This will be another Five City Challenge game like RBD9, but on Monarch, played to include all the folks for whom there was no room in 9. 10 turns per player.

ROSTER:

Sirian
Ozymandous
shdwlord
Schnarrd
Carbon Copy
Grey Fox


OK, simple concept: we get five cities. Ever. No more, ever. Any additional settlers obtained from huts would have to be melded into the cities, and once we have five cities, any cities that want to defect to us have to be rebuffed. No capturing enemy cities, although razing is allowed.

I want to play the Iroquois for three reasons:
1) My luck with them has been just awful. I mean dreadfully bad. It's high time I got some kind of win with them.
2) The Iroquois were, in fact, made of five nations. Good match for 5CC.
3) I like purple. ;)

OK, some choices still possible to be made here, I want to hear from you guys playing. All victory conditions on the table, or take some off? What size world (the larger, the harder, for a 5CC, although huge is out because its just too sluggish) and what sort of land and climate? Random opponents or pick? Barbarians?

Our Five Glorious Tribes: :) :p :o :D :rolleyes:


- Sirian

But yeah, put me last, and yeah, skip me till 3, 4, or Infantry ends.

...Interesting. I've been reading Sirians posts since before i got to the Lurker Lounge. Hanging out at his website :)

This is just as much fun

Sounds like fun. Doesn't matter the settings, although the thought of a large continent or pangea(sp?) map and us only having 5 cities to work with does seem a tad more challenging.

Whatever the rest wants is fine with me. :)

IF the game isn't full, I would be honored to join you guys. Thanks.
:goodjob:

If it's full, no problem, so don't feel bad.

:hammer:

I'd like to have cultural, diplo, and space on the table, and domination disabled. I've never done the cultural or diplo win before, so it would be nice to see that happen, and letting the AI win by Domination would be no fun since we can't do much under our restrictions to stop it.

That's one vote for large map and one vote for disabling domination. Anybody else have thoughts or requests?

Dozer: yeah, you came a little late to the party. Early applicant gets the worm, and all that. Might be more games opening when the current round of nearly-over RBD games concludes.

- Sirian

I'd also like to vote for a large world map, but I'd like to have all victory conditions enabled, as I think that part of the challenge of OCC / FCC is to ensure that no one opponent gets too large (ie if he starts swallowing another civ, you use blocking tactics, etc to slow down the large civ). As for everything else, I'd just be happy with random - I like the surprise. :D

Just a note: Sirian, you might want to place me further down on the roster. I've been really busy and I hope that the turns in this are short (in fact I'm counting on it), because until RDB 3 ends I won't be able to join any more games - just too much to do. Hopefully I will finish my builder and benevolent turns today, however.

If you don't mind, can you put me on the roster for the next figurative non-large/huge map game you guys do. That'd be nice.

Thanks :hammer:

I think a large map would probably be best, it should give us enough room to choose the best spots for our cities. Pangea or continents, small islands would make optimum city placement harder. The higher the barbarians are set, the more difficult it will be for us. The AI will be expanding its cultural borders, not letting new camps spawn close to their core cities. I wouldn't mind raging barbarians, as it will slow down the AI's expansion if a stack of 20 horsemen attack their settler groups, but we will need a big enough garrison to deal with the same thing, and with only 5 cities, are economy could take a big hit.

As for victory conditions, I think we should leave them all enabled. The need for keeping 1 civ from a domination victory will create intersting challenges for us.

OK, here we go. :)

I swapped Ozy and Schnarrd in the turn order, to put Schnarrd later, as he requested. I took the requests under consideration and came up with this as the closest to consensus:

Large Map
Continents, 70% water
Wet, Mountainous
11 random opponents
Raging Barbarians

I'll play 30 turns to start, then 10 turns apiece from there on.


4000BC: We start in a grassy area, inland. I opt to send our scout west, he finds the shore and a goody hut he can reach next turn. With the shore right there, I'm thinking we should head inland with our starting settler, to leave room for another city by the sea. Better to have the capital inland, as well, as better to have it centralized.

3950BC: Our scout finds friendly settlers in the minor village. It is our lost brothers of the second Iroquois nation! I opt to continue to send our first settler south, and the second moves inland a bit to get better lands.

3900BC: If I found our capital here, it will squeeze our second settlement a bit, so I keep moving, one more square south. A LAKE! [dance] [party] We're going to be founding on fresh water! Sure, three turns late, but our second city will found on the same turn.

3850BC: Salamanca founded, starts a scout. Niagara falls founded, starts a scout. Both have a cattle in range, so both due to grow to size 2 in 7 turns. Somehow the worker got left behind a bit and is now working on lands at our northern coastal city. Oh well. :)

3700BC: Our scout spots a river!

3600BC: Two more scouts are produced. We spread out to explore. Both cities start temples.

3350BC: Our northern scout finds the Third Iroquois Nation (settler) at a minor village in the hills. Our second scout has gone east and found that the river from the west runs ALL THE WAY across our lands, just south of our capital. The third tribe is directed to head toward the river and yet more cattle.

3150BC: Grand River founded on the Rio Grande! ;)

3000BC: One of our scouts locates the Persian capital, not far south, maybe three city lengths away from Salamanca.

Late turns: more goody huts, we got Warrior code, 25 gold twice and maps twice. I swapped Niagara to a settler, and that settler founded Allegheny at the mouth of the Rio Grande, west of our capital. Salamanca built a temple, then our final settler, and a warrior. Niagara and Grand River built temples.

We discovered bronze working, traded 40 gold, Pottery, and 4gpt to Persia for Masonry (that's going to cost them the Pyramids!) All three of our big cities are now on spearmen. Niagara would be the place to build Colossus, which would give us an automatic golden age -- I don't see much sense trying to save it, as we may get into a war with Mounted Warriors anyway, and the early GA may help us out, with our five cities already founded. Salamanca would be the site for the Pyramids, it's even ready to start as soon as its spear finishes. Our two newer/minor towns need military protection, then temples and workers.

I can't believe all our cities are already founded! This new settler generosity out of goodie huts really gives Expansionistic civs the oomph they were lacking earlier! Like... wow, a couple of those and you grow HUGE with one of these civs if you set your mind to it.

Four of our five cities are on fresh water (and all have rivers in range, though Salamanca is not actually on the river). We have two coastal towns, and a good mix of terrain. There were two gems off to the east but I deemed it not worth giving up closer, more secure, richer lands. We got a goodly number of hills and forests and grass and plains, some gold deposits, with luck, some iron and coal, too, maybe. We'll see. Nice rich lands, we should do OK.


- Sirian


Here's a peek at the Five Iroquois Nations in 2550BC:

Grey Fox is up, with Ozy on deck and shdwlord hanging around in the dugout. :)

Wow, our land is nice! :eek: I don't think I've ever seen such a good starting position. We should be able to grab tons of early wonders with such good land.

What a LOVELY start! So these settlers and armies from huts aren't just anecdotal, they're all over. Nice star pattern, great land, fresh water. (I sensed folks were looking for the 'Sirian touch' as far as colored dots for placement, but this does it one better :P)

Too bad empereror diff couldn't have got this good a start :crazyeyes

Charis

With 5 lux in the Russian heartland, and also two free settlers from huts, don't be too quick to declare this Iro start as "better", I'm not sure it is. It looks marvelous as far as fertility and early start, fresh water, etc, but RBD9 also has 3 cities on rivers.

And both have the !@#$! Persians next door! Arrgh! :p

Those 5 incense are worth a lot. A LOT. You can sell them over and over and over to big fat empires for tech, gold, peace, or resources. RBD10 is going to have to pray for a surplus of vital resources, or else it's going to be thin economically. At least here in 10 we're down in Monarch, and not plagued by the new trade penalties. It will be interesting to compare the results.


- Sirian


EDIT: oh yeah, almost forgot. This being a large map, the prices on everything will cost 1.5 times as much, too. I'm just hoping we're not so poor as to be running 40 turn research in the industrial age! I remember doing that in my OCC and sweating bullets as stacks of Egyptian cavalry and infantry 20 units tall marched on my poor little city from three directions. :) I'd have needed another 1000 years, at that rate, to get to the UN.

...and now able :D . With RBD4 out of the way, I can lift my moratorium on new games and join in this one. 4 finished about 1 round earlier than I had expected it to, so I won't even have to be skipped once on this one.

Hey Grey Fox, are you out there? It's been 24+ hours I believe (or am I miscounting?)

Let us know if you're still around. :)

Ozy, if you're set to go, post "Got it" and go ahead and take your turn. Grey Fox did a nice job in RBD8 on his turn, and also lives in Europe, so if he's on a standard daytime schedule it's very late over there and the forum may have been down during his available time. We'll cut him some slack and I'll flip the roster order around, rather than skip him this time.

Grey: we need to hear from you! What's going on? :)

- Sirian

Sorry, to keep you waiting... :(


I just woke up. I must have been sleeping or not online when this thread was started.


Seems like we are going to have a glorious country!


Let's build fortresses later!

I want to see a great wall of defenders protecting our land!

Sorry, I wasn't available to check back here yesterday after I posted my note. In any event "Got it". :)

EDIT: After reading back over the initial posts on this thread I guess I am the ":p " tribe, eh? :lol:

Not much to report...

2550 (IT) : Changed nothing (yeah right, following Sirian, you thought there would be problems? :p)

2510 (1) : Niagara Falls border expands (yeah it was that slow :D).

2470 (2) : Niagara Falls builds spear, starts Colossus (34 turns). Explorers find a TON of spices to the South, not that we will settle there just something to report. :)

2430 (3) : MMOW.

2390 (4) : Grand River border expands, Allegheny builds a warrior, starts a temple.

2350 (5) : Grand River builds a spearman, starts a worker. Salamanca builds a spearman, starts Pyramids (100 turns). Allegheny whips it's temple to completion.

Made contact with India. They don't have Masonry, Pottery or Warrior Code. They DO have Alphabet and The Wheel. I ask them what they want for either of their two techs and get a laundry list of demands.

The Wheel : Masonry, Pottery, 3 gpt and 21 gold (currently all we have and will produce). Same thing for Aplhabet. I tell them thanks but no thanks and leave.

2310 (6) : MMOW, Allegheny finishes temple, starts worker.

2270 (7) : Cattaraugus finishes warrior, starts temple.

2230 (8) : Cattaraugus whips temple. Grand River builds worker starts a barracks (figured it might be a good spot to build for everyone else).

India apparently bought or discovered Warrior Code (thnking they discovered it) from someone because they don't want it now. Not that I would have sold it to then since they only had 10 gp in their treasury anyway! :D

2190 (9) : Salamanca border expands. Cattaraugus temple finished, starts worker.

2150 (10) : Allegheny border expands.

Made contact with Japan. Sold Warrior Code to Japan for half their treasury (30 gold). They also have The Wheel for sale but want Pottery and Masonry for it. I figure we can wait a little longer.

Great Wonder Update: Colossus = 19 turns. Pyramids = 62 turns.

Notes for next leader...

- There is a worker outside Salamanca working on irrigating a grassland square. I had apparently imbibed in too much "peace pipe smoking" :smoke: and forgot that the irrigation would be useless in Despotism. You'll want to change him to mining that square. (I was thinking that with the bonus square all Sala would need would be one more good producing food square and it could use more forests to help build Pyramids).

- You may want to hurry and mine the grassland w/ shield square near Niagara Falls to help with Colossus production but it may be too little too late.

Roster order : shdwlord up next. Schnarrd on deck.

Those two whippings were good (get our borders on the front lines expanding ASAP, and lock in 1000 year culture bonus for early temples in all our cities) but we don't want any more! Penalty lasts 40 turns now, and all of these cities will be low-corruption mega producers eventually, so we don't need to be saddling ourselves with 80+ turns of multiple unhappiness.

An irrigated grassland is not a problem, leave it alone unless there are no other squares of equal value to improve. I'm NOT from the camp that says "only irrigate plains, only mine grass". Quite the opposite, I like to have a few irrigated grass lying around for immediate use when I get to Monarchy/Republic, unless the cities are so large or the lands so poor, that there are no surplus "good" tiles going unused. Also, spreading irrigation around a bit allows more access to irrigation in other places which may have higher need. Having a variety of tiles allows you to micromanage to run high food at times for rapid growth, or high shields (even food deficits) at times to speed an urgent project. This can only be done if you stay engaged in the cities, but I do that a lot. If someone hands off to me and every tile in a city has exactly two food, there's no way to adjust anything, like to trade two food for a whole turn of production by swapping to some mined plains, or to double the city growth rate the cost of just one turn lost on production on some big project (which might be made anyway with higher population).

Cattaraugus is kind of stuck, it's got all flood plains and hills, no choice there. Grand River has a lot of hills, so eventually it's going to be wanting extra irrigation on some grasslands, despite the cattle. Salamanca has mostly grass, so mostly it will want mines, but not everywhere. Same with Niagara. The best news about workers is that the AI is dumb and counts them as military units in evaluating your unit strength. :rolleyes: So building extra workers early can actually deter enemy attacks. Go figure. :)


- Sirian

got it

Shadow Lord silently slips into his tepee and ponders the direction his people need to take. Noting that the previous cheiftan had worked many brave warriors to death to increase the speed of building construction, Shadow decides the people would best benefit from a reign of peaceful relaxation.

1) 2110

2) 2070

3) 2030 Inspired by the leisurely building pace, the people of Allegheny produce a worker, and begin a barracks. Shadow decides to purchase a worker from Ghandi for 25 gold, sparing him from the destruction that will befall India eventually.

4) 1990

5) 1950

6) 1910

7) 1870 Grand River finishes barracks. Instantly, many braves come to the barracks to learn the ways of the spear.
8) 1830 Cattaraugus citizens note that braves get the best firewater, and finish a worker to construct roads so they too might partake in firewater. Then they begin barracks.

9) 1790

10) 1750

After a very quiet reign of getting ready to build a veteran army, scout exploration, and road construction, Shadow Lord mysteriously disappears with a squaw, leaving only a note:
"I must find a way to cross the vast ocean west of Niagra Falls to find new lands for our people."
It is feared that he attempted to swim the channel after drinking too much firewater, and perished in the attempt.

Let's just hope he's not having the DNS troubles he was having earlier. If he doesn't show up, I can play late this evening.

No, I've just been really busy. Sorry I haven't been good about keeping you guys informed. :o Since I won't be able to play until tomorrow, Carbon can take his turn now.

1750 Pre-turn:

-I bump up science a notch, taking 4 turns off of Iron Working and still running a profit.

Whose culture is that we see across the water to our west? Has to be either Egypt or the Zulus.

Hmm, on the diplomatic front, all other known civs have the wheel and it would be darn nice if we could see the horsies. X-man wants 80g, while Toku and Gandhi both want Masonry + 11g. I am tempted to buy the Wheel, but am unwilling at this stage to give gold-hoarding Xerxes some more money or either Japan or India the means to start into the wonder cascade.

1-1725:

-Grand River trains a spear, starts a worker. We need more workers to get our cities connected up in a timely fashion, being non-Industrious and all with all these hills and trees. We also need more military, so balance that as you must.

3-1625:

-GR finishes worker, starts making more spears

6-1600:

-I bump science to break-even now that we're over 100. Iron working now comes in 7.

8-1550:

-Now that our settlers can see the whole of the land between Japan and Persia, there are wide stretches of land that are wholly uninhabitable. There is also a long, skinny bay ending in that chokepoint between Japan and Persia.

9-1525:

-a Barbarian horsie kills our spear from across a river and pillages Allegheny of its progress in its Barracks. :aargh3: What is worse, it will take 4 turns to get another defender there from Salamanca. I let go of Salamanca's regular spear to send to Allegheny, to replace it on the next turn with a vet spear from Grand River.

10-1500:

-The action on these turns this early are really feast-or-famine, aren't they? We lose our northernmost scout to a barb horsie from a camp he discovered.
-We get the Colossus. A Golden Age ensues. Niagara Falls starts Barracks.

-Speaking of Barbarian horsemen, one is going to pillage Allegheny AGAIN on the next turn. Hmm...it's time to spend some gold. I dial up Xerxes, and take him up on his Wheel for 80g deal.

-I then see that X-man got Iron Working (eep! Immortals!), and I also notice that his discovery put us over the 1 turn threshold for Iron Working, ourselves. So i toss him another string of beads and get it a turn earlier. Was buying the wheel and giving Xerxes a TON of cash to throw around (>300 in his treasury right now) a smart move, or did Chief Carbon have some wacky tobbacky in his peace pipe? It's good to know that we'll be set for units until muskets show up, at least.

-With Golden Age commerce and production, the Pyramids will finish in 17 turns @ size 6 and we will research Alphabet in 8 turns at the current science rate...wait, I micromanage two tiles, and it comes in at 6 turns instead :eek:, with the option of a 4 turn discovery if we go for broke. That gold hill by Grand River is worth FIVE trade for the next 20 turns.

-The best news: Iron and Horsies are both safely within our borders! :D our horse is within Salamanca's city radius, and Iron is in a hill by Cattaragaus. I also note with a certain disgust that despite only having 3 cities, Xerxes does indeed have Iron in his territory, though not connected as far as I can tell. Oh well, if they want to play with their Immortals, we'll be ready to meet them with our Mounted Warriors...when we get Horseback Riding and connect the horsies, that is.

-The Pyramids should be a lock for us, so the next chief might want to broker away Masonry to India and Japan before the X-man gets any richer.

I've got the game...

Pre-Turn
Increases science spending to 80%, getting 2G/Turn, and getting Alphabet in 5 turns instead of 6.

1: 1475 BC
The evil Apache tribe pillaged Allegheny, and some of our people were lost.

2: 1450 BC
The Apache pillaged us again.

3: 1425 BC
Raised the Luxary rate to 10%, getting everybody to work in all our cities. Lowering Pyramid working time from 14 to 12.

4: 1400 BC
Worker management...

5: 1375 BC
We learn the alphabet.

6: 1350 BC
Nothing special...

7: 1325 BC
Now we have horses.

8: 1300 BC
6 Turns to get The Pyramids.

9: 1275 BC
No special...

10: 1250 BC
Writing in 3 Turns
Gold Deposit: 50.
Income: 1G/Turn
T/S/L = 2.7.1

I don't know if we could handle Republic when it's time to switch government. Our Allowed units is now 20, and we have 21 units.

I'm currently building walls in Allegheny, but that could be changed to what ever the next leader wants. But I did not want to loose more money per turn.

2 Scouts. (These could be discarded)
2 Warriors. (These could be discarded)
6 Workers.
11 Spearman.

We have a strong army compared to everyone we have met!

Got it.

I said I'd be able to play today, and I meant what I said! Well, actually it's not that big a deal, since it still would be a little tough to squeeze in a turn today.

In the "It Would Be Nice If..." category, we have a wild new scheme by Sirian entitled "Spice Colonies".

It occurred to me near the end of my second turn that there are enough mountains surrounding the spices to our south, and enough spices bunched there, that it would be WELL worth our while to invest over a dozen military units into establishing a permanent outpost of spice colonies. This would be a major undertaking, and we would have to completely, flawlessly block out the AI from settling near there. The only reason it might even be possible to pull off is SO many mountains in the area, which cannot be settled on. So we would only have to fortify one unit in each settlement-able tile to block anybody from founding cities in the area.

We would need AT LEAST 8 units to get started, and would have to hurry before Persia gets a settler over there. We might not be able to make it, but it would give us something to do with our surplus units. (Most of our Golden Age went into building military).

IF we could secure all four spices indefinitely, the trade value on a large map would more than pay for the costs of maintaining the units, and would give us something to trade away for techs and such later, when research costs (at 1.5x normal price) shoot off the charts. If we could also remain peaceful with Persia and our other neighbors (possible), it would be a great move. However, it's a lot of work, a definite reach, and not without some risks.

I had sent two units in that direction to look for the barbarian camp, then it occurred to me that with just three units, I could block Persia from settling on the river. THEN it occurred to me that we might even be able to get the spices for ourselves, and what would it take to do so?

Here's what it would take:

1) Top priority, all eight red marked tiles. If we can't muster that and soon, Persia will settle over there.
2) Mid priority, the six yellow tiles. These are also needed for survival of our colonies.
3) Low priority, the light blue tiles, in locations where later in the game, expanding borders would swallow up one or more of our colonies (though maybe we could raze any cities threatening to do this, as it would take them some time to expand borders that far).

What do you guys think? Would this wacky plan be worth pursuing?

IT 1250BC: With nothing to build in our Golden Age besides troops, I decide it's worth the gambit to try to nab both Oracle AND the Great Library. Grand River has a ton of shields, I swap it to Palace Placeholder. Niagara is changed to chariots, Cattaraugus to workers. I also raise science by 10% to run a deficit and get Writing in 2 turns, not 3.

1225BC: I disband one of our scouts and have to move a spear over to protect a worker near Allegheny, as another barb horsie shows up.

1200BC: Barb horsie takes 2 hp off our spear in Allegheny (only defender in the town, other is guarding the worker) then dies. I am moving more troops in this direction, and building more. We discover Writing. Mysticism can be researched in four turns at just 40% science. I CONTINUE AT 70%.

1175BC: Normally, I would buy embassies at this point, but we are lowish on cash and in a hurry to gain a vital tech lead while our golden age is ongoing. Embassies shall have to wait!

1150BC: Salamanca builds the Pyramids! [party]

We have now invested almost enough beakers to research Mysticism! Sadly, the 4-turn minimum would require us to go two more turns to research it. Well fooey on that! :) I top off our tank by buying the last little bit of Mysticism from Japan @4th-civ for 11 gold. :D We start researching Literature.

I start Salamanca on the Oracle. WE DO NOT WANT TO BUILD THE ORACLE IN SALAMANCA! Grand River could finish it sooner, however we cannot use the Palace as a placeholder in the capital, so until Literacy is researched, we must continue to use palace as placeholder for Oracle in Grand River, and use the Oracle as placeholder for the Great Library in Salamanca.

1125-1050BC: Rest of our golden age is spent researching Literature, building up troops (mostly chariots, which can upgrade to our glorious Mounted Warriors later), and workers.

1025BC: Our golden age ends. Luxuries have to be propped back up to 20%.

1000BC: Our last scout is disbanded after exploring the last of the continent in the north. I readjust our cities and F1 sliders, in the wake of the loss of golden production and trade levels. We are seven turns away from literature. Grand River will reach 300 shields in 12 turns, should be plenty enough to beat Ghandi to the punch, and the others on our continent are not even in the race. Our main worry is what the other eight civs on the other continents have been up to.


Advice:

IF SOMEONE SHOULD BEAT US TO ORACLE: leave Grand River on Palace placeholder, for the Great Library, and waste the surplus shields at Salamanca on the best-looking option (a library, or a military unit). This would be unfortunate, but as we had nothing else to be building but more troops (and we're already over the limit on what we can easily pay for) no great loss if it happens.

If no one steals the Oracle from us, then when Literature has been researched, swap Grand River to Oracle and put Salamanca on Great Library. We need the Oracle to be finished ASAP. If anybody steals the Oracle, then build the Great Library in Grand River.

If you're worried about Ghandi's progress on the Oracle from cascade from him starting the Pyramids, I scouted part of his lands near the capital. He's on a river but has no hills. We could establish an embassy with him to get a peek inside his city, but I was pretty sure we can finish first, so I didn't bother. Too bad we're in contact with only 3 of the other 11 civs! But we got such a roaring fast start and with the early Golden Age, I like our chances.

We want regular libraries in our other cities at the first chance, but no forced labor, no whippings. Not worth it. As for science, I think we should research mapmaking next (and not wait for it from the great library), so we can build the Lighthouse at Niagara falls and go exploring to meet more civs. (After that, shutting down research and riding the Great Library for all it's worth may be in order).


- Sirian



If we're going to try for the Spice Colony Gambit, we'll also have to get started on that soon.

Sirian
Ozymandous << up now
shdwlord <<< on deck
Schnarrd
Carbon Copy
Grey Fox

Will try to play tonight. The Spice gambit sounds good to me, of course we could always build another city on the top Spice and be done with it, but... ;)

Just kidding. :)

It's a bad map in the good sense...how often have you had the chance to completely overrun Persia before they get Immortals? If this were a normal game, we'd SO kick their butts ( I think in this game we want them to live so that neither Japan nor India gets TOO big for us to handle). I definitely want to play this later from the end of Sirian's first turn as just a normal game and see just how easily we'd beat down Xerxes, expand so we take up half this continent, and cruise to a victory. Curbing the urge to build some more settlers and just blow these guys away is tough.

As for the Spice Gambit....eh, sure, whatever. What else are we gonna do with our troops for the next 1000 years? If we can manage it,then it would be great to do it. I know I was thinking along those same lines, but I was sure that I'd catch a lot of :smoke: and [pimp] smilies from Sirian's corner if I even suggested it (as it was, I'm surprised I didn't get the :smoke: beatdown over buying the wheel off of Xerxes).

Interesting set of turns. Here's the skinny...

1000 BC - IT : Nothing changed (again). I decided to go for the Spice gambit figuring that since we had really nothing else to build except units (or wealth :rolleyes: ) I might as well.

975 -1 : Allegheny finishes a worker, starts a scout (moves fast and cheaper than a chariot, speed was needed I thought.)

950 -2 : Bad news!! Athens finishes the Oracle!!:eek: :( Salamanca swaps to barracks (wastes 74 shields). Niagara Falls completes a chariot, starts another (re-occuring theme).

925 -3 : Allegheny builds a scout, starts a chariot (with units already building/built I figurd we had enough place holders for now, more on this later.) Salamanca finishes a barracks, starts scout (could build a scout in one turn as opposed to 2-3 turns for Allegheny).

900 -4 : Niagara Falls builds a chariot, starts another.

Note: Somewhere in the middle of my turn, as I was moving the units south to try to block the Spice the Persians moved a settler/spearman pair near the right-most "red square" block on the "Spice Gambit" map. I moved a warrior to block, the settler moved SE one. Next turn they moved SE again and the turn after that they founded a city there. The spices are 2 squares due west from the Persian town so eventually they will become in their culture radius, but I kept moving units there to keep more Persian settlers away anyhow.

875 -5 : Salamanca finishes scout, starts chariot. (this was while I was blocking the settler I believe).

850 -6 : Niagara Falls does it's thing.

825 -7 : Literature discovered, Map-Making next. Grand River swapped to the Great Library, everywhere else changes to library except Cattaraugus which continues it's spearman.

800 -8 : Cattaraugus builds spearman, starts library.

775 -9 : Worker movement.

750 -10 : Worker & troop movement (barb's started roaming around again.)

Odds & Ends:

- Chariots are on the way to 2 barb camps, we need the gold desperately.

- Checking relations, I decided to sell Literature to India for Horseback Riding and 15 gold. Persia and Japan only offered 50% of the gold India did and I figured we might as well get to build our Mounted Warrior! :goodjob:

- Sold Lit to Persia for 70 gold at miser prices and to Japan for 63 gold at miser prices.

- Map Making in 9 turns running massive negative cash (-32 gpt with a treasury of 164 gold now). We can withstand at most 5 turns of this negative spending before we're almost broke, so it's probably not a good idea to do, but otherwise we'd be stuck at 25+ turns to research it otherwise.

- Great Library in ten turns, let's hope we get it.

- Oh and if anyone gives us lip we have Mounted Warriors now :D, but Persia still has Immortals.. :(

Bad news!! Athens finishes the Oracle!! Salamanca swaps to barracks (wastes 74 shields).

:( Well, that's unfortunate. At least we'll probably still get the GL. By the way, wasn't there something that required more shields that you could switch to besides a barracks (like a library)?

Note: Somewhere in the middle of my turn, as I was moving the units south to try to block the Spice the Persians moved a settler/spearman pair near the right-most "red square" block on the "Spice Gambit" map. I moved a warrior to block, the settler moved SE one. Next turn they moved SE again and the turn after that they founded a city there. The spices are 2 squares due west from the Persian town so eventually they will become in their culture radius, but I kept moving units there to keep more Persian settlers away anyhow.

Hmm. Sounds like a city that we'll have to raze if we ever get the chance. Not that I think we'll ever be more powerful than X-Man, but chances are we'll eventually be at war with him, and when that happens, :soldier:

EDIT:

If I'm not mistaken, this is the turn order:

Sirian
Ozymandous
shdwlord << up now
Schnarrd << on deck
Carbon Copy
Grey Fox

got it

Inherited turn: Switched Cattaraugus's workers a bit, shaved 1 turn off library. Dropped science to 30%, -3 gold and map making in 22 turns.
Indians start the Great Library.

1) 730 chariot defeats a barbarian warrior, but the camp has spawned a horsemen already

2) 710

3) 690 chariot attacks barbarian camp and is defeated.

4) 670 Niagra Falls finishes library, begins worker.
Xerxes has established an embassy in our capital.

5) 650 No one we know has map making, so I start Niagra Falls on the palace in hopes of getting the great lighthouse. barbarian camp raided by our warrior.
The Persians begin the great library.

6) 630 Salamanca finishes library, begins worker.

7) 610

8) 590 Cattaraugus finishes library.
The Japanese are building the great library.

9) 570 Allegheny finishes library.

10) 550 The Great Library has been completed in Grand River. Everyone we know has mapmaking now, so I go ahead and trade our world map to everyone for their world map, 70 gold, and map making. Niagra Falls switched to the Great Lighthouse. Allegheny switched to a galley. Usually, I would build a harbor first, for the veteran boat, but since everyone has our world map, they can see the yellow border to the west, we should make contact before anyone else can so we can trade contacts and world maps.

If we got the G.Library, why did you trade for Map Making... wouldn't we have gotten it the next turn?

I traded our world map for map making, their world map, and 40 gold, taking map making off didn't give us any extra gold. Philosphy was auto-chosen when we got map making, feel free to switch it to another tech if you want. For those following the game, here is what our territory now looks like.

The Persians are to the southeast of us.

Japan is on the other side of Persia

And finally India, who is above Japan

Wow, that was nice with those screenshots - I like to follow a interesting game, and it can be hard without screens...
I must say ur spice-strategy is a pretty wild plan. Lookig forward to see if you pull it off

Originally posted by Schnarrd


:( Well, that's unfortunate. At least we'll probably still get the GL. By the way, wasn't there something that required more shields that you could switch to besides a barracks (like a library)?



Ahhh, nope. If you read the turn summary you'll notice that Lit (and the ability to build a library) was discovered by us 5 turns AFTER the Oracle was built by the Greek.

Trust me, if the option had been there to build *anything* else so as to waste less shields (and provide more benefit than our 4th-5th barracks) I would have taken it. :)

Edit: Um, I agree with Grey Fox regarding the Map Making trade. If we got extra gold then fine, if we spent gold, why?? If all three of the other Civ's had Map Making we would have gotten it either the next turn or shortly there-after from the Great Library so if we spent gold then it should have waited. IMHO.

FYI, the units in the "spice gambit" plan need to be placed so no AI settlers will found a city in that valley with the spice, not around the border of the Persian city. :)

----EMPTY POST

we didn't spend gold, we got gold + world map + map makng for our world map

Nice!

Question... Did we get Map making from the Library? I notice the initial time to discovery was 22 turns, then 10 turns later we had it.

Just curious. :) Woo hoo, let's hope we get the Lighthouse. :)

shdwlord's results are solid: we got the wonder, and everyone on our continent had access to the parts we had explored anyway, so brokering the maps was harmless.

EDIT: Wow, the thing submitted all on its own in mid-sentence! :lol:

I'll have to post again to attach the screenshot.

- Sirian

For the Spice Colony Gambit to work out, we need precisely two things to happen:

1) First and foremost, we must prevent the area from being settled. Expanding borders automatically destroy colonies.

2) If we do succeed in blockading the area, we still also have to connect roads to the area, and defend it if we are attacked.


Since no settlement can be formed on a mountain, we don't need to position ANY of our troops on the mountains to achieve our objective. In fact, unless we have spare troops (we're not even close to that) we can't afford to put them on the mountains. If war breaks out, they'll have time to move to defensive positons.

Also, that Persian town was founded in a spot friendly to our plans. It's too far to disrupt what we want to do, nor even to threaten any of the colonies until the city has accumulated over 1000 culture points. That's a long way off! I've outlined in white, the area the city's border would include at 100 culture, influence factor 3. Harmless to our plan!

We don't need to place any unit on the mountains, and we don't need to place any within two tiles of that city. So here's what we still need to do:

Red Dots: URGENT.
Yellow Dots: middle priority but still important.
Blue dots: insurance, and a possible shot at also grabbing the iron.

My apologies if I seemed to question the validity of the whole map-making deal, I simply was confused on how it transpired.:confused:

If I have this right another Civ discovered it and we traded our World Map for it and some gold and then traded it to everyone else??:enlighten Is that right? [dance]

Sorry, not meaning to be :flamedevi, just puzzled. I hope that's correct however, thanks for the clarification. :D

EDIT: Didn't see the new map, but there should be enough units available in our cities now to be able to do this, it's simply a matter of getting them there without upsetting X-Man too much.

Got it. :)

Originally posted by Ozymandous
If I have this right another Civ discovered it and we traded our World Map for it and some gold and then traded it to everyone else??

Almost ;) Everyone had mapmaking, all I did was trade our world map to everyone, one of the things I got was map making.

After the reign of the Lord of Shadow, Schirroquois siezed power through a vastly complex scheme involving sharp sticks, "incense" (smuggled in from foreign countries), a new peace pipe called the "bong," fourteen hogs (there were plenty of those among Shirroquois' advisors), leather clothing, whips, a dozen eggs, three large blocks of stone fashioned into hammers :hammer: , and four bovines for good measure. Upon gaining power, Schirroquois set two goals for himself:

1. To continue the plan known as the "Spice Gambit."
2. To make contact with the mysterious tribe across the waters.

Inherited turn: We're running science while we have the GL??!! Someone spent too long smoking his peace pipe! :smoke: I decrease science expenditures to zero, raise the luxuries one notch, and fire all entertainers in all cities except for Salamanca, whose entertainer I change to an alchemist. I also upgrade a couple chariots and prepare to send the resultant mounted warriors to the spice blockade. Most of our cities are building military (ie mounted warriors).

2. We get polytheism from the GL.

5. Galley built in Allegheny. I move it towards the yellow border.

6. Barbarian galley appears out of nowhere and attacks our galley! :eek: Two hitpoints taken off our galley before the barbs are destroyed.

7. We have contact with the Zulu! Apparently they are alone on their island, as they do not have communications with any other civ. They are also quite backward, and do not possess map-making, so they cannot make galleys yet to contact the other civs. I trade our world map for his world map plus 155 gold. I decide to keep the Zulu in the dark by not trading him any communications and by withholding our world maps from the other civs. As soon as we see a galley going towards the Zulu we can trade around their communications and world maps.

I also notice that our expenditures are getting quite high and that Xerxes has quite a few Immortals wandering around. I call up X-Man and trade 87 gold for gems and lower our luxuries down a notch.

8. We get Mathematics from the GL. A few catapults are started in various cities.

10. Because Schirroquois no longer had any "spices" to pacify his advisors with, the advisors of the five Iroquois tribes overthrow Schirroquois and install a new leader.

We have 14 turns to the Lighthouse. Also, our spice blockade is nearly complete! Speaking of blockades, there is a hole between Allegheny and Niagara falls in which an AI with a galley and settler could place a blight on our land. We may want to consider placing a blockade there, too.

EDIT: ARRGH! I did it again! I attached the wrong game (I'm playing my own Iroquois game at the same time as this one - probably not a good idea!). :smoke: Hopefully this attachment is the right one. ;) Btw, the spice blockade could be expanded with the amount of troops currently down there. We'll also need a few more troops on the coastline in case of galleys.

Here's the roster:

Sirian
Ozymandous
shdwlord
Schnarrd
Carbon Copy << up now
Grey Fox << on deck

Here's the current spice gambit situation (oh, and I forgot to mention in my writeup that I've got three workers building a road to the spices).

Let's see if the attachment works this time:

Originally posted by Ozymandous
Question... Did we get Map making from the Library? I notice the initial time to discovery was 22 turns, then 10 turns later we had it.

No, the time dropped by a combination of libraries coming online, and going from 1st civ cost to at least 4th civ cost.

Originally posted by Schnarrd
We're running science while we have the GL??!! Someone spent too long smoking his peace pipe!

We got Map Making the last turn I played, the last time I had checked before that (3 or 4 turns), no one else had it. I just never readjusted the science/tax rate before I saved. I thought it would be better to get galleys and get more contacts so we would have more civilizations to get techs from than to drop science to 0% right away.

Ah, we don't need troops on top of the mountians down there because you can't build cities there. THe troops on the mountians should be moved to block the areas where the AI can settle.

Thanks for the clarification on Map Making! :) Now if we can make contact with everyone else first (and get the GL) we'll be set.

I guess it's my turn to be chief for a day. I've actually spent a long time down in the "famine" cycle these past few days, to tell the truth it was quite a nice vacation from "which two games do I have to play tonight?"

Should be able to get to it tonight.

Ozymandous:

The way I have it now I'm blockading the AI from getting settlers to the spaces it can settle, and placing troops on mountains is more efficient to maintain the line of troops. The troops nearby that are not participating in the spice blockade are mostly there to slow X-Man's expansion in our direction (the Immortals unit that you can see on the screenie is protecting a settler). Later those units could probably be moved to blockade the shoreline near the spices.

EDIT: Oh, and if we get another troop to the southeastern blockade line and move the blockade line "down" one square to the southeast, we can secure that iron on the mountain for a colony (I don't think that Persian city's borders will expand to encompass the iron for a while).

I agree with Schnarrd.

It's better and more effecient to block them from reaching the area, which could be done with 3 units, if they are managed correctly.

3 units would work for awhile, until the AI starts sending multiple settlers to the area, or tries landing with a galley.

Not gonna get to it tonight or tomorrow,

Sirian << on deck
Ozymandous
shdwlord
Schnarrd
Carbon Copy
Grey Fox << up now

Grey Fox has the game!

Pre-Turn
Why this storage of troops in Cattaraugus? I will move some of the troops to block the Persians from building anywhere near us.
And upgrading a chariot to a Mounted warrior.

1: 330 BC
Grand River worker completes a mine, now we have 15 production in that town, if corruption is counted away. But however, I switched to wheat instead to make the city grow a bit.
Grey Fox is setting a little plan of his own in motion... more about this later.

2: 310 BC
We learn Code of Laws from our Great Library.

5: 250 BC
X-man founds the city Samaria near the horses on the hills near the Spice Gambit.

8: 190 BC
OHHH!! NO!!! The Aztecs are demons! They beat us to the, yes can you guess, the Great Lighthouse!
I switch to the Palace, but watch it, it's ready in 5 turns. So I hope we get Construction before that...

9: 170 BC
Troop Movement

10: 150 BC
Now I can reveal my plan. I got the idea from the Spice Gambit, and the fact that we had a little to many units in our cities... as it is now we are not in danger of an attack. My plan is called the:
Diamond Gambit.
A large area is now being blocked by the proud Iroquoi' soldiers. Within this area is 2 Diamond resources, which makes it free for us to use the Diamond luxary (which we is currently buying from the X-men). Two pictures of the Gambit (strange choice, an X-men name... hmm) areas will be posted.

Remember to switch the Palace being built in the northern town, if we don't get any new techs within 3 turns.

http://medieteknik.bth.se/frst01/iri1.jpg
http://medieteknik.bth.se/frst01/iri2.jpg

I don't know if it's so wise to have troops fortified in the jungle, as I think they can die of disease.

(Four units are on their way to the Spice Gambit, btw)

-> Sirian is up
Ozymandous is on deck

It's Feast Night for me, and I'm going to play this one first. :)

A feast?! Tres bien!! :hammer:

Don't rush on enviro (well... you knew that), and don't take on
rbd9 if not fresh, X-man is all over you :P

Good luck guys, especially with your new gambit :p
Charis

OK, now THIS is a definite first for me. An AI called me generous in Civ III! :lol:

Great move with the gem gambit. How'd we end up with so many units? Well, it's OK, the trade surplus from these colonies will help support them. :)

I have successfully secured the area and established our colonies. So close to our lands, this one should be much easier to hold on to. We're destined to lose one of the colonies to expanding Indian borders, but that may not come for a while.

One thing to remember, the AI's will NEVER settle within two tiles of any existing city, and now that there are cities nearby, I've been able to finalize our formation.

The zone marked with white are all tiles within two square range of a city. As such, we don't need to cover any of them, the AI's won't settle there.

The zone marked with red are all tiles three or more range from cities, and are not mountains, meaning the AI MIGHT settle in any of them. Note that I have our forces occupying all of these locations, so our gem colonies are now fully secured. JUST DON'T MOVE ANY OF OUR UNITS.

As soon as some more civs build harbors, we can start trading our gems to them.

Our spice gambit has succeeded! :jump:

Excellent work to the entire team, nobody dropped the ball and this is going to dramatically boost our economic power. We can trade resources for tech, cash, alliances, resources, other luxuries, or even give them away for diplomatic favor!

One of the spice colonies is going to be lost to Persian control, but the other three will remain ours even after cities in the area reach more than 100 culture!

I've rearranged our units in the area. We are now fully protecting the lands of interest to us. There are four units fortified in jungle tiles, and yes they may die of disease, so I made sure to shuffle our most useless units (scouts, warriors) to these locations, while our vet spears went onto the spice tiles.

We have ONE extra unit in the region, an archer in the middle of the donut. If any units die from disease, use this archer to replace them.

We're going to need a few more workers down there, but we can't afford at the moment to build any more new workers, so we'll have to send some of our existing ones (three or four) when they are done improving the homeland.

The northernmost spice is the one in imminent jeopardy, don't even bother to colonize it or build a road to it.

Persian borders in the area are already expanding. :( If they expand any further, just pull our units back and keep the blockade going. We now must also blockade the sea, too, so keep things the way I have them unless some happens to force a change (expanding borders, a war, units dying of disease, etc).

The area north of the yellow line is going to fall under Persian control within the next few centuries. Don't worry about it. All the area marked in red will remain under our control unless and until Persian cities reach 1000 culture, or something (like a war, or some :smoke: ) causes our blockade to fail.

X-man evicted our workers before they could finish that road, so at the moment, there is one gap in the road, and no way to go back and fill it in. :( However, this is only a short term problem. So just keep our three workers building roads in the area (not on the spices, we get a free road there when you build the colony), then as soon as Persia builds roads in its own territory that would connect the area, go found our three colonies.

IT 150BC: We have enough military! And yet... no courthouses? What do I have to do in one of these SG's to get somebody to build a courthouse? :lol: OK, I swap our four water cities to courthouse (Cattaraugus will build a worker first, actually), then I rearrange Niagara Falls to ZERO SHIELDS. Yes, I put the city to all the irrigation tiles (oh THANK YOU whoever irrigated some more in that region) and two coastal tiles, break even food and one shield per turn. We now have up to 25 turns for more tech to come in so we can finish a wonder in Niagara.

Um... there's a barbarian warrior near Grand River.

130BC: Xerxes evicts our road crew. :( Dang, and they were just one turn away from finishing the road. I do a lot of unit shuffling in our colonial lands. One of our MW's slays the barb, losing one hp, and rests in town.

110BC: MASSIVE barbarian uprising reported near Niagara Falls! :eek: :eek:

Never had one of those before. I'm too much the expansionist to let barb camps sit around doing nothing, and they have to sit unmolested for a goodly while before they explode like that. Well, ya know, all our units are out at the two colony sites... It sure would be nice to have the Great Wall about now.

90BC: Construction pops out of the Great Library. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. :lol:

70BC: Niagara Falls completes the Great Wall and all the units I could spare from the gem area head back along the road toward Grand River. (I assume that's where the barbs will be heading, because that's where that first barb warrior headed, and this has to be the same camp that just exploded.

50BC: OK, here they come. Twenty-four (24!) Inuit horsies. We have three spears and two MW's fortified in Grand River, plus the Great Wall which doubles city defenses AND doubles results vs barbarians (for 4x improvement for city defense vs barbies!) and the city is size 11 with some additional defense boost. I like our chances, actually, but if not for the Great Wall... :skull:

50BC (cont): While the Inuit hordes stand perched over Grand River, I check the diplo screen and find that Shaka has been instantly transformed into a tech master, and has entered the middle age. :eek: My guess? Since the Aztecs finished the Lighthouse recently, one of their ships just passed by Zulu lands. I check and see that Shaka now has contact with all the rest of the world (which means all the other civs may be on one landmass, and be way up there in tech). I hold off buying contact, though. GOOD THING nobody sold Shaka contact with the rest of our continent! :goodjob:

I click Next Turn and an Aztec galley sails into Niagara waters.

Philosophy, Currency, Monarchy, Republic pop out. We are offered a chance to revolt to Republic, and I take it! (This will mean zero turns of anarchy!) Heh, then we are offered a chance to revolt to Monarchy and I say, "No thanks, we are happy with Anarchy." :lol:

OK, here come the Inuits.

OK, there go the Inuits. :lol:

Twenty-Four consecutive defeats for them! :splat: Our spears lost about four or five total hps and all promoted to elite.

A toast to our most glorious Great Wall! :beer:

30BC: I sell techs to the Persians, Indians, and Japanese, as much as they can buy! Yes, we'll even take Persian spices for 20 turns, since it looks to be at least that long before we bring our own online. We net mucho moolah, and THEN I trade contact with these goons and our world map to the Aztecs for contact with the rest of the planet.

I then trade World Map to Joanie (why HELLO there, dearie! :love2: Yes, my favorite AI, those Frenchies are simply the most stylish people, you know) for her World Map and some change.

I then sell contact to various civs for chump change, until everybody on the planet is flat broke (except the Zulus, who have about 60 gold left after we sell them contact and maps).

And then...

[party]

Yes, the biggest bash I've ever thrown in Civ3. I GIVE AWAY EVERYTHING ELSE WE HAVE (except gold, of course) to every civ on the planet! Everybody got something. Free contacts, free maps, free techs, free free free, LOOK AT US, WE ARE NICE PEOPLE! Yes, yes, everybody wants to buddy up to the friendly Iros now.

England, who is stuck on an icy rock just to the north of Zululand and clearly just made contact with the Aztecs like the Zulus and we did, got the most. Lizzie got like about eight techs for free from us. (Might as well, she's no threat, and better to give her all these junk ancient techs at last-civ giveaway prices anyway, and let her defend herself (and maybe us, some day) than let somebody go roll over her and take her lands away.

Lizzie wants to marry us now. :lol:


OK so what kind of weed was I smoking here? I must have given away about 4000 gp's worth of contacts, maps and tech. Well... before I gave anything away, I did collect ALL the cash that was available worldwide, that I could, and nobody would offer any gpt, they were all broke. The AI's would just have traded amongst themselves anyway for the rest. We have no hope for a tech lead, and may in fact have no hope at ANY kind of win besides Diplomatic, this being a large map with 50% penalties on science vs standard maps, and us having lost the race for some of the ancient wonders, it's doubtful we could pull a cultural win.

I then BLEW our treasury (well not all of it, just most of it) on establishing embassies... with everybody!

Oopsie, Athens is due to finish the Hanging Gardens in just five turns, and Paris is right behind at 7 turns. They must have started on the great wall quite some time ago, and we must have just barely stole that from them at Niagara! Let us pray that nobody researches Theology or Feudalism before Athens finishes the Gardens, or there is going to be a massive cascade and we'll lose most if not all the middle age wonders.

Every civ on the planet is now Polite with us, and some are Gracious and tripping over themselves with hands extended, waiting for the next gift. With this in mind, let's not miser the prices on small stuff, let's make diplo deals and go for the diplomatic win, and only miser it if it's a large deal worth a lot.

Like... I gave away SO MUCH stuff, the game actually rates us as generous! If we milk that, nobody will touch us (and if they do, heaven help them as ten other civs come a calling to our defense).

10BC: Monotheism pops. Our forces punish the upstart Inuits by burning their homes to the ground. :hammer:

50AD: We've built some collesseums and cathedrals. Niagara is working on Aqueduct. We've swapped to Republic are are running a surplus (barely) at zero science.

No sense trying to build the Gardens, Greece is almost done. Just pray no one makes another tech breakthrough before then. Just... pray.

Since we have the Great Library, we should continue to run zero science. But frankly, even if we didn't, we should still run zero science, invest our resources into coinage, which does not deflate like tech does (as it spreads around) and just wait patiently for most if not all the other civs to acquire a tech before we buy in.

Maybe once they stop being FLAT BROKE and we can rely on brokering techs, we can start doing that. Until then... what we need next is marketplaces to increase our tax income, then more cathedrals/collesseums. IF the cascade gets broken, we can then try to grab most if not all the middle age wonders, as our cities are all hovering the 20 shields per turn range.

This was a very busy ten turns! :)

I had fun and wish all the Iro leaders for the upcoming round a good time partying with all the AI's and enjoying their adoration. :lol:


- Sirian


Next up... Ozymandous

On our last turn, Salamanca exceeded 1000 culture and expanded its borders, which reduced the "gap" in our border on the west, above Allegheny, to just three tiles. I sent three units on Goto to that area, to form a blockade (like in RBD9) on the squares not covered by our borders, to prevent another Chalco from happening. (Yes, the Aztecs have a colony on our land now, east of Niagara, forgot to mention that, too. It's harmless, though, don't worry about it).

- Sirian

Feast???!!! That was a full course meal just in here!!

Seven posts for one turn... now that's a record!
I wouldn't have imagined a 5CC game to have SO much to do.
Excellent job, and the prospects look great for victory here.

Speaking of 5CC... if you are able to end your turn without losing a city or have that imminent in our other 5CC, now THAT will be a trick :rolleyes:

Charis

Will play tommorrow.

Pretty quiet ten turns.

50 AD (IT) - Nothing to change.

70 AD (1) - Greeks build the Hanging Gardens. No one else starts anything else so apparently the cascade stopped (I didn't check f7, but no one had any new techs.)

90 AD (2) - Indian Settler/horseman pair enter our territory. I ring up India and tell them to leave, politely of course. I wake and move our Mounted Warriors to get in his way to encourage him to turn around as well.

I also finish moving troops to the three sector spot Sirian mentioned in his post. As soon as our borders expand we can move them out of that area.

110 AD (3) - X-man demands 48 gold and our territory map. Having just checked our military I decide to fork over the cash for now as most of our stuf is protecting our colonies. :) I do add his name to the top of the list for a butt-kicking in the future however.

130 AD (4) - Grand River builds marketplace, starts cathedral. Cattaragus builds marketplace, starts courthouse. Niagara Falls builds aquaduct (should grow to seven next turn) and starts marketplace.

In case anyone is wondering why the courthouse, I wanted to see how much of an improvement (if any) it would offer. +2 gold and +1 shield was added to the cities output when it was completed. Not much of an improvement but I figure every little bit helps, especially with us only having five cities.

150 AD (5) - Salamanca builds marketplace, starts cathedral. After playing "block-the-settler" for a few turns I finally ring up Ghandi and tell him to move his units or else. He moves. :D

170 AD (6) - Allegheny builds marketplace, starts a courthouse.

190 AD (7) - MMOW.

2100 AD (8) - Grand River builds cathedral, starts courthouse. Cattarugus builds courthouse (with the afore-mentioned slight boosts) and starts a collesseum.

230 AD (9) - Salamanca finishes cathedral, starts a catapult (mainly because we only have a few, and these will upgrade the entire game. Can never have enough artillery! :rocket: )

Persia and France (I believe it was they, I was half-asleep from boredom and forgot to write it down) sign a peace treaty.

250 AD (10) - Babs and Greece sign a peace treaty. Salamanca builds a catapult (did I mention it can crank one per turn? :D) and starts another.

------
Thoughts and notes: Persia has one iron between Susa and Tarsus. IMHO, once every city is done building the last few things we can erect we should crank troops for 10 turns of so and so bludgeon X-Man for his insolence. :spank: I can't stand being bullied :aargh3: and normally I would have said no to his demand but I figure we might want to get more troops ready to fight in our cities to launch an offensive instead of having a decent military but none where they were needed most...

Hopefully soon we'll come a'callin on Xerxes on our terms and take back the 48 gold and some other stuff.. ;):ar15:

Roster order : shdwlord up next. Schnarrd on deck.

I forgot to attach the save. By the way, Xerxes has the same military size as us and was polite the entire time he threatened us as well. :rolleyes:

Anywho...

Originally posted by Ozymandous
2100 AD (8) - Grand River builds cathedral, starts courthouse. Cattarugus builds courthouse (with the afore-mentioned slight boosts) and starts a collesseum.

The Iroquois seers having visions of the future? :)

Well, yeah! :D

That's what happens when you smoke the peace pipe too many times. :cool:

got it

Inherited: Shaved a turn off Niagra Falls marketplace. Lowered luxuries by 10%.

Persians found Istakhr. Indians drop off an elite warrior and settler near Grand River.

1) 260 Indians found new bombay.

5) 300 Babylon begins the Sistine Chapel.

6) 310 we lost our supply of spices. Grand River switched to palace.
Greeks begin Sun Tzu's Art of War. Russians begin Sistine. Aztecs begin Art of War.

7) 320 We discover theology. Grand River switches to Sistine, due in 22 turns. Cattaraugus begins palace.
Babylon begins Arto of War. Chinese begin sistine.

8) 330 We discover feudalism, engineering selected. Cattaraugus switches to Art of War, due in 22 turns.
England begins Sistine.

9) 340 French begin the Art of War. Aztecs begin Sistine Chapel. Hamadan's borders expand, pushing ours back at Grand River.

10) 350 Moved the forces now in persian territory back into ours.

The Aztecs ran a jag warrior through our territory, I fortified a spearman on our horses and iron just incase they declared war and pillaged them. I haven't upgraded any of our spearmen to pikemen yet, since no one has made any aggressive moves towards us.

Sirian
Ozymandous
shdwlord
Schnarrd <<<<< up
Carbon Copy < on deck
Grey Fox


I hope Carbon can take his turn this time. He's been skipping everything this past week. :)

Spring Break has not been much of a break for me. And I'll be out of town (road trip to St. Louis to watch the NCAAs) tomorrow and Friday. Busy busy busy! :hammer:

Got it.

Schintimidate was voted into the office of the Chief of the Iroquois through a fair, democratic election - of course, the only voters were members of Schintimidate's family and the other potential voters were Schinitimidated with threats of having peace pipes shoved up their :o and pungent weed stuffed up the other end. And so the term of Schintimidate the Pungent began.

Inherited turn: Things look good! The only changes made are that both Grand River (building Sistine) and Cattaraugus (building Art of War) are put on a one food deficit to shave a turn off their respective wonders. I figure that they have a full food box, so might as well make use of it!

1: Nothing much going on. The Aztec Jaguar Warrior that's in our territory heads towards a Persian city.

2: The Aztecs declare war on the Persians and attack a Persian city with a lone Jaguar Warrior! :lol: Engineering also pops out of the GL.

3: Two Immortals step into our territory. It is here that I decide that X-Man is finally coming for us. Good thing we're more prepared here than RBD 9 was. I tell X-Man to scram, after which he mutters something about training maneuvers. Great, he gets one more turn to get his Immortals into position.

4: All sorts of Immortals invade our territory, and not in a stack, either. They come in at all sorts of points along our border. I tell X-Man to scram again. He chooses unwisely.

An emmisary is dispatched for Ghandi.

"Alliance against the Persians? Schintimidate, we are a peaceful people and have no wish to bear arms against our neighbor. Oh, you'll throw in Engineering and 175 gold? What I meant to say was, Xerxes' arms will be left for the bears!"

Since we can experience war weariness, I also figure we'd better get some more luxuries. I dial up the Zulu.

"You mean I actually have a buyer for my wines? Here, have some for 65 gold. I have so much that my citizens have been plastered constantly." As soon as this deal is made, drunken celebrations are held throughout Iroquois (just as long as they don't mix the wine with the weed!).

Along our borders with Persia, catapults rain stones on X-Man's Immortals, after which our Mounted Warriors mop up with a loss of one. The single sword that someone built also gets in on the action, killing one Immortal. Finally, all spearmen in our cities are upgraded to pikemen.

5: More Immortals stream into our territory, but before they are dispatched, our Mounted Warriors must rest from their combat the previous turn. However, catapults still damage the incoming Immortals as pikemen move to protect them. Also, Immortals show up near our spice colonies. Crud. Those are going to be decimated if he focuses his entire force towards them.

6: Immortals move away from our shared border. Crud. He is going to try to capture the spice colonies. The Immortals that remain are mopped up with newly-trained Mounted Warriors.

7: I make an incursion into Persian territory towards Susa, complete with catapults, Mounted Warriors, and pikemen. I'm gambling that either

1. This will cause X-Man to shift his force toward the raiding party or
2. X-Man will leave Susa lightly defended, making it an easy raze.

8: About six Immortals show up near our spice colonies. The Mounted Warriors there are mobilized, but it looks like I'm going to have to attack the Immortals while they are on the mountains. Two Immortals are killed, but two Mounted Warriors are also killed. :(

At Susa I see a pikemen defending. A catapult fires, but misses. The next fires, and scores a hit! A Mounted Warrior attacks! And dies without inflicting a hitpoint of damage. The next attacks, and wins! Another attacks, and kills the defending spear! We . . . wait a second, we don't raze the city. There is an Immortal there with one hitpoint! Hmm. If I wait another turn, X-Man might bring reinforcements like pikes. Who else can I attack with? A pikeman! The pikeman attacks, and . . . loses. The next pikeman attacks, and . . .

Wins! Susa razed!

9: Ouch! A series of very unfortunate combat sequences leaves our troops at the spice colonies nearly decimated. In fact, the actual colony we have down there is destroyed. We've still got a couple Mounted Warriors and spears, but our military presence down there is severely weakened. On my turn, our kill two Immortals. Our troops will go down fighting!

X-Man's lone source of iron is within our grasp near wear Susa used to be! Unfortunately, a pikeman and spear are parked directly on top of it and I don't have the Mounted Warriors to take it. I'll just have to wait until next turn . . .

10: In the spice colonies, three of X-Man's Immortals attack one spear. All three die, and the spear is promoted to elite. Later, the spear's name is revealed as Magneto.

The pikeman and spear move off of X-Man's iron???? Well X-Man, if you put it that way, I guess I just HAVE to park a bunch of troops on top of it (no more Immortals for you! Mwahahahaha!!! :mwaha: ) . . .

Miscellaneous notes:

OK, the good news is that we've killed a bunch of Immortals and X-Man's army has to be wearing thin. Also, we've managed to raze one of his cities and during the next leader's turn, we could potentially march on his capital. The bad news is that we got no benefit whatsoever from the spice gambit, since the road to the spices was never completed, and the situation down there is pretty bad. Actually, let me take that back. The colonies did divert X-Man's main army, allowing me to advance on his cities. Also, if we get out of this mess without X-Man settling the spices (I think there is a settler-spear pair heading in that direction), we may yet be able to establish more colonies in that area.

Which brings me to another point. Big kudos to Grey Fox for the gems gambit. :goodjob: Since we're not getting spices, those luxuries are huge.

Also, if X-Man is going to build cities near the spices, be sure to pillage the roads in the area to keep him from getting to the iron. We don't want to deprive him of one source only to let him get another (bit of weed on my part, not thinking of pillaging that sooner).

I forgot to mention in my previous post that the next leader should see both Sun Tzu and Sistine built in their turn. Both cities building these wonders were also micro'd back to break-even food without slowing the construction of the wonders. Hopefully these wonders will come in before someone discovers Invention (btw, if a city can be spared from military production, the next leader could consider a placeholder for the next wonder).

Here's the roster:

Sirian
Ozymandous
shdwlord
Schnarrd
Carbon Copy << up
Grey Fox < on deck

Since Carbon is going to be out of town, will he be skipped?

Finally, here's a snapshot of the current spice situation:

Good job fighting off the Persians and punishing them for attacking us! Now that he has chosen unwisely, I want to see Persepolis burn to the ground. I've had about enough of this AI and his shenanigans.

As for Carbon... I don't know. Bad timing for him, I guess. Hope he enjoys the basketball tourney. :) Carbon? Should we skip you this round? Or can you sneak in some time to fight Xerxes?


- Sirian

Save the Spice!!

Given the current wartime status... if Xman pops down a city
on our near it, raze that puppy!! Just don't the flames engulf the spices fields. Ironless, witless, let this be a lesson to all manner of Xerces which attack 5CC game challengers !!! :hammer:

Charis

Heh, I say we raze everything of his.:tank: Of course, if we do this all we'd do is give India or someone else more room to expand and have us deal with them later... That could be fun as well. :D

I'll get to this sometime this evening after work (ugh). St. Louis was fun, and it was a LOT of basketball to be watching on Thursday.

This is the first opportunity I've had to get on the Internet since Wednesday afternoon, I went straight from that more or less to work, then went from work straight to Indianapolis where my brother and I were going to sleep over with some family, then up before dawn to drive to St. Louis, spend Thursday there, sightsee on Friday a bit before coming back to Indy to spend the night, sleep in then drive back home. And now I have to go back to work :mad:.

Of Course!

(Well I've been kinda busy myself actually...)

But it's more often the best thing to do, to wait I mean...

Turn 0, 450 AD: I check our cities and wowza! I have to hire entertainers or run lux at 20% or EVERY city will riot on the next turn. I opt for the entertainers. We lose a turn each on the wonders, but they should still come in on my turn.

Turn 1 460:
-China and France ally against Greece. Poor Greeks.
-I capture a Persian settler. 2 more workers for us. :D
-the 1 hp Immortal by our spice gambit area has an interesting choice. He can a) capture the two workers there, b) attack the stack of mounteds and spear, or c) retreat and save himself...

Turn 2 470:
-He chose c), but not before two immortals that I didn't think could attack did and took out our mounteds (neither of which retreated) on the same square. Then a Persian galley shows up on shore. If we could say that the spice gambit wasn't a success before, it's a failure now, at least so far as a means to secure spice for ourselves. It has drawn a LOT of immortal fire from our main contingent, though. A regular immortal takes out Magneto fortified in the forest across a river, without losing a single HP, and a persian pike shows up to attempt to capture some workers on my next turn if I don't stop them from mining Cattaraugus.
-We get Education from the Great Library :(
-Science raised to 40% and Invention is queued. 17 turns.
-I cover the Catt. workers with a pikeman from the city after a mounted tries and fails to knock him off the hill (but retreated).
-Another Persian settler captured. two more workers added to the pool.
-A mounted which I hadn't realized was on Persian territory and thus wouldn't heal above his current 1 hp goes against an immortal to buy the workers some more time...and wins! he'll probably give his life for them shortly, though.
-I use the mounted produced by Niagara Falls to test the defenses of the size one Persian town closest to it (Ishtakhr or something). Not surprisingly, it takes out the spear defending it, but there are two of them.

Turn 3 480 AD:

Capture another persian settler. 2 more workers.
My mounted warrior protecting the workers dies, and the workers get captured, anyhow :(. A Persian settler also moves into the area. I think we can call the spice gambit off, unless we get really ambitious and have dozens of spare units around in the future.

4, 490:

-Istakhr autorazed, we capture three workers.
-ANOTHER Persian settler captured, two more workers. So far I'm +2 +2 +2 -2 +3 +2 = +9(!) for captured workers, though those two we lost were domestics.
-I realize that Invention is a horrifically STUPID thing to be researching, and decide to throw away the two turns of 40% research on it and start Astronomy, instead. We may very well NEED that one for Newton's and for navigation to open up trade routes to the other continents. 19 turns at the current small profit research, or we can dip into our treasury seriously and get it faster. I'm at a point where I'm unsure how to proceed with the war, plus I want to get this turn out tonight since I've sat on it for so long. If we really want Invention back, you can switch back w/o penalty and still be 15 turns out.

In short, the spice gambit is off, but we're still marching (very slowly) towards Persepolis. Every time I've been in a position to move the cats in for attack, Persia marches some unit in that I need to hit with the catapults in order to kill. I did manage to pillage the iron square, so that we can move units off of it if we need to, but they may plop down a town that picks up the southern iron before this war is over (I couldn't pillage it, on Persia's turn before turn 1, they had immortals standing on that mountain and I couldn't move anyone there before all units got slaughtered save one mounted that eventually got killed elsewhere and elsewhen). And we have tons of captured workers, the next chief has a net of nine more than what I started with.

I'll play tomorrow...

In a 5CC, especially on large map, we're not likely to have the economic power to do our own research, therefore it would be much more efficient use of our power to save up cash and buy into tech at obsolete prices. We can prebuild with Palace to secure some of the wonders we're not already working on.

And for goodness sake, please fire entertainers and run luxuries! Where possible, trade for them with other civs, too. We not only want the luxury, but the diplo benefit of the trading.

I'm glad you got some time in, CC. :goodjob: I hope you can take a full turn next round.

- Sirian

The war weariness is really killing us, we have -15 Income per turn to manage.

Should I switch government or try and stop the war as soon as possible?

Preturn:
The War weariness is killing us, we should raze some persian cities and take peace or switch

government really soon.

2: 510 AD
One of our horsemen become elite. Fortresses is being constructed in the most strange areas, our

borders...
We get spices and printing press for 222 gold (i took away the world map, and the deal was still ok, so I

raised it a little more still...). Because of these spices and some tile-micromanagement (concentrating on

money loosing shields that didn't do anything...) made us only loose 5 Gold per turn instead of 15.

3: 520 AD
Babylon demands Territory Map and 100 GOld, what to do... Well what the hell I give it to them... we

don't want any more wars, and we want freinds. They become polite!

4: 530 AD
Some lost some killed...
Babylon declared war with the Greeks.

5: 540 AD
Indians take Ergil from the Persians.
And we have completed the Sistine Chapel in Grand River.

6: 550 AD
Sun Tzu's is completed in Cattaraugus.

7: 560 AD
Some fortresses are complete around our borders.

8: 570 AD
China wants an Alliance versus the Greeks, I say yes as it seems like the Greeks will be destroyed any

way.

9: 590 AD
We need to end this war soon... every city is under riot (sorry for not noticing the sudden change), must

be because the Alliance against the Greeks... hmm... we havn't been active in that yet. :(

10: 600 AD
Traded wine from the Zulu for 150 Gold.
We have 7 Mounted Warriors ready to raze Persepolis, 4 of them Elite, and 4 Veterans on their way.

I have started construction of the worlds largest wall of fortresses and Pikemen. I've also started an

exchange program at the Diamond Gamble. Some of the spearmen is upgraded, and I want all of them

to be upgraded as well.

Anyway... we have about ZERO happy citizens so I recommend peace as soon as possible...

Sorry for that total rioting at my ninth turn, will never happen again.

PS: BTW a palace is being built in Cattaraugus, and will be done in 8 turns, and we will research Astronomy in 7 Turns. The ****ty thing is we are dropping 13 Gold per turn because of all the Unhappiness. (Sistine and the Spices did help a while...)

One trick I've learned, that I don't think I've mentioned anywhere, is that when dealing with high weariness, I will always go to F1 and nudge the lux slider up/down once at the end of the turn. This will "reveal" any new weariness before the turn ends, which would otherwise catch you by surprise and perhaps cause riots.

Anyway, it sounds like you did a good job under difficult circumstances! :goodjob: If we are indeed in position to Raze Persepolis, I'll make sure that happens, then accept peace. I definitely approve of deals to buy more luxuries! And you probably made the wise move with that one capitulation.

Got it.

- Sirian

IT 600AD: swapped off production of mounteds to universities.

610AD: Xerxes offers a straight up peace deal. :lol: Not just yet, you evil bastard.

X-man sends three horse at our mounteds on his iron, and they all lose! One of our mounteds promotes to elite.

The siege of Persepolis is undertaken. We lose two units in the fight, one is promoted to elite, and the city is BURNT TO THE GROUND. I then slay what units are presenting themselves, pillage what is in range, and go for peace.

ACK! Now he wants 260 cash in reparations for us burning his palace to the ground. I tell him No Way, Rot in Hell, but after sleeping on it, I reconsider, dial him back up, and take the deal.

The war is over.

620AD: X-man enlists Shaka into his war vs India. That should keep everyone in our neighborhood busy for a while.

Pillaging of neutral lands in the area of former Persepolis takes place. Might as well clog up that area with our units, too, to slow his resettlement plans.

Our military back home is woefully thin, and our dreams of spice are gone. I COULD use the worker from Persepolis to make a spice colony right there at the one spice not still in his borders, but I question the wisdom of it. I'd rather make sure they are slowed on reclaiming the area. Pillaging of every open tile from there to our border is undertaken.

630AD: 255 gold to China for Invention. Invention to Ghandi for Chivalry. Cattaraugus swapped to Leo, due in 15. Grand River swapped to Palace placeholder. Since the cascade ended with our recent wonders, we have Leo and Cop IN THE BAG. The question is whether or not we can finish them before the AI's get to the next techs. I believe we can, and if so, we should have ALL the rest of the wonders (barring weedage).

650AD: We discover Astronomy. Next up, Music Theory at our best reasonable rate. Grand River swapped to Copernicus.

Late turns: forts built on our gem colonies and defenders there reshuffled to put pikes on the actual colonies. Our workers in the area are now building roads around the rest of our troop occupied tiles, to speed later troop movements. Our workers in the west are cleaning up other road duties.

I have vetoed any further fortification construction, for the moment. A Maginot Line sounds good in theory, but in practice it rarely works any better in Civ3 than it did in real life. Probably better to mass our troops in the cities and dispatch them in force if a threat emerges. The AI calculations for launching sneak attacks are also based on how weak you are in your cities, more so than your overall unit strength. If they see a "tempting target" they may attack.


* After Grand River finishes Cop, put it on placeholder for building Bach's.

* After Music Theory, we should go for Navigation and build Magellan at Allegheny.

* Don't veto that longbow. We want at least one for "best unit" AI intimidation.

* Don't veto the courthouse. If we can get rid of that one shield of waste, then swap the capital to max shield config and pull in 24 per turn, build knights every three turns.

* At some point, we are probably going to fall behind in tech, and not have the power to keep the lead, at which point we will be better off to shut down research and go max taxes. THAT POINT HAS NOT COME YET. Keep going on high research, at modest to medium deficits, and don't trade our lead techs away to ANYBODY, for any reason. We will unnecessarily lose out on wonders if the AI's are given techs as we research them.

* When the AI's get navigation (if not sooner) the blockade in the south at former Persepolis must be shut down. We do not want to risk losing a city to a sneak invasion from the sea because all our units are off playing peekaboo with X-man's settlers.

* Wait for Leo's to upgrade our units. Don't upgrade the elites yet. Will be worth it come cav/rifle time, but otherwise, we might better use them to fish for leaders, IF another war comes.


- Sirian

The Five Iroquois Nations in 700AD

Who's up? Still no "got it" post.

Have got it and played but feeling sick today so will post the save and turn description tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.

700 AD (IT) : Nothing changed.

710 AD (1) : Grand River finishes Copernicus's Observatory. University started as a possible placeholder (or just a good thing to build) for next wonder.

Lost our spices in a deal, and everyone wants our best tech to get it back, so I decided to wait.

720 AD (2) : Allegheny finishes the archer it was building, starts a palace placeholder.

I was checking the foreign relations screen each turn since there wasn't much else to do and noticed that the Aztecs, Babs and Persians would only offer their world map and a pittance (less than 20 each) of gold for Astronomy. I took a chance that they were close to discovering it themselves (since I could buy their world maps for less than 30 each making the total they offered less than 50 gp for the tech), and shopped it around.

Astronomy sold to Zulu's for 23 gpt & 140 gold, France for 27 gpt & 30 gold, Russia for 22 gpt & 50 gold, China for 110 gold, Japan for spices and 14 gold. I then sold it for small amounts to all the civ's that were close to discovering it EXCEPT PERSIA (:D) for the less than 20 gold they each offered. I figured I'd let Persia either discover it themselves, thus wasting a round of research of let them buy it off someone else on their turn for 1 gold (what they offered me), still wasting the research. :D

All these deals boosted us from negative to positive cash flow and brought a nice little chunk of change into our coffers.

730 AD (3) : Salamanca finishes courthouse, re-arranged workers to build a knight every three turns.

Shopping around I discover the Zulu's have Music Theory so I spend 1 gp to get it a turn early and start on Navigation. With the earlier trade deals in effect science cranked to 70%, Navigation in 8 turns, +5 gpt income 1508 in the bank.

India and Persia sign a peace treaty.

740 AD (4) : Gunpowder is available for 230 gold at the cheapest price but I decide to wait since we're not in a desperate hurry to get it.

750 AD (5) : Niagara Falls finishes university, starts catapult. Workers in Niagara Falls shifted to give max trade and less shields (that would have otherwise been wasted) while still keeping the city growing.

England wants to cancel our ROP, I throw in Chivalry and she changes he mind. I guess the knights are a soft spot for her. :)

760 AD (6) : Persopolis founded near the site of where Susa used to be. Since we never razed the other Persian cities to the west of this area the troops in the "gap" now have to go through Persian territory to retreat, so they are all sitting on a forest square waiting on either a ROP with Persia or a war between us again. (I couldn't declare since the previous peace treaty was still in effect for a few more turns.:rolleyes: )

770 AD (7) : China ends the alliance vs. the Greeks but we renew the ROP.

Greece comes a'callin for peace. I add Gunpowder for an asking item and offer 175 gold on my side and we're at peace (saved 50 gold from the earlier "best price".)

780 (8) : Not much going on.

790 (9) : Japan and Zululand sign an alliance vs. India. Japan then declares vs. India.

Spice deal renewed for map plus 130 gold. Bought Banking for world map & 140 gold. Salamanca and another city (I forget which) swapped to bank.

800 AD (10) : Not much going on that I recall.

Notes:

Navigation due next turn. Allegheny can be swapped to Magellans at that time. Not sure what we want to research next, maybe Economics for Smith's, or whatever else, up to the next player.

IIRC, it's your turn (and has been for some time), with the full roster being...

Sirian
Ozymandous
Shadow
Schnarrd
Carbon
Grey Fox

Has anyone seen Shadowlord on the other threads? If not, he might be experiencing internet problems like I did a while back. If that's the case, someone might want to try emailing him (assuming he can get to his account).

May want to skip if he doesn't show. Last post I know of of his was Mar22 in RBD15.

Oh man, I am sorry. I was up in this game about the same time my son got really sick, and wasn't checking the boards very often, and this thread ended up getting buried. Go ahead and skip me this round, and I do apologize for the inconvienence

You can skip me, too, as I am getting buried in work. Same goes for any of the other threads where I'm up (CC1, although that game is slower paced, RBD 24, and RBD 6 - I believe that's all). Sorry for keeping you guys waiting. :( Just a lot to do at the moment. I should be able to dig myself out of this work by Friday.

Sirian
Ozymandous
Shadow
Schnarrd
Carbon <<<< UP NOW
Grey Fox << On Deck

I GOT IT.

Expect it sometime tonight or tomorrow.

1) 810:
-Navigation discovered, Allegheny switched to Magellan, 10 turns away from completion

-Aztec and Zulu troops enter our territory. Indian and Zulu ships also exchange fire. This greatly confuses me for a while, since I didn't see any wars on the radar when I checked pre-turn. I forgot that there were still 4 civs that weren't on the F4 screen, and one of them was India. I try to order the Zulu out but they just keep on going through. I can't order the Aztecs out without bringing war upon our heads from them, so instead, I change tactics and trade our gems for their incense, a Right of Passage, and 3 gpt. I guess this was the first opportunity to shop our gems around, I forgot there was an ocean square between us and the people on the western mainland.

-Run the sci slider up to 80% (still running a profit). Our new tech is going to be Chemistry, due in 7 turns. with a +3 treasury surplus.

-Some more spears get upgraded to pikes.

2) 820:

-Persia moves some units into my territory. Not this again :aargh: I tell him to get out, he obeys, or at least he says he will.

3) 830:
-This was the crucial turn. On X-man's turn, he moves several knights and Immortals and a few longbows into my territory. I know where this one is going, so I demand that he either declare war or leave. He declares war.

-Luckily, I still have those troops that were stuck in Persian territory, and F.O.B. was to burn Persepolis to the ground. I then sit troops on one of his two saltpeters and his only iron within his borders (there's another one connected to his roads, but outside his borders down by spice gambit region). Some Persian workers get captured, but there's nothing really for them to do.

4) 840:
-Persian iron is pillaged. This should give us a break from Knights and Immortals and pikes for a while, at least until he can get his southern iron within his borders.

-Small skirmishes develop, but no major stacks of doom to be seen (good thing, because at this point we only have Cattaraugas not building a bank or a wonder).

5) 850:

-More fighting. I'm giving slightly better than I'm getting. I notice that Persia has raised yet ANOTHER Persepolis, this time a bit to the south of the old one. I run another mountie down to engage this one.

6) 860:
-Salamanca finishes its bank, we now have 2 cities capable of military production.

-Persepolis razed yet again. Xerxes is now 0 for 3 on Persepolises.

7) 870: The turn of bizarre diplomacy:

-Babylon and Azteca ally against India

-Still on Monty's turn, Azteca signs a peace treaty with India, making his alliance with Babylon the shortest-lived deal amongst AIs that I've ever seen. Montezuma comes out of this with a big black eye on his reputation, and a well-deserved one.

-India, in need of someone to pick on, tries to pick on us. Gandhi demands Navigation, which I am unwilling to give away for free on his turn. Gandhi is such a wuss, he doesn't follow through on his threat, despite having a rather large stack of swords and elephants near our border that might have given us some serious problems in Grand River (I didn't see them until it was my turn, this was a serious bullet dodged!).

-Persepolis founded again on X-man's turn, this time in the spice region right next to their other iron source :aargh3: So much for depriving him of knights and pikes and Immortals.

-Not done with Gandhi yet, I notice that he has Chemistry, so I buy it from him for 1g. Next tech up is Physics, with ETA of 7 turns at current research.

-Not much fighting. I'm unwilling to move what knights we have left further away than strictly necessary to take out units threatening our cities.

I ended my turn at this point. We may want to deal out Navigation to any and all. I think Magellan's is in the bag, and the tech is still worth real money. And apparently if we don't sell it away, they'll demand that we give it to them for free. We're not really in a position to take the offensive, but I don't think X-man has enough gas in the tank to offer us much in the way of offense on his part, either. Persia won't accept our envoys, though, despite razing Persepolis twice so far this war (compared to merely once the last time).

War weariness was not a problem so far. Since Xerxes was the one declaring, we won't be as bad off as if we were the aggressors, WW-wise.

Got it.

We should play a 5CC or 10CC with Conquest as our only option someday.

If possible how about we raze every Persian city to the ground this time and get.rid.of.X-Man finally???:aargh3:

Is anyone else as sick of him as I am? Let's end this once and for all if possible, otherwise we'll we fighting him through the rest of the game and heaven help us if he reaches cavalry with all the saltpeter he has running around, we'd never cut him off in time to withstand a serious attack!!

Wouldn't wiping out Xman leave room for someone else to move in and get bigger.
Since you guys are limiting yourselves to 5 cities, you can't move in, so someone else will. Unless you constantly prevent them from moving in, but that might be difficult.
Other civs moving in might tip the scales so to speak, and make them that much bigger than everyone else, including/especially you. Your only hope would be if several of the other civs move in and make Xman's land into a patchwork of hopefully useless cities. For them to be useless they would have to be from civ who's capital is far away. The problem is that the civ(s) most likely to move in are the closest civs.
In a game where you are limiting yourselves to only a certain number of cities, I would think that your best chance to succeed would be to keep everyone else as small as possible, so that they do not get too much bigger than you.

You guys are severly overestimating our military strength right now. This happened while we are in the middle of wonder-building mode, and we have fewer than a half-dozen knights at our disposal. Unless we want to shift back to Monarchy for a few rounds, we will never have enough offensive units to make any sort of decent push into Persia by the time this war is done unless we drag others in on our side, a possibility, but it limits our ability to make peace with Persia before war weariness gets oppressive. Then again, we ARE religious, so we can get away with that sort of governmental shuffle if we have to.

If we did take a big chunk out of Persia, I wouldn't mind one (or even better, several) of the civs on the western continent moving in. It would prevent India or Japan from growing too large, and the land would be just on the other side of worthless for anyone besides us, Japan, India, and maybe Zululand. As long as the balance of power on our continent is kept, the western world can do as they please.

I don't believe we were the target. Wasn't he at war with someone who has cities on our back side? Could he have been sending his forces at one of them? I could be wrong, but I remember being SURE the Aztecs were coming for us in RBD4, only to watch them continuously skirt around our cities. Babylon did the same, and all we could do was turtle.

Nevertheless, even if he wasn't planning to attack us, it was Not Polite of him to run his forces onto our land, so either way, I'm good with the decision to kick him out, one way or another. But I have recently learned that enough razing CAN actually blacken your reputation all on its own, so we are probably not working in our best interest to keep razing Persepolises 4 through 4000. I recommend we sit back, defend ourselves, but leave his cities alone. If we can't win on diplomacy, it's going to a long and hairy game on a large map.


- Sirian

- "Father! Can I get some money!"

The little indian boy is running around chasing a butterfly in the palace dining room.

His father sits on on edge of the large table, there is no one else in the room. He is not eating, but rather working on something.

There is drawings and tools all around and on the table.

-"What are you going to do with the money then?"

The young one is still running around chasing the butterfly.

-"I'm gonna..." He hops up on a chair trying to catch the chasen one.

His father is getting irritated and gets on his fet.

-"Stand still and look at me when you are talking Rainbow!"

The boy stops. He is completly still, he has never heard his father shout like that. He looks at him a second without moving, and then he looks back towards where the butterfly should be. But it's gone. Then he steps down from the table, and answer his fathers question once again.

- "I'm going to buy some candy."

- "So you say, well what if I gave you some money and you DON't buy candy, but you save them."

- "NO, I want candy!"

- "I'm gonna tell you a little story young Rainbow.
One day when I was young my son, Hammarubi of the Babylonians came to our village wanting to exchange world maps with my grandfather. He also wanted the secrets of Navigation for his map."

My grandfather then said to Hammarubi:
- "We both now of this world, we should not lure eachother. I will not take your trade. But I will give you this."

He was holding a Golden Coin in his hand. Hammarubi looked shocked. My grandfather then said: "Take this piece of gold and save it. When you later hold it in your hand, think of us and the freindship between us."

Hammarubi actually looked much politer now then when he arrived first.

I don't know what Hammarubi did with the coin. But my guess is that he saved it, and if he ever used it he must have thought about our people and our freindship towards him.

So my son, if I give you a coin now. What will you do with it?

- "I will save it. I promise! And when I'm grown I will use it on something good... But I want t hear more about my grandfathers days"

The father looks at his son with surprised eyes. As he loved telling stories, and this in particular, he would love to continue.

- "Ok then, I will continue..."

We were in a war against the Agressive Persians at that time and the Babylonians were escorted out of our land safely. As he was in war with our neighbour India. We had been defending the Iron in the persian territory, but our troops were so badly hurt. Without any field medics and without the ability to get fresh new troops.

So they were ordered to withdraw.

In our cities the people were sad and some of the people started to entertain the others so that they would not be so worried by the war.

When our retreating forces had been wandering through the though land of the hills, for 10 years, they were attacked by a squadron of knights that got support by longbowmen.
They didn't have a chance against the more modern troops. But they were able to slay 75%(down to the red) of the Longbowmen as they ran in their direction when fleeing from the Knights.

In the middle of the war, when our losses of troops were very high. The Russians contacted us. My grandfather was no longer the Chairman of our country, but I was Foreign Minister so I handled the business. They wanted to trade the Blue Print on a new type of government to us for the secrtes about Navigation and 60 Golden pieces. I of course said no, because we no longer need to keep Navigation as a Secret, as the Wonders of Navigation would be c