:cool:

Welcome to the sequel of RB22 - Huayana Capac the Despot.

Leader: Alexander of Greece
Map: Fractal - random climate and random sealevel
Difficulty: Emperor
Speed: Epic

Variant: Cannot ever change civics

Roster:
Qwack
TheRat
darelljs
Greyfox
Ozbenno

RB succesion game rules apply: http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/sgrules.html

Here is the settings we got:

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/26/civ4screenshot0259wr3.jpg

Anyways, the start I rolled once again requires discussion on whether to move or not :) . Move our scout 2 SW onto the hill and heres what he reveals in the shadows:

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/6130/civ4screenshot0258up2.jpg

Moving 2W onto the forest hill gives us pigs/stone and corn in our 21 tile radius and gives us more production than the current spot. But we lose spices and coast. I definately think we should move and pick up the pigs/corn/stone spot instead of the current spot. Thoughts?

I'd definitely move since it looks like some floodplains will also be in your BFC

Lurker comment.

In any other game I would considered to move. In this one I would not.

With your wariant you want as many shield that produced normally as posible.
In current position you have a lot of shield ties (Hills, forests) and enoght food to work them. If you move on hill you would loose a lot of potential shields production.

hmm, not so easy to decide here....I like Muti's argument, but the other spot looks good too...

maybe settle on the spot and try get another city to grab those asap...

Good luck with the game, I enjoyed following RB22

Lurker says:

I'd move. The spices are nice as undeveloped tiles because they give 1f2h1c or 2f1h1c right off the bat. With Calendar, spices are nice, but not amazing and by the time you have calendar you'll already have built a city just north of the spices anyway. With the river you can get the same or better results as soon as you have mining and agriculture by mining the grassland hill (1f3h1c) or farming a plain along the river (2f1h1c).

Since there are no seafood resources in range, the only reason to found in place would be if you needed the extra commerce from the spices right off the bat to chase a religion, but that's not likely to happen since you don't start with Mysticism. You will much better off with your first city being able to work the pigs, stone, corn and a mine along the river. Much quicker settlers and workers will do a whole lot more to accelerate your production.

While I agree that production is more important in our variant than normal, I don't agree that moving 2W is losing us "a lot" of production. The two sites differ in only the coastal tiles, AFAICT.

But what is important is the initial turns. Settling on site, we can (A) work on the forested grassland by the river which gives a decent 2F1H1C, or (B) work on the 3F corn and start a worker build.

If, OTOH, we settle 2 W, we do not have any immediate high food tiles to work on. Its either 1F1H1C or 2F1C or 2F1H for the initial 15 turns until the border pops.

I am undecided whether to move not to move ... ...

@mike: I am confused .. you say spice are good, but you say "I'd move". :confused:

--

I would move 2W. We'll have 3 hills and stone inside the city radius, and two food resources to boot. Giving up the Coast sucks, but we're not losing any immediately useful resources, just one turn. Besides, Stone inside the city radius with a Philosophical leader? That can be pretty powerful. Oh wait :lol:

Happiness looks like a big concern, but I don't see chasing an early religion as a good move without Mysticism. Fishing and Hunting are useless techs, I guess we should start on Agriculture. Then either Mining -> Masonry or Animal Husbandry next. Bronze Working should also be a priority of course. Scout first or Worker first?

Darrell

The 2/1/1 tile from the getgo is the only reason I would not move. I think We are gaining production by moving, in the form of the monster 1/4 stone tile. Wouldnt we need to chop those spice forests eventually anyways? And farmed plains are the same as grassland forest.

The one thing the might happen is we lose horses by moving :P. Remember last game, we moved 1N and ended up founded on top of the copper, theres a decent chance the grassland in the south houses either horses or iron. If we do found 2W, I think the best initial move would be worker first because we dont even have a 2 food tile to work from the start, and working a 1/2 tile is just not optimal if we dont go worker first(IMO). we would have to wait 8 turns for a better tile :P.

Tech path I would say... agriculture -> mining -> AH -> BW or Masonry if we move, another possibility is going AH first, and putting agriculture where AH is currently. Animal husb is more expensive but can save us archery if we find horses near. If we dont move, Agriculture -> mining -> BW. Ill let Ozbenno post something before I play the turns.. Ofcourse we would need to stick archery in there somewhere if we dont get any resources nearby..

Spice is good. It gives extra commerce right off the bat. It's one of the best unimproved starting tiles. But you can't improve it until Calendar.

The pigs and the stone will help with initial expansion and possible to chase Stonehenge. I think that you'll be better of in the medium term moving west to settle because that site will help you expand faster.

The spice will make you better off until you get a worker and some worker techs, but it's not as strong as a site for your initial city in my opinion because especially early while the happiness cap is low you really need to maximize your tile yield, and masonry, husbandry and agriculture will come along a lot quicker than Calendar.

Its a tough call whether to move or not. I'm slightly leaning towards not moving and using a second city to grab those resources but happy which ever way it goes.

If we don't move Agriculture --> BW. If we do maybe mining/BW or AH first?

I'm out of town until Thursday night so see y'all then.

Lurker´s comment:

2W will also make your capital less vulnerable against any early aggression. Moreover your UU gets starting bonus of being on the hill, so you can use it well! :king:
As you can see I am keen on strong city locations and good defence :lol:

BTW good luck 2U all :goodjob:

Moving 2W would net U stone for PYRAMIDS :lol:

2W

The reason is because you will need 2 additional cities to grab the stone and pigs later. 2 more cites is of course $ and you want those cities placed as well as possible, not stuck somewhere just to grab pigs or stone. I think it unlikely that both of those 2 additional cities would allow of ideal placement and still get your resources. Settling 2 tiles of the ocean is not serious :smoke: when there is not visible resource.

Lurker's comments
Atlas has a good point; no sea ressources and no lakes means that at most, those sea tiles will be 2f2c tiles, and remain that way for a looong time. It also nabs you pigs and corn, perfect for whipping when you'll get sla--
oh wait. :lol:

Should prove to be an interesting read on the importance of proper civic usage...:crazyeye:

Was kinda busy today. But ill play tommorow for sure.

Ok, played 30 turns...

I decided to move and set research to agriculture first. Our scout moves to the hut and pops another scout... Scout #2 moves north headed for hut which was revealed by founding athens :p

Next turn, Scout #2 moves to hut #2 and pops mining. Sweeeet! :goodjob:

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/1360/civ4screenshot0264df3.th.jpg (http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0264df3.jpg)

3760, we find Victoria towards the west. And our scout meets his doom 2 turns later from a bear.. 3520, Kublai's scout finds our capital. He came from jungle in the north. Buddhism FIADL in 3370. After Agriculture, I set research to animal husbandry. Which comes in 3070 BC. We have no horses nearby.

So anyways, our worker is currently farming the corn. In terms of moving forward, AI is extremely far away, so I think a good option here might be to go the safe route and archery next, build stonehenge in capital, and expand peacefully until victoria starts getting closer. We have some pretty good locations near our capital and alot of hills for production, although food is a bit of a concern atm until we can chain irrigation. Heres the land around us, anyone want to make a dotmap? Im feeling somewhat lazy :) .

Our island looks quite big, although this is low sea level and we have only met 2 AI's so far. Victoria is near those 2 silks in the west..

http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/7493/civ4screenshot0271ga8.th.jpg (http://img67.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0271ga8.jpg)

And the save:

Woosh, there are some pretty good sites. We need to settler west quickly to block off the south. All those gold and silver ...

--

agree we should settle SW next to secure the horse/incense/gold there to block off the south for us to keep

Silver and gold will give us the much needed happiness...
do we have mansonry yet? We need that for the stone, so I prefer to get masonry first before archery...

came home too late and don't want to rush the turnset, will play tomorrow...maybe someone can come up with a dotmap

came home too late and don't want to rush the turnset, will play tomorrow...maybe someone can come up with a dotmap

I meant to last night, but also go home a bit late from work...tonight will probably be the same story :(

Darrell

save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/RB23_BC-2500.Civ4SavedGame)

open and save is turn 31...will play 19 turns then
research set to archery to be safe
met Caesar and Bismarck, huys this will be a brutal match
got us a warrior and went for rax until we got archery and capital grew to 3, then switched to settler
an additional forest grew next to Athens, we can chop for settler in future

we get masonry in 5, settler is done in 4, but we got only 1 warrior for escort
suggest to finish settler and then produce a few archers

I see it but I'm hitting the hay. I'll play 20 turns tomorrow.

Darrell

Some interesting turns. This is one of those very rare Emperor games where you have some space to expand. Unfortunately the fact that the AIs are so far away mean we will have some issues with Barbarians. I actually built nothing but Archers this turn.

The first thing I did was the dotmap. I wanted to settle aggressively towards Vickie, here it is:

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4156/dotmapni2.jpg

So, I move the Warrior to stake out pink dot and when the Settler finishes I move him that away. Unfortunately I see this:

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/5948/civ4screenshot0016jd6.jpg

BTW, I timed the Worker to hit the Stone when Masonry finished, we still have a few turns to go on that Farm if we want to go back to it. Anyway, I put the Warrior in the forrested hill and move the Settler around him. The Archer attacks but thankfully the Warrior wins (odds were very good):

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/3941/thankswl4.jpg

I found Sparta next turn on pink dot, which unfortunately is already unhealthy due to the damn flood plains. I was not sure they would count if the borders hadn't popped, but they do. After Masonry came in I went for Bronze Working, and was very happy to see Copper inside Sparta's fat cross, although not the tile I would have chosen:

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/7954/civ4screenshot0023vo6.jpg

Research path was set to Mysticism as we'll need an Obelisk, and after that I think we should go for The Wheel. I think when the current Archer finishes we should spam some Settlers and get the Gold (all three!). We'll need a steady diet of Archers and Axeman though, we can't afford to neglect our military here.

Darrell

Looks good. I think we should settle 3 next instead of 2. The corn supports both golds and we have marble in that city also.

Research path was set to Mysticism as we'll need an Obelisk, and after that I think we should go for The Wheel.

If stonehenge isnt built by the time we get wheel, we should connect the stone and build it.

I would also hook up 4 or 5 before 2 to get horsies connected.

If stonehenge isnt built by the time we get wheel, we should connect the stone and build it.

Yeah, I think we have a great shot at Stonehenge and the GPPs. I do think we need to chop an Obelisk, as I'm not sure we can wait for Stonehenge to get the Copper connected. I guess it depends on how many turns it will take with Stone.

RE: The dot map, you guys are right city site #2 can wait. Let's get the double Gold site and Horses + Gold first...they both have the food to pay for themselves and the Commerce will pay for 4-5 cities!

One other thing I forgot, we're going to need more Workers.

Darrell

Inherited Turns

WTF? Sparta is unhealthy at size 1??? :eek:

I don't kno how many turns the worker have been working on the rice, if it is anything more than 8 turns, then its better to farm the floodplains first, since it cost 10 turns to farm a floodplains but gives an extra commerce.

Looking good, I moved the archer at SE further south.


Its a Barbie World

Lost count how many barbs died, autolog tells me 7. Some pics:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB22-BC1750-barb.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB22-BC1450-barb.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB22-BC1480-barb.jpg


Turn 70 (1900 BC)
GreyFox: WTF!? Sparta is unhealthy at size 1??

IBT:

Turn 71 (1870 BC)
Athens finishes: Archer

IBT:

Turn 72 (1840 BC)

IBT:
While defending, Archer defeats (2.58/3): Barbarian Archer at 99.1 percent.

Turn 73 (1810 BC)

IBT:

Turn 74 (1780 BC)
Sparta grows: 2

IBT:
While defending, Archer defeats (2.52/3): Barbarian Archer at 90.1 percent.

Turn 75 (1750 BC)
Athens's borders expand
Athens finishes: Barracks

IBT:
While defending, Warrior defeats (0.56/2): Barbarian Archer at 69.3 percent.

Turn 76 (1720 BC)
Athens begins: Archer

IBT:

Turn 77 (1690 BC)
Tech learned: Mysticism

IBT:

Turn 78 (1660 BC)
Research begun: The Wheel

IBT:

Turn 79 (1630 BC)
Athens finishes: Archer

IBT:
While defending, Archer defeats (3.00/3): Barbarian Archer at 90.1 percent.

Turn 80 (1600 BC)
Athens begins: Settler

IBT:

Turn 81 (1570 BC)

IBT:

Turn 82 (1540 BC)

IBT:

Turn 83 (1510 BC)

IBT:

Turn 84 (1480 BC)
While attacking, Archer defeats (1.56/3): Barbarian Warrior at 92.7 percent.

IBT:

Turn 85 (1450 BC)
While attacking, Archer defeats (3.00/3): Barbarian Warrior at 92.7 percent.
Sparta grows: 3

IBT:
Judaism founded in a distant land

Turn 86 (1420 BC)

IBT:

Turn 87 (1390 BC)
Tech learned: The Wheel
Judaism has spread: Athens

IBT:

Turn 88 (1360 BC)
Research begun: Pottery

IBT:

Turn 89 (1330 BC)

IBT:
While defending, Archer defeats (3.00/3): Barbarian Warrior at 100.0 percent.

Turn 90 (1300 BC)


Miscellaneous:

We got Mysticism, I go for Wheel.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB22-BC1660-mysticism.jpg

Got Wheel, go for Pottery

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB22-BC1360-wheel.jpg

Notice in the above picture, we have overtook JC. He must be at a bad starting site, or being harassed by too many barbs.

I continue our push for archers, then barracks, alternating between pigs and a 1F1H1C plains river tile to keep the growth relatively stagnant (happiness limit). Towards the end of my turns:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB22-BC1420-judaism.jpg

Next turn, Judaism spread to us. I don't think its worth revolting for the happiness, since we can do so by building a temple anyway.

The settler is about to finish, and worker is starting to connect the stones. So next player can consider building stonehedge. SH takes 16~18 turns without stones (depedning on which tiles you are working on), so stones should cut it to 8~9 turns. Worth a try. I don't think its necessary to chop a obelisk in Sparta if SH is coming in 8 turns.

Here is the situation:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB22-BC1300-sit.jpg

>>> The Save (1300BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/76783/RB23-BC-1300.Civ4SavedGame) <<<

Got it, will be able to play tonight.

What is it they say about best laid plans of mice and men?

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8086/civ4screenshot0012dm6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We're building a worker in Athens instead.

The settler has to play a bit of dodge the barbs but eventually founds Thermopylae. Start on Obelisk straight away because we're at happiness limit in Athens and Sparta, so hooking up gold is a priority.

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/195/civ4screenshot0013uh2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Athens starts on another settler after finishing the worker and then another worker.

Pottery comes in and I go for Writing.

I stopped after the second settler as I'm unsure where to put him, problem now for Qwack! 4 is better spot but 5 is closer to Vicky and she'll grab it if we don't.

Sparta obelisk in 1, to finally hook up the copper.

Situation looks really ugly but we said that last game (but it was never this ugly). Saving grace might be extra room to expand but early aggression is always good :) .

The Save

137980

Oossh ... :sad: my bad on stonehedge ... I never checked it again after I started the settler ... but I could've sworn I didn't notice any message abt SH BIADL ... hmm ... so it means its not Vicky / Otto / KK.

--

Got it. Should have it played by tonight.

Completed.. Everyone is still fine with playing 15 turns per round here until the game starts slowing down right?

Anyways, didnt do much over the turnset. Elizabeth is starting to get closer, and I check the top 5 cities screen to see London has oracle. Combine this witht he fact that she is judiasm founder, I think we can pick ourselves up a holy city here, which is nice.

Built some more units as I think barb axes will start showing up soon... First one show sup in 760 AD. Our southern marble city is being harrased by barb's, I lost a archer to a warrior there at 92.7% odds... marble got pillaged.

Founded city 5 on dotmap with the settler left by Ozbenno.. our research sucks atm... bigtime. Writing comes in, I open borders with elizabeth, and start connecting road to river which will give us some foreign trade route commerce.. we can use this until we declare on her

Border pops in copper city, worker is connecting copper atm. We have another worker being produced in athens, I also pastured the pigs to improve the health situation. There is also a archer in queue in athens, which we should probably wait on. Cant afford any more unit upkeep here..

Sorry for no screenshots but not much happening at all. We need some axeman asap and go after elizabeth. She built mahabodi so we can get ourselves a holy city, plus some pillage money. Research set on alphabet to trade with other civ's.

Save:

got it...no more cities but many axes for some :hammer:

That Emperor AI sure does move fast!

on vacation from 21st Sep - Oct 8th

Rats :mischief:. It seems my work permit is not being renewed so I will be leaving the country (deported, if you will :lol:) at the end of September. My computer will be in a shipping container, and I won't have access to it for about a month (September 27nd to October 23rd).

Darrell

And where would you be going, if I may enquire?

where to will you be deported?

see, sometimes it's better not to be on expat terms as I can stay here forever (as long as I wish to)

It is looking like South Florida. There are certainly worse places to be "deported" to :cool:. It is really darn hard to get permanent residency in Malaysia. I know one guy from Spain who finally got it this year, after 16 years of paperwork! I've heard it is a bit easier in Singapore, especially if you have a useful degree. Practical country, they'll do anything smart if it helps the economy!

Darrell

save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/RB23_BC-0400.Civ4SavedGame)

I can spot borders already, thus will not go for another city
axes and :hammer: is in order

connected the copper just in time since barb axes showed up, defeated a barb axe with 1 archer in Corinth,
we were plain lucky, but the situation looks pretty gloomy
my highest and only priority after copper was to get that gold hooked up for a little more happiness

Rome asked for OB and I agreed
with 1 gold mined, research improved a little, but is a far cry
we still need to connect the gold though for happiness

there are archers in the south haressing us but an axe is on the way to help
there is a barb city in the east, that is actually in a nice spot. Later we can grab that
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/Civ4ScreenShot0114.jpg

Despite my deep desire to get our economy in better shape, I built exactly zero Cottages this turn. This was mostly because I was using our Workers to improve special resources (including the Marble which I realized after the fact we would not have enough food to work :smoke:). I did get the other Gold resource hooked up which lead to this:

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/1054/civ4screenshot0027yg1.jpg

Followed by this:

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/8049/civ4screenshot0028wa8.jpg

Please remember to cancel that deal in 7 turns.

This made me feel pitiful:

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/4120/wesuckxw4.jpg

While this made me feel hungry:

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/7250/civ4screenshot0029gy2.jpg

So, I am going to go eat now. Suggest we build Cottages and get the Cows hooked up, then put all the Axes to use. I have two Warriors down South on fog busting, and I did build one Phalanx just for kicks. England is all big and bad now, but once we take all their cities the let's see who is boss?

Darrell

Phaylanx are not bad. For attacking cities, they are the same as axes, and they can beat up horse units and be used for hill's defense. I would sugges building more phaylanx's. Should we declare now and take that archer/settler pair from victoria?

:P

I was sorely tempted, but the economy is really in dire straits. I think we need to lay down some Cottages before taking on any new cities, then nail Victoria (figuratively, of course). That Archer/Settler pair has already Settled, NE of where I took the pick, I think. Happiness is a big issue as well. There is Silver and Fur to be had which will help our happiness issues, but I didn't notice seafood around either site so the cities would be a big economic letdown. Maybe I missed some...a Crab and Silver/Fur sight will pay for itself, and the happiness boost will be huge. Of course, it will be cheaper to just take Victoria's cities :hammer:

I've got to assume whoever has Music probably has Literature, and will probably beat us to the Great Library. Which stinks, because we haven't levaraged our second trait yet. That said, we have Marble and should at least make a run for it.

Darrell

Oh, so I am UP. Will play sometime today.

From one perspective, its a good thing Liz settled ... save us the trouble of producing settler :evil:

--

From one perspective, its a good thing Liz settled ... save us the trouble of producing settler You know what is the irony? On levels emperor and above (unless you're alone on an Island/continent) one hardly needs to settle anything except for the first few crucial resource cites and can conquer the rest. This despite the promise that AI won't spam the land with settlers...well, well, well

Pre-Turn

- We are building a worker ... why? We have lots of worker, plus Vic would no doubt supply us with more :evil:
I vetoed it, go for Phanax instead.


Peaceful Years

Made use of the build up peaceful years to spy on England ...

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB23-BC0130-Canterbury.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB23-BC0115-Notingham.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB23-BC0100-London.jpg

I have also cancelled the gold "tribute" to JC, and later get clams from him. Yeah, I know happiness is a bigger issue, but he don't have any space happiness resources.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB23-BC0040-JC-trade.jpg


War!

Later, I showed Vicky this picture:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB23-BC0010-Vic-war.jpg

She like it so much that she gifted us a worker, and execute a Jew Miss as celebration:

While attacking, Axeman defeats (5.00/5): English Worker at 99.7 percent.
While attacking, Archer defeats (3.00/3): English Jewish Missionary at 99.7 percent.

Later, she even offer us Cantebury as a token of appreciation:

Turn 169 (35 AD)
Axeman promoted: City Raider I
While attacking, Axeman defeats (0.60/5): English Archer at 20.6 percent. <- Ha, its better to be lucky than good!
Axeman promoted: City Raider I
While attacking, Axeman defeats (2.30/5): English Spearman at 72.6 percent.
While attacking, Axeman defeats (2.45/5): English Chariot at 79.5 percent.
Judaism has spread: Canterbury
Captured Canterbury (Victoria)

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB23-AD0035-Cantebury.jpg

See the horse archer in the pic? Now you see it ...

While attacking, Phalanx defeats (1.25/5): English Horse Archer at 96.7 percent.

Now you don't.

Phalanx promoted: Medic I
Phalanx promoted: Cover

However, our economy plumet all the way down. Sugest razing future city unless absolutely (like the JewHolyCity).

Situaton at NewCastle:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB23-AD0050-Newcastle.jpg

Yeah, I know, I should have done something, but I was naively waiting for it to grow ... on retrospect, should have went in and razed the city. We don't want it. We simply can't afford to keep it ... but the horse archer there is a bit of a trouble.

In the other news, Khan settled towards us:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB23-AD0005-Khan-city.jpg

Fine, save me one fog-buster. I moved him back towards the palace, just in time to face a barb there.

Also OB'ed with Khan later:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/RB23-AD0050-Khan-OB.jpg

>>> The Save (50AD) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/76783/RB23-AD-0050.Civ4SavedGame) <<<

Checked the save. Couple of thoughts...

We should set research on 50% for now on deficit research. This will give us alphabet in 3 turns which is important. We can trade alphabet for all the tech's we are missing this way.

Once canterbury comes out of revolt, we should spam cottages there. Looks like a good commerce city. In Corinth, we should run the plains horse instead of the grassland forest. I also think we should disband the warrior in Thermoplaye on the gold. We have 2 archers in the area incase any barb's show up. Our unit upkeep is a huge 15 gold per turn, so I would disband any units we dont need..

We should definately raze newcastle IMO. In terms of other cities if we continue the war, I would keep london and jewish holy city, raze everything else. Once we start putting some cottages up our economy will be good. If we can take the jewish holy city this war, it would be a huge plus, but I think we may need to declare peace and go after her later.

Nice work. Got it and will be able to play today sometime.

Looks like a good turnset :goodjob:

We are building a worker ... why?

We are working a LOT of un-improved tiles. We need Cottages. The city was at the happiness cap. Victoria's Workers will be needed for Victoria's cities ;)

Darrell

We should set research on 50% for now on deficit research. This will give us alphabet in 3 turns which is important. We can trade alphabet for all the tech's we are missing this way.

Not only that, it will allow us to extort techs from Victoria when we are ready for a break. She might already have Alphabet (I didn't check). If she does, plus Literature, that is what we should go for. I really, really want the Great Library!

Darrell

I disband the warrior firstly, and we're now even at 10% research.:woohoo: . We rock!

In any case I run at 80% for Alphabet in 2 (will use half our funds).

OK, this may be foolish but I trade our only rice to Kublai for wine as we have :mad: in 4 cities (now 2) and no health issues.

I press enter...

Look at the situation at Newcastle. I sacrifice our chariot in the hopes it withdraws, it doesn't but reduces the axe to 2.2/5. Two axes and a phalanx win and one axe perishes. Down to one HA, and our phalanx will be able to promote to Formation next turn :).

Turn 2 sees Alphabet come in (Julius already has it). Pick Mathematics as I think Currency is in order. I'm going to drop research down to +1gpt at 20%.

Back to Newcastle, Phalanx loses against HA at 87% :mad: . We get 32gp compensation after the axe wipes him out.

The trading rounds. That's a lot of techs we're down, lets see what we can get.

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/4269/civ4screenshot0004vo0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Julius has every tech we do so he's no good. Frederick and Kublai only are missing Alphabet (methinks no GL for us). I've stopped here for advise. Two options are to trade alphabet to Kublai and Bismark or to hoard it in an attempt at the GL. I can get the following (Vicky still won't speak to me).

Bismark - Sailing or Iron Working (not both).
Kublai - Meditation and Sailing or Mathematics or Iron Working and Meditation

Obviously trading for Maths means we will be able to get something out of Julius as well.

So best case is Iron Working and Mathematics. I say take it as I can't see us getting GL. Thoughts?

what can we extort from Lizzy before we start trading. I would rather not trade the cheap techs.
We could go for 10 turns peace to extort nice techs and then trade the more valuable stuff with the others

Vicky won't talk at all so we can't extort anything from her as yet (or even get peace).

You know, my experience has been that the AI doesn't research Literature for the GL, but for Music and the free GA. Now, we can be fairly certain someone has that since Homer was born in a distant land, but I still think the GL is possible. We have Marble, Literature is a cheap tech, we'll be able to run deficit research while cracking on Victoria, and we'll be willing to chop forrests to get it out. We're Philosophical and we haven't generated a single GPP :crazyeye:. This wonder for us is worth 16 per turn, it will net us many
GS which can pop techs that can be traded in N:1 deals to catch up.

In summary, my vote is that we still go hard for Literature and the GL and try to get Mathematics++ from Victoria for peace (given techs don't count towards WFYABTA).

Darrell

I agree with darrel, I think we have good shot on GL if we're only competing against one civ. It will help us a big amount.

IMO, we should trade alphabet here instead of hoarding it. I dont think AI will go straight from alphabet to literature so I still think we can get GL.. Im pretty sure once AI has math it will go straight to currency or calender instead of literature.. It would be nice to see what we can extort and make deals around that :p (looks like victoria has currency btw)

I dont think AI will go straight from alphabet to literature so I still think we can get GL.

Right...the one thing to note though is someone does have Music, and probably went through Literature to get it since that is the cheaper tech. The key is focus. If we make it a priority and chop it out with after deficit research, I think we've still got a good shot at it. In the end it is a risk/reward call. Very real risk, but major reward.

Darrell

OK, I'll do the trades, start researching Polytheism and then Literature and see what we can get from Victoria.

More later...

One thing that slipped my mind is the GL requires a Library in the city. So the opportunity cost goes up a bit although at least if we miss the GL we can run some Scientist specialists. If possible we should try and time the Library to complete with Literature.

Ozbenno got a tough turnset :)

Edit: Damn, I forgot about the Polytheism pre-req as well. We might want to try picking that up in a trade to save some turns.

Darrell

OK checklist for remaining 8 turns.

1. Trade like the tech whore that I am.
2. Get Polytheism from 1 or research it myself
3. Research Literature
4. Build library in Corinth (highest hammer city)
5. Build GL in Corinth

I get Iron Working and Mathematics from Alphabet. Iron is convieniently placed as follows :lol: .

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3341/civ4screenshot0000nv5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/8814/civ4screenshot0001dn8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/9008/civ4screenshot0002ai2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

No-one will trade Poly so start researching (in 9 turns at -10gpt@50%).

We pick up some pocket money at Oxford.

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/5900/civ4screenshot0004xu2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Last turn Poly comes in and switch to Literature (due in 26) :lol: . Library is due in Corinth in 4. I've gone cottage mad but economy still seems to be going backwards.

So from the checklist 1 was done but wasn't great, 2 was done on last turn. All the rest is down to you Qwack! Good luck.

Tech situation is too depressing to post a screen shot of, lets just say we've got nothing to trade and Bismark (industrious) has Literature.

Peace offer.

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/5972/civ4screenshot0005xg7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I'd say probably worth taking and regroup for 10 but could also push on if we wanted and take one more city to get better techs out of her.

The Save

138260

Trade situation doesnt matter. The thing which saves every game at this point is the overpowered drama -> Philosophy with great scientist move... Im pretty sure we will be heading down that path soon :p

Ill need until tonight to play this one.

Nice turnset, you and Grey Fox did a good job taking it to Victoria. Literature in 26 is going to be a problem though...let's see what Qwack can come up with :)

Darrell

Bad news guys... we got Great library. Oh wait :cool:

First turn, go to our good friend bismarck and beg for 2 gold per turn, he gives it to us. Send phaylanx that was guarding horse to the about to be founded city in south. He attacks at 74.2% odds in 230 AD and wins.

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/1518/civ4screenshot0001ho3.th.jpg (http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0001ho3.jpg)

He pillages a huge 2 gold... but every bit matters, right? :lol: . Send a scouting party to check defense at london. Ugh, so many units, I would have preferred a 2 to 1 ratio, but this is a desperate situation, so I ccouldnt wait for more units. It wasnt looking like good odds, it was 10 units to 7 and +60% cultural defense.

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/6917/civ4screenshot0002bt0.th.jpg (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0002bt0.jpg)

Our army reaches london's gates by 320 AD, I was hoping she would play like every other AI and move some units out at about this point making it easier for us to capture, but she didnt... After a 2 turn battle, london is ours :eek: :eek: :eek:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/613/civ4screenshot0007ni7.th.jpg (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0007ni7.jpg)

I try to extract construction or currency out of victoria at this point, but she didnt give in. I wait 1 turn, hoping she would be offering more, but nada. So I pull off this deal in 350 AD:

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/5871/civ4screenshot0010ld7.th.jpg (http://img205.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0010ld7.jpg)

In 365 AD, start GL in athens with a huge army of 5 workers nearby to chop it out. :lol: Now ill be completely honest here, every message that came up got me scared, that it was going to be "Great library has been built in far away land", but that message didnt come up, and on my last turn, or 500 AD, GL is finished in Athens.

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/418/civ4screenshot0015ba6.th.jpg (http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0015ba6.jpg)

And the same turn, we find a gold source near sparta... are you kidding me? :eek:

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/583/civ4screenshot0016dj4.th.jpg (http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0016dj4.jpg)

Wow. This was seriously the 15 luckiest turns I have played in civ4 so far. First with the amazing win at london, then great library not being built, then the gold pop.

Yeah, and now how to move forward. Construction is due in 4, elizabeth has longbows, so we will need cat's now to take anything. GL in capital has significantly improved our research situation. Our first great scientist should be used on a philosophy lightbulb IMO, for trade material and catching up.

[edit] Also in terms of corinth, I think we should use that as a production city, so building cottages there is pointless. I have started Heroic epic in it which is due in 7 turns. In terms of athens, im not sure what to build there so ill let TheRat decide. National Epic probably wont be as useful right now as more army to take some more cities, so I was leaning towards army. I also think we should switch to Judiasm soon for happiness, everyone on our island is jewish so it will atleast hopefully insure nobody attacks us while we take care of victoria later on.

save:

Rooster:

Qwack
TheRat - up for 15
Darreljs - on deck
Greyfox
Ozbenno

Absolutely Fabulous. :goodjob:

We won't be able to get construction in 4, since we would soon be forced to drop our science rate to perhaps 40%, or even 30%. So I suspect its a post-war lay low build up period in the hope of improving our economy, and then a massive cats rush to finish off Vicky. We still want that Shrine city.

--

what a brilliant job netting us GL, London and another source of gold :goodjob:

will play right now, trying to get us cats to fight again. Remember the only way we can win this without civics is :hammer: and more :hammer:

Hoo boy, this game is a lot more exciting than the last one! I think Qwack just proved it is best to be lucky and good :D. I totally agree about popping Philosophy with the first Great Scientist, although note that we will need to have Sailing researched. We can trade it to the AIs for good value and it doesn't really buy them anything. I believe the priorities should be Currency and Code of Laws to get our economy in better shape.

Darrell

save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/RB23_AD-0725.Civ4SavedGame)

Pre-Turn
realise that the known world is all jewish...that will be great for us once we have the shrine
construction will be more likely done in 6
ask pleased Caesar for 100gold but he denies that, too bad

hire 2 scientists in Athens as it will grow into unhappiness soon

1. 515AD
going to connect iron, swords and maces will be better to attack in the future

2. 530AD
we have a GS, but we need drama before we can lightbulb philo
ask Bismarck for 100gold and he gives that to us :)

3. 545AD
Bismarck cancels the free 2gpt deal, well, we can't have it all

4. 560AD
construction is in, drama next
Sparta and Athens start both cats

give Khan cows for 6gpt
nobody will part with any proper tech, but if we have cash, we can get drama fast
get monotheism, sailing and 300gold from caesar

now 100% science will give us drama in 5 (and philo)

5. 575AD
all of them have calendar, that would be great to have really

6. 590AD
zzz

7. 605AD
Corinth finishes HE, starts cats as well. We connect the iron finally

8. 635AD
drama is in, CoL takes only 7 turns with 100% science

lightbulb philo
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/Civ4ScreenShot0002.JPG

Canterbury has 3 unhappy faces now due to join motherland whining.
We need to take on England soon again

9. 650AD
big trading round now
get calendar and currency from Khan
get metal from Bismarck for construction and drama

Vikky has machinery, but nobody else
sell her drama for 200gold to fuel our research on CoL (in 4 turns), which only she has currently

10. 665AD
Khan comes to trade spices and silks, I agree for now
London's borders expand as well

fire 2 scientists for faster growth in Athens since happy limit is up
start a forge there

on turn 13 we get another GS, that could lighbuld compass now or build an academy, team can decide
on turn 14 get CoL, go for CS now

Khan/Bismarck have machinery as well
we could give Khan CoL for monarchy and 140gold to fuel our research
we are currently even at 50%, but due to surplus cashcan afford more

London will get a forge helped by chops to connect spices
I think I would build an academy now in London since it has the GL

as for military, we must continue with swords and cats to attack Lizzy soon, she is running away with techs and even has CS

Great build up ... so the Rat is not a warmonger but actually a all-rounder ...

I vote for academy ... coupled with TGL it will speed up our research a bit.

How did Liz (I keep using Liz and Vic interchangeably ... :crazyeye:) manage to continue teching like that with her capital decapitalized?

--

I take a little time to explore our new empire, which is radically different than the one I inherited last time. I note in passing we are (barely) first in land area. However, we are only 4th/5th/6th/7th in food/gold/soldiers/production. Still, things are looking up. I see that London already has an Academy (and The Oracle), so I am assuming ThERat meant the Acadmey for Athens (which has the GL), especially since the GS is sitting there. I go ahead and build it, and switch the Corn and a plains forrest to two river cottages since we are at the happiness cap. Civil Service drops from 9 to 8. Sparta is under the happy cap so I switch the desert Copper mine to the flood plains river, which speeds growth from 15 to 4 after which I'll switch it back. A couple of other cities are under the cap as well, but there is no way to radically speed them up without giving up a lot of hammers, which we need now :hammer:

I think about it for some time and finally decide to pull the CoL for Monarchy/140 gold trade with Kublai. That's going to carry us for four turns of deficit research. The last thing I do might be a bit controversial, but I adopt Judaism (ducks rocks). It gives us an extra happy in most of our cities (two of which are unhappy) and will really help diplomatic relations, especially if we can get Kublai Kahn to adopt it. The turn of anarchy sucks, but I took it on my turnset. Oh, one other thing, England has built the Temple of Solomon :)

The incense comes online and now we only have one unhappy person (in Cantebury).

800 A.D. - I spot a Maceman in Coventry :(

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3289/picture1hy4.jpg

830 A.D. - KK converts to Judaism, we run out of money for deficit research (CS due in 4 at 50%). JC has Machinery but won't do a straight up for Philosophy. Neither will Bismarck. However KK gives us 100 gold for being Jewish (:p ), I think about it a bit and decide killing Victoria to get the Temple of Solomon is time critical, so I go ahead and let J.C. rip me (Philo+Drama for Machinery + 70 gold). He's at +6 relations. Deficit research nails CS in two turns.

860 A.D. - Civil Service comes in and Victoria declares war!

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/282/picture5hl7.gif

Kudos to the AI, we were coming after her anyway and she declares before we are ready. On the plus side we won't accumulate any more "you declared war on our friend" penalites. I drop research to 0% as I believe we'll need to upgrade to some maces soon. Bismarck takes advantage of the situation:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3893/picture3fl7.jpg

I give in to him, everyone else has it and he is pretty backwards. Here is what she has coming at us:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8180/picture4ph3.jpg

The bottom two HAs are solo pillagers. The top "stack" is a Crossbowman, Catapult and HA. I'm going to stop now, with 6 turns left for some consultation. Kublai Kahn will declare on Victoria (and throw in 30 gold) for Civil Service. Caesar will do it (and throw in Horseback Riding and 10 gold) for Civil Service. Bismarck is not willing to at all. We have in London a Swordsman, 4 Catapults, 3 Phalanx, 5 Axeman. We have 90% or better odds with the two Phalanx against the three Horse Archers, but that will leave them exposed in the open.

In a normal game I'd just whip up some Maceman and take her out. However, we can't whip. We can upgrade an old unit to a Maceman or Crossbowman every other turn. That means that if Vicky really comes at us (her power graph is a decent chunk above ours, and she has Feudalism which we lack) we could be in a bind. KK is in the lead but JC is pretty backwards, so I would like to make the deal with him (the shared war might even get him to Friendly). It is a bit of a worry as he might end up taking the Temple Of Solomon. However, it is probably the safest move. I'll wait until we have consensus before continuing.

Darrell

I would bring in JC. Where is the ToS? Is it anywhere near JC-Vic border?

although we can't whip, we could do something akin to whipping (a lot less effective though) is to starve population off by working on all avialble hammers.

--

The ToS is NOT in the one city I can see on JC's border. The exact location is currently unknown to us.

Darrell

Wow :eek: , I'm away for half a day and what happens???

I was a bit skeptical on how we were going here but you guys have pulled us out of the fire. :goodjob: Although Qwack, we've already got gold, you should have found silver :crazyeye:

I would hold off calling in a war ally unless we really need it. Don't want anyone else cutting our sandwich do we? :lol: That Jewish Holy City would be really nice.

I'd get the troops in London, upgrade what we can, and let her come at us until we're ready to attack. Some crossbows should hold off the maces. I'd get rid of the HAs if we can but I assume we're going to get pillaged pretty bad in London.

birng in JC, AI fighting each other is always good for us...even though we need to give up CS

Okay, so continuing where I left off. I do end up bringing JC into the battle. He pays the price fairly early:

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/5637/picture1jd6.jpg

I re-arrange cities for max hammers although I still keep commerce a priority as we have plenty of troops to upgrade. Two cities are running a 1 food deficit, but are nowhere near starving off a citizen. My math was off before, we get one upgrade every three turns. I decide to kill all the enemy around London. Two suicide cats soften up the main stack, then I take out the Horse Archer, Catapult and Crossbowman with no losses. I also kill the two Horse Archers with Phalynx although next turn one falls to a Pikeman. I draw first blood:

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/5434/picture2zg6.jpg

The city brings in zero resources and is size one, so I raze it. The cash will help upgrade a Maceman this turn :evil:. I kill time for a few turns just moving troops around (pulling in some Archers from the back line, watch out for that barbarian city). First off, I am completely ignoring Coventry. It is fairly well defended and not the Jewish holy city. Let Caesar throw some troops at it. There are two staging grounds. The minor one is at Nottingham:

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9807/picture4gc8.jpg

It is a large city, but not particularly useful to us. The forces assembled are enough to take it probably, at the least to prevent it from becoming a thorn in our side until more arrives. The larger force is heading due west searching for the Jewish holy city:

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1971/picture3vu6.jpg

The stack is not as beefy as I would like, but it should serve. More troops are on the way, if you want to wait for them or wait to upgrade another axe to a Maceman. My begging for money has gotten me nowhere, but I haven't tried for about five turns. I've seen several Horse Archers, so keep cranking out our UU. Other than that I've seen mostly Maceman, Longbowman, and Pikeman (thankfully). Good hunting :sniper:.

Darrell

AI declares on us while we were preparing to declare on it? Amazing :p.

Nice turns darrel. Looks like that stack darrel put together is probably enough to take care of nottingham, with our smaller army down there. Btw, I think we should build a irrigation chain to corinth now since we have CS, its size 5 but its happiness limit is 9, so we should try to grow it with farms allowing us to work more mines. We should go after that jewish holy city this war, looks like Elizabeth's main attack stack is already gone from the power graph, jewish holy city will be huge for spying and gold.. everyone on our island is jewish :eek: Although I agree with you that nootingham might not be a huge use for us immdietely, it will severly hurt elizabeth's research. She is working alot of 3 commerce coast tilles. Interestingly though, she is working 1 ocean tile which is worth 2f1c when she could be working a coast tile worth 2f3c. Hooray for AI, ive seen this happen with plains forests and grassland mines also. AI works a 1f2p plains forest when it could be working a 1f3p grassland mine...

Executive Summary

Frustrating turnset ... I hope I had the luck of Qwack, but alas that is not to be. Hope being good is enough. :p


Inherited turns

Looks good. Made a few adjustments here and then, but nothing major.

Made a trade with Bismarck to improve relationship ... he is friendly with Vicky, and I am a bit worried Vicky would convince him to attack us.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD950-bismarck-trade.jpg

Also traded lux with KK.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1025-KK-trade.jpg


Battle of Hastings

After some movements, we finally found our prized city:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1010-found-holy.jpg

And in 1055AD, the atatck comence:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1055-attack-Hastings.jpg

I half expected Vicky to reinforce Hastings, but she did not. Fine.

While attacking, Catapult loses to: English Longbowman (6.00/6) at 0.3 percent.
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
While attacking, Catapult loses to: English Longbowman (5.22/6) at 0.4 percent.
While attacking, Maceman defeats (2.56/8): English Longbowman at 84.8 percent.
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
While attacking, Maceman defeats (6.64/8): English Longbowman at 86.8 percent.
While attacking, Axeman loses to: English Longbowman (0.78/6) at 80.3 percent.
While attacking, Axeman defeats (5.00/5): English Pikeman at 99.2 percent.
While attacking, Catapult defeats (5.00/5): English Longbowman at 100.0 percent.
Judaism has spread: Hastings
Captured Hastings (Victoria)

At the cost of one cat (the other retreated) and one axe lost at 80% :aargh: we own the Holy City:


Battle of Nottingham

Did Qwack says the southern force is enough? Not when you have my luck ...

While defending, Maceman loses to: English Catapult (2.40/5) at 96.8 percent.

Jeez! :gripe: THAT IS NOT SUPPOSE TO HAPPEN!!!

This stroke of bad luck renders our southern force not capable of taking Nottingham, since without a mace, it will take a lot of suicides to kill the longbow.

No choice, I have to pull some maces to the south. Finally, in 1100AD, we attacked:

While attacking, Catapult loses to: English Longbowman (2.10/6) at 0.4 percent.
While attacking, Maceman defeats (4.96/8): English Longbowman at 67.0 percent.
Maceman promoted: City Raider I
While attacking, Maceman defeats (2.56/8): English Longbowman at 99.5 percent.
Swordsman promoted: City Raider I
While attacking, Swordsman defeats (1.68/6): English Pikeman at 85.1 percent.
Judaism has spread: Nottingham (English Empire)
Judaism has spread: Nottingham
Captured Nottingham (Victoria)

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1100-notingham.jpg

After giving it some serious thought, I agree with darell to raze it. It was a painful decision, but really, Nottingham has nothing to bring forth to our empire at the moment.

Razed Nottingham

Vicky had also brough a cat and crossbow to Hastings. I upgraded our sword and axe to maces when I see that. The cat has been easily repelled, but the crossbow is a headache, especially when it is Shock promoted. We lost one mace.

Here is the situation, suggest taking out York and then we can consider peace. York can be kept, since the cottages alone should be able to pay for the maintenance.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1100-sit.jpg

I checked Bismarck throughout my turnset, and he is unwilling to part with Feudalism. Always demanding gold + philosophy. Towards the end, he placed us with the WFYABTA limit :aargh:

Our empire is in dire need for courthouses. Once those are built, one may consider shifting palace to a central location, like London. Without bureaucracy, it makes not much differenc ewhere the capitol is, so the incentive for capital is only the distance upkeep.

We also had a great scientist, I don't know what to do with him. We could merge him, construct one more Academy, or learn Paper.

>>> The Save (1100AD) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/76783/RB23-AD-1100.Civ4SavedGame) <<<

Good turns even with the bad luck, great job getting the holy city. +20 gold :). I dont know if we should have razed nottingham, even if it increases our city maintenance, it would have reduced our unit cost. Im not sure of the mechanics on that but it was 12 pop, so it probably reduces unit cost a decent bit. Definately keep york though with the developed cottages and wine.

btw, check out that 5 horse archers/1 maceman army victoria is sending towards cumae on galleys, that probably would have been attacking us if we didnt bring in JC into the war. :D I agree with greyfox we should seek peace after York. Our army is really good now so once we rebuild our economy we can take on pretty much everyone except kublai, we still need to get that barb city and a fur/silver city to improve our happiness in the south. With shrine and the cities now, I think we are in good position to keep up researchwise.

Im not sure what to do with scientist, maybe save him for education on the way to Liberalism, but ofcourse we will might get another GS by that point also..?

Well the situation is much brighter than last I picked up this save :) . Maybe I should skip :lol: .

I upgrade the chariot in Hastings to a HA to deal with the crossbow hanging around.

Just as planned first IBT crossbow attacks and is destroyed by HA. :goodjob:

I leave the GS alone.

Vicky comes back at Hastings 2nd IBT with a HA, crossbow and catapult (emptied from York :p ). We lose another mace. :mad: I dispose of the crossbow with the HA next turn.

Barb archer kills sentry on forrested hill. :eek:

I finally have some forces assembled at York.

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/8608/civ4screenshot0014xk9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Didn't need this. Knew I should have skipped :lol: .

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/8770/civ4screenshot0015zk8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Take part in the battle of York before retiring for advise. Sacrificial cat does a nice job but dies. Don't lose any other troops though.

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/8833/civ4screenshot0016il7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

And with that Vicky is ready for peace. This is her offer. I'm sure we can get better.

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/7963/civ4screenshot0017ge8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Kublai will declare on Bismark but we've currently got nothing to bribe him with. Two options I can see. If we can get Engineering from Vicky for peace he doesn't have it. We could also bulb Paper from GS in Athens and use that.

Have seen one lone longbow from bismark so far. He has settled a city down south that we should raze. We are essentially equal with him in power.

I'd take out the barb city as well soon as it has resources we can use.

Have played 6 turns only, will gather thoughts and wisdom before playing out the rest (are we on 10 or 15?).

Question is do we try and get Kublai involved or just play a defensive role until we can get peace or do we go all medievil on him to teach him a lesson? Do we leave Vicky alone for the moment?

If she gives engineering, take that and get kublai involved IMO. If she doesnt bulb paper and get him involved. This will insure that none of the AI's on our island run away, Kublai is getting too strong right now, war should slow him down a bit. But wow, I seriously wasnt expecting bismarck to declare after he gave us so much help...

I would say peace with vicky, get kublai involved against bismarck, and play defensive/rebuild economy. Lets see what others say, maybe we can even backstap kublai this way after his primary offensive army is used up on bismarck, but im getting ahead here :p.

I agree with Qwack's plan, getting AI's to fight is worth a GS (and we get paper on the way as well)

Good turnsets fellows, no one said the game would be easy and you did a great job prosecuting the war against Victoria. My very strong suspiscion is that she bribed Bismarck to enter the war. I would say if there are no more juicy plumbs we get her to make peace for Feudalism AND try to get her to cancel deals with Bismarck :evil:. I think he might have a hard time finding us without open borders from Vickie or Julius. Alternatively if there are more good cities in range we can take one or more two and try to get Engineering, as it will have more trade value.

After peace, we really should get a Market in Hasting, and eventually a Grocer and a Bank! Each Jewish Missionary would then be worth 2 gold per turn, as well as spying. I am guessing Isabella is on the other continent hoarding the other religions, which is great for us. We also need Courthouses, just like Qwack said, to get our costs under control. Some of those cities are getting darn expensive. I would actually leave the Palace in Athens and build the FP out west. I think it has the exact same reduction effect on nearby cities, and we'll need Athens to reduce the maintenance of Kublai Kahn's cities, eventually :)

So in short, I recommend one or two more cities at most before peace, then a couple of builder turnsets to get some of the happiness resources settled and Courthouses in place. Research path generaly along the Guilds/Banking and Chemistry/Steel path. We don't have to wait for those techs for the next war of course, but that should be the general direction given our strategy!

Edit: Read Qwack and ThERat's reply better, and agree with their course on the war diplomacy.

Darrell

I firstly try to get Engineering out of Vicky for peace. She declines, I try everything else other than Feudalism (which we're researching) and likewise.

I decide to take one more city before trying again.

Kublai ends up declaring for free so I get to keep the GS for now :) . I change research from Feudalism to Paper as we'll be picking that up of Vicky in about 3 turns I reckon.

Hastings already has a market in it, and is our number one commerce city, and number one unhappy city with 28 :mad: . We should think about cottaging some of the floodplains though and getting a missionary to Thermopolae, our only non-Jewish city..

Bismark was definately bribed to war as he only has one longbow wandering about and its not even pillaging.

As predicted, after we aquire Vicky's last decent city Warwick, we get Feudalism and Compass for peace. Our economy picks up immensely (close to 20gpt and one turn on paper).

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/2557/civ4screenshot0001dq2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Trade Kublai incense for sugar, cancel spice/silk deal as we have spices and then trade silk for fish.

The spying value of the Jewish Holy City shows us that he pretty much has just a spear and longbow combo in his cities except for Berlin. I've sent the troops onwards to Sparta because...

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/6995/civ4screenshot0004bk7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Although we can't see what's parked in that city.

There's some troops parked at Dusseldorf in the south, defended by a lone longbow. The barb city might be ripe for the picking too.

The Save

138446

well played and great thing we didn't give away paper for war :goodjob:

Nice! Using the GS for Education is probably the right move, gets us to within one step of Liberalisms free tech, although right now there isn't anything good available. I'm surprised to see some gaps between Victoria's old borders and Bismark. I think we should probably just make peace with the idiot, taking whatever he will give us. He's thin, but do we think his cities will be worth the maintenace burden? We're overdue for some peaceful infrastructure turns. I also think most of Victoria's farms could use cottages at this point, espeically the floodplains. The way she was farming, makes me wonder if she was trying to run a specialist economy. If so not very smart for a Financial civ :crazyeye:.

Darrell

I'd say definately raze Dusseldorf first then maybe peace, I think he still was refusing to talk at the end of my turns. It is a faux war anyway as he hasn't attacked or pillaged anything. Hopefully Bismark and Kublai can biff it out. If Kublai starts winning the war, we should head his way. JC and Vicky are still at war as well.

Yeah, next target needs to be Kublai probably, he needs to be taken down a notch or three. That will leave JC as the only true friend on the continent (well, until we need his lands for the domination limit :mischief:), but IIRC we should not have any penalties with Bismarck since he declared on us. Unless of course we raze a city, but even then probably not a large enough penalty to make him a permanent enemy.

Darrell

Great turns Ozbenno. He declared for free :)

I think diplomatic victory is quite possible here, as long as kublai will not be the populaiton leader, we can eliminate victoria, and can get bismarck to vote for us(or take his land). This would be easier to decide if we knew where the other island was and how large it is.

Im going to need some time to play this, possibly until tommorow night.

Played 10 turns.

Overall pretty quiet turnset. Raze Bismarck's southern city for 52 gold. I notice we have a worker sleeping in hastings. Wake him up immedietely, we have alot of stuff to be improved. :smoke: :smoke:

Paper researched on turn 7, burn our scientist on Education. Education is now due in about 6. Brought our entire army back towards sparta near Bismarck's front.

I think we have alot of approaches we can follow here, we can expand the rest of our land and just build up for some turns, or we can go after bismarck and take some of his cities. Im not sure what to do, as both options seem viable. Other options include going for chemistry/military tradition and use grenadiars or cavalry to go after AI. Im not sure which way to go...

The question is, can we outproduce the AI's with 125-150% of thier land without slavery. Kublai's power just keeps skyrocketing and its making me sad, we can try to go after Kublai here but it might hurt us, as the only army we have is offensive. If he lands a stack somewhere it will be extremely difficult to defend. Bismarck's cities on the other hand are very crappily defended, 1 or 2 longbows in most of his cities, but can we afford them?

Other than that, I think we need forbidden in london ASAP, I think we should build a courthouse in Athens just so we can get 6 for forbidden in 15 turns.. Also a note about athens, I was building aqueduct there because it had 2 unhealthiness, we can grow that a bit but we will need aqueduct for that, or we can build army there instead of growth. Armyt will probably be better if we decide to go after kublai..

Army which can be used to attack bismarck: TheRat has option to move this out or not. Bismarck will accept peace right now and gives us 50 gold + world map for it.
http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/2479/civ4screenshot0034fw1.th.jpg (http://img53.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0034fw1.jpg)

Power graph:
http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/9295/civ4screenshot0035sw9.th.jpg (http://img53.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0035sw9.jpg)

save:

I think we have no choice but to slow this fellow down, otherwise he will simply run away. maybe we can draw another Civ into a war. With our despotism government, we have no choice but to fight I guess.

Anyway, got it, play tonight

Yeah im inclined to agree with you. I think I had a bad turnset being stuck between military and rebuild phase, should have gone 1 way or another. Btw, I have some units south near barb city to take it in a few turns.

I took a look at the save and had a couple of observations:

1. KK has 17% of the land area but 25% of the population. This is vs. us at 18.7% land, and only 16.25% population. So, he has done a better job at vertical growth.

2. Our GNP is 42 (7th in the world) with an average of 96 and a tops of 226. It is deceptive as we are living off deficit research now and can keep teching in the near future.

3. If we got Liberalism then the best tech we could grab is Printing Press (Nationalism being kind of useless with our rules). Caesar will give Optics/WM/20 gold for Paper/WM, which will open up Astronomy. Of course, we have enough land on our continent for domination so that is probably worthless.

My personal suggestion is we go Education -> Guilds -> Liberalism (Gunpowder) -> Banking -> Chemistry (need to trade for Engineering) -> Steel. We continue to dedicate most cities to military builds with key cities getting Banks and a couple building Missionaries. All with good hammer output should also get Courthouses, and definitely need FP (London is good). I would proceed in this order towards Domination:

1. Settle our land to grab the Fur, Silver and Barbarian city (this brings in Clams and I believe Corn). Also Settle to grab the Sheep in that English city we razed.

2. Take out England.

3. By this point I assume we should have Grenadiers and be near Cannon, and that we should be on our way with Banks in several high Commerce cities (especially the Shrine city). I would then declare on KK and try to pull in our good buddy JC. Interesting enough both are at Friendly with us right now, but with JC we do NOT share a war (he is at war with Victoria, KK with Bismarck). My fervent hope is KK and Bismarck fight an inconclusive war and wear each other out, my real fear is KK rolls over him in which case we might have to bump #3 up in priority. Make peace when we need a breather.

4. Repeat step #3 until KK is a non-factor

5. Repeat step #3 with Bismarck until we hit Domination limit.

Darrell

Missed your posts while typing mine :crazyeye:.

If we want to go for KK now I am also okay with that, however we cannot bribe JC to join since he "has enough on his hands" with victoria. I guess we could try to ask him to make peace with her (might be good since we want her cities), then try and pull him in against KK. A three team dogpile on KK (us, JC and Bis) at this time might be just what the doctor ordered.

Darrell

Well, one thing that should be expected is peace between bismarck and kublai soon after we declare on him. We can beat Kublai even with his current army, but my fear is quickly reinforcing defense against kublai's stacks without slavery. What im hoping is kublai has already used all those stacks on bismarck, which means he will send 1 or 2 units at a time, which we can beat easily.

usually the AI burns it's excess tropps pretty fast and after that is unable to cope with a human onslaught. I hope KK really burned all his troops against germany.

I'd say get peace with Bismark, start a rebuilding session until we're ready to take on KK. Maybe think about taking out Vicky once and for all.

If KK starts getting on top of Bismark (ie taking his cities) then we should declare on him as he may start to be overstretched.

I kind of agree with Ozbenno here. However, from the screenshot seems like Bismarck is still holding on to his southern city ... suggest taking it out before peace.

Vicky seems to be surviving with only one city (unless those cities I thought belonged to Bismarck on the minimap actuallu belongs to Vicky). We could take it out, or wait for JC to do it. I'll suggest taking out Vicky ourselves to hasten her death.

I would not declare on KK right now. I would only do so after killing vicky. This will free JC from his "tied hands". But JC would most likely be a coward and dare not attack KK.

We need to shape up our defenses before declaring on KK. That means at least a couple of longbows on each city.

save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/RB23_AD-1280.Civ4SavedGame)

Pre-Turn
we still have some silver resources way south, might be worth settling there later on
MM Canterbury to slow grwoth there into unhappiness
move our stack as suggested towards Germany
get some cahs for our WM

IT JC asks us to join the war against Vicky, in order to collect some brownie points, I agree
(we're now at +13point with him)

1. 1226AD
need to up lux to 10% due to WW, but our English cities aren't really that happy

2. 1232AD
spot a English maces and german settle pair. march

3. 1238AD
raze Bremen for the loss of 1 cat
he offers 210gold, 5 gpt and WM for peace, take that

4. 1244AD
need to upgrade an archer because London is threatened by a mace

5. 1250AD
zzz moving on to Coverntry


6. 1256AD
we get education and Heron is born in Athens
he is heading to London to rush the FP for sure
we need more cash for research, thus trade paper
get 400gold theocracy and optics from JC and KK
go straight for liberalism as guilds are know already

IT spot Germans pillage KK's land and thus a lux deal with him gets cancelled

7. 1262AD
our religions spreads to 2 more cities :)
take the barb city in the east
bomb Coventry

8. 1268AD
start to attack Ravenna, 2 units left
attack Coventry and lose only a cat even winning a battle at 30%
city is ours

9. 1274AD
start some theatres since we have happy issues and will always have
Germans and KK sign peace, not so good
take out Ravenna and England is gone :dance:, raze city as there is absolutely nothing appealing to it

10. 1280AD
all the whiners are finally gone, London will get it's court in 3 and with a rushed FP, it shoul be much better for us

liberalism is due in 11 at a deficit, but we have 600+ gold and with the FP should be faster
once we have finished all those courts, we can start to prepare for the next war

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/rb231280.jpg

this is a tough game and I can say that having no slavery, is the toughest thing. Well, we didn't wish for an easy game.
I am going back home soon for almost 3 weeks and I have to be skipped for the next few rounds. I will however, lurk and post comments as much as I can

Got it, will try to play tonight. Is it only 10 turns this round? Should I play 25 to make up for Qwack and ThERat :evil:? I agree Slavery has been the most missed civic. I still like Hereditary Rule the most (unless it is a water map), but then I usually don't war quite this much.

I'm going to focus on economy and defending our cities a bit better.

Darrell

Excellent work TheRat! I agree with darrlljs, some infrastructure and economy, while getting some military buildup would be good. I think we need to peg KK down some next. Will have to have a good civil defense for force beacuse no whipping/drafting.

Slavery has been sorely missed indeed! As well as Hereditary Rule, Bureaucracy :lol: .

Going to be a brief report fellows, I have to pack all night.

Did some minor micro, mostly switching Theaters to Universities since they are half cost. GreyFox, I did leave the Theaters in queue since there seemed to be a turn or two in them. I also emphasized growth in cities well below the happiness cap, slowly switching to cottages and mines as they grew. BTW, we have our sixth Courthouse due in 7. I don't believe the FP is going to give us much, but the GE is still in London now in case you want to rush it.

I think about the game situation a bit. First off, KK's southern cities lack Judaism, so we can't spy on them. We don't have a single Monastery and we can't run OR. So I order up a Monastery. His northern cities are very well defended. Cats, Longbows, 7/8/9 deep. It looks like the Bismarck war didn't harm him a bit, his power graph didn't budge. I decide for the team (:mischief: ) that the best path to beating him down is Grenadiers fast. I hold off but when Liberalism is 5 turns away I pull this trade:

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/6686/civ4screenshot0012ja3.jpg



Liberalism comes in and I take Gunpowder, which is not the most valuable tech. I then make a trade (the sceenshot didn't take) of Education (:eek: ) to KK for Engineering, about 400 gold if memory serves, and his map. Total beaker rape but we are now researching Chemistry. Let the idiot build Universities for us to take. Right now we don't have enough cash to fuel us all the way there, so more trading might be necessary. JC dropped to Pleased and we are at his WFYABTA limit. KK will give us Banking + WM for Liberalism or war on Bismarck. I suggest waiting several turns and doing it for Banking and cash. Another peace tech that won't help him for the coming storm, and Banks are going to be huge for us, even if they take forever to build. If we do this, we should build some banks while waiting on Chemistry, then run all cash to upgrade our Maceman to CR2+ Grenadiers and stomp him :hammer:.

Conventry and Parthian are building culture to get a border pop, please cancel when they do.

Darrell

P.S. There is a barb city spawned down south :(

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/7158/civ4screenshot0014hh8.jpg

P.P.S. Qin showed up, and an American is out there:

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/1106/civ4screenshot0013bc8.jpg

P.P.P.S. 10 turns feels short on Epic, should we go back to 15?

Good build up, darell. I mostly agree with the decision you made on our behalf ;)

I think 10 turns feel short for a peaceful-build-up turnset, but 15 may be a tad long for a warring turnset. I say we take either 10 or 15 turns, as the player wishes (which of-course may depend on his mood, the alignment of the stars, the phase of the moon, the height of the tide, and whether if there is crow croaking nearby ... )

EDITTurns Played, Report tomorrow morning[/i]

--

Basically a Chemistry-pursuing turnset. I pondered over how to use the Great Engineer lazing in London: Forbident Palace or light-bulbing Chem? Rushing a national wonder is really not my taste ... thus:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/fox04/RB23-AD1388-lightbulb.jpg

This bring chemistry down to 1 turn. As for the forbident palace, I have chopped 2-3 forests near London but outside cities' BFCs. There is still 18 turns to go ... I shifted tiles emphasis on hammers.

Other things of interest:

- Circei flips to us :eek:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/fox04/RB23-AD1376-Circei-revolt.jpg

Looking hard at it, I think that english city which I razed centuries ago is much better :smoke: ... so, I razed it again :lol:

I have also started 2 more settlers: 1 to settle the old england site, another to settle the silver site. Leave it to the player to decide the exact spot, but I suggest settling directly on one of the silver that will claim the other silver, iron, and fish.

- We razed yet another city! :eek:

I have some stack of maces and cats detoured to the south, and razed the barb city.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/fox04/RB23-AD1382-Libyan.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/fox04/RB23-AD1382-Libyan-razed.jpg

Afterwhich, they are moving back up north. (Not quite there yet, so they still have movement order).

- I have set research to 0%, for some Mace -> Gren upgrades.

- I have been building Longbows throughout my turnset, and shuffled the defenses a bit.

- I think the next player would be ready to declare around middle of his turnset, after 2 to 3 grenadiar upgrades.

- I played 10 turns, even though I wanted to play 15 to set the next player up for war, but 1400 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/76783/RB23-AD-1400.Civ4SavedGame) is too nice a number ...

Sly fox! That's the perfect use for the GE, don't know why I didn't think of it myself :crazyeye:. I checked the diplomatic situation, and JC is back to Friendly and KK is down to Pleased. I would trade Liberalism to JC for Banking/WM/170 gold to get an extra upgrade (and put a Bank in the Jewish holy city). Right before we declare I would trade KK Liberalism for his WM and Cash (and maybe Divine Right) just so he can't get any ultra cheap upgrades to Grenadiers.

Darrell

Got it.

The plan is to peg down Mr Khan. I'll see what I can set up. After Chemistry I'm thinking Steel for Cannons.

Bank in the Holy City is always worth whipping .... d'oh!

Steel is probably worthwhile. I would wait until all the Maceman are updated to Grenadiers before turning research back on, if we can fund deficit research enough to get it then why not? However, I think it is probably the last tech we get. I'm for rolling all the way through KK, then straight into Bismarck without pausing. I bet we can hit Domination before 1600 A.D. :)

Darrell

P.S. Might be worth trying to get JC to take on Bismarck or KK so we don't end up in a 2 on 1.

Yep, I was going to run deficit research only after maces all grened up! Although, I usually leave a couple of maces who are close to next level XP to get an extra CR promotion before upgrading as well.

Once more into the fray!

First the good news, we're waging war with KK. Now the bad news, I declared on the third turn in before fulling upgrading the troops :cry: . More good news, I had (in my opinion) a good reason for doing so. More bad news, well just read on.

I notice we have some unhealthiness, so I trade JC rice for silk. I also pull off the Liberalism for Banking + Wm + cash.

OK after pressing enter, I notice that Hanno is born in Karakorum and sure enough KK has just discovered Economics. This means he hasn't got Chemistry and won't for a while, so our window of opportunity is NOW! I can't get a Liberalism/Economics swap with cash, so instead trade Liberalism for Divine Right + Wm + all his cash (no upgrades for you). This gives me exactly enough cash for the upgrades I want to wage war!

Next turn I notice that KK's GA has begun, not good but at least he didn't burn the GM on a tech he could use against us.

Ideally, I'd like a few more turns to beef up the army a bit but knowing he can't get Chemistry for a few turns means now. No one else is willing to take on the big guy so here goes. Kukblai, its been nice knowing you.

We immediately get hit with warring with brothers of the faith unhapiness.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/8018/civ4screenshot0003uy7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

First target. We lose one of our upgraded grens but sucess is ours.

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9896/civ4screenshot0002ml7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Second target. No losses.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/803/civ4screenshot0007hs2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The first sign of a counter attack, a knight takes down one of our phalanxes but is killed next turn.

I found Delphi on the silver and Pharsalos on the bones of many cities :lol: .

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/2778/civ4screenshot0008is7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/9346/civ4screenshot0011ay3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Forbidden palace built in London.

We get another scientist, I bulb him for (partial) Printing Press, which we're sort of researching at 0% anyway ;) .

Third taget. No losses.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/1739/civ4screenshot0009jb4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I'd been dreading a huge naval invasion and here it comes.

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/8821/civ4screenshot0000fl6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Printing Press comes in on my last turn (I played 15) and I switch to Steel, but at 0% research.
And that is that. Obligitory peace offer.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6966/civ4screenshot0015kt3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Other thoughts...

I'd cottage the floodplains at Hastings, as we need cash more than GPs or food at the moment, and it will have a market, grocer and bank.

Other things to note...

I've troops on the move, at this stage mainly longbows to garrison newly captured cities and phalanxes. I've tried to cancel all orders but you never know. :blush: .

Power situation. He has been taken down slightly but obviously still has more troops around.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/3540/civ4screenshot0016xp7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

JC will join the war but is asking PP and Chemistry. Not keen on giving Chemistry away so maybe if we want him in, try just PP.

We can trade to JC for Economics but that's a pretty useless tech for us. Bismark will trade us dye but we'll get some Mongol dye soon. I'm trading him for sugar at the moment but we'll have a plantation built in 3 if we can cancel that deal.

KK has researched Nationalism, so I'm thinking he's going for Military Tradition and cavalry.

The troops are in Otrar and Almarikh. Those in Otrar are ready to march on either Old Sarai or Sanchu.

Where to go from here?

We've got the unhappies and can get peace. KK still has a ton of troops hidden away in his major cities. On the other hand, he'll likely have cavalry soon, which we don't really have an answer to. I'm leaning towards keeping the attack up until he gets cavalry and then getting peace.

Oh yeah, that other bad news I mentioned. Guess what I spotted last turn :lol: .

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/6430/civ4screenshot0004bh1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We've probably got the troops to handle it but it really depends where he lands. If he keeps going south, we have less troops. There are two knights in Almarikh, I suggest they "shadow" the galley, with a Formation phalanx on its way there.

The Save

138762

Ozbenno,

Looked like a really good turnset to me, taking some cities with few losses. I couldn't figure out what the extra piece of bad news was ;). My vote: :hammer:, :hammer:, and more :hammer:. I took a look at it and you got two nice stacks that should be able to push through at least another three cities (the eastern stack really needs a medic, KK has a lot of suicide catapults in his cities), at which point he should give us a tech along with all his cash for peace. If he has Chemistry then he has Gunpowder, so I think you are right he is one tech away from MT and gunning for Cavalry, which do quite well against Grenadiers. We have to hamstring him now before that happens. He has big stacks in his cities but no offensive stacks except 2 Knights, a Crossbow and a Mace :crazyeye:? Shadow it with the Knights like you say, or even better with Phalynx. I agree we should not pay such a price to get JC in the war, just not worth it. The only concern is KK does pay the price and pull in Bismarck (JC won't at Friendly) but it is probably a risk worth taking.

Qwack, I know from reading your other SGs that you are pretty busy, but if you get a fast turnaround on this one I can probably get in two rounds before my computer is packed, especially with ThERat on holiday :mischief:.

Darrell

P.S. Looks like that barbarian city popped back up again :rolleyes:

P.P.S. I have a Phalynx on fog busting duty east of Warwick, can move him now that the borders popped. Sorry for leaving him fortified :blush:.

Good job Ozbenno. I dont think we can stop here, gotta beat Kublai up enough so hes not a problem in the future. I think we should get JC involved even for chemistry and Printing press. I got it, will have it played tonight. I havent checked the save yet so ill post more thoughts later :)

I got it, will have it played tonight.

Heh-heh...I didn't even have to beg ;). One more thing on Ozbenno's comments, I agree we should cottage out Hastings. We also have a forrest to chop (have three) to speed the bank up, I suggest the one on the grassland river. I agree with the Engineer now to speed up the Bank, but eventually if we run a specialist here it should probably be a Merchant. The other thing, I believe we should bump our Culture up to 10%. It gets rid of nine unhappy faces at the cost of 19 gold per turn, probably an okay deal. We need to prosecute this war quickly as ThERat's favorite game feature is going to be the biggest problem.

Darrell

Forgot to mention the barb city. Should have moved the fog busting warrior one hill west once we founded Delphi (as it wasn't there then) but forgot :blush: .

Good hammering, Ozbenno. I think we need to shadow the galley with both a knight and a phalnax. Phanax to take care of the knights (at +100% for phalnax and -50% for amphibuous), phalnax will eat the knight for lunch. The knight is to take care of crossbow.

I also don't think we should stop for WW. Just increasing the culture slider would be good enough for now. Plus capturing cities earn us some gold to further fund our mace2gren conversion.

-

I havent played any turns yet, just did some diplomatic maneuvers. First I notice our barb-watch archer is apparently still fortified on the hill :p. I move him towards the front-lines. I than pull off these deals:

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/9352/civ4screenshot0039jy2.th.jpg (http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0039jy2.jpg)

Yea boi, go get him :lol: .

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/6727/civ4screenshot0041pz1.th.jpg (http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0041pz1.jpg)

This may look like weed but its some damn good weed. This trade brings us to pleased with bismarck, after which, this deal:

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/2865/civ4screenshot0043fb0.th.jpg (http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0043fb0.jpg)

Its time to get a 3-way gangbang going on our old friend kublai, ofcourse all the cities will be falling to us :goodjob: . I know I promised I would play these turns today but my other SG took 1 hour for me to play the turns, which I wasnt expecting. I dont want to play now and make some stupid moves(need to get some sleep), so ill play in 12 hours. Sorry darrell :mischief:

Heh-heh...I can wait impatiently, those are some good moves to start with :goodjob:

Darrell

That should keep Kublai's hands full some. Ask then to attack his heavily defended northern cities, hopefully keepong those troops there, for us to take the south. We'll still be ahead of Bismark tech-wise for our next invasion but JC will start creeping ahead. Is there enough land on this island for domination without JC's land?

JC's power is still way down there, I dont think we can get domination without his lands but I dont think taking his land's will really be a problem, remember, cannons are city taking monsters :p.

Hmmm, cannons :drool:

Played 10 turns.

Kublai lands his galley stack right next to Tabriz, which I was expecting. (Im going to have to use the manage attachments to post screens since imageshack isnt working ATM. I lost some units at 70% odds trying to take it out, which made me sad. Bismarck sends 5 knights + catpult to some of Kublai's border cities :crazyeye: . Nice my friend, as long as you waste your entire army by the time we get to you, everything will be fine. I pull off a paper for 370 gold deal to qin, paper really isnt going to help him much at all, and the gold will be useful for us to upgrade. I also ask bismarck for his 120 gold and he gives it to me.

Bismarck apparently sent his entire force after sanchu, and captures it. But even a good thing by the AI is a bad thing, he pillaged all its tiles before he took it. We meet washington in 1529, who is automatically our worst enemy :rolleyes: . I send him corn for 13 gold per turn. He already has astronomy and is sending a galleon with settler on our island.

We capture Samarqand in 1529. 0 units lost. I actually was safe with samarqand, allowing him to reinforce 2 turns before I took it so we wont face a massive counter-attack, but I think I should have waited 2 more turns, and in 1535, KK launches a huge counterattack on samarqand. sends in 5 catupults first, which somehow win 2 battles at 19% and 20% odds. Than a knight and maceman. We lost 4 units but will hold Samarqand easily, I would suggest next player to send some longbows + muskets towards it.

Our secondary army is on the move towards new sarai. Our research is at 40% right now on slight deficit, which will be useful for catupults -> Cannons upgrade. We will probably need to boost our culture slider a bit more during darrell's turn, but I would suggest trying to get steel soon, so dont put research on 0%. It might also be useful to get a settler out soon and pick up that space between england's and our cities, that looks like a good 3-4% extra land right there.

Good work Qwack! I must admit I was fearing a big counter attack at some stage, so advanced slower than normal. Looks like it hit you! Once we can get Steel for Cannon upgrade, we'll be sweet.

I'd maybe run at 10% higher research rate (would probably knock 4-5 turns off).

Interesting...Washington has Astronomy and Replaceable Parts...and, uh, he won't declare war on anyone because "we have enough on our hands right now" which kind of sucks. At least Grenadiers do okay against Rifleman. I start to shore up our coastal defenses (focused on East, but also a bit on West). This is the primary reason I did not run more deficit research, we might need to make some emergency upgrades. Note that he is Pleased or Cautious with everyone except us, who he is Annoyed with.

So, I press the war onward. Samarqand is majorly attacked in between turns for several years in a row. We manage hold onto the city with only minor reinforcements, but our offensive on that side has stalled. I push most of the troops North because a) I want his capital, and b) I don't want more coastal cities to defend just yet.

In 1538 I see a Settler coming down from KK, what an idiot. I smack it and use the Worker for fog busting (all my fog busters are awake if you want to adjust).

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/5857/civ4screenshot0001xn6.jpg

In 1544, the Bank in Hastings completes, and I emphasize commerce and Merchants. It is making us 102 gold per turn:

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/2299/civ4screenshot0002np5.jpg

In 1547, I got the expected war declaration but it is Qin :eek:

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/9202/civ4screenshot0004zx8.jpg

I thought about stopping here for consulation, but he doesn't have Astronomy yet so I continue on. In 1553 Old Sarai falls (lost one Grenadier) leaving the way open to the capital.

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/4403/civ4screenshot0005uw5.jpg

KK has been taken down a notch or two, but you can see that Washington definitely has Rifleman from the power graph spike:

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/6105/civ4screenshot0006yx3.jpg

Uh, and from the city he parked on our continent :mad:

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/3531/civ4screenshot0008lj4.jpg

Oh, and Qin now has Astronomy :eek:

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/3491/civ4screenshot0009yy4.jpg

On the positive side, we captured Karakorum. I lost two of the Catapults in suicide missions and one of the Grenadiers. The fight of the battle was a Knight taking out a Pikeman at 20% odds, allowing me to finish the city off with a CG2 Greandier:

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/6929/picture1cu6.jpg

He still won't give us Nationalism for peace, we have enough forces to push on but I am majorly worried about Washington and Qin (he still won't talk to us I wanted to make peace ASAP). War weariness has made me put the culture slider at 20% and 30% is probably needed. My advide is to make peace with KK now and use the 15 turns to build more stacks and get to Cannon. I would make peace with Qin as soon as he is willing to talk. And watch out for Washington, he is second in score and probably coming for us. This thing is far from over, KK has been a real slogfest with all the suicide cats and troops he had stacked in his cities.

A few other notes.

- We have a Great Prophet on ice waiting for Athens to pop hopefully a non GP for a golden age. It might not be a bad idea to go through a GA and build up Grenadier/Cannon stacks before starting the war again.

- Someone might want to check and see if I did any :smoke: moves with the city management

- We are way down in tech, and I guess Washington's GNP is about 7X ours (409 vs. 62). We have a large lead on him in land (30% vs. 15%) but a smaller lead in population (25% vs. 21%).

- We've lost some Fishing Boats, I have not queued up replacements.

- I've been chopping out Grenadiers, might be better uses for our Workers.

- I would probably not shut research off after Steel, unless we can get Astronomy from Qin for peace (not very likely). We have no Navy at all but with Astronomy we can build Frigates, and Washington doesn't have Chemistry yet (so he is not near Steel).

- Keep checking to see if JC will sign an MP with us (he has Nationalism and hopefully is working on MT).

- If I don't get another turnset in, good luck. I'll be lurking along with ThERat cheering you guys on.

Darrell

P.S. I played 15 turns, just in case I don't get another set :p

great turns, too bad abt the war from Qin, I suspect someone bribe him. Looks like I have a major peace makingturnset waiting for me.

Got it.

Lookng at the situation, I don't think we can press on for anymore cities, although I will want to take out New Sarai to relief the cultural pressure of Karalorum, but we simply do not have enough troops up north.

I took peace for 500 gold.

Qin settled a city ... for a very brief moment ...

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1586-attk-tianjin.jpg

Thereafter, he is willing to pay us 160g for peace.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1592-Qin-peace.jpg

With peace returned to the world, started trading:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1592-Qin-trade.jpg

And I concentrated with a mix of military and infrastructure built until we got steel:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1592-steel.jpg

Finally!!! Its war time again!!! :hammer:

BUt ... washy got a golden age :eek:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1601-Wash-tajmahal.jpg

Ok, I can start a golden age myself ...

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1613-goldenage.jpg

Heh ... and its time for war!

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1622-war.jpg

And, as accurate as clockwork, QIn declared next turn ....

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1625-qin-war.jpg

:eek: ... so I hand off a save with the situation exactly the same as I inherited ... except that we now have cannon. Qin re-settled the city at our south. I upgraded a phalnax to grenadier and HA to knoght, so next player will have 3 units to raze the city once again.

We can (and should) bring Bismarck in:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1625-bismarck.jpg

JC want steel, which think it's too expensive.

The power ratings:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1625-power.jpg

And we are halfway to domination:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/9r3yf0x/ctiv9/rb23-AD1625-dominationm.jpg

I suspect we may need a few cities from Qin to reach domination ....

>>> The Save (1625AD) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/76783/RB23-AD-1625.Civ4SavedGame) <<<

Good turns greyfox, I dont know if we need to bring anyone in anymore, we can use that gold for upgrades. AI is usually horrible in across ocean warfare, so I dont think we need to worry about Qin or roosevelt, they may land 4 or 5 units here and there, but I highly doubt they will land a problematic stack anywhere on our land.

In terms of if we have enough land on our continent. I checked the demographics, bismarck has 15% with 194000 acres, and the lowest which is on our island has 111000 which is around 9%, this means we have enough on our island since even if the second lowest has barely above 9% we get 33% from all the other AI's.

Got it! Will play and post tonight. I'll have a look at the save but I also would leave Bismark out of it for the moment.

good turns here :goodjob:

the power graph looks a little scary, but don't forget that the AI is pretty dumb, should be possible to win

Good progress! I have two fears at this point, one is Washington landing a stack of Infrantry and Artillery on our shores, but that's not in our hands. Number two is Emancipation unhappiness. The clock is ticking, we need to finish off KK in one big push then turn to Bismarck with only a small pause. I think we will need a portion of JCs land as well for the Domination limit, unfortunately.

Darrell

I still think we should bring Bismarck in ... if we don't want to part with our gold, then give him a useless non-military tech and ask him to throw in some gold to us on top of war with KK ...

why?

KK has a city that is in the middle of us, JC, and Bismarck. If Bismarck go in for war, we can leave that city to Bismarck and continue our push eastwards to finish KK in one go.