I think 0% science would be better than CoL research (to reduce the cost to buy it).

ok my two cents

Cities:
I think your new builds are well placed, Although since we don't ue the goats again, and would have been nice to get the city 3 ne of Z in place earlier. Now that Z is slated to grow, that won't bring much gain. But wasn't Bapedi meant to become a settler Factory too? Would have been helpful I think.

Workers
Thats the only thing we are missing right now. We have onle 8,5 workers and one of them is away on Highway building Duty. But nice to see, that z finally got drinking water.

Techs:
Well I would like to use our Tech advantage and go for MA as soon as possible. Having Mon as almost monopoly Tech should bring us a long way towards gaining all first tier techs from the Scientific AIs, and I would be afraid we loose that advantage, as soon as Egypt finds the trade button. CoL on 0% is fine by me.

Military
Well we are still in Buildup I would tink so one or two turnsets of build HM are ahead of us. By that we should have nicely started that big war in the East and can pik on a convinient target.

Real nice turnset Wotan, I think we come a long way since my last turnset, where I was always running scared of the barbs.

Thanks Kulko. Though I made a couple of really silly mistakes, apart from the obvious turn count. I should not have traded Construction to India. All others with knowledge are on the second landmass so we should have waited a few more turns for CoL to spread. And I should have made sure we had another boat out already to go south along the coast from the Germans to help find the remaining tribes.

Bapedi sure should help with Settlers though the situation si changed for all our towns after having entered Monarchy. So a lot of our build plans really need reworking, like getting Z to a four turn settler factory running 6-8-7-9. The perfect running of these turns require two grasslands being mined. That would also give full access of the goats to your favourite location NE of Z. :)

Workers,taking workers from the new towns will eventually get us enough to work the lands.

Military: We should be able to set the AI's against each other when we finally go to war. Smart trading with the fixed alliances in place should allow us to buy the MA techs from the AI so we get the AI we pay most gpt to DoW us. We have two(?) Science tribes on our land mass, Otto and Korea. Otto is really backwards but could be used to get a MA to trade for by gifting him into MA. Question is if we want to do the same with Germany? The logical goal probably is to have a war with arabs and their allies and ally with the other group. I do not remamber right now who belong to the arab group? Otto or Korea? But what we should do is buy/trade for the MA tech the arab league tribe have for whatever price in gpt (no cash, set all sliders to 0% to have as high gpt quota as possible). Then DoW arabs and get the other group in on the action as an ally by both trading for the remaining MA techs among the tribes and any other trades possible to get the action going. Will be a fun turn!

How many HMs do we need to go to war? I guess 10-15 should be more than enough.

The alliances are: India, Japan, Korea, China;
Ottomans, Russia (you forgot this scientific civ, Wotan), Egypt, Arabia

A camp must be less than 10 tiles from a city for the military advisor to mention it, and it seems barb camps must be at least 5 tiles apart: no help in our situation. I also learned there must be more than (2*number of players) cities for a camp to appear.
Selling construction for a monopoly CoL would cost less money than just buying a nonmonopoly CoL, so I'll go ahead and trade into the MA in 3 turns when the fog has been dissipated or earlier if India and Korea trade to enter the MA. Halving the cost of one tech or getting another tech to trade for is worth helping Germany I think, so I'll gift the scientific civs into the MA and let people comment on the situation at that time.

Zimbabwe will finish the horseman then continue as a settler factory as Wotan suggested. Bapedi can build a settler, a granary, then be a settler factory. It is just lacking sufficient shields to be a four-turn factory. The rest will build horses with the occasional worker.

I haven't considered where to settle, but I'll pause for comment before any are produced anyways.

I should play tonight.

I have the feeling I would forget this if I didn't post it here, so go ahead and ignore it if you want: Bapedi has 16% corruption: 0 for <=3, 1 for 4<=x<=9
0f, 14s, 8spt, 3fpt
size 3: 6f, 0s, 5spt, 4fpt (2 at 6spt, 3fpt)
size 4: 0f, 24s, 6spt, 4fpt
size 5: 0f, 56s, 7spt, 4fpt; a little short of 6-8-7-9 at 5fpt

You seem to be on top of things and we are out of the early stages of a game of Civ. So the need to plan in detail is not that important anymore I guess. Your plan is good as far as I can see. Good luck!

On page 7 are the settle locations, just pick your favorite spot. I think its time to develop the north a little bit.

Go ahead and good luck.

Turn 1 and Ottomans have monotheism, other three scientific have feudalism, India is also in MA, Illuryian camp has eight horsemen. It looks like Korea was researching literature because they were only willing to give 57g in addition to CoL for it. The only possible trade is feudalism from Germany for monarchy and 119g/literature (first would be preferred). Hopefully with that monotheism can be purchased. Probably with gpt, then declaring war on Arabia (their weakest ally), and allying somebody against them.

However we have not discussed the next tech to research. Chivalry would be good.

i guess chivalry and then full speed to Mil. Trad. after which all research should be shut down.
We also need to exploit resource cutting. Anyone has moral objections against this?

Why do you prefer paying hard cash instead of Lit?

Chiv is fine.

Overall plan for trading looks OK. However, I have the same question as Kulko, why gold over lit? Chiv is the obvious choice.

1000(0): switch Bapedi to settler
MM so Bapedi will use forest on growth, extra gold in Intombe

IBT: learn literature, set research to 0%

975(1): India-Korea trade done as feared: horse promotes killing one of the nine horsemen in Illuryian camp
sell lit to Korea for CoL, 57g (not all)
gift Germany, Russia, Ottomans into MA
3 get feudalism, Ottomans get monotheism
sell monarchy, lit to Germany for feudalism
buy monotheism from Ottomans for feudalism, monarchy, lit, 6gpt
declare war on Arabia
build embassy in Beijing (screenshot attached)
sign MA with China against Arabia for map making
sell currency to England for 206g
20% lux for Bapedi, 80% research on chivalry

IBT: Ulundi horse->horse
England starts ToA, COlossus

950(2): no new wars
kill barb horse

IBT: 2 barbs attack horse and die
Zimbabwe horse->settler
Bapedi settler->granary
HorseTown galley->horse
Arabian allies declare war on China

925(3): zzz

900(4): kill another barb, camp now has 1 horse
Indian spears blocking the bridge
Apparently a locked alliance is just a permanent MPP, so to get Ottomans to declare to avoid gpt payment, we'd have to declare war on India (the other alliance) or get a galley over to Arabia

IBT: Machiavelli's Largest Nations of the World: America, Egypt, Zulu, Vikings, France, England, Ottomans, Germany

875(5): Meet America, sell them currency for 108g; they also lack CoL, lit, and monarchy; they are allied with England
horse dies attacking barb horse

IBT: Mpondo rax->horse
Ottomans start Great Library

850(6): zzz

IBT: Zimbabwe settler->settler
Intombe horse->horse
Ngome worker->rax

825(7): found Tugela, start on worker
lux to 10%, but science must remain at 80%
disperse Illuryian camp

IBT: see an injured Korean archer, obviously the war between alliances is ongoing
Our people want to build the FP
Ulundi horse->worker
Hlobane horse->horse
Paris builds Oracle
Ottomans start Great Library
Egypt starts Great Lighthouse
Arabia starts Pyramids

800(8): zzz

IBT: HorseTown horse->horse
America, England start ToA

775(9): found Umtata, start on worker

IBT: Ulundi worker->horse
Swazi rax->horse

750(10): zzz

Notes: Zimbabwe has more shields than it needs, so make sure you maximize commerce by switching goats to grass the first turn; by mining it Umtata will be able to use goats more (I wish I had realized that earlier)
I think it's worth mentioning here in case you missed it earlier: locked alliances seem to just act as permanent MPPs
Umtata will be able to use the goats a couple times before growth, so it probably should switch to a barracks
The GOTM site is down; I'll check after lunch and attach the save if it's still down

Looks absolutely perfect. Well played, Tim! We are in MA with Chivalry as our next tech. Nice trading sequence in 975BC! And the wars should help soften up the AIs. Too bad the upload site is down. Sure would like to have a peek at the save. How many HMs do we have now?

Stupid indians blocking our movement. Anyone got any good ideas about ways to get them to move? Apart from founding a town in the province the HM is currently in and rushing culture to expand our borders into both the tiles the spears are in. Or can we count on arabs moving there and attacking the indians? They should be at war, right?

Roster
Kulko up
Dman on deck
Schmiddi
Wotan
TimBentley just played

nicely played... will be waiting for the save to check it.
time to war with India soon... i don't like those spearmen blocking the way to the second lux source.

time to war with India soon... i don't like those spearmen blocking the way to the second lux source.
I am a bit worried war with india would break our current alliance with China. I am as always a bit confused as to the effects such incidents have on reputation? But I hope we soon have an open road into the heartland of our continent. I know you like fighting with HMs! ;) SGOTM3? Right?

How many HMs do we have now?
9

Declaring war and attacking India in open ground wouldn't trigger the MPP, so we wouldn't enter war with that alliance.

I'll be out for the weekend and leaving soon, so I'll attach the save.

Thanks. Have a nice weekend.

@Kulko: Could you please upload the save to the submissions page when it is up again since Tim is going away over the weekend?

Nicely Played.

As far as the land bridge is concerned I am pro attacking india. Building city just takes too long. We can always make peace as soon as we took out the 2 spearmans.

about indian spearmen: seconded

save uploaded

ok My plans:

Military
Collect 3 more horse and artack India immediately. than try to rush one horse into Arabia to cancel payment.
Build up a HM force of 10-12 horses for schmiddi.

Exploration + Tech
Just plod on.

Core infrastructure
HM + Settlers + Workers.
I suggest not investing in Libs and Markets as we want to jump palace anyway.

What does the Settler factory in Z look like?

Worker actions
Now that water has reached zimbabwe, is it ok, to switch some off these irrgated grasslands back to mines? we have no hills or mountains near Hlobane and ulundi so it looks like a waste to me.

Cities
I will continue building north. Swazi is somehow badly placed, making exansion in the southwest not worthwhile.

Military, I would sure empty out all available HMs to move into arabia with. If needed use lux to keep people happy.

Agree on libs etc at least for the time being. Z runs as a four turn settler factory right now with 5+fpt. Will check the save and get back on any details if needed but from what I read in Tim's report it looked pretty straightforward. Maybe some sharing of tiles, goats in particular, with the hill town.

Workers, still important to keep food running at high levels, any mining is just to balance a situation where an extra shield would simplify production but in general priority is given to food.

ok will try to play tonite.

We have not discussed GA? Shouldn't we build a couple/few Impis to help trigger a GA. We are in Monarchy and would benefit from it soon. Our current core is almost up to full production now.
FP? Do we want it in Mpondo? Should we hand build it? If so maybe start that process now?
Connect Iron near Intombe, when? We need at least two of the grasslands near it to be irrigated if we are to really be able to use it for production. So no more grass to be mined. We might even consider irrigating the tile NW of it after a while of using the mine being built now.

GA:
I would rather wait until we have conquered a real core and jumped palace. It might take a few more impis for a victory then, but we can always manage.
But this is a point, where I am not really sure. Good production now is worth more, than later too.

FP:
This is not PTW, so a FP far away from the real core will only not reap much benefit in the long run. Rather wait, until we got the two neighbouring cores.

Iron:
I assume you mean the Iron near Ngome. You are probabaly right, working it is worth the trouble, so I will start irrigating the area.

Hlobane:
I do not really see the advantage of wasting prodution, to have it grow to size 6 and spend luxury on it.

Military:
I didn't want to send all our hoirses, because it wouldnÄ't be enough to make a campaign anyway. Just wanted to start the war and then retreat untill we are really prepared for ahard strike. Also we don't have much culture, so we probably need stellers to conquer territory, which are also not ready yet.

Timing:
Will not play tonite to allow more discussion, but then it may wait until monday evening.

I think GA now is more worth than a later GA. Resources we get now will be ours for the game. Better return on resources created early in the game. My experience of Civ is that early speed is more important than anything else. Since assets can be used for a longer period of time.

Ngome it is.

OK on military campaign. If there is not an opportunity to wreak havoc in arabia, they should be in war now and slowly draining their resouces. At least move all HMs across the land bridge in time for Dman's turn set. Trust me, he is soo keen on going to war! And we should have 12-15 by then, and a few Impis for a GA to start.

We are going for a domination in this game so I think we should stop research after Chivalry. Any other techs useful (Engineering) will become available when we capture the GLib. Depending on where it is built we might even bag a few more advanced...

If you feel like playing tonight do so. You have given ample time for comments. Tim is out of the loop for the duration of the weekend and I understand Schmiddi has approved of your plan. Dman might drop in with a few comments but since he has not voiced any real concerns I guess he approves too.

agree on the plans :-)

agree on the plans :-)
Getting your hands on a stack of Horsemen tipped the scales, right. :lol:

well.... how else you are going to dominate :-)

As Wotan said, I'm fine with the plan.

Pre-turn:
moved the horsemens to the front. Raise Lux to 30%

Turn 1:
nothing happen

Turn 2:
Attacked India and cross the bridge.

Peace between the alliances.

Turn 4:
Attacked Russian Settler wanting to settle on the land bridge.

Turn 7:
Got attacked by Indian Archers.

Turn 9:

I moved into arab territory finally. Unfortunately I was killed, before I could cause a war.

Turn 10:
Peace with India again.

Ok, I played the turns. took me a while to get that Factory in Z organized, costing us probabaly a turn, but now it should be running on track.

I didn't really do much in warfare. but there is now an unmoved stack of about 7 HM waiting outside of that Egyptian fishing village. Unfortunately, that is in the way of all meaningfull attacks, while lying on a hill. It was founded in turn4 of my turnset, so shoudl have a second Spearman ready yet, but an Archer went there last turn.

Dman is free to attack, but I still feel we are a bit too weak, although by now the reinforcements should come faster.

The iron is mined first, as I didn't want to connect before we get Chivalry to allow us to build cheap Warrior for MPs.

We have 2 Impis now, with 2 more in the make.

Techwise I kept research high, selling some old techs for money from time to time, so we should be able to keep the pace most of the age. I don't know exactly at which price korea is able to buy Monotheism, from Otto, but hopefully they are into war soon.

China is at war with everybody, so lets hope this time somebody manages the way back to push the other allinace into war soon.

But the problem with all this interalliance war is, that there is always ne pair waiting to make peace on first sight, so it might end very soon too. But we still have some techs to gift to china, so we can keep it up for a while.

Have looked at the save now. Looks good! One warning, Ulundi nee to shift a citizen from a forest to a coastal tile to avoid unrest. Still producing 6 spt. so a HM then a Settler.

Z will run a 4 turn factory starting next turn 7-9-7-9 shields using goats, cow and the mined bg, plus forest on growth. Add a grassland on size 4 and a second on size 5. Alternative would be to mine both the remaining grasslands to give full control of goats to Untata and Z running a 6-8-7-9 factory using cow, mined bg, and mined grass. One on size 4 and two on size 5. I would prefer this solution. But it is not to happen during the next two turnsets I guess, since we are using two workers to mine the goats, 8 more turns plus 5 turns to road it. 2 Workers roading cost 4.5 turns but since moving a worker off the mountain without a road still cost a turn for that worker there is no benefit from moving one off.

We should place a town on the gold mountain NE of the Archer(elite), then focus on moving Settlers to calim new territories when we start reducing the egyptians. We need to fill the area with locations.

Also, we need to discuss where to jumpo our palace to? My own personal favourite now is Damascus, only weakness is the amount of jungle but with a lot of worker actions that area is the strongest on the map, plenty of fresh water for non-aqueduct expansion. But it requires "some" worker activities to clear jungles. would also give us continued war on the western alliance.

Warfare: I know I am proactive when war is discussed. I like to go on the offensive ASAP. I would like us to DoW Egypt now, take ot the Sworkdman and go after the two Egyptian frontier towns right away. No reason to allow them to produce extra defenders. First take out the town east of the Swordman then turn on Hieraconpolis. Don't bother with the slave working the jungle next to our stack. When we DoW Egypt it will move into the town and we can capture it there. No reason to divide our stack, 5 HMs should be more than enough to kill a new town and take some loss from the Swordman attack. Heal wounded, wait for reinforcements and take out Hieraconpolis. Hopefully start our GA during the next turnset, that would give us Chivaly quicker and a nice stack of Knights sooner too. It would let us rule the continent! Several AI has iron and feudalism now so beware pikes and MI appearing soon. WE really need to shift from HMs to Knights.

And finally, keep the war going. As Kulko said, we still have techs to gift to China should they be tempted to seek peace.

We sure want the Temple of Artemis to land on our continent, that GW is a key to this game.

Worker
Sorry when I misused some workers here, but my feweling was that Z was running smoothly along, alowing us do shift some actions to the goats.

Cities
There is one settlert on his wayx south. This was meant to go onto the plains location between gold mountain and Intombe. Anyway, I would setlle both locations anyway. Apart from that everything can go across to the frontier.
Do we want to settle the 3 locations on the land bridge too? I defibtekly would like to secure the spices, once the Egypt town there has fallen, although we nee a second transport possibility apart from the land then.

Military:
Thats what I had in mind, when I positioned like this. Fully agree on your analysis.

FP
Can't look at the save now, will comment later.

No, no, you misunderstand my comment on Z workers. You did not misuse them, we where in agreement about mining the goats when you started your turn set. This thought of mine came when I looked at the new save. No reason for you to feel you did something wrong, I am a bit disappointed at myself though, for not seeing this alternative earlier... :(

Settlers on landbridge is a definite yes, but we really need to have sttlers follow our victorious armies to calim territories gained. On settlers in south, agree on the two being the "final" ones until we have surplus of settlers again. 3 or so needed for landbridge plus a yet to be decided number to fill the area we conquer.

Military: Tally Ho, Dman! Go for it!

FP: If we do decide on Damascus there are plenty of locations around it for a great FP to be in so no real need to decide on FP location right now. Some use of CivAssist in analysing locations would probably help us too when we get closer to that in time.

Looking at the save...
will study.. plenty of time for discussions.
Sunday is busy... so will play monday night.

ok, no discussions, but i am still playing tonight right? :-)

Seems like Wotan and Kulko figured out most of the plan.
Do you have anything to add?

Seems like Wotan and Kulko figured out most of the plan.
Do you have anything to add?
That is my take on it too. Kulko and I had an extensive discussion after his turn set. But before you posted about discussions yesterday. Please check it out.

I checked it out... just wanted to make sure there is nothing else in addition to what you guys said.

I think we should discuss whether to stop research after chivalry. I think we should proceed to MT.
One of the SGOTMs we played in the past we stopped at Chivalry and opposing team proceeded to MT. At the end they won the game. Military campaigns are much faster when one can use cavalry.

EDIT: Another argument to MT - we have 60% of land and modified domination limits - that means we need to conquer more land - more time - more chances to meet stronger defenders. will be tough with just knights at the end.

Pre-turn... Moving workers east to road.
5 horses will definitely go to down east of egyptian sword.
Hiearnconpolis can become a tough nut to crack due to the hill location. Wish we had few spare swords just for that town alone. Back to egyptian land -> moving elite horse on top of the mountain SE from Hieraconpolis and see egyptian archer just W from where sword stands.
Home land -> Moving citizen in Ulundi to sea tile to avoid riots.
I see we have an elit horse in northern desert. I am relocating it to the battle zone. We need those elite in hot spots. Found horse in Hlobane - moving to battle zone. Running lux tax at awfull 40%... definetely need second lux to be connected ASAP.

Show time: Declared war on Egypt. Attacked and killed swordman. 2hp horse survived. Ottomans immediately declared on us.
Captured egyptian slave. I decided to capture it this turn to avoid one turn loss of usefull actions the slave can do for us. Moving remaining horses to egyptian town, which was apparently Chinese town at some point - Tsingtao.
Good news it has pop 2, we won't auto-raze it.

IBT. Egyptian archer attacks our 2hp horse. We win and promoted to elite actually gaining 3rd hp. Another archer attacks same horse and we retreat. See arabian settler pair near Tsingtao.

T1. 530BC. Horse attacks Tsingtao.. We easily kill reg spear and capture town. Our horse is promoted to elite. concentrating troops near Hiearconpolis. Hopefully 4 horses will be enough to take that town. Unfortunately we will auto-raze it.
Vet. horse kills reg archer in jungle with no scratches
Korea is the only nation that has the knowledge of republic, but won't trade.

IBT. American's are building Hangin Gardens. English are bulding GL.

T2. 510BC. I was incredibly lucky. vet horse kills fortified spear in H-copolis and we win with only one hp down. City is raized.
Less luck when i tried to attack arabian settler pair. Vet. horse retreated leaving arab. spear with full health. Move citizens in Intombe and horse town to sea tiles to prevent rioting.
Amatikulu is founded down south. Sold Lit to France for 25 gold.

IBT. Egyptian warrior-archer pair moved from the fog.

T3. 490 BC. Consolidating troops and moving workers to construct road to Tsingtao - lux connection. Japanese moving large formation of troops towards egyptian land.

T4. 470BC. Asked Japan to leave premises. They are blocking path for our horses. Moving troops towards egyptian land. Hopefully next turn will have couple of elite kills. Bapedi settler->horse.

IBT. Egyptian pair retreated.

T5. 450BC. Z. settler-settler. Other towns horses->horses. moving troops.. Having all these jungles and hills makes the war slow.

T6. 430BC. Three elite wins this turn but no leaders. Troops arrived near Alexandria. Settler arrived on top of spices. should be able to hook it up next turn.

IBT. Jap. Anc. Cavalry ran by Tsingao.

T7. 410BC. SpiceGirls is founded and we have secound source of luxuries. Managed to drop lux slider to 20% with some MM in Ulundi. But can't move science slider higher than 40% and that will actually go down to 30 next turn. Science research is about to halt. Chivalry in 14 for now. Looked at AIs and sold CoL to France for 25 gold. moved sci slider to 70% for another couple of turns.

Siege of Alexandria.
vet. HM vs reg Spear -> 1hp Spear
vet HM vs. reg spear -> 3hp spear HM retreats
vet HM vs. reg Spear -> 2hp spear HM retreats
vet archer vs. 2hp spear -> 3hp archer
3hp elite HM vs 1hp spear -> 3hp elite HM
City is captured along with slave worker and we have 3 more source of spices within reach.

At this moment i think it is time to turn to Arabs and capture Damascus and Mecca. Meca is located at the worst spot possible. So if we make Damascus our capital i suggest to burn Mecca and build town using proper planning. May be not right away but we need to do better planning for new core.

IBT. Good news - ottomans completed ToA, bad news - they are on the opposite side of continent. Japs completed HG. Wonder cascading across the map.

T8. 390BC - Impis still haven't seen any action. Perhaps when we take next city. Hired scientist in Hlobane to avoid riot.

IBT. Silly egyptian landed settler pair next to the barbarian stack...
Got killed.

T9. 370BC. We are bancrupt. Sold Feud. to America for 36gold and 6gpt...
Running deficit but chivalry should be ours in 4.
Workers finished mine in Z. It now has too many shields. We need to re-invent settler factory. Z. will be much better as military one. Moved Impi near egyptian town of giza. It has pop one and will be autorazed. I think we need to turn to Arabs at the moment.

IBT. English finished GL. I made a mess and both Bapedi and Umtata are rioting :( I had Civ Assist running, but somehow managed to miss the warning. Meanwhile Germany landed settler pair in the northern desert on our continent.

T10. 350BC. Armies are moving towards Damascus. Corrected situation in Bapedi by moving another mP. Left one worker unmoved.

Post action thoughts:
We need to mine some of the plains we irrigated to get better shield output. Move to arabian land and start capturing their cities. Egyptian warrior showed from under the fog but can be easily taken care of by one of the horses nearby. Research is going to be a problem. Our economy in pretty bad shape. We won't be able to research much even with GA. IMHO, having GA now won't do us good. All we will be able to do is to build half dozen extra HMs and then spend eternity developing new core. We need to coincide our GA soon after moving the core so we can develop it quickly.

I am territbly sorry for the mess at the end of my turnset. :mad:
EDIT: Alexandria shouldn't really be building an archer, i forgot to change the build. swithing to worker would probably a better choice.

Battlefield:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/46569/T10-350BC.jpg

Looks pretty good Dman, havn't looked at the save yet though.

GA will do us good right now, sorry but that is a fact! ;) Better have extra resources to use now than in 30 turns or so. The new core will also take some time to set up for full productivity so yes we need it now.

We need to make a pause in research and run with Knights, then capture GLib for a science boost and a final trek to MT. We are in Monarchy so science will be a bit of a problem. Good thing the ToA ended upon our continent, we can disregard culuture expansion now until we have it! Just keep pushing in the west.

When you read the discussion Kulko and I had you must have noticed the Z. settler factory plans, mine two grasslands and leave the goats to the hill town. Until that is done we can share the goats to allow some extra production in hilltown.

Roster
Schmiddi up
Wotan on deck
TimBentley
Kulko
Dmanakho just played

Hi Dman great warmongering. We are getting progress here.Sorry for misplacing that horse, thinking of it, it was plain stupid to leave it there. On the otther hand a information, that theses Barbs don't move anymore would have been helpful from Wotan.

Zimbabwe
The irrigated cow is our only Settler source.

City placements
The city on land brindge is badly situated. Now we will need culture there to cover all the available land.
I would have rather settled the desert near the spices, but I understand your pain about the 40% Lux. Although when we don't spend on research who cares.
But when we use the Spice we should try to build 2 harbours so that we have a alternative connection should Egypt or some other pooor chap land on the bridge.

Jumping to the Continent
I understand Damascus was supposed to be FP not P. P should only be switched, until we have enough core cities build to make it valuable. On the other hand I do not agree that Damascus is the bst location there is. I think the egyptian land is much better I think Al Amarna or Thebes would be my locations of choice.


Tech
Given the state of our economy I support Wotan. Lets stop it and wait for the GL to get what Korea is able to research in the meantime. The hordes of Knights we can build insteatd of Libs and Markets will do us much better.
I think getting the research costs for Chiv by selling old techs to the other continent is the way its meant to be, Thats what they are there for.

We will get culture from ToA once we capture Ottoman's land.
So all our cities will expand sooner and later.
Nobody answered my question about what to do with research.
Chivalry will be here in 4 to 6 turns and I'd like us to think about further research towards MT.
Remember that we have to capture more land than in usual game to achieve domination limit and we have 60% land from the beginning.
On monarch game it might take longer with just knights.

Hmm Wotan clearly stated his opinion and I seconded.

Lets capture the GL with Knights and then see how far we have to go from there. Right now Building up the Infra for something resembling Research will cost us 20-25 Knights now which will more than make up for it.
And with this huge scientist farm we have by then we might actually be faster in reaching MT too, because we only need to reseacrh 2 Techs insteadt of 5.

@ City Placement.
Yes we will expand culture, but we cannnot boot people from neutral fields in the meantime and I see no advantage in your placement. The solution aggreed on, was making sure that we get maximum control of the bridge withb is right now a vital lifeline. Would have been nice to hear why you swayed away.

I believe ENglish built GL so it is far away across the ocean.
Capturing GL will bring very bad side effect - ToA will expire and we really need it for free culture.
That means if we capture GL we have to capture it before education is researched which will be daunting task to do.

@Kulko: which city in particular you are referring to? Is it the one on top of spices or on the land bridge itself?

Good Point about the ToA and the GL. The English shouldn't pose a problem, as we need to attack both continents anyway.

The city where I definitely don't see the point is the one on the bridge.

sorry about the city placement.. i was trying to figure out the best location ...
that is why we need to put dot map and put it often as we go :p

Ok you asked for it :-). I will repost the dotmaps every turnset. Helps us generate posts too.

It was no biggie, the military success was far more important and well done.

regarding Tech I am a bit unsure now. I would still prefer pointy stcik research for a while, But the GL is definitely a less likeable option now.

Also, we need immediately discuss palace jump and where it goes.
We have split of opinions between arab land and egypt land.
I am sure in next few battles we will get leaders...
how do we use them?
Create an army is one option... however i'd rather have sword army.
imeddiately rush FP or palace is another option...
I'd say next player should stop the game if leader appears.
Also, who do we attack next...
I suggest taking Damaskus and Mecca as next immediate target...
then think again.

Leaders:
I prefer rushing FP in a productive city with our next leader, to gve us some rally points in Egypt or Arab. From there build a real core and jump palace.

Location
I'd like to hear a good reasoning for why arab is better than egypt. I hope I have pointed out my points of preference.

my first thoughts:

about army: we'll get knights (more or less) soon, do you like that better?
I saw an idle worker. I would try to connect umtata asap. any objections?
I'm a little itchy about angry japanese passing by SpiceGirls. I guess I'm overanxious?
from your comments GrLib seems to be almost out of reach and I honestly have no idea about how to proceed techwise.

I left one worker unmoved for the next player to decide.

We need to come to the consensus before Schmiddi starts his turns.
1. Where do we go tech. wise given GrLib is too far away and can actually hurt us by killing ToA effect. My opinion -proceed to MT
2. Where new core will be located? - I have no strong opinion, but Wotan and Kulko disagree there
3. Decide what to do if we get a leader -> I agree, building FP in new land could be the best idea right now.
4. Proceed with Arabs as next target or keep crushing egypt. I suggest former since it make sense both strategically and tactically.

@Schmiddi, left over horse in the northern desert should be re-routed and sent to the battle. Should barbs appear there they will be busy with new german town.

Checked in and noticed you have started the discussion. No notification tonight so I thought the level of activity was low. Will check the save tomorrow and post thoughts.

First a few notes on the current situation and management of cities and workers.

The Worker NW of Z should mine that tile not irrigate it. When mined it will allow Z to run a 4 turn settler factory with 6-8-7-9 spt. As previously suggested. Until the tile is mined use the mined tile now used by HorseTown when at size 5. So at size 4 use Cow, mined BG, mined G and irrigated G. At size 5 add another mined G. That would give full access of the goats to Umtata.

Horsetown: Change to Settler, put the sixth citizen on a coastal tile when Z is using the mined G since 6 spt is enough, no reason to waste a shield when we can add another beaker. That would suggest working the mined G 2 turns and the coastal tile 3 turns. Added together the Settler will finish at the same time the food box is filled.

Bapedi: Settler next

Intombe: Settler, arrange tile useage to fill the food and shields when the Settler is built.

Warfare: Turn on Arabs next to eliminate them while still putting pressure on teh Egyptians. Find a way of getting us into a GA using the Impis. Maybe build a couple more?

Iron: Connect/Disconnect? With only mountains for Iron it will be expensive in workers to run a disconnect service (9 Worker actions) Maybe we should connect now and build Knights while in GA? And plan for the use of this trick for a later stage of the game.

New Palace: I am still in favour of Damascus over Thebes. Even if it requires a lot of Worker actions. Most workers in our heartland are about to finish their chores there so should soon be available for new tasks. But the area around Damascus is more productive and with better presence of fresh water than Memphis. Lots of Grassland and hills. As opposed to FPs, Deserts and Plains. I am however considering Thebes as a location for the FP.

Warning about the non-movement of the Barbs? Kulko asked why I did not warn about this but I do not understand this question. The Barbs appeared after my turns (MA seeding occured on the first turn Tim played) so how was I involved in this?

New towns: New locations should prioritize fresh water in former Arab lands, so much available so we should make sure we use it.

With Germans on the continent we need to place a sentry in each border town to dissuade the Germans from attacking empty towns and start a war.

Tech: Stop after Chivalry. We take techs from peace offerings if possible, or potential trade situations. Then we go after the ToA, conquer our continent and focus on getting the GLib to boost us tech wise after having used the ToA to expand Culture on our starting continent. Simple plan, right? :D

Leader: Depending on situation but if it is avaliable before we have control of our FP location choice we should convert it to an Army but keep it empty until able to fill it with Knights.

Core
I do not at all see the better longterm development you see.
There are no BG (ok some might come below the Jungle), no Bonus ressources
no lux in this area. When we have put all the work in we get a lot of grasslands on a river.
On the other hand West of Thebes there are definetly Hills and normal terrain visible, so this looks like a much better location to me.
Other posibility would be choosing the town on the border of jungle and floodplain.


Barb
Ok, you are right, forgot who has the turnset before me. Anyway such a thing would be nice to know from teh turnset before.

I'll set the workers near Z to mining and set the idle worker to connect the iron to be prepared for knights to become available.

I'll let the cities build units a suggested.

@Kulko: Do you mean El-Amarna for Palace? And where are the dotmaps? ;)

I'll continue against Arabia as suggested. I guess we completely raze them if possible?
In these locked aliances, does making peace with one mean making peace automaticly with all?

I'll stop research after chiv and try to collect some cash.

Should I found a city on the landbridge between Bapedi and LandBridge immideately or should I send that settler to arabia?

I guess starting a GA disrupts our 4-turn-settler-factory?


I hope I didn't miss anything important.

Workers set to mine? There is one worker on that tile now, irrigating, just change that to mining. 6 turns is OK since we can use the mined G from Horsetown for the next few turns, HT will only require 2 turns use of that tile and turns of coastal tile use to build a Settler and finish it at the same time it fills the food box. No need to move additional workers there or stop their current activities to do so.

Still see the egyptian area as less valueable for the palace.

Razing Arabian towns we capture? Why on earth would we want that at this stage of the game? No amjor difference in culture so risks for flips are minimal besides Arabia and the rest of the AIs are so small we can finish a campaign against them in just a blitzkrieg attack. So please do not raze any town we can capture. I guess that was also why Dman suggested shifting focus from Egypt since the next few Egyptian towns are size 1 and without culture and thus would autoraze. We want to capture Damascus, Mecca and as many of the arabian towns as possible. Please tell me I misunderstood you comment on razing. :)

I would send Settlers to settle new territories before settling landbridge, we have several settlers finishing the production line in a few turns time. Take a couple of them to "close" the landbridge.

GA will change the buildpattern for Z, yes. But that is a welcome change where we probably get as many settlers but have a HM in between. Should be possible to run it at 15spt. :D

Good luck! :D

EDIT: No idea about the locked alliance impact on wars. Would guess we need to sue for peace with each AI else they will redeclare at the first opportunity?

I did not mean to raze the cities but to completely conquer all arabian cities. Me and my english. :rolleyes:

about Mining near Z: I misremembered the number of workers irrigating there.

Phew, you had me worried there for a moment. But better safe than sorry so I posted a question about razing. Even though I was pretty sure it was a misunderstanding...

The same goes for the worker actions.

With Killer out of the picture I play after you! Ask Dman what that can feel like... ;)

I played my set and it turned out terrible. Seems like Murphy's law struck me. :(
The offensive did not work out as planned and there where other things going wrong.

Just as a minor consolidations, we now have a great leader as well as a golden Age started.

Details later.

GA and a Leader! Does not seem to be a total failure? ;) You have to tell us what went wrong, suspense is killing me. Production was easy to deal with so must be the RNG gods being angry with us? Did you move on Damascus piecemeal or something to that effect, slowly grinding our armies into the dust? Tech was just a few turns from completion and halting it should not affect your game either so what happened?

EDIT: I just had to open the save. This is utter chaos. How could you possibly make such a mess of the game in just 10 turns? How can Z. be at size 3 about to grow to size 4 with citizens working tiles for 11 spt with 1 food left to produce? Where is the 5 fpt plan we should follow. Food is the most important factor in Civ, yet you totally ignore this simple fact and run it at 3 fpt??? Was that so difficult to follow? Being in GA disrupts the settler factory, that I know but it should absolutely not affect the food production so that part is totally your doing. It has 25 shields produced with 5 left on the Settler. You have managed to totally disrupt the Settler factory and my enthusiasm for this game. It is a team game, if you can't play the game to the ability required don't join a SGOTM, please! You managed to disrupt a simple plan last turnset too costing us a warrior to save the situation, this time it is absolutely amazing how you have managed to mismanage the builds. I thought it was impossible to not understand how to run the production, but I underestimated you, you have the capacity to destroy a perfectly good game.

The land bridge: We talked about securing the landbridge with a couple of settlers from the "second wave" of settlers after sending the first to arabian lands. Two Settlers from the second wave are in Spicetown so you ignored the idea of using them to secure the land bridge. And settling former arabian lands was also something you thought was a bad idea since you planted a town near china instead. And you are mining a tile next to this town, with absolute corruption you believe mining to be smart? And a japanese town on the landbridge so now we need to go to war with Japan too.

Damascus razed, I guess you captured it and then lost it again and the AI retaking it destroyed it, or? And Alexandria!!!! How on earth do you go about making such a mess of things?

We were in agreement to stop research, yet you chose to start it on a new tech, even if it is just a lonely scientist. Not much of a team player are you? And of the two choices available, why not engineering? What help do we have of Theology if we should have chosen to continue research? The alternative to stop research we discussed was to go full speed to MT. Yet of the two choices you pick the one not leading to MT. Amazing!

I need to take a really good paus and think about whether to invest more time into this game. With the lack of will shown by you to try playing a team game I see no reason to keep focus on this game. Right now I am pretty sure I should go on autoskip for the duration but I will go to bed now and sleep on it.

And by the way, from what I can see Murphy had little to do with the chaos you managed to create. Don't try blaming it on the innocent... :(

OH my.... i hope you weren't sending one horse a turn against arabian spears...
tell us... tell us...

OH my.... i hope you weren't sending one horse a turn against arabian spears...
tell us... tell us...
It is worse than that. It is up there with the performance of a player briefly on the team last SGOTM. One that apparently has not really grasped Civ or the fact that a SGOTM is a game where a whole team devotes several weeks of time to a game. And shows little respect for the time everyone invest in the game. Right now I feel I have better things to do with my time so if I am to play I will not do so within the next few days. But as I stated in my previous post I will sleep on it first.

It's a mess alright...
All our Laurel hopes were just cancelled
Can we have a detailed log published to figure out what and where it went wrong.

Time to cite a petunia pot: "Oh no, not again!"

Looked at the save and it really pains.

One of these things might be a nuisance, but 3 or four of them together are a real fun killer.

I think we can still win the objectiv, but beating Shaka or klarius to fastest victory seems illusionary.

Well lets all settle down a bit, and then decide how to go on.

Have had builders in the house this morning so I thought I would replay the turn set. Immediately in the first AI turn sequence something happened that needed some attention. Having the Great Wall in Mecca change a lot so to avoid attacking walled towns Mecca should fall first. I played through the turn set just to check if it was an extraordinary situation that could be attributed to Murphy but found nothing to that effect. I have uploaded a save from 150BC just for comparison and cannot find anything that difficult to deal with during the 10 turns. Major impact was of course from the Great Wall and the change of target that results in. The AI’s are at peace on our continent as of the last AI turn sequence but are willing to renew the wars for a price. We could have gained engineering for Chiv and war from Korea if we wanted to else a simple trade for Mono with China would have rekindled the fighting. A couple of Settlers in position to start new towns and a HM "guarding" a location next to an iron mountain waithing for a Settler to arrive. GA is in effect but no leader.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/28942/Shaka_of_the_Zulu_150_BC.SAV]

I'm not sure where the money has gone since we've been at 0% science for 6 turns and there haven't been upgrades it looks like. Being at war with the whole landmass will be annoying.

We could use the alliances to get free stuff by trading for a tech with gpt or getting a city(s) in peace, then attacking their ally. This would be my suggestion of how to get engineering, invention, and gunpowder.

Rushing a barracks for upgrades somewhere near the front would be good.

@ Wotan, yes I think that makes clear what happened during the turnset, as the mismanagement of Z is just a complete ignorance of the homefront in the heat of the battle, Which meant, that Z stuck to the forest after the last growth cycle.

Nevertheless, I do not like you replaying the turnset, even under this situation. I would still like to learn more about playing middle to deep game of Civ, so would continue playing on. And therefore I might as well play on in the official tournament, even when the chance of the laurel is gone. But now we have given Alan a good reason to disqualify us again. And gained nothing which we wouldn't have know today in the evening or tomorrow.

Well given the situation on the arabian front, my suggestion would be to switch sides as soon as posible and attack Japan and China, with trying to establish a new capital in the area north of Shanghai. But still that costs us 10 turns to wheel our Armies around.

I assume the Japanese AI is under no circumstances interested in a switch of cities?

turnlog:

350 (0)
sent the idle worker to the iron mountains
changed the irrigating worker to mining
arranged the city build queues as suggested

IBT
germans found the city on spot
tsingtao finishes worker, starts baracks
wonder cascading
trondheim finishes pyramids
memphis lighthouse
mecca great wall
bejing mausoleum

330 (1)
mooved troops

IBT
egypt lands settler N of Z
accompanying spearman get promoted to elite by barbs
Hlob HM -> HM
Mponde HM -> warrior
Tugela warrior -> Impi
Umtata worker -> barracks

310 (2)
mooved troops
sold Mono to US for 37g + 2gpt

IBT
Z settler -> settler

290 (3)
mooved troops

IBT
china makes peace

270 (4)
got china into the war again
atack damascus
elite HM vs. reg. spear win GL down to 1HP
elite HM vs. reg. spear win down to 3HP
reg. HM vs. reg. spear
damascus got autorazed, seems they had built settlers (just as mecca does)

IBT
Ulundi HM -> HM
Bap settler -> HM
HT Settler -> settler
egyp archers are going for alex.

250 (5)
mooved troops

IBT
egypt takes alex.

230 (6)
attack mecca
elite HM vs. reg. spear win down to 2HP
vet. HM vs. reg. spear loss spear down to 1HP
vet. HM vs. reg. spear loss spear down to 1HP
vet. HM vs. reg. spear loss with no scratch to spear
vet. HM vs. reg. spear win down to 1HP
and they still have fresh spears
retake alex, it gets autorazed


IBT
arabian archer kills retreating HM
Z settler -> settler
Intombe settler -> knights
spicegirls worker -> barracks

210 (7)
HM kills an arabian Settler/HM, get 2 slaves

IBT
changed intombe to galley
Hlobane and Mpondo start knights

190 (8)
founded Isandhlwana

IBT
GoldenHill worker -> barracks
Ibabango as well

170 (9)
had to found zunguin on spot, or else german settler would have blocked the place

IBT
Umfolozi barracks -> MedInf (that was before the GA and I thought a knight would take too long, but could be changed now)
Impi near Giza gets attacked by pikeman and wins -> GA

150 (10) just saved

I know that I made some terrible mistakes, especially not concentrating on mecca after the great wall and not closing the gap on the bridge. I'm really sorry. :sad:

one city is building an impi right now. I guess we don't need that one, as we have our GA

@ Wotan, yes I think that makes clear what happened during the turnset, as the mismanagement of Z is just a complete ignorance of the homefront in the heat of the battle, Which meant, that Z stuck to the forest after the last growth cycle.

Nevertheless, I do not like you replaying the turnset, even under this situation. I would still like to learn more about playing middle to deep game of Civ, so would continue playing on. And therefore I might as well play on in the official tournament, even when the chance of the laurel is gone. But now we have given Alan a good reason to disqualify us again. And gained nothing which we wouldn't have know today in the evening or tomorrow.
I replayed it for the reason I said, to understand what happened and if Murphy was involved, not to upload and change to my save. I posted it for the other teammembers to help you to also understand what went wrong and how it should have looked at 150BC. Had I uploaded the turn to SGOTM that would have disqualified us but I cannot see how a deeper analysis of a turn set already sumitted could be seen as disqualifying. Nothing is revealed in my test that is not in the current turn set.

Wotan is correct,he simply replayed already played turns and there is nothing wrong with that.
As for the game is concerned... MIstakes were made in both home land and frontline...
From Schiddi log:
270 (4)
got china into the war again

That means if we make peace now our reputation is destroyed.
But we can't do anything without declaring war against Japan first.

I can't believe we lost Alexandria to Egypt Archers with all the stream of horses... Attacking Damascus that was pop1 and no culture... what were you thinking?
the game is lost and fun is also lost. :(

This is for Alan to decide, but I think replaying a turnset, especially a botched one can give you a lot of intangible information which might come useful in the next one or two turnsets. You succesfully attacked cities, so you know the exact strength of defense. You might have learned something by doing trades differently, or moving ships onto different exploration courses.
On top of it, I see absolutely no gain in the "What went wrong" informations. It was all there within 24 hours in the forum and much more accurate and complete then the informations you took out of your turnset.

But that is done now, and will be judged by the refs.

Apart from all that, I am still in, and would like to know who else? We will not get first, or even in the TOP 3 but there are still a lot of interesting challenges left in the game.

Yes! Fun is definitely gone. I signed up for SGOTM10 to play a learning game so we played on even if things were not always done in a competitive way. SGOTM11 OTOH I stated at the start of this game we played for the laurels and that should be understood by all on the team. That means taking care of the simple things like MMing all towns at least in the core each turn. Something Schmiddi got Flak for last turnset but ignored and continued disregarding this turn set. Loss of Alexandria is a big WHAT???, as is attacking Damascus at size 1, with a comment like "oh they must have built a settler". Couldn't Schmiddi look at the screen before attacking to notice the "1"? The attack on Mecca was also a great example of not being familiar with Civ3. What was it? 5 HMs! A capital on a hill!!! Late BC should indicate 4 defending Spear so how many HMs do you take to the party? 8 if in open terrain is a common guideline, twice the number. But on a hill I would guess 12 is a minimum. There are so many indicators in Schiddis turn set he does not understand Civ at the level required to play for the laurels. This could be helped if you listen to advice but so many things were done without listening to it I cannot understand why he elected to ruin our game? An honourable choice would have been to drop from the team instead of ruining the enjoyment of the other team members. Some regard for others should have been shown I guess.

I still do not feel like investing more time in this game. Schmiddi was asked to make sure he MMed after the problem he created last turn set. He ignored it and made the situation so chaotic by playing in a style that suggest he does not fully understand Civ3. This was not a learning game, I joined it to play for the laurels, that is out of the equation now. Not telling the team he was not at par with the expectations and willing to play with care is such a disappointment. Better cut your losses now that playing for another half dozen turn sets.

@Kulko: Knowing there are 4 defenders in a capital is not rocketscience, or 2 in other towns at this stage of the game. And, I see lots of value in finding out if Schmiddi blaming Murphy was a correct thing to do or if Murphy actually was Schmiddi in disguise. It turned out it was the latter.

Ok Wotan, I perfectly understand you on this one. Lets hope we can keep the core team together for the next game then.

I will download the save before Schmiddi then and toddle on a bit myself.

This whole thing is just so frustrating.

@ turnset. I could have told you that by looking 1 minute at the result easily. Nothing apart from the Japanese Settler looked like necessary, when you know how to cut your losses, when things go bad.

If the rest of the team want to continue do so. I just feel I am not prepared to invest the time needed to continue. Might follow the discussions. And hope to see you guys in another game. Question is how we go about making sure we are not stuck with yet another catastrophical player. :(

Edit: If I find the time maybe I will continue from my save at 150BC. OTOH I would miss out on the discussions with you guys so it will not be nearly as good as we should have been able to do jointly.

Well I don't think going on with 3 players is much fun, and dman doesn't sound to happy too.

I am sorry, i was out for the weekend.
Went out of town to watch military air-show
I will be playing if we decide to continue.

That means if we make peace now our reputation is destroyed.
But we can't do anything without declaring war against Japan first.
Declaring war and attacking Japan will cause China to break the alliance, so peace can be made.

Our QSC was rather nice. I'm willing to continue if others are.

Hmmm ok, then lets finish that with three people.

Tim Bentley - up
Kulko - in wait
dman - will play soon

General strategy
As I said, we might consider switching our attack totally from Arab to China, and conquer a new core there. Other choice would be to just take easy reachable japanese/chinese cities but lead a defensive war and use the time to settle the jungle in arab we conquered so far. This would give Egypt/arab the time necessary to grow their cities to size 2.

Diplomacy
To avoid penalties we should use following procedure:
1) declare against Japan.
2) attack Japan
3) watch China breaking our alliance
4) make peace with Arabia/Egypt for whatever we can get.

Hi guys, I will hopefully be able to comment on stuff etc. But I am currently dividing my time between two major projects and one of them is to ramp up to commercial status at new year so time is very limited and with this game now in chaos I will use my time for other things. It is a pity since we had a good and well deviced start in the game. The QSC speaks for itself, but everyone on the team need to play seriously and the current situation speaks for itself what happens when someone breaks the teams trust. I hoe to be able to play next SGOTM with the core of this team but we need to make sure we are not stuck with yet another player that does not care about playing the game as seriously as others on the team.

I will be at Essen Games fair for the next week, so maybe you won't hear from me til Tuesday next week.

Diplomacy
To avoid penalties we should use following procedure:
1) declare against Japan.
2) attack Japan
3) watch China breaking our alliance
4) make peace with Arabia/Egypt for whatever we can get.
0.5) get what we can (we should barely be able to get engineering for 122gpt) for gpt from Japan's allies so we don't have to pay for it. We should save money for knight upgrades, and hopefully we should get invention and gunpowder at a reduced cost (or no cost, in a similar situation) at some point.

A discussion for a new palace and FP would be good. The MGL in Zunguin could rush the FP in Isandhlwana. Beijing might be a palace location, although there's desert nearby.

Russia would give Rostov for peace; unfortunately it's basically undefendable. Signing peace with one ally causes peace with all (this also creates a 20-turn treaty with all, so there are rep hit possibilities), as I just tested, so Arabia seems like the best choice (2 workers currently)

i agree with TIm on trading...
Tim, go ahead and play, hopefully you have time.
Tis will be a diffucult turnset... Good luck! :king:

I should be able to play within 24 hours.

Haven't gotten around to finishing yet, probably won't have time tomorrow, so I'll post a partial summary so you don't think I've disappeared or anything like that.

150(0): Abydos isn't likely to grow soon, so let's try to raze it; lose archer and horse retreats: 1hp short
6 settlers: wow
switch Bapedi to worker since it can't grow
switch scientist to taxman in Hlobane, increase shields since it can't grow
switch Intombe to knight
increase food in Tsingtao even though it doesn't matter
increase food and shields in Ngome
switch Tugela to knight
switch Umtata to knight
switch Umfolozi to knight
extra shields in Amatikulu for a turn
SpiceGirls and Zunguin are rather corrupt: switch to worker
switch Isandhlwana to rax, I'll rush it the turn before MGL rushes FP
extra gold in Zimbabwe won't reduce shields; switch to knight

attack archer on hill with horse, horse dies; risk attacking it (redlined) with impi, impi promotes, no damage
might as well get some workers since we'll sign peace so we can't capture: kill Ottoman horse and Egyptian spear guarding settlers
curragh's got nothing to see on other continent, so send it across the ocean, since some coast of our continent is unseen
Aggh! Units on automove! (and in the wrong direction)
lux to 10%
I'll send the 2 settlers in SpiceGirls to old Arabia

Isandhlwana will need a few units before war can be declared

IBT: Bapedi worker->worker
Ngome riots :blush:
Amatikulu rax->knight
China starts Sun Tzu's

130(1): rush rax in Isandhlwana for 68g

IBT: Bapedi worker->knight
Isandhlwana rax->FP, which is rushed
Ottomans start Sistine

110(2): upgrade horse in Isandhlwana, hopefully next turn war can be declared

IBT: Isandhlwana FP->knight

90(3): stop for now, should attack Japan

Here's the plan for Zimbabwe (a bit more shield wastage than I would like), let's hope it's comprehensible:
0(3): 9f, 25s (4fpt, 10spt)
1-2(4): 0f, 38s (5fpt, 10spt)
3(5): 0f, 61s (5fpt, 12spt): knight->settler
4(5): 5f, 0s (5fpt, 12spt)
5(6): 0f, 16s (5fpt, 14spt): settler->settler
6(4): 5f, 0s (5fpt, 13spt) work the goat
7(5): 0f, 17s (5fpt, 15spt): settler->knight; work the goat
8(3): 5f, 0s (5fpt, 8spt)
9-10(4): 0f, 12s (5fpt, 10spt)
11-12(5): 0f, 36s (5fpt, 15spt) work the goat; knight->settler
13-14(6): 0f, 0s (5fpt, 14spt) settler->settler?
15(4): 0f, 0s

nice beginning... certainly annoying when units are set on auto-pilot...
Plan for Zimbabwe seems solid...
Keep going.. we will see how it looks in 7 turns.

Plan sounds good from my point.

As for palace, I think shanghai is better then peking.

Sorry for the delay.

90(3) cont: get up to 147gpt
buy engineering, 33g from Korea for 124gpt
buy 14g from India for 1gpt
buy 6g from China for 1gpt
declare on Japan
Oh dear, Korea, India, and China have declared war on us!
Knight kills spear to autoraze Nagoya
no workers available from Arabia anymore; get 20g from Egypt for peace
oops: severed connection with spices for a turn: 20% lux and a couple of specialists
knight kills Japanese AC; horse kills Korean archer; horse dies, horse kills Japanese archer; horse kills Japanese sword
found New Zimbabwe

IBT: Japan loses AC, kills horse; China kills impi
Zimbabwe knight->settler

70(4): found Land Bridge2
lux to 10%, fire a couple of specialists
injured horse dies against Chinese horse
knight kills Chinese horse
horse dies against Japanese AC
upgrade horse

IBT: Japanese AC kills horse; horse kills Japanese AC

50(5): horse kills AC, knight dies attacking AC, horse kills Indian spear, gets 2 workers

IBT: Zimbabwe settler->settler
Ulundi knight->knight

30(6): knight kills AC, horse kills archer, horse dies to archer, horse kills archer, knight kills AC
upgrade horse

IBT: Hlobane knight->knight
Tsingtao rax->knight
Ibabanago rax->knight
SpiceGirls worker->rax
Isandhlwana expands
6 Indian horses ride into view

10(7): German city basically has filled up rest of Old Arabia (I don't want to provoke more warfare)
upgrade 2 horses
knight kills Indian horse; knight manages to do 1 damage to Indian horse on grass

IBT: Zimbabwe settler->knight
Bapedi knight->knight
Intombe knight->knight
Umtata knight->knight

10 AD(8): 3 knights kill 3 Indian horses; knight kills Chinese horse
upgrade horse
not sure where all the settlers heading east are going yet, so send Zimbabwe's settler north

IBT: Indian horse kills redlined knight
HorseTown knight->knight
Intombe riots :blush: (need to watch when new unit masked increased unhappiness from new citizen)
Golden Hill rax->knight
Zunguin worker->rax
Egypt starts Knights Templar
Vikings drop off settler on goats
tons of Korean archers by Isandhlwana

30(9): lux to 20%
settler will go SW so BG can be used
some irrigation needs to be changed to mines
knight kills Korean spear, elite horse kills archer, knight kills archer, elite horse kills archer, elite knight kills last Korean archer
2 knights kill 2 Indian horses; only enemy left in sight (other than in Shanghai) is Chinese horse

IBT: India drops off warrior/settler right next to future Molde
Tugela knight->knight
England, Germany start Knights Templar
Chinese horse ran away; now no hostiles in sight

50(10): there's 2 Japanese archers in W corner of their territory east of isthmus
left 2 settlers standing in jungle if you want to move them, another settler is sitting in Tsingtao

Notes: I'm assuming China has no iron, since Shanghai has no pikes
I think enemy reinforcements should just trickle in; you probably can capture Shanghai next turn
Shanghai does look like a good palace location; we'll want to get some more cities before moving the palace there, of course
a leader so we could get a knight army certainly would be nice
only one more horse to upgrade, but I'd still suggest no research, we should be able to get invention at a discount

Doesn't look like we have much of activity here.
Kulko, are you still around to play next?

Sorry, I have a lot of work, and I think witgh the broken game, I can't bing myself to give it more priority. Looks like its better I pull out too.

Greetings Kulko