After a few months of participating in SG's, I've decided to start one myself.
STR stands for Strauss (yes really)

This game will be almost purely warmongering; just a heads up for all builder people;)

And we will be playing as:

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/3060/khan9aq.th.jpg (http://img61.imageshack.us/my.php?image=khan9aq.jpg)

One of the greatest conquerors of all time, Genghis Khan. When his rule was defied, he would become a ruthless slaughterer. And cities in CIV always resist against foreign rule.


Therefore we will raze every city we encounter and burn the land around it if we get the chance. Not one enemy city must be left standing when the game ends!
This won't be an Always War game however, as I haven't really played AW often.


The settings:
Difficulty level: Monarch
Map type: Continents
Map size: Standard (Large isn't very realistic considering our variant)
Game speed: Epic
Civ: Genghis Khan
Victory conditions: All are enabled. However, we must win by conquest.
Opponents: Random, amount depends on map size
Barbs: On

A summary of the variant rules:
1) Burn every enemy city to the ground.
2) When we have met 2 civs, we must always be at war with at least one of them. There will be no Pax Mongolia!
3) We will not have a State Religion.
4) Our civics will be: Police State-Vassalage-Slavery-Free Market-Free Religion as soon as they are available.
5) The autolog can be used, but a little feedback on it is necessary. You don't have to write an epic story, just a couple of notes to clarify things;)

Everyone is welcome.

Who will follow the Great Khan?

Roster:
1) Strauss
2) Ralph_Jackson
3) Pvblivs
4) blastoidstalker
5) Kanga_DU

1 or 2 alternates are still welcome of course!

Well I am interested - you may generate more responses from posting in the sign-up thread at the top of the forum as quite a lot of people (like me) tend to look there for new SG's.

Re Settings my Normal Level is either Prince or Monarch but in view of the non-trivial :cool: restrictions we are placing on ourselves I would probably err on the side of Prince level. Also standard as opposed to Large for similar reasons but Epic definitely feels right for a :hammer: based game.

Cheers

alph

You're in Ralph.

My normal level is also Prince, but if the other three players are comfortable on Monarch we could play that as well.

I think standard would be the best map size as well, as you said the razing variant will make Large much harder

Hey Strauss. I know you're a great warmonger and I would like to participate in this great slaughtering.

My proposals: Standard map size and Monarch difficulty. As there are no restrictions to economies like in our last game, Monarch will fit, though will be difficult enough.

Hope for early horses. This will open up some great city sites in the beginning of the game. I experienced and believe warmongering is easier on Monarch then some other play styles.
Though the razing-every-city policy will put the players into difficulties often enough: When we would like well-grown cities to produce units after conquest we have to build up a city ourselves. When we want to take the benefit of a wonder we will have to build it ourselves (we will hardly build any wonder on Monarch except maybe Oracle and/or Stonehenge). When we want to build strictly military we may have to build settlers :)

On Prince it will be winnable easily. On Monarch it will be a challenge.

I'd love to be in!

I'd love to be in!

Guess what? You are;)

Edit: I will post the starting save tonight

Looking forward to it. Happy to play on Monarch if others are as I need the practice

You don't need practise for Monarch. You just need to be more straight-forward.
1. Avoid unneccessary builds, build more military.
2. Specialize a little more (so you can leave some buildings: no tech buildings neccassary in a commerce poor production powerhouse).
3. Build more cottages.
4. And be bigger than others (usually through wars as the AI can expand faster early on) to be better in tech.

As we have Keshiks and are aggressive [1] and [4] is easier. [3] will be more difficult for one who always has war.

What bothers me is the war weariness. Because of this our expansive trait will be quite useless. We will need very many happy resources and happy buildings. Before free religion those issues will be serious. Afterwards a little better because we can benefit from any religion. Slavery of course is our friend to make quite a good production out of cities that need to be kept small because of war weariness.

As we'll have no Pax Mongolia, there will always be small cities. So the earlier we can build more cities (courthouses, markets) the higher will be our chance to keep up in tech.
In the beginning everything above 3 (max. 4) cities is hurting our economy seriously. As we have to raze every cities this management will be much easier though. We only found cities we can afford and in real good (razed capital) places. Happiness resource cities are important as well, as I said before :)

lurker comment
This game looks pretty sweet, wish i had the time to play it.

ahh well...My normal level is also Prince, but if the other three players are comfortable on Monarch we could play that as well.w/SGs, i've found, it's always good to play on the level above where you're comfortable with. The extra input frmo SGs makes it easier, IMO.

I'll join in, I have enjoyed making the world tremble as the Mongols :D (albeit with Kubla) in GOTM6. I usualy play and win at Monarch but I agree that with the varients, Prince would be the right level to play. I also would want standard so we do not get bogged down at the end. I have never played a S.G. before but am eager to try it.

Welcome blastoidstalker! I hope you'll find this SG a good step-in.

A couple of thoughts on our endeavor.

-Getting Animal Husbandry and Bronze working ASAP is key; we need to know where the copper and horsies are so we can get control of one or both with our second city. We do not get mining as a start tech so unless there is a particular good reason (like a start on the coast with a sea resource and no rivers). We should get these first (which means going through mining).

-Keshiks are great for pillaging, which we will do in abundance :) since we will raze the cities anyway, give some visibility to act as pillager scouts and give other flanking 1-2 to be useful in attacking cities.

-In terms of wonders, I do not see many being useful, I think we could get and use the great library and maybe the Pyramids (for police state) if we have stone.

-We need to create a settler/worker production farm. A city with 2-3 food resources and lots of farms. This way we can produce settlers quickly (whipping when we have to) to replace cities in good sites when we destroy them. When we do not need settlers this can then convert into a GP factory.

Some good thoughts there blastoid. I put Heriditary Rule up there as our government civic, however after looking through a bit of the Khan's history Police State is a better alternative both in historical accuracy and for gameplay (we'll need the decrease in WW)

Police State is Genghis' preffered civic in the game, Heridary rule is Kubla's. I think Police State would make more sense for sticking with his personality.

Pick me! Pick me! :wavey:

Still looking to play my first SG. Haven't tried higher than Noble, but this looks the perfect opportunity to dip the toes in.

Kanga, you're in.

I'll start up the game now. The difficulty will be Monarch, for the reasons suggested by Pvblivs and pholkhero. For those of you who are somewhat inexperienced at Monarch level (like me;) ), you should probably discuss the plan for your turnset with the rest of the team. That way the new people will learn and the experienced players can pass on their wisdom:jesus:

And here's a screenie for you all to drool on:

http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/6470/civ4screenshot00447is.th.jpg (http://img314.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00447is.jpg)

Only Rice in sight for now, but I doubt that's all.

I will play the first 40 turns tomorrow, it's a bit late now.

After that, it will be 20 turns each in the first round.

Please don't hesitate to throw in suggestions on settling spot, research paths etc. (although blastoid has already made some good comments, if someone thinks another way is better; post it!:) )

See you tomorrow

Lurkers comment:

If you settle on the spot, you will only have two hills in the fat cross (and both are grassland). So you guys might consider moving the settler if you want some decent production in the capitol.

I am thinking maybe move the scout SW then maybe NW depending on what is out there. I would like to get more than one resource in our fat cross so if something is present to the west we could slide over 1 or two spaces, do not be afraid to settle on turn 2 or 3 if we can get a resource advantage out of it. I like the idea of settling on the river.

For tech I think Mining-BW to start then maybe AH or agriculture. After that will depend on what we find

if we go Mining-BW I would start with scout-worker for builds, we could use soom goodies and a worker will not have much to do until chopping with BW.
Time to start the carnage:evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

I agree, move that scout SW and have a looksee. Though as I understood it the start locations normally are resource rich, but sometimes need to be 'unlocked' by research. Fingers crossed for copper/iron.

http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/6946/civ4screenshot00455va.th.jpg (http://img397.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00455va.jpg)

We have 3 resources in our capital cross: deers, cows and rice. Deers and cows are very good since they give us both a food and a shield bonus. The only 'problem' is that they are all health resources, and our Leader Trait is expansive (+3 health). I considered moving to the sea, but then we would lose a hill, rice and deer, while rice gives us the same advantage as a fish.
Thus:


After looking at the lands around him, the Great Kahn decided to 'settle on the spot'.

Considering the resources around us, I decided to go for a Worker and Animal Husbandry.

The Mongols soon met the Malinese under Mansa Musa and the Egyptians under Hatshepsut. Little do they know that their doom is approaching.

After the Worker, I built 2 Warriors. I started production on a Barracks as well, however that is just a placeholder to let the city grow to size 3 (in 1 turn), then I suggest a Settler.

Animal Husbandry has shown us that horses are quite far away from us to the north. This shouldn't be too much of a problem, unless there is another civ closer to the horses. Bronze Working is being researched now to look for Copper, I hope that's closer by.

And so ends the reign of the Great Strauss Kahn:

http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/5034/civ4screenshot00476rg.th.jpg (http://img472.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00476rg.jpg)

I'll post my dotmap in a few minutes. Others are encouraged to post theirs too if they wish, or any ideas about how to continue.

I have also decided to 'loosen' variant rule #2, we don't have to declare war until 2000 BC. You may, of course, declare before then if you see a golden opportunity. But in 2000 BC, we HAVE to declare war on one civ. This way we might know more about Egypt's and Mali's locations.

I'm sorry for some inconsistencies on the variants, but this will be the last one.;)

Roster:
1) Strauss -> just played
2) Ralph_Jackson -> UP!
3) Pvblivs -> on deck
4) blastoidstalker
5) Kanga_DU

The dotmap:

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/120/dotmap0ro.th.jpg (http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dotmap0ro.jpg)

I think Red Dot should be our second city. It has no fertile "regular" land, but three food resources make up for that. It is also our only good place for a coastal city for a while.

Yellow Dot will be a very production-heavy city. It's some rough land and some wasted tiles, but I think it will be very useful for churning out troops.

Blue Dot would be the last of our 'core' cities. It will grab valuable horses. I'm not completely sure on what the best exact location would be for this city, but we have some time to think about that as I think Red and Yellow will be founded earlier.

Of course this dotmap could very well change depending on where Copper and Iron resources are located (or if someone makes a better dotmap of course;) )

The complete lack of luxury resources could pose a problem with war weariness.

Got it,

will post any questions in the morning and play / post in 24 hours

Great start Strauss!!
I think the red site looks good, the 3 resources will make it good site. I think we should go for the horsies in the blue next and move the site up one square to the NW as it will give us the horisies and the rice in the unexpanded square. I would then think about trying to push to get the ivory for a luxery resource, but what to do then will depend on what over civ's have done. Once we get BW we should do some chopping to get the 2-3 settlers and 2-3 more workers out as soon as possible. Slavery should help in this regard as well.

Pre turn Check Plan

Let Capital grow to size 3 then switch to settler
Checkpoint when bronze working comes in
Settler to coastal food spot. Aim to get 3 settlers / workers out a.s.a.p. (chop if necessary but warily)
Research BW – HBR for Keshiks


2770 switch over to settler as size 3 reached. Our Brave scout survives a lion just

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/justsurvive.jpg
2770 – 2650 :coffee:
2650 BC. Warrior lining up to light the way for settler survives lion encounter
2560BC. Warrior survives again (another lion!)– keep promotion for next when it is really needed
2500BC – We have stacks of copper. Revolt to slavery and start hooking up the copper.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/lotsofcopper.jpg

Apparently we are pathetic but not for long!!

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/notforlong.jpg

2350BC. First settler emerges and start on a worker to help hook up cities and chop our third settler if required.

2260BC. On way to our site find Hattie is already there. Not in the exact spot we wanted but denying us some of the food resource.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/diffdecision.jpg
This is one of the occasions which I think warrants an early stop and discussion.
Option 1 Settle where we are. We will get the cows + fish but will lose the culture war for the corn (Hattie has religion) and I think this loss of food specials could make this a very average city and there may well be better spots. Views on settling / moving ?

To help the discussion here is a dotmap. Basically I can see far better sites for this settler than next to Hattie.
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/jhandotmap.jpg

I would prefer.


Take Hattie out and then later settle in the right spot for these 3 specials.
Send Settler up to the groups preferred choice of new site. I would go for Yellow which isn’t spectacular by itself but is a production city for churning out units and bridges us towards Blue and Pink which are cracking sites.(I also have a weakness for the Bananas of Pink cos you see them so rarely. Note Pink needs Iron Working before it will work )

Wow, Hatty is close! I also think we should move the site of our first city. Not only because of the culture war (that's not really a problem when we have removed the Egyptian city;) ) but as we will be declaring war in 2000 BC we might not have a decent defence up there. How many years are there per turn at this stage? If we still have sufficient time left to bring up a defence we could still settle there.

Yellow Dot would be the best alternative if we do relocate. It will not become a very big city (although the cows will help quite a bit) but can become our most important production base. Pink Dot is too far away from now, I think Mali is quite close to that site so they'll probably get there first. It will be a good spot for us later on though.

It's also very good that we have Copper in our capital's range. This will give us a nice boost in early warfare.

Finally, how many turns did you play up until now Ralph?

I played from 2800 through to 2260 which i2 18 turns at the current rate of 30 years per turn.
I would agree with a shift of settler to Yellow dot and start cranking out Axemen as Hattie appears to have volunteered for a taste of :hammer:

Ralph

What about moving new red dot one north and grabbing horses together with the rice. This way we would have a lot of less pain with developing a jungle-city. But have instantly a city with good food capabilities and higher production. Not to forget the better defence on a hill site for our most important ancient resource: Horses.

I agree with PVPLIVS, move the red dot up one or two and settle there. Egypts UU is the war chariot and it is imperative that we do not allow Hatty to get the Horsies. I would put city 3 on the yellow or the blue if it is still avalable. yellow can always be backfilled later. We should also get make sure there is a settler ready to replace the egyptian city when the need arises. Are we agreeing that egypt will be our first target?

If you move the red dot up 2 N and one E we will lose the hill but gain cows.

We could do that as well. We do not need the river access neccessarily as we're expansive. But anyway I would consider 1 only N to remain at the river. Else we'll loose a lot of commerce and even the flood plain...

agreed Pvblivs, I forgot about the floodplain. One north of the red dot is where we should place the next city.
Also it would be good if we could figure out whether Hatty has copper and if she does can we eliminate it quickly.

With keshiks it will be easy to take anything we want in a reasonable time :)

Some good thoughts, I agree with moving Red Dot 1 N (as this was also my original plan;) ). This is also important as Mali could be quite close to that site and if we wait to grab horses until Pink Dot (which would probably be the last city to be founded), Mali could steal it from under our noses.

I'm suggesting to settle in the order Yellow-Red-Blue/Pink. Blue and Pink are both important for happiness resources (I believe sugar gives happiness? Can't check it right now).

I think Egypt would be the best first target as they are so close. If we go after Mali first Egypt might fill up the space we leave when we raze the Malinese cities as they are closer to them than we are.

Are you sure about yellow-red? I would say red is the significantly better site with food (rice) and production (horses) as goodies. Yellow will always have slow growth and poorer production. So I would go for red first.

Will play tomorrow most likely...

I agree strongly with Pvblivs on this one, we should set up on red first, then yellow. Also with its distance from other civsd and lack of resources, it is unlikely that the AI will settle on yellow immediately. If they do then they will be surrounded and quickly destroyed :) . The red dot can be much closer to there core and gives them a military resource including egypt's UU resource

You are both very right. I was at school and we're not really allowed on these kinds of sites/forums:mischief: so I wrote this in a bit of a hurry.

Red Dot would indeed be the better site (the alternated Red Dot (1 N) that is)

I agree re revised red dot, probably should have said that as I played 18 turns seems sensible to handover to Publivs to play 22 to get us back in sequence (particularly as my two would only be shifting a settler northwards.

Have fun lighting the way for the settler, met quite a few lions in my turnset and guess there are barbs out there as well.

Ralph

p.s. I also like stop & discuss for key changes in plan and having done it hope others will as well, it really aids learning (one of the joys of SG's) to have a discussion at key forks in the road.

p.s. I also like stop & discuss for key changes in plan and having done it hope others will as well, it really aids learning (one of the joys of SG's) to have a discussion at key forks in the road.

Indeed, discussion is very important to win, especially with our variant rules and rather high difficulty level. Also remember to lay out your plan if you're fighting a war in your turnset so that your successor can continue on that and doesn't shift everything in a completely different direction.

We found Beshbalik on the red dot in 2110 BC (5/22).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

In 2080 (6/22) a worker is built. We finish the barracks.

Exploring those jungles in the north our scout is destroyed by a Barbarian warrior in 2020 (8/22).

In 1990 (9/22) we declare war on Hatshepsut.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

An archer of Hatshepsut approaches Beshbalik in 1840 (14/22). I do what I can to defend the city and promote our warrior to cover.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg

We defeat him!

After building the second axe in Karakorum I switch to build a settler again in the end of my turnset. Two axes are approaching Egypt.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Civ4ScreenShot00041.jpg

We're very far behind in score. We need culture for Beshbalik, else there will be no horses. We need a third city as well. But those are tasks for my successor :king:

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/STR_01_BC-1600.Civ4SavedGame)

Good job Pvblivs. The reason we're far behind in score is probably a combination of the difficulty level and our beeline to Horseback Riding (missing some techs to boost our score). This should be taken care of soon though!:king:

Roster:
1) Strauss
2) Ralph_Jackson
3) Pvblivs -> just played
4) blastoidstalker -> UP!
5) Kanga_DU -> on deck

Got the save
I will take a look at it tonight post what iu am thinking of doing, get your reactions and ideas and play it tommorow, posting it tommorow night (I am west coast-U.S.)

I took a look and this is what I am thinking

finish spearman in beshbalik and fortify it in place. Use warrior to fortify city that will eventualy be placed in the yellow spot.
What the two axemen can accomplish will play a big role in how this section developes. I want to get the forward axeman in the woods where it has a great defense value and can cut out any attempts of egyp to move units out of its city (which should be at the red location on the image). Once the second one has caught up they will move next to the city in the trees and if they can raze it. if not they will move on around the city cut off its roads and pillage till 1-2 more axement can join them to take the city. If the city can be raised quickly I am thinking of placing the next settler back in the spot that is in red on the image, if not then placing the city in the yellow spot north of Karakoum.
for Beshibank I would like to build an obilisk when I can to expand boarders but I may need to produce an axeman first.

Thinking about whipping out the settler when I can as we are at max population and can easily push back to 4. Also thinking about chopping the two riverboardering forests in the first city to speed things up (pretty sure i will chop not sure about the whip.

I will defintely chop the forest SE of Beshibank as we can use some production there and it is a great defensive position for an enimy invader.

We should of researched Archery before horsback riding as it is required for keshiks, and gives us the ability to make defensive archers. Horsebakc gives off nothing until after archery. Because of this I will switch immeditaly to archery then go back and finsih horsback riding. After that maybe agriculture or fishing?
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/9623/sg14bc.th.jpg (http://img190.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sg14bc.jpg)
Please give me your comments!

Rather chop after Mathematics as it nets twice the hammers then.

After archery/riding go for Mysticism (Obelisk) and Agriculture (benefits both cities). Then we should beeline directly for Courthouses. Maybe with the Oracle as a CoL-Slingshot.

I would settle in our original red spot as well. Good point here. Don't forget to road to the new city asap. This is the only reason we can build something useful in Beshbalik :) Even though I would have had rather an axe than a spear, but that was decided automatically when the road finished.

What do you think?

Mysticism sounds right for after HBR and Archery, i forgot that we needed it for the obeilisk.
chop is 2/3 time in normal, I'll check to see if it is the same in epic.
I think the forest square SE of Beshibank needs to go, partialy for defensive reasons. I think enemy attacks will come from there and I have a much more effective counterattack if there is no forest for the enemy to hide in. It will also push the spearmen out earlier, allowing us to move to another axe and/or barracks.
I can then use the Beshbank settler to set up some road networking.
A lot of my stratigy will depend on how many defenders are in that egyptian city and whether I need more axes, as until mysticism-obelisk-pasture on horses, we have no keishiks

I am wondering if it is best to switch to Mysticism immediately (I presume we do not have to beeline to horsback riding) as horsback riding is useless until we have horses and we can not have horses without an obelisk. I would say we go Mysticism-Archery-horseback riding- Agriculture

I would agree to this switch. I am not usually vetoing predecessor commands. If I would have researched at least Mystics before.

I should veto more ... ;)

As a new leadership dawns on the great Mongol Empire, Kahn Blastoid comes to a realization, that in order to master the horse one must be able to think like a horse.

1600 BC Research switched from horseback riding to Mysticism

1540 BC Our Axeman discovers Only one defender in Memphis, as a quick storming would be a toss up, the axmen decide to wait for additional me.
http://img281.imageshack.us/img281/9037/scorchedearth19lw.th.jpg (http://img281.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorchedearth19lw.jpg)
1480 BC Spear produced in Beshbalik

1450 BC workboat produced in Memphis, the fate is sealed :)

1420 BC The first axe defeated at 60% odds, but the second cleans up mess and razes the city.

1390 BC the cult of the horse (Mysticism) is researched, archery begun. Beshbalik starts on obelisk

1360 BC Settler produced in karakoum, sent to old red spot southwest of Memphis, axeman begun. Worker begins chop on forest next to Beshbalik to hurry obelisk.

1330 BC Wounded archer discovered at Egyptian border and promptly destroyed

http://img281.imageshack.us/img281/455/scorchedearth21zk.th.jpg (http://img281.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorchedearth21zk.jpg)

1300 BC City of Turfin founded between cows and horses

1240 BC axeman moves into heart of Egypt to scout and pillage, and finds very little to pillage, just forests (Hatty asks for peace:lol: , not a chance:) )

http://img290.imageshack.us/img290/5428/scorchedearth36vr.th.jpg (http://img290.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorchedearth36vr.jpg)

http://img281.imageshack.us/img281/2608/scorchedearth44hf.th.jpg (http://img281.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorchedearth44hf.jpg)

1210 BC Axeman produced in Karakoum, moved north to pace way for next settler, settler begun

1180 BC Archery discovered, work begun to complete HBR, Beshbalik whipped to produce barracks, axeman started

1150 BC Road being built to horses, road completed to Turfan

1120 BC Mansa Munsa Adopts slavery

1060 BC Kahn Blastoid pillaging a cottage in Egyptian lands and the leadership passes on.

Here is a shot at our eastern cities and the Egyptian boarder

http://img419.imageshack.us/img419/4922/scorchedearth61nd.th.jpg (http://img419.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorchedearth61nd.jpg)

Where we are?
We have pushed close to even with Hatty in score and are ahead of her in power. Our forces are spread out right now, so I think the next turn will start with consolidation of forces before picking some targets for razing. We are almost to keishiks now, we need to start planning our tech path for after that.

Here is the save

One turn more would have been more correct :-) That is 20 turns, you just played 19.

Nevertheless a great set of turns!

At work now, but hope to get a chance to place this tonight. Don't worry, I'll do 21 rounds. :mischief:

Kanga Du
a couple of things to note.
I have one axe deep in Egypt teritory. It seems like she is turtling but there is not much worth pilaging out there. On your first turn though Pillage the road the axeman is currently on, this will seperate her two cities and realy hurt her response times to our actions.

10 turns to expansion of borders to include horses, make sure to have a worker ready to put a pasture there when the time comes.

I have barracks in cue for Beshibalek, I was using it to do something productive while waithing for obelisk to come available. Do what you want on pritising but remember that it has been partialy built

Got it - playing now.

P.S. Feel free to just use Kanga. Some so and so got the vanilla version before me. :hmm:

Our forces are spread out right now, so I think the next turn will start with consolidation of forces before picking some targets for razing. We are almost to keishiks now, we need to start planning our tech path for after that.


I have one axe deep in Egypt teritory. It seems like she is turtling but there is not much worth pilaging out there. On your first turn though Pillage the road the axeman is currently on, this will seperate her two cities and realy hurt her response times to our actions.

10 turns to expansion of borders to include horses, make sure to have a worker ready to put a pasture there when the time comes.

I have barracks in cue for Beshibalek, I was using it to do something productive while waithing for obelisk to come available. Do what you want on pritising but remember that it has been partialy built


1030 BC - Inherited turn. Have a squiz around, dial up Agriculture (I figure those farmable resources might as well do us some good - 8 turns) as the next tech and hit enter.

1000 BC - Gah! Barbs incoming! One troop in each city? One axe in Egypt, the other fog busting (I guess). Pillage road as requested. Use the fog buster to reduce the threat by 33%. http://img520.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00008oi.jpg
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/7880/civ4screenshot00014zp.th.jpg (http://img520.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00014zp.jpg)

985 BC - We are offically the doofus nation of the world.
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/5130/civ4screenshot00021ep.th.jpg (http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00021ep.jpg)
Dial up archer in captial. Need an escort for our newest settler. Workers work. On roads. Not much else for them just yet. New axe reduces Barb threat by 50% Yay! Move foreign legion axe on forested hill above Thebes, ready to turtle up.

995 BC - About to loose copper, grrr. Not much can be done about it for now. Axe on its way down. Archer in capital next turn. Fortify axe in Egypt.

940 BC - As expected loose copper to barb archer. Put SH in Karal's queue as a placeholder... note to self change archer I think.
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/7097/civ4screenshot00042nx.th.jpg (http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00042nx.jpg)

ARGH, NO FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME, I DO NOT WANT TO RESTART STINKING WINDOWS NOW. LATER. L-A-T-E-R. YOU HEAR ME? LATER!!!! :mad:

Now where was I? Oh yes...

I want to make a play for the proposed blue dot city. However, my thinking is though we need iron working to make this a viable city. Quick check IW>25 turns, at -5 gold/turn I'm going to have to lower research soon unless someone's hiding a leprachaun somewhere. I am pausing here for suggestions and also I want tech path ideas.

IW? What for? I thought we'd simply crank out Keshiks. That should be enough for a long time. That is I think it should.

I would still suggest some Oracle-thingy-slingshot try. I was already proposing this. Code of Laws is very urgent if we want more cities. So priesthood->build Oracle->Writing->Get CoL for free.

Though this might be too late now, I have to admit.

Else, could you just make any proposals yourself? In the end it is you that is playing the Khan now :)

Wish I did the one more turn then we would of seen the Barbs coming. The axe was up north to fog bust and would then move back the new city either on yellow dot or further north. The Archer must have spawned recently as I had a view of those tiles 2 turns ago and there was nothing there.

Get rid of the archer with the axeman, just move him 1 space away from the archer in a forest or across the river, he will attack you and probaly die and you get expierence. Get a worker in to rebuild the copper mine as soon as the archer is dead. I would suggest making archers rather than stonehenge while copper is down. Escourt the settler north with either the archer you are making or the axe after he kills the archer. Once that city is in place our capital should be fairly safe from barbs. Make sure to put a road to the forth city.

for future reference and from looking at the screenshot. What I would of done when I saw the archer was

1) switch production in Karkoum to axeman
2) let one turn of production of axeman occur and whip it to completion (axeman would be two pop intitialy, and you do not need that extra turn.
3) sent whipped axeman 1 square NW
from this position the axeman would either be attacked by the bar archer (across a river) and he would likely win, if not the warrior in the capital could probably finish him off. If the archer moved onto the copper, atack him and hope to take him out. You loose 1 population but you keep the copper
4) finish settler and build something that allows population to grow

This is one reason why slavery is so usefull, it allows you to be more agressive with you unit placement.

...for future reference and from looking at the screenshot. What I would of done when I saw the archer was

1) switch production in Karkoum to axeman
2) let one turn of production of axeman occur and whip it to completion (axeman would be two pop intitialy, and you do not need that extra turn.
3) sent whipped axeman 1 square NW
from this position the axeman would either be attacked by the bar archer (across a river) and he would likely win, if not the warrior in the capital could probably finish him off. If the archer moved onto the copper, atack him and hope to take him out. You loose 1 population but you keep the copper
4) finish settler and build something that allows population to grow

This is one reason why slavery is so usefull, it allows you to be more agressive with you unit placement.

You know this was exactly what I am hoping for out of participating in this game. Useful strategies to improve my play. :goodjob:

Failing any objections then I'll push for the blue dot location with the settler. I'll resume and finish this tonight after work.

I am not sure if settling the blue do right now is the best option

Pro's for blue dot- great set of resources, 2 ivory and pigs, also keeps ivory away from our opponents who could use it to make war elephants to trump or Keshiks. Will be a great commerace city eventualy

Cons
All of the resources up there are under jungle, which we need iron working to remove, this means it will not be a usefull city for a long while, we would probably need to research IW after HBR and I think this would end any chance at the oracle slingshot and at least push COL back a bit.
Distance from capital would increase maintance cost more than the yellow spot.


If I had to pick I would settle the yellow, but I can see the arguments for both sides and could be convinced otherwise.

Glad I could help you with the tip Kanga Du

PART 2

940 BC - Part II - Swap archer into queue in Karak (removing SH), shuffle troops about. Note 2 Archers 'missing' from Thebes - I'm suddenly expecting visitors....

925BC - Not much happens, just some moves. Barb archer nears Karak.

IBT - Barb archer attacks axe across the river. Ha sucker!

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1020/civ4screenshot00058si.th.jpg (http://img139.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00058si.jpg)

910 BC - Take archer and settler and start the trek north from Karak. Worker from Turfan is given marching orders back to rebuild the copper mine. Few turns away, but critical at this time I think, so worth the turns on moving. Victorious axe is now off to the eastern front.

895 BC - Blah blah blah. Indifferent news first, Confusium FIDAL. Bad news is... Oracle BIDAL. 'Nuther barb arch incoming on Besh. Only got a warrior holed up there. Archer due in 4. With pop at 1 no whipping option. Cross whatever you've got to cross and hope.

IBT - WOOTY. Our brave fontier outpost warrior survives the vicious barbarian incursion.

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/4536/civ4screenshot00060fk.th.jpg (http://img139.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00060fk.jpg)

865 BC - Besh's borders pop, direct worker to horses. Starts next turn on the horses! Finally! Research back to 70%. :o I've set tech to pottery for now, seeing as the Oracle-CoL gambit is out. I'm gambling and setting settler to blue dot in the end. Despite the jungle we can still set camps on the ivory IIRC. Back fill yellow dot with next settler.

850 BC - Hello, hello, hello. We got visitors.

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/144/civ4screenshot00078ir.th.jpg (http://img139.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00078ir.jpg)

Our egyption avon ladies are about to get an axe awakening. A quick cover promotion later and that is taken care of, back to some well earned R&R in Turfan.

IBT - Hatty gets short shrift from da Mongols. (Peace? Do we even know the meaing of that word?)

835 BC - Not much, just some shuffling.

IBT - Our archer north of Karak survived against another barb archer.

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/4306/civ4screenshot00110nx.th.jpg (http://img81.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00110nx.jpg)

820 BC - Not much again.

805 BC - Research back to 60%. :( Press enter again.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4854/civ4screenshot00107lu.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00107lu.jpg)

790 BC - M&M comes calling for OB. Gut reaction is not polite, however leaving borders closed won't make much difference as there is plenty space for him to wander past in anycase... bugger it I hit accept. :crazyeye:

Start new settle in Karak. Settle at blue dot and set worker in queue. Another egpytian avon lady is on her way to call at Turfan. They really don't take no for an answer.

775 BC - Copper back on line. Start on some farms now. Research takes a beating - 40%. :ack: Defeat egyptian archer with axe.

760 BC - Nothing to see here. Move along. :scan:

IBT - Archer guarding worker survives by the skin of his teeth against barb warrior.

745 BC - 'Nuther quiet one.

730 BC - Shhhhhh....

715 BC - Axe defeats another egyptian archer outside Turfan. Wins, heads back to heal up. Archer due in 1 here - send both out to egypt I think.

700 BC - Keshiks dialled in at Besh and Turfan. Rice farm at Karak complete sending one worker to Turfan.

Note:

Fortified axe between Ning and Karak is fogbusting. Dun need barbs and Hatty taking cheap shots at us. I mostly concetrated on some troop production. Research currently sucks. In fact sucks and blows at the same time. We can't get cottages soon enough. SH might be worth a shot, if only for providing a cheap land grab by expanding our borders, with some dearly needed culture. Archer healing on rice farm just above Karak, can be moved in the next turn. Axe healing in Turfan... might want to do some tag teaming with the spare archer there in Egypt. Oh and we should road up to Ning.

:king:

And here it is...

126322

Nice set of turns Kanga.

However, as you mentioned, our research sucks atm. I think the beeline to HBR was a mistake as we should already have some cottages now. I'll see what I can do to get our economy back up quickly.

Ok, I played my turns. Not particularly great, but good enough.

A summary:

-We have produced our first 2 Keshiks, with two more nearing completion.
-Turfan has been founded on Yellow Dot, currently building an Obelisk to get cows inside the radius.
-Our economy sucks even more than it did when I started my turnset. However, with Pottery researched and Cottages under construction, I think the future is looking bright.
-We've surpassed Hatty in score and are not far behind on Mansa.
-Egypt has a city next to Beshbalik, two Keshiks already underway to take it out.

Our empire in 550 BC
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/7728/civ4screenshot00718qq.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00718qq.jpg)

Thoughts:
We should raze the Egyptian city neighbouring Beshbalik and then send our force of Keshiks southward to the mainland.
As for infrastructure, we should concentrate on getting up some Cottages to get us out of this economic hole.

Another thought: Should we perhaps play 15 turns each? As this is Epic, 10 turns might be a bit too little to make an impact.

Roster:
1) Strauss -> just played
2) Ralph_Jackson -> UP to teach Hatty the Way of the Mongol
3) Pvblivs -> on deck
4) blastoidstalker
5) Kanga_DU

Great turns Guys
Kudos to Kanga for keeping our lands intact, and Strauss for getting us ready for war.
A bit of razing and pillaging should go a long way to fixing our economy as well:)
A couple of questions for Strauss
What is our military niumbers now and where are they? I think you are right in that it is time to kick some Egypian eyeshadow
Was your tech progression finish Pottery start writting?


A couple of ideas
raze that closest cities for funds soon, do not feel afraid to pillage anything that we will not use immediately (which with our economy hampering expansion probably means pillage everything)

We have not heard from any other civ's so we may very well be on a continent with only Hatty and Mansa (who is to the north???). This would be very good as then (as long as Mansa is to the north, we can raze Hatty's cities without the worrry of another empire just encorperating it.

Rember to use the axemen in our city razing as keshiks are better at pillaging and fighting in the open. If we promote the Keshiks with flanking they can do a good job at softening up the enemy, we must just be prepared to lose some.

Question
Where to attack first?

I dun forgot to highlight I'd left an axe fortified overlooking Thebes. It was in the turn notes, but I'd wanted to specifically mention. Hope you'd found him Strauss.

And 15 turns each sounds a good idea to me.

Not looking bad at all from what little I can see, will look at the game Tonight and post plan / questions as I can only see the high level map when I am at work and will the Play / Report on Saturday.

If we don't have enough Military to Wipe Hattie out I think I see two (Kanga?) cities north of the Peninsula her capital is on. It would be nice to pin her down into that peninsula for future Tech extortion purposes prior to extermination.

There have to be two cities up there. One 4-5 squares east of beshabalik and one 10+ squares. the closer one was not there when I played but I guess is the settler that I saw in her capital (it is on one of the screenies I posted). The close one can not be that old.
If I am right from the posts we should have 2 soon to be 4 keshiks about 4 axeman and some archers.

Look at the save and not too many questions

1. Tile assignment humblingly perfect :goodjob:
2. Military, how much, just enough to take down Hattie's 2 northern cities. with 6 Archers in her capital it looks a tougher nut to crack.
3. Pillaging opprtunities. negligble :sad:. looks like soembody beat me to it :devil:

Builds

Turfan needs a border pop so will get an Obelisk next so it can eventually rain in the fishes.



Now playing

So plan is simple, take out Hattie’s 2 northern cities and prepare the assault on her capital.

Turn 1

In classical :smoke: AI combat move, two of Hatties 6 archers come out of her capital to attack our Axe and promptly lose. Additionally our archer camped near Hattie’s capital also takes out an archer

Keshiks sent off to the first of Hatties northern cities.

Turn 2,3 :coffee:

Turn 4 Keshiks take Hattie city (which as its nice I keep)… only kidding!

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/1_down.jpg
Turfan finishes a Keshik and as our Military is looking good moves onto an Obelisk, It will need a border pop although we need to research before we can build a workboat.

Turn 5

Move axe away from Thebes 1 square to see if I can tempt an Archer out. (AI with a lot of defenders will move some out if it doesn’t feel that threatened.)

Turn 6

Barb Archer defeated in Ning-Hsia and now notice an Axe is following , this could be tight. Take Garrison Promotion to help it survive. Our brave Archer in Ning defeats the axe another Archer is despatched to the Garrison as that was too tight.


Turn 7

Take Hattie’s second city

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/2_down.jpg

Our brave Archer in Ning defeats the axe another Archer is despatched to the Garrison as that was too tight.

Turn 8

The axes alone will just bounce off Hattie’s archers due to 60% culture in her city so Keshiks sent to reinforce. Next Player gets to take down Thebes. It’s a cracking site with 4 food specials!!!!

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/super_food.jpg
Turn 9-10

Troops assembled near Thebes, tempting out troops has worked as it is now down to 3 Archers with no reinforcements in the vicinity.

End of Turn

Enough troops near Thebes to take it down with a few losses (3 Keshiks, 2 Axes, 1 Archer) though the Keshiks are still healing. Most troops have unused promotions which we could burn to accelerate healing (we have 1 Medic 1 Keshik already) but though I would be polite and let next player decide.

Our economy sucks!!

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/Pants_economy.jpg

This is what the world looks like

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/khanworld.jpg

And with detailed squinting we can see where Mansa is in the NW
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/mansadetetced.jpg

Kill count for the 10 turns

Lost 1 Keshik Killed 13 Archers and 1 Axe (we do love the :hammer:)

Turn 130 (550 BC)
Axeman defeats (4.45/5): Egyptian Archer
Axeman defeats (3.90/5): Egyptian Archer

Turn 131 (535 BC)
Axeman promoted: City Raider I

Turn 132 (520 BC)
Karakorum finishes: Keshik
Beshbalik finishes: Keshik
Turfan finishes: Keshik
Archer defeats (2.61/3): Egyptian Archer

Turn 133 (505 BC)
Karakorum begins: Keshik
Beshbalik begins: Granary
Turfan begins: Obelisk
Keshik defeats (1.68/6): Egyptian Archer
Archer promoted: Cover
Keshik defeats (6.00/6): Egyptian Archer
Captured Elephantine (Hatshepsut)
Razed Elephantine
Elephantine lost

Turn 134 (490 BC)
Axeman defeats (0.20/5): Egyptian Archer
Archer defeats (2.16/3): Barbarian Archer

Turn 135 (475 BC)
Archer promoted: City Garrison I
Keshik defeats (6.00/6): Egyptian Archer
Keshik promoted: Medic I
Turfan grows: 4

Turn 136 (460 BC)
Keshik promoted: Combat II
Keshik defeats (2.76/6): Egyptian Archer
Axeman promoted: City Raider I
Keshik defeats (0.90/6): Egyptian Archer
Karakorum grows: 5
Ning-hsia finishes: Worker

Turn 137 (445 BC)
Ning-hsia begins: Archer
Keshik defeats (3.96/6): Egyptian Archer
Keshik promoted: Combat I
Keshik defeats (1.68/6): Egyptian Archer
Captured Heliopolis (Hatshepsut)
Razed Heliopolis
Heliopolis lost
Archer defeats (3.00/3): Barbarian Axeman

Turn 138 (430 BC)
Keshik promoted: Combat I
Keshik promoted: Combat II
Keshik loses to: Egyptian Archer (0.84/3)
Keshik defeats (5.34/6): Egyptian Archer
Turfan finishes: Obelisk
Old Sarai finishes: Obelisk

Turn 139 (415 BC)
Turfan begins: Keshik
Old Sarai begins: Barracks
Karakorum finishes: Keshik
Beshbalik finishes: Granary

Turn 140 (400 BC)
Karakorum begins: Keshik
Beshbalik begins: Keshik
Karakorum begins: Granary

Great set of turns Ralph! Hatty should be eliminated by Pvblivs.

One remark though: why is our research still set to 30% with 121 gold in the treasury and the looting from Thebes waiting for us? I don't have the time to look at the save (I have to get up at 4 AM tomorrow for a 24-hour trip to Paris) but I think we could shave some turns off Writing.

Roster:
1) Strauss
2) Ralph_Jackson -> just played
3) Pvblivs -> UP to finish off Egypt and burn Thebes to the ground!
4) blastoidstalker -> on deck
5) Kanga_DU

The bulk of the funds came from Hattie's last city and must admit I was umming and arring about how quick we wanted to finish the research and as we can always go to 100% for a few turns decided I didn't need to decide!:cool:

Ralph

Great job Ralph, you have put Hatty on the verge of extinction with almost no losses, good use of troups, quickly razing the cities without taking undue risks.

I took a look at the save game to see in a little more of where we are at. It looks like we can get writting in 10 turns which would be great as libraries can help us a bunch now. I would think about IW after that so we can unlock the power of that northern city, then push for monarchy, code of laws or alphabet.
There are three keshiks marching towards Thebes. In order to crack that city I would suggest giving the unpromoted one flanking 1 and 2. Flanking 1 is not that great but flanking 2 gets you a 50% withdraw rate and immunity to first strikes. this would make the unit a good first attack piece, it will only have about a 20-30% chance of winning but will have a good chance to withdraw and will gain expierence if it does. Even if it does die it will soften up an archer enough for another unit to take him out. I like giving mounted units flanking 1 and 2 in the early game and find it more usefull than the basic strength promotions (though 25% vs mele is very usefull as well when an oponent has spearmen or pikemen).

we also may ge the oportunity to whipe Hinduism from the board. Though it would be usefull for it to spread to our lands (for culture) it seems more in character to squash it under the hooves of our horses.

Hey guys. Great advancement here. Yesterday in favour of TAM I completely forgot about you where I could have played :nono:

I can hardly (I'd try if nobody else does) come onto this before Wendesday (then for sure). blastoidstalker can swap with me if he likes.

Blastoid: You have to burn Thebes. 1st of all we can not afford another city at all. Where should the money come from to maintain it? Second pink dot is THE choice for the next city site. This is a site with lots of food and production AND specialists. So we may crank some great scientists or so out of this city site. And third and final you have to. Look at the variant rules ;)

Ralph Jackson ... you made my heart stop when you said "hey, nice site! we keep it!" :lol:

I would favour CoL as next research option above all others. Even if it is researched, courthouses are yet to be built in every later town. This will assure us the economy for our next expansion phase. Then IW, Mathematics and Currency. All other due to our aggressive strategy seems not good for us...

I can switch and take it next.
I am up in my SGOTM as well, I will try to get both done tommorow, tuesday at latest.

PBLIVS- I never intend to spread hindu or declare it as state religon. I was just amused that if it spread to us it could remove the need for an obelisk in some cities. Better that we quash it before it can infiltrate us:) .

Once Hatty is finished I want to get a coulle of units up to scout Mansa and also would like to keep him from the sites of the northern egyptian ruins. I intend to pillage the horses up there so Mansa can not gain easy acess to them.

If I get to another settler I will settle it on the pink, though I do not know if I will get to that point.

Could you please inform the thread when you actually start to play. If you don't play it can actually happen that I have the time. And if you didn't start this evening I may still grab it and play if my girl friend allows me to ;)

Though I think it's very unlikely as I played TAM yesterday evening until 2 am :nono:

Ok guys. I've got time this evening to get into this as fortunately a friend of my girlfriend celebrates her :bday:

I can play this evening and will inform you that I do when I start.

Go for it
I haven't touched it

Will play now! :hammer:

Pvblivs Avrelivs Khan takes the scepter of all Mongols in 400 BC.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Civ4ScreenShot00002.jpg
Hatshepsut, the desperate

Thirty years pass and Hatshepsut, desperate queen of the almost faded Egyptian empire sues for peace. Her ambassador is sent away back with his head in his hands.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Civ4ScreenShot00012.jpg
The sack of Thebes, the Egyptian capital and Hindu holy city

In 325 BC Egypt has gone forever and the holy city of the Hindus, Thebes, burns to its ruins.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Civ4ScreenShot00022.jpg
The art of writing

Inbetween Mongolian wise men learn how to write. To embrace the coming period of peace the Mongolian scientists are ordered to learn more about the secrets of Meditation.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Civ4ScreenShot00031.jpg
Estruscans settling where Egypt has faded

We discover an Etruscan tribe protecting the rich east from being exploitet by our Malinese neighbours. I decide to let the ruins of Thebes be guarded for future settlement of the glorious Mongolian empire.

In 250 BC we discover Meditation. As our economy now suffers from our greatness it will last a little longer than expected to discover Priesthood.

Actually since then, not very much happened during the reign of Pvblivs Avrelivs Khan. He concentrated on stabilizing the rather poor empire through the builds of many Libraries, employing scientists to replace the lack of technology investment due to the always low budgets.
He spelled many great warriors to push back into Mongolian borders not to loose money because of long supply routes. He on the one hand defeated many Barbarians but on the other could not prevent Barbarian tribes to settle in the places where once Egypt had been strong.

When in 100 BC Pvblivs Avrelivs Scriptor died after an overlong life (so at least some military leaders whispered during the last years) the hope has risen now again for the new Khan to lead Mongolia to glory. Can he defeat the Malinese empire to build up Mongolian hegemony on the continent? Will he raze cities to the glory of the Keshiks and to the benefit of the Mongolian treasures? Or will he install a new code of law, allowing Mongolia to expand even faster?

Come now, blastoidstalker Khan, take the scepter and - after these years of stagnation and desperation - lead Mongolia to new glory!

The Scepter of Mongolia (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/STR_01_BC-0100.Civ4SavedGame)

Nicely done Pvblivs. However, you forgot about the "no Pax Mongolia" variant. Perhaps you were confused by the "2 civs met" rule, we do not need to have connections with 2 (living) civs to declare war on them.

It's not a disaster though, however blastoidstalker will need to declare war then:king:

Ah, I actually didn't forget about our variant but thought we had to know at least 2 other living empires. So you have my apologies oh great overlord. I hope you will not erase my names from Mongolian history books (now that we know how to write ;)).

I indeed thought a lot about it but decided to take the peace I thought possible because we did not know any other for the sake of our economy. However we have the military to harress Mansa Musa. And as we ought to, I'm sure blastoid will beserk even more because of his peaceful predecessor :hammer:

Pvblivs, Genghis himself would probably have had you executed on the spot for disobeying orders.;) It's not a problem for me though, as it was kind of confusing.

Now blastoidstalker can go and burn Mali!

This won't be an Always War game however, as I haven't really played AW often.
...
2) When we have met 2 civs, we must always be at war with at least one of them. There will be no Pax Mongolia!

Seems pretty clear to me. :eek: (Though I'll fess up to having to check the original post to clarify.;) ) However my reckoning is that with this variant we will be always at war from now. Except for when we haven't meet civilizations beyond the one we are currently at war with, seeing as you can't declare on someone not yet met.

Yeah, I do understand that now as well. Once we are at war, we always will have war.

Except of course when Mansa has gone. Then we have to wait for another one to declare.

However my reckoning is that with this variant we will be always at war from now. Except for when we haven't meet civilizations beyond the one we are currently at war with, seeing as you can't declare on someone not yet met.

That's correct. However the difference with an Always War game is that we won't be at war with every civ we meet from the start

Kahn Blastoid knew the plan had worked perfectly when he stepped out of the tent to the sound of a thousand voices crying for blood. Inside the Tent the once great Kahn PLIVS was growing cold with the tips of 5 arrows still imbedded in his chest. Those five arrows appeared to be of Malinese design but only Kahn Blastoid now knew the truth, that they were merely normal arrows costumed as a skirmishers bite. A ruse born out of necessity. Though Kahn PLIVS had been glorious in his youth destroying the infidel last city of the Egyptians and tossing the Queen's head to the screaming masses, he had weakened with age and grew too complacent with the sound of flowing water. He did not understand the growing threat to the North and the need for the thunder of hooves to be renewed.

Now everyone understood the threat to the north. The fact that the event got them to realize this threat was a fabrication……..
Well that was just a detail.

The Malinese ambassador was sent back whence he came, in five pieces for the five arrows that started a war.
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/4479/scorched225nr.th.jpg (http://img123.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched225nr.jpg)

And now it is time to see what the bite of a skirmishers arrow really is.

The year is 100 BC the Kahn is dead and we are at war again at last.... The Horse obelisk is risen in Ning Sha on the backs of those killed our Kahn. The troops move north, we now hear that Munsa knows of bronze but not the horse. We decide that the bronze must be destroyed first then the horse will make his landscape a wasteland

85 BC. Library finished in Karakoum in honor of the Dead Kahn. Work resumes on axes for war in both Karakoum and Ning-Sa

70 BC Granary finished in Turfan and a new company of Keshicks is begun. The City of Djienne is discovered deep in the jungle north of Beshibalik, but out first riders move on in search of farms and villages

55 BC The priesthood of the horse is established, The code of the Horse is begun 37 long turns in our current sad economic state

40 BC Plunder starts to come in from burned farms and pastures. We here word that the inborn city of Estracin is captured and destroyed by Mali. Our horses race to the ruined city to kill the attackers as they foolishly feast on their plunder. In the North the copper mines of Mali are put to the torch by our finest horsemen

25 BC Our Keshiks descend on the ruins of Estracin and slaughter the skirmisher sitting in its ashes. Another pillaging Keshik to the north of Timbuktu defeats a skirmisher guarding elephants. Over the next few years he burns the camp, a village and a cow pasture

10 BC axe at Karakoum finished, Keshik begun, pillaging in full force, one Keshik splits off far east to scout and destroy unknown Malinese

5 AD Rioting commoners in Karakoum are forced into service as Keshicks. The whip is applied and the horseman rush forward to fling there bodies as the first wave upon the walls of Djienne

20 AD the countryside in flames, horses converge from all sides on Djienne. A few Malinese Skirmishers move from the caged cities, they are killed

50 AD The storming of Djiene commences, with the youngest troops thrown first against the waves of arrows. Kahn Blastoid, seeing a chance to try to rival the legend of the Kahn before him, a legend that he created leads the first charge. Two battalions of Keshiks die at the foot of the city along with the Kahn with many more than five arrows thrust through his chest. Then the veterans from the Egyptian war come from the mist killing the two skirmisher battalions and razing the city. Over 100 gold is added to our coffers and the code of the horse becomes much closer in sight.

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/5200/scorched242re.th.jpg (http://img117.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched242re.jpg)

Epilogue
North of Timbuktu the raiding Keshiks of captain Kanga notice a strange thing. A people very different from the Hated Malinese, hammering in a copper mine of unusual construction. The Keshiks first think to kill and burn but there leader stops them and moves forward to speak to these strange people. Without a word they take him to a large tent where he meets a thin wiry man

Greetings Horseman, I am Peter, Czar of Russia

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/2029/scorched236wn.th.jpg (http://img117.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched236wn.jpg)

:goodjob: great job, blastoid, and great story telling! Though we miss the Scepter of Mongolia. Hand it out! :hammer:

Seems like Peter just appeared to ensure that the Pax Mongolia never happens again. Next player has to ensure that the Code of the Horse [tm] is introduced as early as possible. Asside from our important Malinese campaign.

pillage count
city of Djienne, 2 horse pastures, 1 cow pasture, 3 farms, 1 copper mine, 1 tent, 1 cottage and 6-10 roads
total pilage worth about 160 gold

kill count

2 keshicks lost in assualt of Djienne
5 skirmishers killed, maybe 6

We have isolated Mansa's cities from each other and destroyed his acess to resources. We have destroyed his closest city. His land holds no usefull improvements except some roads. Skirmishers are tough to kill, even out in the open but especialy in cities. we should expect a lot of casualties taking cities. Most cities will need 5 Keshicks or keshick ax combos to assure taking down. Timbuktu has 4 defender, 3 with city garriosion promotion (1 with 2 or 3 of them).

We also are not allone on the continent with him, while the barbs are keepoing Hattys old land safe, if we are to aggresive in Razing Mansa's cities Peter might take them.

Our economy still hurts, but our cottages are building and COL should help as well.

Beshbalik and Turfan were whipped on the turn before mine so they should gain a happy in the next five turn. Ning sa was whipped about 10 turns ago and Karakoum about 5 turns ago (exact dates in above description).

Let us continue the carnage

Sorry for another post but I forgot the state of Mongolia Screens

us
http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/6276/scorched252ia.th.jpg (http://img119.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched252ia.jpg)
the majority of our forces
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/1985/scorched262mr.th.jpg (http://img124.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched262mr.jpg)

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/4067/scorched275cp.th.jpg (http://img119.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched275cp.jpg)

note Peter's copper mine on the top of the screen

Looks like a nice set of turns adn in partciualr we all need to follow the example of Pillaging all improvements to help our economy. The 160 :commerce: blastoidstalker (must find a suitable abbreviation!!) achieved is absolutely key to maintaining our research

160 gold is a great achievement but only a poor help for our economy. I spent the same amount within only 5 turns on higher research.

blastoid, feel free to post many more posts if all posts are thus rich in content :)

You are correct Pvblivs what I was getting at is that the 160 is getting us half way (at 100% research) to COL which is the long term solution so we all need to keep generating it to unlock Courthouses a.s.a.p

Ralph

Got the save will play tonight (maybe) tomorrow night (likely).

yepp Ralph! Same with Currency. As we want to expand not only a little bit but really fast we need it afterwards as well.

And think about Alphabet before declaring on Peter (=eliminating Mali). Peter so far is our only chance to get some techs without the need of researching every single on our own.
Else the other continent may have outpaced us by far when we meet the first of them and then it will be truly difficult.

At least - and that is our luck - Hatty is already eliminated. In FS2, Strauss remembers very well I'm sure, Hatty was the one who had hundreds of units waiting in her cities while a spaceship was constructed. It was very bloody and we had Modern Armors while she didn't. And it was just Prince. So be happy that Hatty is away :)

At least - and that is our luck - Hatty is already eliminated. In FS2, Strauss remembers very well I'm sure, Hatty was the one who had hundreds of units waiting in her cities while a spaceship was constructed. It was very bloody and we had Modern Armors while she didn't. And it was just Prince. So be happy that Hatty is away :)

I sure remember! I spent 3/4 of turnset bashing against her defences.

Back to this SG, good job there blastoid. The pillaging is being a great help for our economy (both in the short and long term)

And think about Alphabet before declaring on Peter (=eliminating Mali). Peter so far is our only chance to get some techs without the need of researching every single on our own.
Else the other continent may have outpaced us by far when we meet the first of them and then it will be truly difficult.



I agree the three techs we need the most IMOP (and in order) are

Alphabet
Currency
Drama (happiness)

Concerning happiness ... did you build a camp on those elephants? I should have but I forgot it is also possible on an existing jungle.

Furthermore the next 3 cities (after we can really tell our economy does not go below 50% again) should deal with happiness as well:

Gem town (for the empires happiness, at the ruins of Elephantine)
Food town (for our happiness, SE of the ruins of Thebes)
Sugar town (for the empires happiness, E of the ruins of Heliopolis, when Calendar came in)

With elephants, sugar and gem town we should be capable of raising the general city size to 7 which is a great step forward especially for food town that can grow like mad if we want it to and for our economy as well. 3 sizes more that is 3 cottages more if neccessary ... per city.

You can put a camp in jungle? I never thought of that:p Well I feel like we have wasted a resource but hopefully Kanga can put one up so we can expand our cities a bit more.

Yes you can. Any kind of a camp can be put anywhere. You can even chop the jungle under a camp without the camp being destroyed

PART 2

... Despite the jungle we can still set camps on the ivory IIRC. Back fill yellow dot with next settler.
...


I hate to say it but, ...

I told ya so.

:groucho:

Hey don't deny me my probable only one moment of superiority.

Playing now.

Kahn blastoid never makes mistakes
Kahn Blastoid did not care
Kahn Blastoid was to busy pillaging to worry about stupic elephants and happy people
BAAAAAAHHHHHHH
whip unhappy peolle into submission I say
That will teach them to pretend to be happy

50AD - Inherited turn. Press enter.

IBT - Curses! Loose a promoted warrior to skirmisher.

65AD - Pyramids BIDL. Shuffle troops - some healing up, others moving to the front. Send new keshik to fight a barb at nearby city for cheap experience. Start on ivory camp. Whip axe at Besh, fractionally early, however we have seditious malcontents to deal with. Fear the whip!

70AD - Decided that Kumbli-Sha(?) shall be next to learn to fear the sound of hoof beats... Start some troops that direction. Will keep an eye on Gao at the same time.

95AD - Start another settler at our capital. Research to 0 for a turn.
http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/9315/civ4screenshot00001pv.th.jpg (http://img357.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00001pv.jpg)

110AD - New barb city south of Kumbi-Saleh (:lol:). I'm taking out some roads to isolate the malinese towns & troops as much as possible. Two turns from ivory. Hurry up! Research back to 100 for this turn.
http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/2233/civ4screenshot00016rl.th.jpg (http://img357.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00016rl.jpg)

125AD - And research back to 0. Need some pillaging gold, however both targets need more troops there first.
http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/7452/civ4screenshot00029et.th.jpg (http://img482.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00029et.jpg)
http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/4963/civ4screenshot00035bh.th.jpg (http://img482.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00035bh.jpg)
MM Turfan back to growing, as ivory actually hooked up this turn. And in a helpful twist a barb archer has Walata busy.

140AD - Change of mind... the uncultured Walata will be an much easier target. We need the pillaging gold. The spoils of war only last so long before the warriors grow restless.... More troop moverments. I've got a few troops outside Gao, mostly to just pin them down. Most are moving NE to Walata

155AD - zzzz - Noticed another malinese city further north of Walata.
http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/6922/civ4screenshot00043uw.th.jpg (http://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00043uw.jpg)

170AD - Zzzz *snort* ZZZzzz

IBT - Christianity FIDAL

185AD - Pick off some skirmishers that emerged into the open. Close shave with one, but no defeats. Research back to 100% for one turn.

200 AD - Whip keskik at Ning. Add granary to queue. Scientists back on the dole = research 0% again.
Forces assebled outside of Walata. Pillaging of quarry to its north ordered and completed.

Overall not much for me to say other than, continued troop build up and movements. Strike force Walata is assembled and ready for next Khan. Only troop loss was a promoted warrior... heh and I can blame that on the previous Khan. :mischief:

However...

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

http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/5653/civ4screenshot00055yz.th.jpg (http://img482.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00055yz.jpg)

My, my, my. Moments of superiority are so fleeting. You may notice a worker roading up to the next city site (conveniently marked for your amusement. :blush: ) No iron working and lots of jungle. All I can say is I've got a cold and wasn't thinking clearly. So shoot me. Oops, seems the next khan already has...
:suicide:

127008

Only troop loss was a promoted warrior... heh and I can blame that on the previous Khan. :mischief:

Kahn Blastoid says that glory can only be gained through risk.
A Kahn that loses no blood owns a small tent.

1) Strauss --> UP NOW!!!
2) Ralph_Jackson --> On deck
3) Pvblivs
4) blastoidstalker
5) Kanga_DU --> just played

The world is your oyster now Khan Strauss. :king:

You kidding? Why should we build a jungle city? Do we have any advantage from this jungle site?

What did you do with the research? Why didn't you just run on 30% like everyone else? This tech to come is the most important in the near future. If we wait any further to discover it we may as well stop researching at all forever. If our costs are too high, raze some cities, loosing precious Keshiks. At least this reduces our costs.

Too high, I say :hammer:

p.s.: Did I already say: We need this Code of the Horse! ... ? :)

What did you do with the research? Why didn't you just run on 30% like everyone else?
My guess is that he was doing to 0% or 100% research micromanage technique. I put it to 100% at the end of my turn. He dropped it to 0% when pillage funds ran out. Hopefully he raised it later.

If our costs are too high, raze some cities, loosing precious Keshiks. At least this reduces our costs.

Too high, I say :hammer:

As a formed Kahn would put it

glory can only be gained through risk.
A Kahn that loses no blood owns a small tent.

Pvblivs - I feel the :love:

More seriosly though I'd already opened my eyes to the silliness of the jungle site. Albeit after my turns. :p

Blastiodstalker had it right on the money about the money. With the parlous state of funds through the rampant extravagant excesses of previous Khans :lol: I was making every penny count. I had it going like a yo-yo. Hey its in my notes! Hmmm maybe no screenies next time, too distracting from the words.

Walata should be eminently takable with few losses. I personally find it hard to just throw troops away at a whim, just not my play style.

Pvblivs - I feel the :love:

More seriosly though I'd already opened my eyes to the silliness of the jungle site. Albeit after my turns. :p

Blastiodstalker had it right on the money about the money. With the parlous state of funds through the rampant extravagant excesses of previous Khans :lol: I was making every penny count. I had it going like a yo-yo. Hey its in my notes! Hmmm maybe no screenies next time, too distracting from the words.

Walata should be eminently takable with few losses. I personally find it hard to just throw troops away at a whim, just not my play style.

This is no game about love but about war :D So please don't feel offended because of my criticism. I'm just trying to understand what you're doing.

I just saw that you switched science to 100%. From your screenshots I see that there is never enough money for 100%. To be true for 100% research we need at least 20 to 30 gold in treasure. I think you've never got more then some 5 coins in our wallets. Now I say you need not pull the slider higher than what is possible to achieve within one single turn.

I would recommend to withraw troops into our territory if we're not even capable of reaching our most important short-term goal. And that is C_o_L. Every two Keshiks that is into our borders instead of ourside earns us 1 coin.

Ah thats where the screenies are misleading, I was bumping research back to 100% for every turn we could sustain the research. I'd agree with pulling back the troops, as soon as Walata is razed. It wouldn't make much sense to pull them back without doing so, since so many turns have been invested now in getting them to Walata. Its just one more turn to strike now and pad out the coffers for continuous research.

No, you don't understand my point.

Example:
Your treasure is 3. If you pull the research slider to, say, 10% and it shows -4 gpt, that means that you can't even afford 10% research this turn.

My point is: Why do you increase research to 100% if you can't even afford 10? Wouldn't it be enough to pull back to 10% research? It doesn't make any difference.

If your treasure is 0 anyway and you have -1gpt at 0% research, research is useless at all.

Pvblivs, you are correct in what you say about the research slider. Which what I was doing. The variation from your example and what I did was that I let gold accumulate at 0% research, then switching to 100% research on the turns that could sustain research at 100%. The difference it makes is there is no rounding errors generated in the calculations when you do this. The amount is likely to be small, though in the current circumstance every little bit helps.

Ah, I understand. Thanks for that clarification :)

I got it and already played a turn, but with the Champion's League final about to start I don't have the time play any more turns properly. So I will play tomorrow afternoon. If you have any more comments to make about the game you left me Kanga, do it;)

Strauss, play in front of the TV screen :) I do that very often

Hehe, that would mean moving either my computer or my TV to the other side of the room;) Besides, I wouldn't be able to play decently with the match on and I wanna go to sleep soon. Don't worry, I'll play the game as soon as I get home tomorrow afternoon

May I suggest a side game for us to insure agressive, fanatical play.

The Kahn who raises the most cities throughout the game is declared Great kahn and is worlshipped with great admiration and wet-the-pants fear:devil: .

We can also have a contest of who can raise the most cities or pillage the most improvements in a single turn.:hammer2:

Currently Kahn Ralph has razed 2 egyptian cities (in 1 turnset leading the # of cities in one turn catagory)
Kahn Blastoid has razed 2 cities 1 egyptian 1 malinese
Kahn PvbLIVS has razed 1 city the egyptian capital (bonus points for a capital)

should Barb cities count? Or count half?


I think this could be fun, but we need to keep in mind that our first prioitity is still to win the game not just outdue each other.

Sounds good blastoid. However, it is Khan, not Kahn. Kahn is a German goalkeeper;) Just a little nit-picking

A pity what Lehman did last eve :sad: Hopefully that was _his_ failure for the whole World Championships :)

Ah yes, I forgot that you were German Pvblivs. Otherwise I would have made some 'nice' comments about Lehmann (me being Dutch;) )

I don't know for sure, but everyone says that it should have been a goal and not a red card. Would have made for a better game I think, it became rather boring after the red card (except for Barca's late goals)

In case you're wondering why I'm blabbering about a football match instead of playing my turns, I'm still at school so I can't play them yet;) . Will be home in an hour or 4

I know what's the problem here... It was a foul by the keeper. Though it was no severe one. Soccer rules should permit a yellow card combined with a goal in such a case. But soccer committees are not flexible enough to introduce such modern rules.

Anyway you should remember that those who make the rules always try to encourage a clean soccer and to punish foul playing in order to protect players' health and to keep the sport cleaner from fouls. Penalties must be hard in order to work...

I form myself pity what Lehmann did, but I cannot say that a punishment gainst him was not right. He did something he shouldn't have. A keeper has to get the ball into his hands and he didn't, but instead fouled a player, who just because he was not a sissy did not fall - he could have.

After the last Khan had spent the last years of his reign on a futile project of building a road into the jungle, the Mongol people deposed him and exiled him. Hence begins the reign of the great Strauss Khan.

Immediately he travelled to the north, to the Malinese city of Walata. There Mongol Horsemen were already positioned, hungry for blood. The Khan first sent the foot soldiers, the lowest class a soldier could be, onto the city. They fought for their lives, but were eventually slaughtered by the Malinese Skirmishers, who were heavily weakened themselves. Then the Kahn sent in his Keshiks, who smashed the Malinese defenders and made the city of Walata nothing more than a memory.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/5222/civ4screenshot00787di.th.jpg (http://img146.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00787di.jpg)

In the south, the Keshiks were less succesful, losing a battle against the Phoenician people.

During the next decades, the Khan rode around the empty lands that had been left by the Malinese. In the West, near the city of Gao, the Western Horde held off numerous Malinese Skirmishers, who, for some reason, had gotten the mad idea that they could defeat the Horde in the field. These foolish actions left the Malinese heavily weakened in the West, and the people feared a final Mongol attack on Djenne and Timbuktu could come at any moment now.

In the South, fresh Mongol Keshiks had been razed and sent to Gaul, descendants of the long-gone Egyptians. Like their forefathers, the Gallics were crushed helplessly by the Keshiks, who plundered and razed their capital. The message was delivered to the Khan that there was now enough Gold in the treasury to finish the writing of the Code of the Horse.

http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/6936/civ4screenshot00802bu.th.jpg (http://img55.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00802bu.jpg)

The Khan then travelled far north, to the Malinese city of Niani. Using his proven tactic of using lesser units to soften up enemy defences, he used a wounded battalion of Keshiks to weaken the city garrison. The healthy Keshiks then finished off Niani without notable losses, taking plunder and 300 slaves.

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/8816/civ4screenshot00810zn.th.jpg (http://img197.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00810zn.jpg)

The Code of the Horse was written, and the Khan made sure that Courthouses would be built all over his Empire to battle corruption while he was fighting at the front lines. The great Scientists of Mongolia then started developing their own language using the Alphabet.

Many decades later, when the Khan had grown very, very old, he decided he was still fit enough to lead one final attack against Mali. He had travelled from the ruins of Niani all the way south to the city of Kumbi Saleh.
Once again he used the lesser foot soldiers to weaken the city's defence. After that the Keshiks attacked, and despite heavy losses in some batallions, they all made it through and burnt the city to the ground, once again taking rich plunder and 100 slaves.

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/6194/civ4screenshot00843jq.th.jpg (http://img70.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00843jq.jpg)

The Great Khan died peacefully on the way back to Mongolia to deliver the gold.

.....

Hehe, a rather long write-up. Then again, a lot of things happened in my 10 turns. Just to summarise:
- razed the Malinese cities of Walata, Niani and Kumbi Saleh
- razed the barbarian city of Gaul
- researched Code of Laws, started on some Courthouses and started researching Alphabet
- trained a Settler and sent him on the way to Egypt
- Mali has heavily weakened itself in the West, sending in Skirmishers in open ground and being defeated by our Keshiks (well, we lost 1 Keshik there). Gao is now rather lightly defended, although their only Skirmisher does have a City Garrison III promotion. I would suggest crossing the river before attacking the city and perhaps waiting for the 2 Keshiks on their way to the city.
- Losses: not 100% sure, but I believe it was: 4 Axemen, 3 Keshiks. Enemy losses: too many to count:lol:

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8250/civ4screenshot00876wt.th.jpg (http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00876wt.jpg)
The army positioned near Gao

http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/5797/civ4screenshot00898pe.th.jpg (http://img128.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00898pe.jpg)
Our settler moving east

1) Strauss --> just played
2) Ralph_Jackson --> UP to finish off Mali
3) Pvblivs --> on deck
4) blastoidstalker
5) Kanga_DU

The Updated Raze Count

Khan Strauss has surged into the lead with 4 cities razed :devil: (his four in one turnset also leads the most razed in one turn catagory)
Khan Ralph has razed 2 egyptian cities
Khan Blastoid has razed 2 cities 1 egyptian 1 malinese
Khan PvbLIVS has razed 1 city the egyptian capital (bonus points for a capital)
Khan Kanga still at the donut

Great progress here, oh divine Khan! How is our economy doing? Did you actually finish some courhouses? At which rate can we research?

I would say that courthouses are mandatory for new cities before they build any military.

I didn't finish any Courthouses, the whip will be needed to do it. I will leave that up to the next Khan.
Our economy has been fed throughout my turnset completely by plunder, and we should probably be able to finish Alphabet on the plunder from Gao as well.

Got the save from Strauss. Will examine tonight for any question with an aim of playing / posting tomorrow.

Cheers

Ralph

Well taking down the Barbarian City and Phoenicia (Mansa's city)~ look doable and we will have to hope that we get a decent amount from Pillaging as our economy
is actually worse than bad.

If you take a look at this you can see we can't sustain a 10% Research rate which means we are in deep do-do. This is the pre-turn situation

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/Khaneconomy.jpg

I can Micromanage it to this level where we can sustain 20% research (30% is -) but this is at the cost of sacrificing scientists so in fact our reseacrh isn't
actually really boosted going to 7 :science: form the 6 :science: that the two specialist give us pre MM on their own.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/econmicro.jpg

So settling a city with the pre-built setller is out. And we really need to talk about what to do. Alphabet won't help our economy. Whipping in the courthouses will boost research (when they are all built city maintenance drops from 15 to 8 (no point in building one in the capital)) up a bit but initally as we sacrifice population it has a pain attached as it stops us working some tiles that are generating commerce. Also the MM has to sacrifice :hammers: for :gold:.

Thoughts please. I will probably still play as far as Pillaging the 2 cities as that can't hurt.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!! :hammer2:

ralph

Withdraw units into our territory. 6 gold for support is something we cannot support.

Can we somehow quickly enlarge our cities or are they still at the limit?

Thoughts on economy

In terms of costs we have two problems
city mainanince- already being adressed as best as possible
unit upkeep-

unit upkeep is tricky as the units that are costing the money are generating the pillaging funds. If you can take the two cities we gain pillage funds and if you lose some of our more inexpereienced forces, the better, each one of these units dying will save us 2 gold. Once this is done look at upkeep again, and if still high then focus forces on another city (one we can take) and lose some more units, just make sure to win in the end (even if every unit dies) as we do not want to create a city garrison monster. We will be building courthouses at this time so no new units will be coming in. This should drop our costs more than the courthouses and weaken Mali further. I do not like the idea of just moving foces back, that only saves 1 gold, killing them saves 2, just make sure the killing gets us some pillage as well.

A question, is unit support based on number of cities. aAnother city may increase city mainance but actualy decrease troop support, maybe somebody that reads the rules may know this?

We have multiple archers in several cities, we are aggresive enough and Mali is so disrupted that we do not need all that defense (of course as Kanga knows I tend to short stick defense:) ). When we do get around to forming more cities, use these second archers rather than creating new ones.

Thought on research

I still think alphabet is a good idea as a couple of techs from Peter would be very usefull and our window to obtain them may be short. The tech path that may be most usefull for us after this is monarchy-feudilism- guilds(something else may be needed here). Feudilism is the key here as it gives a civic that allows us to increase unit support and expierence to units. Monarchy helps with happiness and Guilds gets us grocer and knights (upgrade for vertern keshiks).

All valid points and helpful advice.

Plan as I see it.

1. Pillage Mansa's city + the Babrbarian one. (Note the Barb city won't produce much gold so it won't fuel that much research + Pillage any improvements around Mansa's capital (mightn't be any!!).

If troops die then so be it!

2. Put settler to sleep and retire troops to within our cultural borders.

3. The execute non-valuable troops so using Keshiks for City Garrison a Barb watch duties.

I will stop before 3 and post another economic analysis at that point as we will have choices by then but 1 and 2 are compulsory and will take 5 or 6 turns.

Re our Economy and Research

As we will not be able to eliminate Mansa (can't afford to build the troops that would be needed to take his capital) we will keep our war weariness and most of our cities will top at a max of 5 or even 4.

Add in whip unhappiness (we need to whip in Courthouses) and it is probably 4. This means until we research a Happiness tech the cities are barely self sufficient in commerce terms.

Monarchy is the only one readily available but will take ages to Research!! People please don't underestimate the economic hole we are in at the moment Feudalism etc are a million miles away!

Now I do like to be optimistic (believe it or not after my last couple of posts) but after the Pause above we will need to work out if our economy is survivable or if we need to flex our variant rules to continue the game :cry:

About the variant rules: I'll see if I can change anything to help us a bit, although I don't really like the idea of flexing the rules to make things easier.
If we already had the option of Vassal States, that would be acceptable;)

On the settler: Well, I wasn't sure if I should continue training it, but I somehow thought that we would be able to support it.

One of the main reasons our cities have to stay so small is because we drew a rater poor start in terms of happiness resources. Just the two Ivory in entire Mongolia!

It's a rather big dilemma: on the one hand we cannot afford war much longer, on the other hand it is practically our only source of income.

From the top of my head, the ways to fix our economy are:
1) Courthouses (almost immediate effect)
2) Pillaging (immediate, but shortlived effect and by now our options for pillaging are running out)
3) Developing cottages (will take longer to develop, but will be very effective in the long term)
4) Researching Currency (will probably take a long time with our economic situation)
5) Grocers, Markets, Vassalage (faaaaaaaaar away at the moment)

I can't check or calculate the amounts of gold we can generate or save from these options as I'm now at school (I think almost all of my posts except my turnreports have been from school;) )

The dilemma is big as Strauss says.

If we draw in our horns by pulling troops back and working cottages etc then we will "survive" economically (we won't have units on strike / disbanded etc) but our research rate will be so low that the AI will fairly soon be :borg:.

Additionally being :hammers: poor (as we have to work cottages and can't grow our cities beyond size 5 we will drop down the Power Graph and become an attractive target for Peter and eventually Mansa as his economy recovers and he re-expands (and when he expands he will garrison his cities with troops that Keshiks can't handle).

I didn't post a demographic shot (can't as I am now at work :blush:) but the Leader had a GNP of something in the High Sixties compared to our rather low one.

What needs to happen for us to get out of it.

Straus has identified a key structural constraint we have which is lack of Happiness resource. If we can trade some with Peter (danger is he may be friends with Mansa and not deal with us as we are at war with Mansa) then this could help.

I am not advocating giving up (realised that my posts may have come across like that) but saying we need to really think through where we are going as our current path of "Survive by Pillaging" won't I believe work as we can't pillage enough from Mansa to cover the supply costs of our troops and if we try and pillage Peter he will probably bite our heads off!

Thoughts Welcome

ralph

Do we need to chop some woods for the courthouses. We are Genghis and we do not have health concerns at all. I wonder if chopping would be more usefull than whipping right now. I know we do not have mathmatics yet, but it is something we just have to do.


I think after alphabet we need to go after monarchy because the happyness and larger cities could help our economic issues.

So here’s the report.

I wont repeat the dire economic situation as that is given above.

Start by MM to maximize commerce including retiring our two scientists as it is just worth it and dial up Courthouses everywhere. Settler put to sleep in one of our cities for the future

Turn 1 move troops up towards the barbarian city ready for the attack once they are healed. Star shepherding the 4 workers we captured back to our territory. Delete Units I view as non-essential (basically spare archers in garrisons). Take out a loose skirmisher found in the open near Mansa’s city. Other workers either chop trees for the courthouses or where a city could work another grassland cottage set them to do it

Turn 3 take down Mansa’s city

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/mansacityfall.jpg

Turn 4 Kill off a Barbarian Archer that the AI moves out fo the city we are about to attack :smoke:. With all the Fog of war we are going to have lots of Barbs to feed to our Keshiks in the future

Turn 5 Take down Barb city .

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/barbcityfall.jpg

Turn 6 -7 move troops back to our territory to reduce unit supply costs

Turn 8 Alphabet comes in and I pause as discussed.

Our economy is now a lot healthier!!

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/stableeconomy.jpg

And we are still in the game demographically.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/demogok.jpg
Kill count 2 cities lose 4 Keshiks (city garrison Skirmishers are hard!) to kill 5 skirmishers and 4 archers

Note courthouses haven’t had enough chops to be whipped in yet and we have some unhappy citizens awaiting the :whipped: in a while. We now have 4 extra workers to be assigned which will speed the chopping.

Conclusion

If my previous posts seemed alarming it was because the situation was alarming. Only by sacrificing units and real MM are we back on an even keel economically with a stable research at 50%. I have left it set to 50% but obviously we should continue with binary research. Monarchy takes 21 turns at 50%. There are some more units to delete if we wish as we can garrison with Keshiks


Turn 190 (350 AD)

Turn 191 (365 AD)
Keshik loses to: Malinese Skirmisher (0.16/4)
Keshik defeats (5.70/6): Malinese Skirmisher
Keshik promoted: Combat III
Keshik promoted: Medic I

[
Turn 192 (380 AD)
Karakorum grows: 5

Turn 193 (395 AD)
Keshik loses to: Barbarian Archer (0.93/3)
Keshik defeats (5.04/6): Barbarian Archer
Keshik defeats (3.72/6): Malinese Skirmisher
Keshik loses to: Malinese Skirmisher (1.96/4)
Axeman defeats (3.80/5): Malinese Skirmisher
Keshik loses to: Malinese Spearman (1.28/4)
Keshik defeats (6.00/6): Malinese Spearman
Captured Gao (Mansa Musa)
Razed Gao
Gao lost

Turn 194 (410 AD)
Keshik defeats (2.34/6): Barbarian Archer

Turn 195 (425 AD)
Keshik defeats (4.08/6): Barbarian Archer
Keshik defeats (5.04/6): Barbarian Archer
Captured Phoenician (Barbarian)
Razed Phoenician
Phoenician lost

Turn 196 (440 AD)
Karakorum grows: 6

Turn 197 (455 AD)

Turn 198 (470 AD)
Research begun: Monarchy

Nice job on fixing our economy a bit Ralph.

Did you check what techs Peter is willing to trade now? I can't check (again) as my internet has broken down (again), but maybe there's a tech in there that could be useful to us?

Peter has some useful techs, Iron Working would be good and mathematics would also help our cause!

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/petertrade.jpg

He will give us all 4 of them for Alphabet and Code of laws

Sounds good, Mathematics could greatly help the building of Courthouses, while Iron Working will allow us to work some jungle tiles (and if we're lucky and find Iron in a city radius, gain some extra shields). Masonry and Fishing will be nice for score mostly;) (although we will eventually need the Work Boats when we settle Egypt, but that is still quite some time away I think)

BTW, Ralph do you want to finish the last 2 turns of your turnset, or can Pvblivs pick up from where you left?

Let Publius pick it up from here as playing 2 turns deosn't make much sense. Do we all agree that Open border with Peter followed by the tech Trade is the right move. Feels that way to me.

With Iron Working we will have some unfinished business with Mansa in the future!!

ralph

Hey guys, I got it. Will play "my" 12 turns now with the goal to bring us forward. I think we can not wait too long for Mansa, as war weariness would bring us down then...

I'll do what I can.

Wether I manage to post today, I cannot say though.

:lol: ... Ok, here is the turnset of Pvblivs Khan III. Without great writeup and without great pictures because Pvblivs Khan III suppressed artists and literates during his reign. Though, without leading any offensive war, he brought Mongolia back into the game as you will see:

- We now can support research at remarkable 70%. (Though I only researched binarily, I don't know if it was worth anything)
- Monarchy comes in in 2 turns, most importantly allowing us to grow all our cities more with more military.
- We traded our cheapest technologies (Horse and Letter Lore) to Peter and he in return gave us all he could give. Note that I choose Alphabet because I think he cannot use it, whereas he could use CoL.
- We found and connected iron already ordering some swordsmen in our barracks.

Blastoid Khan III will profit from the previous phasis of stabilization. He will research Monarchy. He will found "New Thebes" (destroying a Barbarian settlement there before) and prepare the founding of "Sugar Town". We can afford this now. The Law of the Horse is working perfectly. And - not to forget - Blastoid Khan III will lead Mongolia to new glory!

The Scepter of Mongolia (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/STR_01_AD-0650.Civ4SavedGame)

Great job there Pvblivs! Mongolia can now finally expand once more!

1) Strauss
2) Ralph_Jackson
3) Pvblivs --> just played and restored Mongolia's economy
4) blastoidstalker --> UP and gets to do the more glamorous job of expanding;)
5) Kanga_DU --> on deck

I have grabbed the scepter and will wield it tonight

650 AD The old man had fought bravely. He was surprisingly skilled for man who spent his life building cottages. He wielded an Iron sword, a weapon much different from the arrows that were the trademark of a Keshik. And the scars on Blastoids arms would remind him to never take lightly this old man’s way of fighting. But In the end the old Khan was two slow to kill his successor, and now Blastoid was the new Khan. It was his turn to live in the gilded tent that PVBLIVS had built.
Khan Blastoid sips warm liquor from his ivory cup and starts to contemplate his own reign. How would it end? The same way as the last Khan, killed by a stranger only because he is old, his children butchered just as he had butchered the old Khan’s children. Such a way was a waste, a waste of old but experienced warriors that though they could not hold a sword, could train one. A new way must be found.

But first orders were to send the long waiting refugees in Turfan east to settle the barbaric lands that were once Egyptian. A column of Keshick was ordered north to see what the enemy was doing and to explore the mysterious Russian lands beyond.

665 AD- A barbarian raid on our elephant hunting fields was quickly silenced

680 AD- The Keshik scouts to the north discovers a new Malinese city on the ruins of an old one, near there old copper mines. The Mali must be kept in order and three more columns of Keshiks are sent to kill them and burn there dwellings.

At the Khan’s calling a conclave of the clans was convened and the leaders of the five great clans of the Mongol; the Strauss, the Robert, The PVBLIVS, the Kanga and the Blastoid. After seven long days and the deaths of one clan leader and several guards, Those remaining came out with a new law for the succession of leadership of the clan. Each Khan would marry a woman of a clan different than his own, and the first son of that union would be trained by the Khan to take his place. When the new son was mighty and strong he would challenge his farther to combat. If he killed him he would take the throne, if not the next son in line would then be groomed to be Khan to challenge him again in combat. Khan Blastoid took as his wife a beautiful daughter of the leader of the Kanga clan and quickly went about making many sons, as he knew many would die by his sword before he himself fell.

695 AD- The Khan orders his eunuchs to study how to best exert and organize his power over the clans and the idea of feudalism slows starts to come into focus. The Khan learns that something called the Chicken Itza is build in a foreign land, which the Khan finds interesting as he is fond of chicken.

710 AD The Barbarians in the east built a new city on the ancient ruins of Thebes. Our Keshiks fall upon them like a rain of death but strange things happen. Our young warriors fight gallantly and win and our veterans of old wars fall. 2 columns of Keshiks die in the process of slaughtering 3 regiments or archers. But in the end the city burns. Little plunder (13 gold) is found. To the South east of hill on which PLVBLIVS exterminated the Egyptian people a new city is built. It is named PVBLIVS Fury in honor of that great leader’s assault to clean this land of the Egyptian.
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/8841/scorched315ff.th.jpg (http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched315ff.jpg)
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/1725/scorched327ga.th.jpg (http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched327ga.jpg)
725 AD Ning-sha whipped its library. In the north the new Malinese city of Avhgrhost is destroyed as 3 regiments of Skirmers are trampled under the hooves of Keshiks. One column is lost. 1 column of Keshiks is ordered north to Peter’s lands, the others return home to keep the clans at peace


770 AD After peaking at activity near Timbuktu and seeing rebuilt elephant hunting camps and cow pastures our Keshick columns negotiates open boarders with Peter and moves in to scout his land, paying special care to note valuable resources such as copper and horses. A copper source previously reported near the Mali boarder is seen to be still in use and spearmen are found guarding his cities.
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/2517/scourched333pp.th.jpg (http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scourched333pp.jpg)

785 AD A new settler is being trained to expand our lands to the north. The oldest son of Khan Blastoid challenges him to rule. He dies with courage, as does the second, third and fourth sons.

800 AD Khan Blastoid's fifth son challenges for the throne. By this point Khan Blastoid is old, his glory’s of killing skirmishers long in the past and his bow is two slow to catch the quick young man with the steel sword. Yet still he smiles in pride as his son cleaves the sword through his chest and claims the throne.

All bow to Khan Kanga! May his enemies fear his steel wraith.

I will give less a in character ideas of where we are going and suggestions later. I also need to retake a screen of Russia's lands that i have scouted so far.

Great set, blastoid. I like your idea of dedicating cities to warriors who made lots of efforts in the area the city is located.

So there will be a lot of blastoid-cities in the north, humm? ;)

Wow! Prepare to be amazed. Also be warned: spoiler alert.

Possibly, no definately my boring-est turns yet. :p

Gah! All the easy pickings taken, no near cities to raze. No need (and your not getting one so nah-nah) for a turn by turn breakdown. Core points. Killed a few barbs, new barb city east of Turfan (just above P-Fury). Sword on way to join Keshik to raze raze raze baby. Keshik continuing to scout Russia, noted a sword/cat team heading to Yue-Chi. Peter will likely pick up an easy city. One Keshik eyeballing Mansu HQ. He's been sending lone skirmishers to impale themselves on the defenders of the Ivory Tower. Our swordmans arms have gotten a lot more precise as a result. :lol:

Oh and the workers are over building cottages... it's not like they'll ever get used.

Theres a settler holed up in the ivory tower - I strongly suggest settling near the gems. We've got IW and can rip that jungle down. I refused to whip this set, the happy/worked cottages balance is a mite precarious at the moment. The gems might give us some breathing space.. (or I might be :crazyeye: )

And here it is:

127529

:sleep:

Eeeeyyyyy .... this looks truly great!

If this, Kangaru Khan, was such a boring turnset, why didn't you just rule 10 turns longer? :)

This is the curse of every conquest player. He always leaves deserted land. In the end, every conquester is becoming a builder :p A very lonesome builder ...

I say, when we dicovered the most important techs and killed Mansa and are to kill Peter we go for Optics ASAP, discover new enemies before killing the old, trade techs, then go for Astronomy and Cavalry/Rifling. And then end this game as fast as possible with horse raids per ship.

Otherwise we will truly will become great builders above all :)

Good turns all, and really quickly done as well!:goodjob:

However, with my internet still down I can't download the save to my computer. Someone's coming over to have a look at it today, but I'm afraid we'll have to get some professionals to fix it.

I'll just load the save onto a memory stick or something and copy it to my Civ-computer.

Summary: I'll play today

It is looking good. We must be ready to immediatly pillage Peter right after mansa is done, but our Keshiks will still be good for that. We are close or ahead of Peter in everything but manafacturing, and pillaging his mines can fix that. SO I think we can take him out, we just need a bit more build up to do it, getting vassalage will make this easier with the extra unit support and experience. AFter that i think PVBLIVS is right we have to switch modes towards astronomy so qwe can find and kill the civs on that other continent, if you look at the top 5 cities they are all from unknown civ's, A scary thought. Fortuantly they should all have different religions and hopefully they are smashing themselves to pieces.

The Updated Raze Count

Khan Strauss is in a three way tie at the top lead with 4 cities razed (his four in one turnset leads the most razed in one turn catagory)
Khan Ralph has razed 4 cities, 2 egyptian cities, 1 malinese and 1 barbarian
Khan Blastoid has razed 4 cities 1 egyptian 2 malinese and 1 barbarian
Khan PvbLIVS has razed 1 city, the egyptian capital (bonus points for a capital)
Khan Kanga still at the donut

The other continent should have 3 civs. Even if they've already outpaced us this won't be a problem as long as we don't discover knights. Why?

We should "ally" with one (preferably not the weakest) and draw him into conflict with the other two while only pillaging those others down on their knees and building up on our own continent.

Pillaging is very easy with Keshiks. As they don't get movement penalties you can even jump to hills and destroy the mine immediately. If we bring 10 of them to the enemy with another 10 to 20 strong defenders (like lbows or muskets) we won't loose many while we can pillage a lot before long.

So maybe it would be better not to go for Guilds but rather for strong defender techs to send strong pillager packages.

Well, I played my turns. Quite a satisfying turnset, but not spectacular.

Anasazi was razed in 995 AD giving an amazing plunder of 14 gold. We did lose a Swordsman here however, even though he had odds to win of over 87%.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4984/civ4screenshot00934wm.th.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00934wm.jpg)


In 1010 AD, Mansa decides to attack our Combat III Keshik which I sent to the cows north of Timbuktu. He loses 2 Skirmishers, after which I promote the Keshik and kill off a remaining Skirmisher that was cut off from his way to Timbuktu. The Keshik was promoted with Blitz btw, should come in quite handy for the Russian campaign.

In 1010 I also founded New Sarai in the middle of the jungle, with gems, cows and bananas in its immediate radius. The cows have been pasturized, however we need Calendar for the bananas and Timbuktu is still occupying the gems. Also, if anyone wants to rename the city, go ahead, although there hasn't really been any conquest around the site. I do expect all cities we build in Mali to be named after me:mischief:

The rest of the turnset was spent on directing the Mongolian Army north. We have five and a half Keshiks ready to strike at Timbuktu the next turn (the sixth Keshik is still healing in Russia), and we have one Swordsman coming up with them, although he still has to move 1 square. Unfortunately Mansa has built a new Skirmisher (City Garrison I), however the next Khan should be able to finish off Mali for good (I really had to resist the urge of playing another turn and destroying Timbuktu myself).

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/4254/civ4screenshot00949tu.th.jpg (http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00949tu.jpg)

Feudalism is due in 2 turns, our economy is currently stable and when we finish the courthouses in PVBLIVS Fury (which was spelled as PLBLIVS FURY btw;) ) and New Sarai, a few more of our cottages grow and we plunder Timbuktu, we should be able to sustain ourselves properly for the Russian campaign.

Good luck Khan Ralph!

1) Strauss --> just played and set the stage for Mali's doom
2) Ralph_Jackson --> UP to finish off Mali (yes, again!)
3) Pvblivs --> on deck
4) blastoidstalker
5) Kanga_DU

Btw. I think the site of Anasazi either, or if we want coast and thus more commerce the formerly ruined site west of it would be great for a next city. With iron, cows, woods and lots of food it would be great for a productive city.

Since Ralph hasn't posted a 'Got it' yet, we'll skip him and Pvblivs is up (unless Ralph still gets the save before Pvblivs does)

What do you think of my proposed new city site, compared to the sugar and gem sites we already know?

I will play if I post a got it (maybe this evening, maybe not before the weekend :lol:).

I would go for the gems site first as I think we need the happyness. Then next would be the Anasazi site but I would move it to the coast, so we could build ships there.

Got it, got it!

And will play now!

Apologies for missing my slot :blush: RL in the form of a trip to Bangalore (amazing city) intervened.Looks like good progress, I will be back in the loop at the weekend!

Ralph

No problem Ralph, but next time it might be wise to tell us to auto-skip you during a given time:) (if you did, and I missed it: forget what I said here!) Hope you enjoyed your trip, I want to visit India myself too sometime

Peter stood at the window in the south of his winter residence in Novgorod. He watched the many twinkling lights of Timbuktu in to south. And he was in deep thought. Many of him already called im "the Great" which mainly was because he managed to keep Russia great and proud in spite of the Mongolian aggression far in the south. Timbuktu, capital and last refuge of the Mali had been besieged for hundreds of years by the Keshiks, the restless hordes of Mongolia.
But he smart Peter, great Peter, sought to befriend the Khans. He knew that they could be a strong ally for him. Barbarians kept raging through the country and with the legend of mighty Egypt, with the downfall of proud Mansa Musa it was even more likely for the future to come.

Peter was in deep thought.

Suddenly Ivan, his closest confidant, stood behind him and Peters dreams vanished in the dark night.

"What?", he asked. "What is it, that though disturbest me? Speak, Ivan!"

Ivan began to speak: "Lord, for sure thy knowledge surpasses the far lands as we know 'em. Though I bring tidings for you from Mongolia, from the Keshiks in the south. Not long ago when Strauss Khan fell at the siege of Timbuktu, he had already named a follower to keep the firm grasp of the Keshiks around the high walls of Timbuktu. General Ralph now on his way to the solemn ceremony in Karakorum was ambushed near Beshbalik by Barbarians, people say.
The Pvblivs Clan as seized power again in Mongolia, my Lord and ..."

He was interrupted by the Czar who could not hold anymore and laughed loud for a while: "That is good news, Ivan. The Pvblivs Clan has never been strong in Mongolia. It will be even been easier for us to befriend them now. A weak Mongolia can be a strong ally for us. What about the generous trade we spoke of before you left last year, Ivan?"

Ivan slowly turned pale but continued: "Lord, we gave them 140 bullions of gold, our knowledge of Sailing and revealed to them the mystery of our gods. In exchange they told our messengers how to create, keep and defend the power of a great king in a country."

The eyes of Peter widened. "Russia shall reward you richly, Ivan. Because what though art telling the Czar is indeed great tidings."

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/7029/civ4screenshot00031zu.th.jpg (http://img385.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00031zu.jpg)
The siege of Timbuktu
Unknown artist

"No it is not, my Lord. Forgive me!", Ivan now almost whispered. "Hear now what I tell you. The day after our messengers returned we heard of the slaughter of Timbuktu. The ancient capital of the Mali is no more Lord. The Keshiks shut the people of Timbuktu into their proud town and slaughtered every single one." Ivan hardly managed to hold his tears. "They burned it, they destroyed it, Lord. And now they come upon us".

"Enough now, Ivan" the Czar cried. "I do not believe any word you say. A Keshik will never touch Russian soil. Mongolia needs us."

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/3949/civ4screenshot00055pg.th.jpg (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00055pg.jpg)
To war, Lord of Cossacks!
Blastoid, famous Mongolian painter

And as he spoke he could hear a strong and cold wind coming up from the south. Turning to the window he decided - too near for Mali territory - it had to be fires that he saw twinkling far behind the woods. And he perceived it would not be smoke of some camp fire he smelled, carried to him by the south wind. And he knew suddenly that the drums he had noticed since early in the evening could as well be the roaring hooves of a company of Keshiks hunting through is woods.

"All my fears have come true, Ivan. They are coming!", the Czar whispered, ran through the lodes of his palace, summoning guards, disappearing to the north.

http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/9083/civ4screenshot00071cx.th.jpg (http://img372.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00071cx.jpg)
A Threat from the South
Discovered in the ruins of a Russian village, unknown artist

The Scepter of Mongolia (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/STR_01_AD-1160.Civ4SavedGame)

The only really eventful year has been 1112. In this year I did the following:
- Discovered Feudalism
- Adopted Vassalage
- Traded Monarchy to Peter for Sailing and Polytheism and 140 Gold
- Continued research with Calendar, to profit from Bananas and Sugar
- Razed Timbuktu, proud capital of Mali and slaughtered Mansa Musa
- Declared war on Peter, leader of Russia

The following years I, Khan Pvblivs IV spent on recovering from the siege of Timbuktu and pillaging at the borders to Novgorod.

Our preys and traded gold lasted for 5 years. Enough to discover Calendar in 1148. We are currently researching Currency for markets and we keep growing and appear to start the annihilation of Russia, last of the three kingdoms on our soils.

Please note that I commanded to build a settler in Karakorum. I as well stationed an axe in the jungle. This is the ideal next city site. The next therafter is the coastal site we already discussed north west of PVBLIVS Fury.

North of Novgorod there are the most precious resources to pillage, including an iron and some villages/towns. If they are gone we can turn Russia into a desert while we use our somehow stable economy on more and greater glorious Mongolian cities!

I will take the scepter tonight and ravage the Russian lands. They shall know sorrow and fear.
Khan Blastoid

Great write up, conqueror of capitals!

Did you pillage the copper mine near the boarder?

I did but their iron is still mined

1160 North of New Sarai
They had carried his farther back tied between two horses in a linen tarp.
Khan Blastoid stared at the flames of the funeral pier as his fathers corpse was engulfed by the flames. His fathers, no, now his, stallion nuzzled against his shoulder.
He to felt the grief, and he to thirsted for revenge.

That night as the flames of the pier turned into coals the living leaders of the Mongol land convened in the commander’s tent, now flying the banner of the Khan. On a map drawn out on the ground Blastoid lays out the plan to cripple the Russian empire. The idea was to send out two forces. 3000 Keshiks will meet near the ruins of Timbuktu and then move to the northeast around the mountains to a fertile populated valley beneath a Russian city of Yaroslavl. The valley will be burned crippling the Russians commerce and drawing out defenders to save there dying peasant. The Keshiks are then to fight off any counter to their plundering and move north to the iron mines and burn them. To get to and destroy the iron mines was the key, the hinge which the war lay on. Without iron and copper the Russians would have no counter for Keshiks and they would eventual fall. The second force will consist of 5000 swords with a few thousand Keshik scouts. They will march directly on Novgorod and burn it to the ground, then continue north to the most weakly defended city in the Russian heartland. They key is to cripple the Russians before they learn the knowledge of long bows, making their cities much more difficult to burn. If two or three major cities could be taken, just like the Mali. The Russians may smolder for a while but there fires would eventually be ground out.

1166 The Keshik raiders in the southern Russian lands encounter a Russian force moving south unlike any they had seen before. They consist of chariots and a new device called a catapult. The force is easily destroyed but is followed by horsemen much like ours but without the ability to cover terrain quickly. In all 1 horseman, a chariot and 1 catapult die opposed to the loss of 1 Keshik and drawing and plans of the catapults are sent back to Karakoum for the scribes to study. Blastoid learns from the scribes that his is the 3rd largest kingdom in the world and Peters is the smallest. He knows soon we will be behind no other and all will bow to him
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/2755/scorched411pc.th.jpg (http://img90.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched411pc.jpg)

1172 Something called Notre Dame is built in a Foreign Land

1178 Russian scouts appear outside of Turfan and are trampled under Keshik hooves. Khan Blastoid's orders the building of two workboats in PVBLIVS Fury as he envisions it as a city teeming with food to support many scholars and merchants who are tightly controlled to fund and research new weapons of destruction

1190 Keshik columns arrive in the Russian valley and start to burn the outline villages. Much gold is taken in the coming years

1202 A new coin is introduced in Mongol lands; it is commonly called the Ralph after Khans head placed on one side. A Keshik stallion decorates the other side. Scribes in Karakoum and Turfan start to study the recovered pieces of catapults to discover the secrets of construction


1214 North of Yaroslavl
Khal Strauss crests the wooded hill, smoke rises on the horizon and the tangy smell of iron is in cold Dawn air. He brushes the ice from his beard and stares at the minds below. Not only are there slaves working the bellows but spears guarding the shafts as well.
“May the horse lord make this dawn red” He cries for battle and 3000 Keshiks drop upon the mines, many impaled on spears but they come and come, the spears are routed ever trampled by hooves or arrows pushed throw there backs.
Khal Strauss notices two Keshiks coming from the south as his men collapse the last of the shafts. They come bearing news that the siege of Novgorod has begun and they have a new mission. The Russians have horses, find there source and burn it to the ground.


1220 Novgorod
Khan Blastoid stares at the walled city of Novgorod; it is a sight to behold. A walled city with 4000 archers dotting its walls. As is the duty of any Khan he is ready to start the assault. The khan brings his horse to the front of 1000 young Keshiks; these unlike others are built for speed and daring rather than for power. There job is to distract the archers on the wall, focusing the best ones to the north walls of the city before 5000 swordsmen charge in and storm the city from the south. 1000 more Keshik wait in the woods to clean up any troops that flee from battle. The plan is brave and will cost lives, but with it the city should burn. And so the charge begins……
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/1200/scorched638gd.th.jpg (http://img86.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched638gd.jpg)
The world is sideways now and the Khan can see the pools of blood forming beneath him. They made it, they actually made it around the city walls, killing many archers and still a few hundred Keshiks live, though this one will not for much longer. From the spot he lays he can see most of the battlefield. The charge of the swords was elemental in rage, and though many died the walls were broken, the defenders killed and the city is now burning with a black flame.
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3269/scorched448qc.th.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched448qc.jpg)
Khan Blastoid feels regret slipping through his fingers as his breath becomes ragged. His revenge is only partially complete. But when his Keshiks bring his body to his son, he will have reason to revenge the slaying of his father and Peter will have even more reason to fear. As the smoke is ripped northward by the wind the khan’s eyes close and the burning of Novgorod is done.

Peter has begun to feel our bite but much more is left to do.
We have hopefully deprived him of both iron and copper, but as he is not fully scouted we do not know for sure. We do know he has horses and if we can we should liberate him of the use of this resource. I fear he is getting close to feudalism which would mean long bowman and a much more difficult time taking cities, I think we need to move fast to take at least another two cities to truly cripple him. With a little time for healing we should have a force large enough to raze 1 city, more forces may be needed to take more. Yaroslavl has only two defenders currently so it may be the next target.

Our economy is still solid. I did a few things of note here. I put tow scientist in Turfan to help trigger a great scientist and because it was near its happiness limit. PVBLIVS Fury is going to be a great GP city and a strong production city as well. All 3 sea resources have been workboated and its population is building rapidly. Most cites are still producing units though the higher commerce ones may want to build markets soon.

There is a barbarian city near the location of our next city. There are two Keshiks already in Turfan to help take this problem out when the time comes. There is barbarian axeman moving towards Ning-Hsai and a Russian horseman that has beat two of our units (the last one when I had 95% odds) just north of New Sarai.

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/9549/scorched452mx.th.jpg (http://img86.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched452mx.jpg)
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/9375/scorched460yt.th.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorched460yt.jpg)

Sounds like an good set of turns blastoid. I'm enjoying the storytelling as much as the game guys, great stuff. Got the save and playing.

Well I might wish I could spin a tale such as the others, but I'll keep it short and sweet.

More a rule of small things than sweeping change. Our scholars have learnt the secrets of Construction and Literature. Rumor has it that a Great Library is planned for Turfan, alas the Khan has passed on and it remains to be seen if the new Khan has the same vision.

The Khan called for all those of knowledge of the Russian steppes from their forebears and determined that Rostov would be the source of Russia's horsemen. Strike here he ordered. And those of fit body did set forth for Rostov, however few Keshik riders remained of sound body and they did straggle behind the foot soldiers.

Close to home a force of Keshik laid seige to Vandal, the barbarian city. A bloody seige ended amongst the smoldering ruins of the town, with barely a rider left. None-the-less settlers saw the land and decided it would be Mongol hereafter. With sight of barbarian horsemen and to counter the Russians, the Khan called for the drafting of warriors armed with spear.

One of great wisdom, Hypatia did appear from the scholars at Turfan and thought to pass on his learning in a great academy of science in the captial.

Yet the Khan was not without great anger and many citizen felt the sting of leather in Turfan and New Sarai.

And with his final moments he received word that the magnificent armies of Mongolia had begun the seige of Rostov. At last he could rest with the thought that his legacy would live on with his heir.

127799

Wow, this game is already back to me? Great job guys, Mongolia seems to be on its way to conquer its continent.

I will grab the save later today (got a bit of a hangover now), expect the report sometime tonight

I would put the acadamy and the great library in the same city.
Though I would be surprised if we get the Great library the cash not getting it produces could be usefull as well. If we do get it, it would be a great help to our cause. I would be a little carefull with the whip in our larger non food rich cities now as it can hurt our commerece in the long run

Good point about whip use blastoid, I'm pretty sure I confined use to food rich citys - for that matter P-Fury is still a good place to whip and get infrastructure in quick smart. Same with the city I built just north of there, once the borders pop on it. The same again for the northern most city IIRC.

You are right PVBLIVS Fury with all those food resources and the mines is made for the whip

Great turns, guys!

But as you're all that fast, please note that I might be not able to play until Sunday.

As for technologies. I would go for caravels fast. The faster we discover distant lands, the less problems we'll have with keeping up in technologies. We'll have problems with this anyway. We don't even have the greatest army to force someone to give us techs. :(

Need :hammer: better :hammer: economy :hammer: !!!!!

Optics takes us throiugh machinary which we wil need for macemen to finish peter off.

I do not rember our tech off the top of my head so should we look at
metal casting-machinary- optics then civil service (for macemen)

The Updated Raze Count

Khan Strauss is in a two way tie at the top lead with 5 cities razed, 4 Malinese and 1 barbarian (his four in one turnset leads the most razed in one turn catagory)
Khan Blastoid has razed 5 cities 1 egyptian 2 malinese, 1 russian and 1 barbarian
Khan Ralph has razed 4 cities, 2 egyptian cities, 1 malinese and 1 barbarian
Khan PvbLIVS has razed 2 city, the egyptian capital, and the Malinese capital
Khan Kanga has razed 1 city, a barbarian[/QUOTE]

Sorry guys, but I won't be able to play until tomorrow evening (GMT). Ralph, if you can play before then, go ahead and I'll take the turn after you

Sorry I cant play to Sunday evening either so take your turnset as normal and I will play / post Monday night.

<ping>

So what now, guys? Are you still alive? I am waiting impatiently for reports from the great Khans! :hammer:

;)

Well I was waiting for Staruss' turns, if he hasn't posted by tomorrow I will take the save.

Ralph

A Khan who sleeps to long wakes up with his tent gone and his riches plundered

-------------------

OK, I am off to work uK time, I will play / post tonight (UK Time) either from the last save or Strauss' report if available

Can't wait for your report!

:band:

OK quick plan check before I play later tonight.

1. Destroy Rostov thereby denying horses to Peter. Then move Keshiks west for pillaging duties

Question are we happy to Pillage villages etc for cash. I say yes as it will be a while before we settle up there and the cash is good.

Why is Karakorum building a worker(nearly complete), shouldn't it be going straight for a market (or settler) as far as I can tell we have more than enough workers ???

2. Complete market / Courhouse builds use :whipped: as required then build a settler (from Publius fury) for the spot pre-marked in the Jungle.

Nurture our economy

Research MC to Machinery.

1. Destroy Rostov thereby denying horses to Peter. Then move Keshiks west for pillaging duties

Question are we happy to Pillage villages etc for cash. I say yes as it will be a while before we settle up there and the cash is good.

Why is Karakorum building a worker(nearly complete), shouldn't it be going straight for a market (or settler) as far as I can tell we have more than enough workers ???

2. Complete market / Courhouse builds use :whipped: as required then build a settler (from Publius fury) for the spot pre-marked in the Jungle.

Nurture our economy

Research MC to Machinery.

Plan sounds good.
I would pillage villages as it will be a long time if ever if ever in some of the locations.



A mongol peasant will work hard
but why make our own people work when we can just enslave the craven Russians hiding behind their city walls

Well the Grand Council was puzzled, Khan Strauss had left camp to raise Rostov and steal the Russians fine horses. But he had disappeared in the Wilderness. The Code of the Horse laid down the rules for the Passing of the Khanship. However it only foresaw the Death of a Khan either in Battle or from a Challenge. Disappearance was unknown, after much thought they proclaimed.

“Khan Ralph had already laid challenge for the Leadership – He is not named Khan but is given 10 turns of the moon to Ride into Russian lands, if he finds the fate of Khan Strauss he will return for a decision. If not he is to complete Khan Strauss' charge and raise Rostov and pillaging all he encounters. If successful he may stand in the challenge circle and fight any warrior for the right of Leadership. Go now”

Khan Ralph replied” I shall do as you decree, whilst I am away build me fit nation with laws and trading for whomever will lead the tribe. Drive the men hard with the whip so they are strong for war when called”

Khan Ralph moved out to Rostov anda battalion of Swordsmen proved their worth to ride horses destroying the cities Archers cowering behind the walls like the dogs they were.

The Keshiks followed up torching the city as they slaughtered claiming a 180 gold in Plunder

Turn 270 (1280 AD)
Karakorum begins: Market
Spearman promoted: Cover
Spearman promoted: Combat II
Swordsman defeats (1.92/6): Russian Archer

Turn 271 (1286 AD)
Keshik promoted: Combat I
Keshik defeats (0.30/6): Russian Archer
Keshik defeats (3.60/6): Russian Catapult
Keshik defeats (6.00/6): Russian Catapult
Captured Rostov (Peter)
Razed Rostov
Rostov lost
Swordsman promoted: City Raider III
PVBLIVS Fury grows: 8
Swordsman defeats (0.60/6): Russian Horse Archer

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/rostyov.jpg
On the borders of New Saria a small Russian raiding party were defeated

Turn 272 (1292 AD)
Spearman loses to: Russian Horse Archer (0.48/6)
Axeman defeats (5.00/5): Russian Horse Archer
Keshik promoted: Combat III
Beshbalik finishes: Axeman

Turn 273 (1298 AD)
Beshbalik begins: Market
Swordsman promoted: City Raider I
Swordsman promoted: City Raider II
Samarqand grows: 2
Keshik defeats (0.30/6): Barbarian Horse Archer


Khan Ralph learned that no news of Khans Strauss had been heard so he returned pillaging lands as he went 66 gold from cottages leaving his Keshiks to carry on the good work. There was much activity on our Northern Borders giving our troops valuable experience
Turn 274 (1304 AD)

Turn 275 (1310 AD)
Karakorum grows: 8
Turfan grows: 8
PVBLIVS Fury finishes: Market
New Sarai grows: 3
New Sarai finishes: Library

Turn 276 (1316 AD)
PVBLIVS Fury begins: Settler
New Sarai begins: Granary

Turn 277 (1322 AD)
Research begun: Machinery
Swordsman defeats (5.34/6): Barbarian Warrior
Swordsman defeats (2.58/6): Russian Longbowman
Swordsman loses to: Russian Longbowman (6.00/6)
Keshik loses to: Barbarian Axeman (5.00/5)

Turn 278 (1328 AD)
PVBLIVS Fury begins: Settler
New Sarai begins: Granary

Turn 277 (1322 AD)
Research begun: Machinery
Swordsman defeats (6.00/6): Barbarian Warrior

Turn 278 (1328 AD)
Keshik defeats (5.10/6): Barbarian Axeman

Turn 279 (1334 AD)

Turn 280 (1340 AD)
Karakorum grows: 5
Beshbalik grows: 9
Old Sarai grows: 5
New Sarai grows: 4
Spearman defeats (2.08/4): Barbarian Archer

On his return he saw that the Health of the nation was good, laws in place and markets needing a touch of :whipped: to be complete

Turn 280 (1340 AD)
Karakorum grows: 5
Beshbalik grows: 9
Old Sarai grows: 5
New Sarai grows: 4
Spearman defeats (2.08/4): Barbarian Archer

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/endofreport.jpg
End of Turn

Rostov raised for 180 with no losses :cool:. A further 66 (at least ) from villages and a Healthy band of Keshiks are up north to carry on the good work. I checked on the Iron (no mine earlier) but might be hooked up now.

Lots of cities have popped and we can whip in lots of markets right now if desired. I would recommend wating until it doesn't cost as many pop as at present (or the city is unhappy) as other wise it will knock our economy back too far. Barbarian long bowmen are about :eek:

Metal casting in. machinery in 7

Well I figure the roster as this currently:

1) Strauss <<== Up now
2) Ralph_Jackson <- Just Played
3) Pvblivs <- On Deck
4) blastoidstalker
5) Kanga_DU

Well to again put an emphasis on the important things in your life ;) ...:

You're up, Khan Strauss!

*waitingwiththeknifeintheback*

Publius I think you should take a set if you are ready.

ralph

Actually not. At the weekend I'll not be at home. Maybe tuesday or wednesday but not before...

Blastoid should go for it. I'll grab it in the beginning of the next week when you let me :).

I'll play sometime this weekend

Hey guys

sorry for my absence. I participated in an exchange with Scotland last week and kind of underestimated the amount of time I had to put in it. I was away from 8 AM until 12 AM for the whole week:eek: But the Scots are gone now so I can play again. If blastoid wants to play his turnset first, I'll wait for him before I do

I am just about to start to play the turnset. So I will go ahead. I may have to do the write up later tonight so 1t may 6 or so hours before everything is done. Now that i know who will follow it will make the story a bit clearer as well.

The bastard sits at the grand table waiting for the feast to begin. All the other warlords sit at smaller tables to his left and right, with chicken legs, boar shank and candied banana’s presented in from of them. But these all pale to the grand table where only the Bastard Khan sits, a full six foot long boar spread in front of him split open with his juices still boiling
“It is time to eat!!!” He digs his knife in, ripping the juiciest flesh to east.

“How did it come to this” the warlord Strauss wonders looking at the behemoth at the grand table. He must be over 400 pounds now. If he were to try to ride a horse, its legs would buckle and snap. What a monster this man has become. Then the Strauss remembers to dig into his own food as he knows the bastard Khans rule, those who do not eat when the khan eats are skewered and fed to the dogs”.

Chewing on delicious peace of boar he remembers what when this man first came to be done. The Old Khans Ralph legitimate children died one by one, in hunting accidents, in war even when sleeping in there own beds until none remained, only the bastard. He was the illegitimate son of Khan, conceived of a daughter of a petty Keshik from the Blastoid Khan after a war celebration. The Khan felt he was responsible for his drunken lust and kept the child in the palace with the legitimate children but he never ate at there table, the only time he road with the Khan was during the hunt.

Then one day the Khan died and chaos ensued. The bastard laid claim to the Khanship and five great warlords challenged him. He killed each one by one in battle. The next morning 10 other warlords were swing by ropes and many soldiers never woke from there sleep.

And the bastard rode upon his father's horse.

But he became fat quickly. The food at the table was always more appealing than the war to the north. He sent the most powerful of his warlords up there as far away as possible. Reap there land off all food and coin and send it back to this house. He said. With there longbows we would die on there walls. I am not a coward but I am not a fool, I would be Khan if I was. Raid there lands, take way there precious furs and silver, burn there towns. And if any one of them sets outside there city gates, kill them and burn their flesh.

And so the great warlords of the PVBLIVS and Kanga clans did as was bid. The stormed the great silver mines of Moscow, burned hunting camps of the Icy marmot river. The pillaged the towns of St Petersburg and except for a few axe defending some dear, No Russian troops came outside to challenge them.

Then he turned his mind to his own lands and his own people. Those that he did not trust he turned into slaves, evicting them from there homes and putting them into labor camps where they worked unending erecting markets for the soul purpose of bringing the Khan more food. He forced several thousand follows of clan Ralph to march in the jungle and start a new city. They were pushed on banana and sugar plantations created to satisfy the bastard ever increasing apatite.

And the bastard ate, and ate and ate, always consuming, more food, more people and the glory that was Mongol was starting to fade.

His face is red now, red with lust of food. He must drink the wine now
The Strauss smiles
His face turns redder and redder and then to purple, he starts to scream but no sounds come out of his mouth. His throat is constricting now, Strauss thinks, soon he will not be able to breath. The last shallow whimper of the Bastard voice is cut short like the last wisp of air from a bladder. The khan stands and all fall silent
The Bastard falls, his weight splitting the great table in two. The skewered boar rolls on top of his writing body.
The Strauss nods, a few arrows whistle through the room. It is amazing how few I actually need to kill to do this.

Everyone is still in shock, the Strauss stands from his table far to the right of the bastard walks over to the quivering whale. He unsheathes his sword and removes the head of the bastard.

This was no true Khan, the only weapon he could wield was a whip, I will wield a sword and make the world tremor and the sound of our hooves again” And those still alive in the roam roar with approval screaming in blood lust Khan Strauss, Khan Strauss, Khan Strauss!.

This was the turn of the Whip
settler Whipped in PVBLIVS Fury and then settled as the city of Tabriz to take advantage of the sugar, gems and banana's.
Markets whipped in every major citry except for beshbalik and Karakoum. The bastard does love his food
Herioc epic started in PVBLIVS fury as it will make a great GP factory and these guys will come cheap for now.
forges begun in some cities, they wil incrase our happyness and make military profuction more effective.
Machinary completed now research civil service for macemen.
In the last turn I found and removed a longbowman settler escourt in russain lands. The worker needs to be escourted back and some of the keshiks up there are in bad need of healing.

Got it, will play tomorrow

Hey guys. I want to upgrade this swap up to a skip. Please skip me until nex Monday. I've got a biiiig project, a stag night at Friday at Soccer-Berlin and a wedding at Satturday (not mine) to fit into my schedule.

Thought I could sneak in this evening and play but this won't work... :sad:

But Pvblivs Khan will keep watching you and is very eager to play on :hammer:

, a stag night at Friday at Soccer-Berlin

Now projects and weddings we might not forgive you for but the stag night is always worthy of a skip! go for it :vomit:

Ralph

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

So why not we have Kanga go after Strauss.

Agreed. *twitches impatiently* :twitch:

Ok It seems Strauss has gotten lost in the woods or poisened again.
I would suggest Kanga take the scepter, just check the post right before you do Kanga and post that you are playing.

Ok It seems Strauss has gotten lost in the woods or poisened again.
I would suggest Kanga take the scepter, just check the post right before you do Kanga and post that you are playing.

My 48 hours are not yet over.

However, I will indeed need to swap with Kanga. I expected to be done with most of my schoolwork by now, but my project team isn't really cooperating, so I need to put some work in there to prevent it from going down.

Sorry for being so unreliable these past weeks, but the projects will all be finished friday.

No probs Strauss, I'll play tonight (thats about 8hrs). Best of luck with the projects in the meantime.

You'll be glad for the swap Strauss, you'll get the turns with cats in Russia. :ar15:

Quiet turns, mostly troop movements and worker directions. I whipped in the forge @ Turfan as it had grown into unhappy annyhow. Probably best left unwhipped this next set of turns. Started a Coloseum @ Old Sarai, about the only option for more :D and market @ New Sarai. Think about whipping both in shortly. Whipped library in Samarquand to speed the border pop, will recover quickly once it has expanded.

CoL (also known as Civil Service, yes really in some parts of the world...) finally in, started Drama for Theatres and more :D .

Not a lot else really one or two skirmishes. Lost one Keshik on the inherited turn, thats about it. Moved and consolidated troops in Russia. Cats on the way up there.

Oh and I'd whip the NE in P-Fury as soon as you can, that city will grow like um.... something that grows really really fast. :p

CoL finally in, ...

I don't believe anything you say. Right save? :eek:

Nothing to see here... go back to believing me.

Code of Laws has been researched long before!

:) I think it was civil service, which I had started researching for macemen

Kanga ... ??? Where ... is ... the save?

Oops. :blush: My apologies for the oversight.

129508

Got it, I will play it tomorrow.

I thought that PVBLIVS was going to go next, then Strauss you will be after that?

I swapped with Kanga, so I'm up now

Right. Good luck, Strauss.

Pvblivs is going to play when he's up next, not before :D

Ok you're up since long Strauss. When will you have played? :)

Wow, didn't realize it was already three days. I blame the heat (it's like I'm living in a huge sauna!). I'll play in an hour or so and have the report up tomorrow morning

3 is a little bit ... ummm ... wrong. It's actually 7 days since you first said you got it and even longer since the last save :)

But don't bother. We've got a big world championship to entertain us with until you finish.

Whole Europe is a sauna. This office where I'm sitting right now at least becomes one every summer afternoon ;)

It is sad that our team (the USA) put up such a pitiful performance in the first game. It is fine if we lose to a good team, but we should at least attack them once we are down

Don't bother. Soccer isn't that popular in USA. That way it is only fair that your performance is worse that that of those, that love celebrate soccer :D Look even at Brazil. They performed so bad for such a great team. Maybe it's really the heat.

I'm very curious though how Germany will perform today. Hopefully we do our 4 goals this time without to much trouble for our own keeper ;)

But it also represents a pattern in a national team underachieving. Look at our basketball team. This is a sport The USA is passionate about but our athletes can not find the time and effort to form a real team and we now consistently lostwo more international sports. The same has been true in hockey and baseball.

I never recongnized such a thing as I am not a huge fan of national or international team sports. But maybe you're right, that there's some sort of psycho-national correlation ;)

I for myself am looking forward to watching those best of the current soccer games.

Now that two tomorrow mornings have passed again: How do you define "tomorrow morning", Strauss? :hammer:

;)

maybe u guys should skip him, i'm anxious to hear what happens next.

I believe he's lost in soccer :band:. Ok ...

I will take the save tomorrow (Friday) evening and play, if Strauss doesn't complain about it until then. He's long over his 24/48.

He's long over his 24/48.
:mischief:

Seriously, I was really expecting this week to be a breeze after last week, but it's been quite disappointing so far. I could have played it through quickly, but I wanted to put some decent time into it, especially needing to catch up with turn reports.
With the weekend approaching though, I'm optimistic about my free time;)

I'll try to catch it when I get home tomorrow morning (yes, morning!). However, if I somehow can't make it again, don't feel too guilty about playing the save Pvblivs:p

I've got it. And will play now. Step aside, Strauss :hammer:

The Scepter to the land of the Natives, a people taming horses (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/STR_01_AD-15203.Civ4SavedGame)

"Step aside, Strauss!" yelled Pvblivs IV. He was enraged by the current Khan who had not achieved, not even begun any notable work worthy for a great ruler of Mongolia. None of his guards protected Strauss Khan. None stepped into the way of Pvblivs. No one held him back.

Khan fell. The spear that stuck in his body inflicted a burning in his stomack that felt like fire. That was the work, Pvblivs Khan achieved during his own reign. Well - a single Russian unit did he kill, a single mine guarded by these swordmen could be pillaged under his rule. He was it who introduced the great Drama into the kingdom. He set a plan to soon upgrade Mongol Keshiks to more armored variant scientists would call Knights. And he ordered a massive troop movement into the north. Under his reign, nothing was achieved. But when he died, the Khan felt that something could be done against the enemy of many Mongolian generations before: The Russians. "So be it! Let the siege of Petersburg begin." were his last words.

It should be mentioned that when he died a grave atmosphere dominated the tent, the camp, the whole Empire. For only years before they met a knew fate. The Indian empire. Rumors have been spread that they are by far the most powerful empire ever met by a Mongol.

http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/1332/civ4screenshot00098uw.th.jpg (http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00098uw.jpg)
Hail me, lord of horses. For I am Gandhi, and though shalt perish through my superiority.

Wow, India is strong!

I'll pick up the file and play it after Italy-USA finishes.

So, they did finish. How about you, Strauss :mischief:

I do have one question before I play. Pvblivs, some time ago you suggested not researching Guilds to keep Keshiks as long as possible for pillaging purposes, but now you started researching it. I thought it was a good idea to keep Keshiks instead of Knights. Did we drop this plan?

Well you're right. I actually forgot that. Nevertheless I considered two things:

a) we've got a long way to Russia so it lasts a looooong time to get there with maces. And Keshiks do not harm anyone except for pillaging.

b) Maces are weaker than Knights (unpromoted).

c) We should get Russia under control rather quickly now. That means we need military that does impress them.

I know that I supported this no-Knights thing. But now that it is apparent, I think it's not workable. What do you think?

I agree that going knights is OK at this point. I would just not promote many current Keshiks (only aboive exp 10), use those as a limited pilaging force later.

I think Blastoid's suggestion is on the money.

The commander watched from a distance as the last of the horsemen fell before the Shangian bows. It reminded him of 6 years earlier, when he was still a young soldier. They were overconfident after burning St. Petersburg, the city which bore the name of the Russian czar. They were closing in on Yaroslavl' when they saw Russian bowmen evacuating the city, exposing themselves in the open field. The Keshik brigade quickly broke away from the main attack force and followed the bowmen south, with another Keshik brigade approaching from the west. Surrounded and outnumbered, the Russians decided that their only hope was to dig in and defend to the last man.

The Keshiks from the west attacked first and expected a rollover, but because of a lack of coordination the Russians held their ground firmly and the mighty Keshiks were annihilated, only a few surviving the slaughter. The second attack, from the north, had a hard time as well, even though the Russians had been exhausted by the first attack and barely stood ground. In the end however, it were the Russians who came out victorious and had slaughtered thousands of Keshiks. Only one last brigade was left, moving towards Shangian lands.

And now, 6 years later, he was the last remaining Keshik. The mighty Keshiks, who had crushed Egypt and Mali, brought Russia to beg on its knees for peace, and established Mongolia's dominance on the continent, were no more.

The Great Khan had destroyed St. Petersburg and the Shangian stronghold, started the siege of Yaroslavl', cleared Mongolian waters of barbarian galleys, established contact with Persia and developed a new type of horseman, with iron armor, and more powerful, albeit slower than the ancient Keshik.

But he would always be remembered as the Khan who had caused the downfall of Mongolia's most respected and most powerful class.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, that's one less problem to worry about I guess:rolleyes:
In my defence, every time my Keshik lost I had good to really good odds... Maybe CIV is mad at me for ignoring it for like 3 weeks;)

Positive news is the razing of St. Petersburg and Shangian. Yaroslavl' is under siege, although we will need to wait for Macemen to come up to beat the Longbowmen there (both of them have City Garrison II and the city is located on a hill). There is also a Maceman at Aryan, but he will need some support to take the city (also on a hill). Guilds has been researched, and the first Knights are being built in Mongolia.

Contact with the Persians has been established. As expected, they are also more powerful than us, but less powerful and advanced than India.

It's going to be very hard to achieve our conquest goal, but it can still be won. We are getting closer to India and Persia in terms of power, although we need to cross the sea to invade them, which will complicate things. Also, Russia is proving to be quite a tough opponent, although it is only a matter of wearing them down. This will take time however.

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/6431/civ4screenshot00962um.th.jpg (http://img329.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00962um.jpg)
The Russian Front

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/2063/civ4screenshot00974dw.th.jpg (http://img443.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00974dw.jpg)
Mongolia

With the chaos of the past few weeks, with skips and swaps all over the place, it's time to bring some order back to the playing sequence.

Roster:
1) Strauss --> just played
2) Ralph_Jackson --> UP!
3) Pvblivs --> on deck
4) blastoidstalker
5) Kanga_DU

Unfortunate about the Keshiks, Strauss. Sounds like you need to make offerings to the RNG God. Drawing out war with Russia might not be so bad if it allows us a chance to trade and catch up to the civs we are yet to declare against...

Hear hear! Strauss has finally made his moves. I think we should concentrate on growing now and researching what Cyrus doesn't have. We need techs.

And we need to found many cities now. Our economy is still a mess. We need to fix that!

Thansk for the Roster, take this as a got it and will aim to play on Wednesday evening (have football to watch tonight)

Ralph

When will it be Wednesday evening in Edinburgh? ;)

will aim to play on Wednesday evening
Ralph
Turns have been played last night and report will be posted tonight.

So yes Wednesday is still on wednesday here in sunny Scotland.

More seriously I will be out of the loop from 23rd June for at least a week so please autoskip me until I post that I am back on-line!!

ralph

Ah, just wanted to ask. If you post soon, I'll play this evening. Tomorrow I will have no time.

Unfoirtuntely it will be post work then kids to bed (this is what left me insufficent time after playing last night to report ) so I would guess around 2200 GMT

Ralph

Humm, that'll be around 23 for me. Could be late but we'll see, I think I can postpone my sleep a little ;)

Pre Turn Report
Not terribly themed but I had a Publius ready and raring to go so speed seemed of the essence

Issues

We are still :hammers: poor and need to expand, our economy can handle expansion if controlled.

Our Macemen can’t take down Russian cities without severe losses (which as we are :hammers: poor are hard to bear) so attacking Russia will have to wait for Knights. If we look at Yaroslavl even with catting down all its defences are current attackers would just bounce off so they go on to Pillaging duty

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/yaro.jpg

Barb Cities now have Longbows in them so we need to clamp down on Fog so no more spawn

Ning has war weariness unhappiness

Plan

Try and tackle the above!! We have stacks of workers so we may use some just to remove fog! (Don’t worry I am not bonkers!!)

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/workerslots.jpg


Turn 0-1 Catapult despatched to Ning to tackle unhappiness, move from food to hammers in Ning as no point in it growing yet and we need its forge.

Switch Publius Fury from galley (0 hammers invested as Knight seems more important)

Turn 2

Meet Caesar, no need to tell you he is more advanced and powerful than us

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/caesar.jpg

Turn 3

Barbarian Longbow man pops up!!

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/barblongbow.jpg

Turn 4

Our Mace destroys Barbarian Longbow

Turn 5

Continue Pillaging around Yaroslavl

Turn 6-7

Coffee as I clear fog and despatch the Knights that have started to our Northern Front

Turn 8-10

Discover Barb cities are no joke!!

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/babrnojoke.jpg

We now have 4 Knights heading north for Publius’ to apply the :hammer: with and Engineering is due in 1. No cities razed as this would have been moderately suicidal with the Knights that have only now appeared!!

Now who said all our Keshiks were dead??/ One was alive and well and is about to carry on the glorious tradition against a Barb Horse Archer

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/keshiksdead.jpg

Get ready with those horses here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/STR_01_AD-1610.Civ4SavedGame)

I somehow messed up most of my screenshots. So now just a short writeup without many imagery from me:

I discovered Engineering and Banking. We're now researching on Music which leads us to Military Tradition.

Further more I razed this Russian enclave to the west, I forgot the name and the screen is lost :sad:

Knights are now coming from all over Mongolia. Currently many knights are pillaging in Russia until enough are there to achieve something.

Last but not least from this situation - the only screenshot:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Civ4ScreenShot0013.JPG

Good turns Pvblivs. Now to get some life back in here

Roster:
1) Strauss
2) Ralph_Jackson
3) Pvblivs --> just played
4) blastoidstalker --> UP!
5) Kanga_DU --> on deck

Well I can't play it for another day or so in any case, so Blastoid gets some extra time it seems.... :p

Well, blastoid's 24-hour limit is up. And since I'm very strict in these things:mischief: , we move to the next player. Since I consider Kanga's post an auto-skip for at least today, so that means I'm up again! I'll try to squeeze it in before Spain-France, if I can't make it I'll play afterwards (or during if it's another dead-boring match).

Roster:
1) Strauss --> UP!
2) Ralph_Jackson --> auto-skipp until 30th June at least
3) Pvblivs --> on deck
4) blastoidstalker --> skipped for missing his turnset (shame on you!)
5) Kanga_DU --> auto-skipped