster to go for banking than not.

Using up our troops also is a good way to reduce costs, assuming we can do something effective with them. We may want to put them on a mountain (and build an outpost or something like that if needed to get them to attack).

I would suggest building knights untill we see AI muskets. Then switch over to banks because knights vs. muskets is painfull without arty and building trebs will hurt our research alot.

Should we merge or disband our four native workers now? We seem to have enough slave labor, and although 4 gpt isn't a lot, it's something.

I've got it.

My inclination is to use our GL for a cathedral in Bursa, since getting cathedrals into all our cities by a mixture of rushing and building could help us, and hoarding the GL until MT would be very passive. Does anyone object to this, or have a better idea?

Edit: I suspect we still have native workers in part because we've been emptying full food boxes at size twelve, which is sensible. I'll merge at least some of them.

Cathedrals are too damn expensive and cost 2 gold upkeep (same as banks). The benefit is really marginal +3 happy faces that would translate to 4.5 coins or beakers -2 upkeep for a total of +2.5 gpt. I think hurting egypt now is more important. But if we see that they have muskets then building troops won't be very usefull, so i would switch to infra.

The workers should be merged of course. I think we should get all our cities to size 12 and work all possible river tiles. This may require increasing lux by a notch, but we may then get rid of MP in Istanbul and other high-commerce towns to keep the happiness uniform. If we work river tiles then growth will benefit us even if we have to move the lux slider.

We could rush a cathedral in the city with the worst unhappiness which is probably the one farthest away. It is worth it if we can reduce the % Lux since then we save on all cities.

I agree about building knights untill muskets though. That sounds like a good idea to me.

I merged a few natives already, however there might be 1-2 left. Just merge them, we do not need them any longer.

Istanbul is now ok at 10% lux with 3 MP's. Some other require more attention here. I was using scientists as an intermediate solution. I was also trying to work as many river tiles as possible to increase commerce, production is only secondary right now.

We could use the MGL for a bank if we go for banking. Or, we could disband the ACav army and try another 3 city capture.
A knight army is much better than an Acav army, but that slingshot might not be so easy.
Maybe capture 2 cities on our continent and 1 overseas?

Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike - Up
Obormot - On Deck
M60A3TTS
Greebley

650 AD, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-650AD.SAV)

550 (0): What really enhances the power of a pillaging army is a contingent of explorers, not auxiliary knights. I change our builds so that we'll have three explorers when the convoy sails.

We pick off two French archers north of Bursa (2-0).

Bursa temple --> cathedral, which Selim then rushes.


560 (1): We defeat an Egyptian spearman in Buto, but the town seems to be well garrisoned (3-0). It's a small point, but when a knight can begin its attack three tiles away from an enemy city, it should do so. That way the AI is less inclined to rush additional defenders.

We raze Marseilles, held by two spearmen and an archer, and gain a worker (6-0).

We cut down three French archers, in various locations (9-0).

Bursa cathedral --> knight.

We get a palace expansion.

The Egyptians are building Leonardo.


570 (2): We dispose of two Egyptian warriors and a WC landed next to Edrine (12-0).

We crush the last French archer around our incense, and generate the GL Mehmed II (13-0).

Our depleted knight repels the attack of a WC out of Buto (14-0).

The Romans begin Copernicus.


580 (3): Mehmed rushes a cathedral in Uskudar.

We wipe out an Egyptian settler/spear/horse team trying to expand their position around Buto (16-0).

We ride down the last French archer in the Bursa region (17-0).

Uskudar cathedral --> university.

The Egyptians complete Copernicus.


590 (4): We land our pillaging force--the knight army, two extra knights, and three explorers--in Egypt.

We pick off an Egyptian warrior near Buto (18-0).

We slay another French archer and generate the GL Bayezid II (19-0).

Ugh, a French pikeman shows up in Paris.


600 (5): We get started on pillaging Egypt, clearing six tiles.

We auto-raze Buto, held by two spearmen (21-0).

Engineering --> Invention, due in 16 turns at 7-3-0.


610 (6): We take/abandon Paris, held by just a pikeman and two spearmen (24-0), and capture a worker. Unfortunately, no city improvements survive to be sold.

We auto-raze Poitiers, a recent French foundation held by two spearmen (26-0).

We eliminate a French archer/spear team (28-0).


620 (7): We raze Rheims, held by two spearmen and an archer, and gain two slaves (31-0).

Elsewhere we account for three French archers and a spearman, and capture two workers (35-0).

We defeat a Sumerian Enk/settler pair in the popular settlement area SE of Uskudar (36-0).

We merge our final native worker (into Uskudar), and all our cities are at size twelve.

The Romans are building Leonardo.


630 (8): We auto-raze Rouen, a tundra hamlet held by a pikeman and a spearman (38-0).

The French attack one of our AC with an archer, but fail (39-0).


640 (9): We move what passes for our SoD next to Orleans, a size-eight hill town, overrunning an archer on the way (40-0). Fortunately the city shows a regular spearman on top.

We overcome a pikeman in Chartres, another tundra hellhole, but the town remains garrisoned (41-0).

Our pillaging operations disconnect the Egyptians' dyes, unless they've got a separate source. We also carve up an Egyptian LB which comes within range of our independent knights (42-0).

Uskudar university --> knight.


650 (10): We raze Orleans, held by four spearmen, for the loss of a Crusader, with our AC army becoming substantially depleted (46-1). Our total haul is five slaves and a catapult.

We fail at Chartres, though our AC retreats, so that attack will have to wait a few turns.

Nine elite victories this turn produced two Great Leaders.

The French are down to two cities, and shouldn't survive the next round. We'll have to wait for some healing--of our AC army, and of the various mobile units around Chartres--before finishing them off, though.

We've accumulated a fairly substantial force, including our three caravels, in and around Iznik. So if we want to start taking cities on the other continent, understanding that we'll absorb heavy losses, we can begin before long. I wouldn't try it without six trebuchets, but we could build them quickly. We know that Cleo has musketmen.

We're also in position to implement Greebley's idea of landing pikemen on the mountain next to Pi-Ramesses and trying to provoke the Egyptians into attacking us. I don't think we can build an outpost within their cultural borders, though.

Our pillaging force should proceed south from its present location, to the Egyptians' gems.

The AI's landings on our continent this round were occasional and weak, and directed mostly at settling the area SE of Uskudar.

After rushing two cathedrals this round we still have a Leader waiting in the capital, so that gamble turned out well.

We should be aggressive about running our cities at a food deficit, as long as they don't actually lose population. There's no other way we can benefit from full food boxes, since we don't want to peel off workers. In some cases we can have a city build a knight in four turns at a food surplus, and then another in three turns at a deficit.

If we can uncover one more BG around Uskudar we can get the town to 24 spt for three-turn knights, so it's worth continuing to burn jungle there.

We don't yet know about the Viking lands, but apart from that the AI civs are quite compact geographically, and highly vulnerable to pillaging. That should help us a lot.

Scouring Egypt clean:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-650AD.JPG

I really hope we are slowing down Egypts research. They are researching quickly.

I like the idea of sending over enough trebs so we can take out some cities. They are all size 12 so would be a real loss to them.

Egypt is researching very fast for an emperor AI, i thought we would have an opportunity to raze at least some of their cities before gunpowder :(

I like the idea of shipping a stack of trebs over to egypt to burn some of their cities, but our research is very slow. Perhaps we can disband a number of our units at home now that the french are almost gone.

Our AC army cannot be shipped to egypt, so i suggest we disband it and use the MGL for another army after another tripple capture (2 french towns and 1 egyptian town). Then with 2 knight armies and a stack of trebs we can make nice progress there.

I've got the save and will play tonight.

Our AC army cannot be shipped to egypt, so i suggest we disband it and use the MGL for another army after another tripple capture (2 french towns and 1 egyptian town). Then with 2 knight armies and a stack of trebs we can make nice progress there.

If you can pull this off, great. But one of the two remaining French cities is a miserable size-one tundra town, so some waiting will be involved if we aren't going to auto-raze it.

Great idea with the explorers, NP :goodjob:
I wouldn't even have thought of that. Now, this will hopefully slow Egypt down, their capital being disconnected, I hope the rep has taken a nice hit.

If we can capture 3 cities, it would be great to disband the army for a bank maybe (but we do not have banking...)

Is it actually possible to sell temples and keep cathedrals?

How's it coming Obormot?

I was busy yestoday, sorry. I just started playing and it'll be done in a couple of hours.

pre-flight:
- Change builds to trebs (where it was possible without overflow)
- MM for low production and lots of beakers - we need to do something about our research. I will also use scientists to empty teh food boxes instead of shield adjustments - no need for maximising production now since the size of our military is limited by unit support.
- Disband a total of 14 useless obsolete units :) - spears, pikes, MDI, cats, archers. We really needed to do something about our research. More will be disbanded next turn (cause they already moved).
- Rearrange the defnenses to be able to defend with knights, ACs and templars.

660AD
- Kill an LB in egypt, pillage. (1-0)
- Disband 7 more units - cats, spears, MDI.

670AD
- No kills, no landings. More pillaging in egypt.

680AD
- More pillaging including horses and one of the gem tiles.
- Kill french spear+archer pair. (3-0)

690AD
- Pillage the rest of egyptian gems.
- Kill french archer that walked out of their capital. Our units in France are almost healed, but i am waiting patiently for a tripple capture opportunity.

700AD
- Learn Invention, start guns (11 turns :()
- Kill 3 indian warriors and 1 viking MDI (both landings north of Bursa) (7-0)
- The army starts moving to meet to the coast to cover the landing.

710AD
- Kill egyptian LB north of Bursa. (8-0)
- Load 3 caravells with 7 trebs & 2 crusaders and sail to egypt.

720AD
- Kill 2 viking MDI north of Bursa (10-0)

730AD
- Land at Memphis.
- Kill 2 sumerian horses N of Bursa.
- Kill french arecher S of Tours.
- Kill egyptian settler pair at Uskudar (14-0)

740AD
- All 7 trebs miss - i don't attack.
- Kill a wandering LB in egypt.
- Capture roman settler/pair at Uskudar (16-0)

750AD
- This time 5/7 trebs hit, and it has 1 3hp musket and 2 2hp muskets. I attack and burn the city together with Sun Tzu's killing the three muskets and a spear. We loose a knight and a crusader. (20-2)
- Kill a french archer N of Uskudar.
- Kill 2 sumerian horses N of Bursa. (23-2)
- Send 6 more trebs to Egypt.

The damn french tundra city is still size=1, so we cannpt make an army this time. But teh french don't pose any threat and there is no point in shipping the troops from there to Egupt since the number of cities we can capture is linited by the number of trebs currently. So i would wait a little bit more for them.

I think we have enough trebs currently (the nmore the better of course, but building more will cripple our economy). I don't know what to build in our cities now, researching banking won't pay off, so we should not build banks. No more units for now too or our research is dead. Maybe just put them on wealth?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-650AD.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-750AD.SAV

Got it. Will check it out tonight.

Could we make Odense one of the three cities we capture? It being an island city may be less well defended than some others.

Could we make Odense one of the three cities we capture? It being an island city may be less well defended than some others.

Done on turn 3. And the French bid adieu.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/French_are_out.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-_850_AD.SAV

IBT- Egypt lands 2 knights and a LB by Edrine

Turn 1- Kill all 3 Egyptians (3-0) Kill Sumerian horse (4-0)

IBT- Egypt lands LB and chariot by Edrine

Turn 2- Kill them again (6-0) And knock off an Egyptian LB on their continent. (7-0)
Drop 2 crusaders, knight, and 6 trebs by Odense

IBT- Roman and Sumerian land minor forces. Guess where?

Turn 3- Capture Chartres and Tours and the French are gonzo defended by 3 spears and a pike. :D (11-0) Kill 2 pikes in Odense and capture it. (13-0) Collect 25 gold from selling improvements. Disband the army, create a new one, and abandon all cities. Kill 2 Roman archers and a Sumerian one by Edrine (16-0).

IBT- Gunpowder in, Chemistry in 15. Heliopolis builds Smith’s.

Turn 4 load army

IBT- quiet

Turn 5- Kill Vike MI (17-0)

IBT- Rome building Magellans. India lands WE.

Turn 6- Lose a knight and AC for two dumbos. (19-2). Build salt colony just north of Bursa.

Turn 7- Kill jumbo and two Vike MI (22-2), Capture and abandon Oslo. (24-2) 10 gold from the rax.

IBT- More landings

Turn 8- Dispatch 3 Egyptian LBs and a Vike knight. (27-2) Get MGL Orhan. :D

Turn 9- Lose a knight to an attacking vike knight, lose an MI attacking Bodo, a new settlement in our AO. (27-4) Kill Sumerian settler pair and Egyptian chariot (29-4)

Turn 10- Kill 3 muskets at Bergen. No gold on capture, 3 workers. (32-4) Destroy spear and red Vike knight and auto-raze Bodo. 3 more Egyptian LBs and a Sumerian horse dead at Edrine (36-4). Drop off the new knight army by the Egyptian town in what was Odense along with a couple cats. Abandon Bergen. And fort what’s left in the other continent. Note there’s an explorer and a couple workers forted and unprotected. They can still move back to the stacks.

Post turn- Not sure where we go from here exactly. We have a choke of two mountain tiles we could try and fort with muskets that would isolate Vikes. I built 3 muskets for that option, but they seem real weak with a lot of hills so there isn’t room for big city growth. Edrine is a regular landing site, we should build a toll booth there. I haven’t held back on building troops, and we can certainly do some damage with 13 trebs over there and the second army nearby. Don’t see but the one Egyptian salt source that is disconnected. Maybe we should just focus on crushing Egypt since we can maneuver there a lot easier and the travel distance over water is shortest. Take out Heliopolis and Smith’s first, and go from there.

I got it.

Odense was the Viking town on the island. I assume you dropped the knight army off on the main continent?

No, the Egyptians built another town on the island. So I dropped the army there. You can load it back on the caravels if you want to ignore the place, I just figured get rid of it now.

Ok, I will decide. As long as the army has only 2 units and we can still move it off the island it sounds fine. The chance of a loss is a bit higher - Not sure how high.

I would leave that Island alone and go for the main continent. Once we have sipahis they can take care of such places.
By the way, are we allowed to block that small Island with slaves? It's a little cheesy that why I ask.

By the way, are we allowed to block that small Island with slaves? It's a little cheesy that why I ask.

It's possible, but if Ragnar pulls up with a zerk, it won't matter.

I have played.

We razed two Egyptian cities. One with our Armies and one with regular units. We Razed Smiths.

The AI already has Rifles. No huge suprise here. I think our armies can still make progress if we are careful. They are stacked with many Trebs to help out. We just want to make sure at least one army has 9 or mor HP at all times.

Not sure if we should go for the capitol next or skip it. It will be most heavily armed of the cities.

Research is slow. I put two towns on wealth to stop producing units and have been "using up" units to reduce how many we have. Another alternative would be to disband some.

Metallurgy in 13, but only if we can capture cities to keep up negative research. Each Egyptian town is worth about 120 gold.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_AD950.jpg

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_1050AD.SAV)

Pre-Turn
MM so we work the best commerce tiles and research drops by 1 turn
defeat a settler pair from India

1. 960AD
moving, drop 1 knight and 3 trebs on that small Island

2. 970AD
army stack next to Byblos now
defeat a spear in Edfu

3. 980AD
Edfu now has rifles inside as well
trebs aren't that hot against rifles and only 1/13 hit
defeat 1 rifle only

4. 990AD
defeat 2 units and raze Edfu for much needed 139gold
bombardment at Byblos better this time with 5 hits
barely manage to raze town for 200+gold

we need to merge the stacks

5. 1000AD
trying to move towards Pithom, a nice spot to merge stacks and heal

6.1010AD
lose 3 knights trying to take out a rifle settler pair on our continent
get a leader in Viking land

7.1020AD
land more units closer to Pithom, this stack should be used to march through Egypt and their capital
4th knight manages to kill that rifle

8. 1030AD
meeting point Pithom, we got a few units there, but need to wait 1 turn for the attack
in former France kill 2 settler pairs from India
increase science so we get metal in 2 now

9. 1040AD
our small stack on the moutain near Giza is finally wiped out :(
raze Pithom for another 187gold

10. 1050AD
metal is in, MT next in 11 turns at -28gpt, but we can speed this up if we raze towns
defeat a Sumer and Roman settler pair on our continent, we really need to be careful here
use slaves for outposts really helped here

I left the stacks in Egypt alone for the next person
we can split into 2 stacks and hope the msaller survives or move the stacks as 1 unit towards Giza and then Thebes
which I prefer.
Once we have sipahis, then can we go on a huge rampage I guess
we also have a MGL next to our capital

the situation, note that I parked 3 slaves on that small Island, if we think that's too cheesy, then disband them
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr111050.jpg

Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike - up
Obormot
M60A3TTS
Greebley

I've got it, but this won't be a lightning turnaround such as Rat has just managed. :lol:

1150 AD, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1150AD.SAV)

1050 (0): A depleted knight survives the attack of a Roman LB (1-0).


1060 (1): We destroy four Egyptian LB and a musketman as our SoD grinds towards Giza (6-0).

We wipe out a landing force of three Jumbos next to Edrine, losing a knight (9-1).


1070 (2): We take out another Eg. LB on the road to Giza (10-1).

The Indians attack one of the caravels in our ship chain, which is a bad sign, although we win (11-1).


1080 (3): We ride down a Jumbo and four Eg. LB around Edrine (16-1).

Our SoD moves next to Giza.


1090 (4): Our trebs do very well at Giza, redlining the garrison's three riflemen with seven hits in eighteen strikes. We then take the city (which also contains an LB, and a worker) without loss (20-1). We gain 346 gold, plus another 25 gold from selling the city's improvements and then abandoning it rather than razing.

We manage to defeat a Roman settler/musket team, with our only knight in the area (21-1).

We lose a knight disposing of an elite Jumbo next to Edrine (22-2).


1100 (5): Convoy operations. We'll have three cannon in our SoD when we attack Thebes.


1110 (6): We ship four knights home from Egypt for upgrading when we get MT. If they advance as far as Thebes I doubt we'll ever get them back to a barracks.

The first Berserker attack costs us a knight in Iznik (22-3).


1120 (7): We bombard and overrun an Eg. settler/rifle pair, in Egypt (23-3).

We trample a Eg. stack of two LB and a warrior next to Edrine (26-3).

Our SoD moves next to Thebes.


1130 (8): Nineteen treb strikes knock eight HP off the riflemen in Thebes, while three cannon shots contribute nothing. We then take the city, held by six riflemen and an LB, in a bloody assault which costs us four Crusaders (33-7). We gain 375 gold and a worker. We capture/abandon the town, which proves to be a bad call when only a barracks survives to be sold. ToA and Bach disappear from the world.

We smite an Eg. settler/LB team, in Egypt (34-7).

We shoot down a Roman LB which chooses to attack a musketman on a mountain (35-7).

Military Tradition --> Banking (but at zero research).


1140 (9): We eliminate a Roman settler/musket pair on our continent (36-7).

We upgrade seven knights to Sipahis.

We lose a musketman fortified on a mountain to the attack of an Eg. LB (36-8).


1150 (10): With everyone now trying to settle the lands we've devastated in Egypt, we exterminate an Indian settler/rifle pair and a Sumerian settler/musket team there, along with an Eg. LB (39-8).

We auto-raze Bengal, just founded by the Indians NE of Edrine, using Sipahis, and enter our Golden Age. The town is held by a rifleman and a Jumbo (41-8). We also crush an Indian rifleman/MDI stack, part of the same settlement force (43-8).

We account for a Sumerian settler/musket pair SE of Uskudar (44-8).

We land five Sips in Egypt.

We'll be able to attack Elephantine, with our cannon and trebs reunited (they're currently on two tiles) and our depleted army mostly healed, on turn four of the next round. After that, or when we take Alexandria, we should probably divide our forces into a slow SoD, with the cannon and trebs, and a fast one, containing just Sips and a covering army.

We mustn't be impatient about pillaging the area of Egypt we're in now, or we'll lose the roads necessary to get our bombardment units through the jungle.

We need to retain the option of returning to pillaging at some point, with India as the ultimate target. For this reason, I've restored the force of three explorers accompanying our armies.

I'll repeat that the Vikings now have Berserkers, so we have to careful about Iznik and Edrine.

Right now we're at zero research, without even a scientist assigned, to generate money for upgrades. We'll have to decide whether we ever want to resume research. There's still a lot of play in front of us, so perhaps we'll have to.

We still have a Great Leader in Istanbul, so the option of capturing three cities in a turn and creating a Sip army is open to us.

Enemy landings directed towards settlement have been spread all along the coastline of our continent, with the exception of the far north and the far south. The aggressive landings have all been made around Edrine, except when the Vikings attacked Iznik with a Berserker.

Grinding on:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1150AD.JPG

One thing to be careful about. If a city has whipping unhappiness, then the capture/abandon transfers that unhappiness to one of our 5 cities. I have seen this problem in limited city AW. If the AI is drafting we should always raze.

Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike - just played
Obormot - up
M60A3TTS - on deck
Greebley

great progress :goodjob:

After upgrading I would keep researching until we have steam, rails would make defense on our continent and razing on the other so much easier with the added mobility.

I agree we need to keep up research. If the AI builds a few frigates, our sea lane could be at risk.

I got it and will play tomorrow.

1160AD
- raze newly settled egyptian town killing 2 rifles and LB for ~300 gold loosing a sipahi.
- Use this gold to upgrade remaining knights to sipahis, the elites too, because of limited number of armies.
- I resumed research and we can get banking in 4 turns because of the GA.

1190AD
- We raze Elephantine with Copernicus's for 500 gold

1200AD
- Banking is done start physics, it can also be done in 4 with some help from egyptian gold.

1220AD
- We burn Alexandria with Newton's for 400 gold.

1230AD
- Autoraze another new egyptian town for more gold :D

1240AD
- Physics->Magnetism

1250AD
- Capture 3 egyptian villges which gives us a sipahi army and lots of gold. After abandoning those cities draft/poprush unhappiness jumps to Iznik and i have to hire a clown there. But it can still produce 25 shields for 4-turn sips.

The situation on the other continent:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1250AD.jpg

The big arty stack moves north to grind Rome and Sumeria. Small towns in egypt were captured by lone sipahis without arty support cause they were small and didn't have many defenders. Now sipahis can catch up with the main stack, no more egyptian towns on the main continent. The next player may split up the stack into 2 parts.

Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1250AD.sav)

great progress, suggest we first go after the northern part of the Island. Maybe we can also try and eliminate Egypt completely otherwise the settler spam keeps on from them.

by the way the upload link is slightly wrong, this is correct:

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1250AD.SAV)

Yes, i too think we should attack northern civs first and i sent our main stack to the north. Vikings are backwards and have crappy terrain, so they can wait.

We can start building more ships to finish off the egyptians - i don't think it is very important, but they have lots of gold and razing their cities helps our research a lot :D

OK, I got it and will play tonight.

Very good progress. I am especially glad you could get the Sapahi Army. Those are very strong.

We may want to keep our eyes open for taking 7 cities at once. This is really big since we can then build pentagon and get 4 unit armies. I am not sure when we would have the troops to do this, but it may not take too long.

I would go after the northern civs. Sumeria is often a strong one. In fact we can even leave cities intact on our continent if we want to go for 7 cities sooner. Let the settlers come :D They don't add that much to the Civs economy.

I'm going to have to ask for a skip. Long day at work and have to fly out on business early AM. No need to rush through this and risk a dumb mistake.

Definitely press on to Sumer and Ur. I'll be back on Sunday to see if Sumeria looks like Egypt does now.

Ok, I got it then and Northward Ho!

Early: We get Magnetism and start ToG.
Raze some newly built cities.

Mid: Raze Sumer (size 12). More newly built cities fall.
A big landing of 4 rifles near Edrine. We lose 3-4 Sapahi - 2-3 vs Rifles on flat with 1 hp!

End: Raze Kish with Knight Army. Attack and kill several Rifles at Ur. We are currently healing.

Got Medicine as our free tech and started Steam Power.

Notes: All cannon and such are with the Knight army. We need some to help the Sapahi Army (which is slower because it needs to heal fairly often).

Started the Military Intelligence. This will give our Sapahi army +2 to attack if I understand the rules right.

Didn't kill a town on our own island.

Did build some more outposts.

We are running 10% Lux because 2 cities don't have 3 units. As soon as the units move back, lower Lux to 0 again

We have a leader. If we can take 7 cities we can build a 3rd Army. If we take 3 we can get a second knight army (problem is that the Knight army is guarding our trebs and such).

I would have the knight army go after Rome first.

Bursa is building a courthouse to get to 34 shields for building Sapahi without starving. You can also build a Sapahi and start it to starving. We could then build a courthouse later when food gets lower. It will likely need MM to get to 34 shields.

Golden age ended (of course).

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_AD1300.jpg

Roster:
ThERat - Up
Northern Pike - On Deck
Obormot
M60A3TTS
Greebley - Just Played

got it, I doubt that we will need a court for the shields since RR should increase the spt anyway.
Why didn't we use the MGL to rush the Mil Academy? Or do we rather wait for another sipahis army?
I don't know but would use the MGL for that.

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_1350AD.SAV)

Pre-Turn
Egypt still has a massive amount of gold (10k) which we should try and get
I don't like the placement of Isin, it could steal our ivory if it expands

1. 1305AD
moving knight army towards Roman core, sipahi army heals
lower lux to 0%,but GA ending dropped our research and production

IT sink a Indian galleon
Edrine gets attacked by 2 zerks and due to one defeating an Acav it riots

2. 1310AD
sink that zerk carrying caravel
knight army moves towards Veji, small sophai stack takes out settler pair and moves towards Cumae
take out 3 rifles at Ur but lose a crusader

IT defeat against a LB near Cumae
get Mil Academy

3. 1315AD
reach Veji, Cumae

IT Egypt lands a settler pait on our continent, good that means money

4. 1320AD
defeat 3 units and raze Veji
take out 4 units and Cumae is gone as well

we need to merge the stacks

5. 1325AD
defeat a Roman settler pair, a LB and a galleon
defeat 1 rifle in Ur, but army needs to heal again, we need more sipahis as a support
Ur at least shrinks
raze newly found Tromso

6.1330AD
sink India full galleon and a Sumer galley
lose 2 sipahi trying to take out Isin, but manage to take out the new Egypt city for a whopping 1200gold
:dance:


7.1335AD
take out Egypt MDI
take out 2 rifles in Ur

IT Sumer Cav attack but loses to sipahi

8. 1340AD
defeat 3 units and raze Neapolis
reduce science to 10%

IT defeat zerk on defense, steam is in, debate which tech next but think factories would help us
and we get the great news that we can build the ironworks :dance:

9. 1345AD
we actually have 2 sources of coal in our empire and the IW at Uskudar
will use our MGL for that
defeat a Sumer settler pair

10. 1350AD
rush IW in Uskudar
defeat 4 rifles (3 drafted) and Ur still stands, land 3 moer sipahis there, next turn it should fall
but army needs to rest yet again

our capital is now at 34spt and 3 turn sipahis

I am sure with more sipahis we can take out the enemy easily
I would not bother about another army, the knight/arty stack is good enough with some sipahi support

We should press on to Sumer and India, once Rome is done. It is down to 3 core cities anyway

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr111350.jpg

A very nice turn. The Ironworks is also good news.

Looks like the AI will not last much longer. We should start exploring to see if there are unknown islands. I hope there are no size 1 as we will then have to wait for Marines to win.

Roster:
ThERat - Just Played
Northern Pike - Up
Obormot - On Deck
M60A3TTS
Greebley

I've got it.

Good work against Rome. :goodjob:

actually if we wanted to grab all those luxes on the 2nd continent, we might want to abandon one city on our Island and take over a city on the 2nd continent. We could then also build rails to reduce movement delays.

I think we could pull this off and destroying a few Egyptian cities would give us the required cash to rush improvements there.
What do you people think?

Ur would be a nice city to hold...

With 3 units in each city, we can run 0% Lux. I don't think we really need to abandon a city unless we decide to go above size 12.

One advantage of Ur though is that I believe I saw it at size 13 which probably means it has shakespeares. We could see if it had other wonders.

I am not sure if it is far enough away that corruption would be a problem. We may do better with a close size 12 town than a far size 20 one.

Ur contains: Shakespeare Theater, Magellans Voyage, Hanging Gardens, and The Oracle.:) IMO, not worth keeping...

My apologies. :( I thought I had just enough time to play on Friday, but it didn't work out. Now I have no chance to play for some days (short-notice family visit :vomit:), so I'll have to ask for a skip.

Roster:
ThERat - Just Played
Northern Pike - Skip
Obormot - Up
M60A3TTS - On Deck
Greebley

1355AD
- Raze Ur.
- Get Bursa to 25spt by RR.
- Ironqorks gets Uskudar to 48spt. Will become 50spt after some RR.

1360AD
- Uskudar is 50spt, Bursa are 25spt

1365AD
- Raze Rome.
- Land on small viking island.
- Iznik is 25 spt.

1370AD
- Raze Stavenger.
- Start factory prebuilds in most cities.

1375AD
- Raze newly settled indian town.
- Land on egyptian/sumerian island.

1380AD
- Raze sumerian island city, but have to load the stack back onto galeons to heal.

1390AD
- Raze Lagash.

1395AD
- Industrialisation is done, start Nationalism to mobilize. All other techs seem to be too expensive and won't pay off. The prebuilds are switched to factories and we'll have them everywhere soon.
- Raze Pompei, but the Knight army is badly damaged after unlucky RNG roll.

1400AD
- We raze Umma. Sumerians are almost gone.
- We are one LB short of razing ehyptian island city. Should do it next turn.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1400AD-1.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1400AD-2.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1400AD-3.jpg

Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_1400AD.SAV)

OK, I got it and will play tomorrow. Great progress.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10_1450AD.SAV

IBT- Lose three workers to an Indian rifle. Lose two sipahi.

Turn 1 (1405AD) Lose a sipahi at Hieraconopolis. Load the remaining troops back on the galleons and sail off to heal. Kill 2 zerks.

Turn 2 (1410AD) Kill a musket a Trondheim. Sink a Roman galleon. Lose a crusader but kill off a jumbo and rifle.

IBT- Lose a musket to a zerk, Indian rifle dies attacking sipahi

Turn 3 (1415AD) Kill musket and rifle and burn Viriconium for 7 gold.
Kill a pair of Indian rifles and more two settler pairs. Sink a Sumerian caravel.

IBT- AC defeats a zerk at Iznik.

Turn 4 (1420AD) Sink an Egyptian galleon.

Turn 5 (1425AD) Destroy Sumer town of Isin defended by rifle. On the Indian front, destroy Dacca and get 462 gold. Kill a jumbo and LB. Trade a frigate for an Egyptian galleon.

Turn 6 (1430AD) Redline Egyptian galleon, then a full health frigate fails to sink it. Another Indian settler pair plus a jumbo.

IBT- Indian galleon dies attacking our frigate

Turn 7 (1435AD) Kill a zerk with sipahi. Destroy Egyptian town of Tanis. No gold.

Turn 8 (1440AD) Did something.

Turn 9 (1445AD) Hieraconopolis defended by 2 rifles and a LB gets torched. Wounded galleon sinks in the harbor. Capture Antium defended by 3 rifles and a pair of LBs. Get MGL Selim. Sell off several improvements for cash. Capture undefended Indus that autorazes for 427 gold.

IBT- Nationalism in, science off.

Turn 10 (1450AD) Sink Indian galleon. Army walks into an empty Punjab, 440 gold into the kitty. Lose two sipahi attacking Abydos. And done.

Everything seems cleared out now between India and Scandanavia. If we can add a coal colony, we can toss some rail down to facilitate movement. Added a lot of rail in our continent, but there isn’t a road network to build on down there in the south. Although the AI hasn’t even tried to build there, so it’s probably not an issue. Next turn, we can land 4 sipahi on the ex-Egyptian lands. Not sure what to do with MGL Selim. As noted, Ghandi has all the cash now.

good progress, I don't think building a coal colony will help since there is no city to actually get this for us at the 2nd continent. Unless we can capture a town with a harbor, then quickly nuild some rails before abandoning at the end of the turn...might be a little tricky though.

I would use the MGL to rush factories or coal plants and all cash we get to rush units...let's just steam roll the AI, I don't think there is much else to do.

Roster:
ThERat - On Deck
Northern Pike
Obormot
M60A3TTS - Just Played
Greebley -Up

I got it.

Since this game is reaching its conclusion, I was thinking of playing
AWM Pangea vs 31 civs with a random civ and random start ( I mentioned several months ago) if I can find the players.

Is there interest in playing such a game?

Preturn: Looks ok. I am going to finish improving our cities though.
I think Sanitation is worthwhile - it seems better than rushing a very few Sapahi. Going to research it. Larger towns will be good.

Early:
Mostly Healing and moving units to the front line.

Mid: Sapahi Army does poorly - It kills 2 rifles & mostly heals.
Raze Viking Capitol (Trondeim)

Late:
Raze Viking City of Copenhagen.
Capture size 12 Jaipur - start workers and then abandon.
Sapahi Army goes from full HP to 3 and hides under the Knight Army. Lahore has lost 3 or so rifles (though I bet it built some back by now).

Notes:
I spread out workers onto squares and then when capturing a town I started them RR'ing. We should have a RR across the lands. They will finish in 12 turns for the most part.

I decided to build a bit of Infrastructure like banks and happiness for increasing above size 12. With coal plants I am hoping we can get some towns to 80 or 100 shields.

Indian Front:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_AD1500.jpg

Viking Front:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR10_AD1500a.jpg

got it, nice move to capture the town and start to RR. Of course, you had to be lucky that the harbor isn't destroyed :D

by the way, I would be up for that awm 31 civs on huge land...surely more fun than Civ4 AW

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1550AD.SAV)

Pre-Turn
everything looks good
all the money in the world is still with India

1. 1505AD
defeat India settler pair

2. 1510AD
raze lahore for 500gold, sipahi army pretty wounded

IT sanitation is in, electricity next

3. 1515AD
raze newly found Pune for another 250gold

4. 1520AD
while attacking Ganges get a MGL, this will rush the Battlefield medicine
raze town for 268gold
raze Stockholm as well

5. 1525AD
moving towards Hyderabad

6.1530AD
Uskudar in now on 1 turn sipahi duty
take Hyderabad and it still has a harbor, assign workers for RR since some have finished the first round
abandon city at the end of the turn selling all improvements

7.1535AD
send 6 sipahi towards Egyptian Island
autoraze Aarhus
raze last Sumerian city on main continent

8. 1540AD
rush Battlefield medicine, discover a new Icefield in the north

9. 1545AD
raze Buhen on the Egyptian Isle
raze Calcutta for 400gold

10. 1550AD
raze Abydos and another Island is cleared
raze Birka and Vikings have only 1 city on the main continent left
take Kolhapur, but sipahi army gets almost wiped out, cover it with knight army
cannon stack is covered by sipahis and rifle and moves towards their capital
land 4 more sipahis to support

we also have 1 galleon at the former Egyptian city that should move to capture those Islands
we have to ship more units there, this will take some turns
but I do not expect the game back

we get electricity in 6 and should go for RP to deny rubber at least

what's left of India
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr101550a.jpg

and the rest of the Civ's
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/gr101550b.jpg

got it, nice move to capture the town and start to RR. Of course, you had to be lucky that the harbor isn't destroyed :D

by the way, I would be up for that awm 31 civs on huge land...surely more fun than Civ4 AW

Since I made sure we had both Iron and Coal colonies, all we needed was a city. I kind of wished a coal and iron colony was sufficient without any city.

I've got it.

I was thinking of playing
AWM Pangea vs 31 civs with a random civ and random start ( I mentioned several months ago) if I can find the players.

Is there interest in playing such a game?

I'd like to try this, as long as Civ III runs properly on my fastest computer.

Just wondering what you mean by huge? I would think anything much less than about 250x250 will be very crowded. At least the 160 would need to be bumped some and the tech adjusted some.

I would use the same map I used in the previous continents attempt.

It was adjusted after discussions by Gyaathar IIRC, and played quite well. Tech was definitely slower to give one more time to conquer the AI. It also gives each civ more space than a huge map with 16 civs (It was 250x250). Finally, when the AI settled the map, it stayed under 512 cities (70% water), but a player settling towns CxxC it went over the 512 city limit. This is nice because the initial game won't hit the city limit. I believe boat speed is slightly higher as well.

1600 AD, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1600AD.SAV)

1550 (0): This is a completely won position :goodjob:; but with only one of our ships anywhere near the enemy island cities, and the Indian campaign still a one-square-a-turn slog, I don't expect to make much progress until the late part of the round.

We could save some time by founding and re-founding a temporary canal city at the top of the Scandinavian isthmus; but since we've avoided tricks involving native cities, as opposed to captured ones, I won't start now.

A Berserker emerges from Reykjavik and cuts down one of our Sips (0-1).

Iznik coal plant --> Sip.


1555 (1): We ride down the Berserker (1-1), but fall back from Reykjavik. I'm going to wait to make this attack (on a hill town) in full force.

Bursa granary --> Sip.


1560 (2): We sink an Indian galleon and its contents, after frigate bombardment (2-1).


1565 (3): Our knight army tramples an Indian LB, and finally locates Madras (3-1).

We lose a Sip to the attack of a Jumbo (3-2).

We get Istanbul to 100 spt at size fourteen.


1570 (4): Thirteen cannon shots achieve eight hits against Delhi, held by seven riflemen and an LB, after which we raze the city for the loss of a Sip (11-3). We destroy Universal Suffrage, and collect 392 gold and eight slaves (four from two settlers and four from razing the town).

We take Reykjavik, held by two musketmen and a Berserker, and hold/abandon it to get some more rails built (14-3).

The cursed Jumbo costs us another Sip before we shoot it down (15-4).


1575 (5): We bombard and sink another Indian galleon, which probably contains a settler (16-4).

Our knight army accounts for another Indian LB (17-4).

Electricity --> Rep Parts, due in eighteen turns at 100%.


1580 (6): We land three riflemen on Molde Island as our stack anchor.


1585 (7): We defeat two Roman riflemen landed next to Edrine and sink the galleon that brought them, though we lose a Sip (20-5).


1590 (8): We have dreadful RPG luck against Bombay, with the final redlined rifleman costing us three Sips, but we raze the town anyway, for 342 gold and five slaves (garrison of three riflemen; 23-8).

We sink an Egyptian galleon and its contents (24-8).

We raze Molde, held by two musketmen, at the cost of one Sip, and sink a caravel when we enter the town, thus eliminating the "strong Vikings" (27-9).

We raze Pisae, held by two riflemen and an LB, and sink a galleon on the way in (31-9).


1595 (9): We begin landing units on Ravenna Island.


1600 (10): We take Ravenna, held by two riflemen, and eliminate the "strong Romans". We sink a galleon when we enter the town (34-9).

By temporarily holding Ravenna and landing Sips there, we're able to take Asyut (garrison of two riflemen) as well, gaining 192 gold. We sink a galleon in port (37-9). There's only one enemy-held island left.

We raze Bangalore, held by three riflemen, at the cost of a Sip (40-10). We gain 233 gold, two slaves, and a treb.

We eliminate an Indian rifle/LB team (42-10).

Four elite victories this round didn't produce a Great Leader.

Well, this situation doesn't require a detailed review of our prospects. ;) With reasonable luck we should win on the next round. I'll just mention that our Sips can heal on ships, as long as they don't do anything that uses their own movement allowances.

The dominoes fall:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1590AD.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1600AD.JPG

OK i got it. We'll see if i can finish this.

OK, this was easy: :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1615_1.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1615_2.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1620_3.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1620_4.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1620_5.JPG

The save, press enter to win:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/GR10-1620AD.SAV

Nicely done. I have to hand it to the team, with only two armies and a need to limit the military, this one was well played.

Congratulations to all. :cheers: We got the luck we needed, with no runaway AI civ and the enemy civs on the other continent somewhat limited by lack of land, and we capitalized on it with precise play.

Had 5CC AWE been won before this?

:goodjob: Of course we needed a little luck, but I think we played this very well. The awesome UU helped in this, now the ultimate challenge is random 5CC AWE...

and of course I hope Greebley can start the monarch AW pangaea vs 31 Civs

Congratulations to all. :cheers: We got the luck we needed, with no runaway AI civ and the enemy civs on the other continent somewhat limited by lack of land, and we capitalized on it with precise play.

Had 5CC AWE been won before this?

Ya, it has. I played an SG of it around a year ago.

Agree the game was well played. Agree that civ was a good one for 5CAWE.


I hope to start the new game soon.

I started up the 250x250 map vs 30 civs (AWM)

The thread:
Gr12 - Civ3 AWN vs 30 civs, Pangea (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=170660)