Parameters:
Patch: 1.22 C3C
Level: Emporer
Variant: Always War (Restricted Info & No Trade - see * below)
Civilization: Egypt
Map Type: LK's World Map
Barbarians: Unkown - probably off
Rivals: 18 I think
AI Aggression: Normal
Victory Condition: Conquest - All enabled.
Culturally linked starts: OFF
Respawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On

* - I would like to play this game with Restricted Information about the enemy. This means you cannot use diplomacy to see what techs an enemy has or how many cities he has left unless we have a spy with that nation.

Additionally, you can't look at the graphs comparing culture/power/score or the page with what our rank is in terms of size, production, etc. unless the Intell Agency has been built.

We played without the restriction last time, so I would like to try it this time. I like it because it feels more realistic to not have tons of info on your enemy if espionage is not "invented" and it makes going for Espionage more valuable and perhaps worth getting 2 optional techs for (otherwise as I stated last game usually the only reason is to get world maps).

We can use the popup that shows most advanced/wealthy/etc. civs when that comes up.

Also no trade of any kind or looking at techs when we first meet someone. Declare war immediately.

If someone has a strong feeling against the above restriction (or questions), we can discuss.

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I liked the idea of playing in Africa. My feeling is the Zulu have too much advantage in that they have an easy front line, and I would like to try playing Egypt. How do the rest of you feel? Want to try it?

The conquest victory is also negotiable, but we went for Domination last time, and so feel like conquest this time.

Roster:
Greebley
ThERat
markh
Northern Pike
vmxa
M60A3TTS

Checking in :rockon: Thanks for the PM, Greebley.

I haven't played enough world maps to have real preferences, so Egypt is fine with me.

I agree that we should play with restricted information.

Does the game require any mods? IOW will it just be downloading the save and play as any other game?

We are not allowed to use F11, ok what about F2 and F5? can we look at F4 to see the relationships?

No preference as I never played on a world or earth map. I guess it means lots of invasions.

I always intended to try one, so this is as good as time as any.

I copied this from the GR12 folder. Salarakus kindly posted it.
I think you need the units only if you are not starting the game, BTW. I did not have the second zip and have played the game before.

I think the first zip adds units used by Argentina and Brazil and such. I don't think anything is changed - just added - you could double check that before extracting if you wished.

Originally Posted by LKendter
The new WM players will need to run the following batch file. It should be run from C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Art\units.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SETUP-UNITS4.zip


You also [edit: probably not needed if you don't start the game] need:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/LKCWorld-V3B.zip

:hammer: :salute:

Thanks for the invite, I'm looking forward to this one.

Conquest and no intel sounds good to me. It adds a little lovely twist to it all. And Egypt sounds good too; we probably won't go much faster through the techs and will end up with an undesireably early GA, but the chariots will whoop some european butts.

I never really looked, but is there a preference option where we can check out the diplomatic pop-ups altogether? (Greeks building Colossus, germany signs peace with russia, etc.)

If you decide to go with a 7th, I'll dust off my disk and try to shake off a little rust.

There is a show wonder popup, not sure if it does anything or not, but the History of the world stuff we will get regardless.

We maybe able to avoid an early GA by not making any chariots, depends on what is going on.

10 shields a piece will be a lot of extra to pay for when we have a dozen cities making horsemen. I guess we will see to it when the time comes.

I suggest whoever get whichever history of the world pop-ups in the game keep them to himself, until we have the CIA.

Edited the first post with a roster - I included you, M60A3TTS - Welcome.

Here is the picture of Egypt's start.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-BC4000.jpg

I wasn't exactly sure where I wanted to move the worker on the first turn. We could go for the FP near the sea (which would reveal more squares) or the Sugar? that will be 2food 2 shields, IIRC. What do you all think?

I am going to announce the civs in the game since that is non-random. Here is the list:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-Civs.jpg

Edit: I have forgotten where Songhai would start???

checking in :D

I think Songhai should be in Asia...or maybe I am wrong.

I think with all those restrictions, we better get the GL or else we might be toast...
I'd move worker to flood plain and be prepared for some sickness and starving pop...normal for flood plains.

What is our build order? warrior, settler warrior or more mil builds? with flood plains I think a granary can wait

It is near Nigeria. I sure hope there are some shields near us.

That actually makes sense. Otherwise the Zulu would own most of Africa to themselves which seems too powerful. We probably have 2 civs to the south and west (zulu and songhai) and the rest of the world to the north and east.

I think moving to the FP with the worker makes sense. I will try it and post the resulting picture.

Here is the start. My plan was to settle in place, start a warrior, and research WC for archers.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-BC4000a.jpg

[Edit: I have something else to do tonight so my plan is to play tomorrow. This will allow for comments.

Too bad it isn't a strict 1-tile crossing - still, it would make for a nice second settlement up NE. I think getting a settler 2nd, after the warrior, could be good to guard that end.

Good luck, Egyptians! The Nile River hopefully flows your way. :crazyeye: :p

Checking in. Thanks for the PM.:thanx:

I would settle in place, too. Warrior, settler, warrior. Research on warrior code seems fine.

You might want to plop a city in the "Suez canal" place and build walls, barracks and a lot of defenders there. None of the enemies in Europe and Asia would be able to threaten your other cities before they get mapmaking. You could then concentrate on spreading towards the Songhai and the Zulu and then push towards Europe/Asia when you feel ready.

I would like to ask one thing in this game. That we do not go out and find new civs. If we have lots of neighbors, with so shield poor of a land, it could get rough.

In the AWM31 game we were able to hang as they could not get better tech, but that won't be the case in this game. Is there any special mod to tech rate in this map? What is the size, is it a standard size or adjusted?

Do we know how many civs are in the game? The number 18 was mentioned, but it was not clear if that was a guess or the actual number and does it count us?

Are we allowed to look at the space ship to see what civs are in the game to determine the traits and starting techs?

I never try to meet civs in AW. I think it a bad idea. They will meet us soon enough. We do want to explore enough to find the "suez canal" choke though as well as look for possible site for the second city.

I listed all the civs in the game in a post above (see picture). There are 18 other than ourselves. This is effectively 'F10'. The civs aren't random of course - it is a world map - so no point in keeping it a mystery. You always get the same ones at the same starts.

We can even know which ones will meet us first - Germany, Greece, Russia, Songhai, and Zulu seem most likely.

I guess I missed that part, thanks. I only said that as I felt there was too much looking around in the early part of the last one (yeah I was reading it). Since there were more or less all civs on the landmass, it was risky.

Here we may not have as much to worry about as we may be restricted to only a few civs on our land. I only know that I stay quite close to home in any AW above Monarch as they can out product me most of the time.

Until I get an army I am at risk of being over run. Like I said I have not seen the map, so I am in the dark. So are you saying we have exactly 5 civs on this landmass in addition to us?

What civ is the Songhai replacing or does it have newly create units/UU?

I see we will have a bunch of early GA civs then and the one that is not starts with archers and spears.

BTW feel free to not answer questions that I will be able to see the answer to once I get a save to look at.

After much reflexions, and now that I looked at the timeframe of the last game, in all likelihood this one will be badly timed for me. I'm afraid I'll have to resign before it hurts my algebra course too much. Now you have M60 along, which will make for a much better replacement :) Will eagerly lurk.

As for the UU replacements, there were about 5 new units in the pack and I count that many new civs, so I'd take a guess at Songhai having one of those knight replacements, perhaps the 5-3-2 :evil: one. Wipe them before those come.

So are you saying we have exactly 5 civs on this landmass in addition to us?

You start in Africa so you will have land contact with ALL civs except Australia and the ones starting in the Americas (USA, Aztecs, Brazil, Iroquois, Argentina and Venezuela). That leaves you with ten enemies starting in the same landmass as you.

However, as the African continent is connected to Eurasia (Europe+Asia) only by a very narrow piece of land you can block all but two (the Zulus and the Songhai) from entering the African continent by founding a city in that spot. This of course changes the minute the others discover map making and get some boats out.

Edit: It's also worth pointing out that as the European part is pretty crowded you will probably meet a whole lot of enemies early on but as they have very little room to freely expand to they will each be relatively weak on their own. Siberia is pretty much the only way for them to go to and it's nothing but tunda and forest there.

Founding in place will put our capital at CxxC relative to the Suez canal city three tiles to the NE, so that sounds good.

Sorry to see you go, Beorn.

So are you saying we have exactly 5 civs on this landmass in addition to us?

IIRC, we should have the Songhai and Zulu with us in Africa. Songhai are SW and Zulu South. First contacts from the east I'm guessing would be Persia and Babylon. From a pure distance standpoint I think contact from the east will come first.

Good Luck Beorn. Feel free to comment if you have any :D

I am going to start playing now. Shouldn't be too long.

Ok, I played to 3150BC. I stopped there because I think we should consider placing our second city to the south and having that city build the workers and settlers. I stopped just before the settler built. Here is the picture.

I am passing the save on to the next player (ThERat) who can play 13 turns. I would like to keep it to 10 turns per player as I think we want the start to go well as this will be a tough game.

I like the Green dot better than the blue because it gets 3 wheat without expansion and is likely to have more plain squares.

Note that the choke still only allows 2 civs in at a time so even without a city it is still worthwhile. I don't think we need to rush for the canal city - number 3 is fine.

So my vote: 2nd City on Green dot. South city builds worker then settler. Capitol is Military all the way.

For the next tech I think I want BW. Archers don't do well vs Greeks UU. I would rather defend vs attacking Phalanx rather than try to attack them.

Iron is going to be an interesting problem I bet. The nearest hills are past the choke.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-BC3150.jpg

ThERat, wait a day to give player a chance to comment before playing.

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

how about founding 2 cities at those plains...leave blue dot but shift green dot N - NW
this way we can maintain the CxxC. I would go for green and then the choke city

The spacing is much better, but then the town has lots of food but mostly desert for the rest. I would rather the early production - I think - even if the spacing is bad. We want to build some settlers, workers and then units. Harder to do with desert squares than with plains.

I agree that we should go over to military production in the capital, since it's hard to see where else we can build units at a reasonable rate.

And since our second city is going to be our settler pump, I think it should go at the green dot, for explosive pre-expansion growth even without a granary. We may choose to pop-rush a couple of settlers.

I would take the blue dot and move the green dot N,NW. Settle the green dot first and the blue one afterwards. This would be just my preference as all the cities are CxxC, on the river and easier to defend.
The other option of leaving the green dot there is well, too. It is a comfortable decision. Both ways are ok IMO.

ok, so we're like 2:2. If we settle on the suggested spots, it MUST be green as we won't get any border expansion for ages...

we should decide which spot to settle for the choke as there are 2 choices. We also have to make up our mind as to what we are going to research. I agree we badly need BW after archers, but what do we do then? Someone should know where the resources are on this map.
Are we trying to get the GL?

I think blue would be good as third or fourth city, going along with markh's idea of N-NW for green. The delay is for giving time to the palace to grow culture and make it possible for blue to have a mined plain and a mined desert. With 5 shields it should be able to make workers handily, whereas with 3 it will be dead in the water production-wise. It also makes green at CxxC with the capital.

I think the GL is close to required. There are too many civs so the game will be MUCH more difficult if the AI can trade and pass us in tech.

After BW we could go look for where the horses are. They are powerful in our hands. I think I prefer making use of our UU even if it means an early GA. That early GA can be used for hurting the African civs and may make conquering Africa faster which in turn is worth it even if we lose the later GA. Another option would be getting walls (masonry) if we don't have it. I forget what we started with.

The resources are randomly placed I believe.

Well in std game the Egyptians start with Mason and CB. They are Religious, my least fav trait, and industrious ( I like that one).

We may need to kick off a GA to get the GLB, but not till we have Lit. I hope we can wait that long. Usually I would expect to not need a GA to survive the ealry game below AWDG, but with the shield poor start and 18 civs, all near ones with early UU, we may not have that option.

we should decide which spot to settle for the choke as there are 2 choices.

A difficult call, but there are two arguments for the site 3 NE of the capital (river, no adjacent hills to protect enemy units) and one for the site NE-NE-E (more shields), so probably the former.

I agree that we need the GLib.

A difficult call, but there are two arguments for the site 3 NE of the capital (river, no adjacent hills to protect enemy units) and one for the site NE-NE-E (more shields), so probably the former.

I agree that we need the GLib.

A third one exist compared to some of the suggested choices and that is it is still CxxC.

I think I prefer 3 NE for shields. I don't think we will be able to keep lands from being pillaged. Additionally, we are only attacked by 2 civs there. 2NE-E means another enemy can attack - they will attack the town since it is their only target.

It sucks that this website is now blocked at work. A couple things about settling east. First, I'm sure everyone noticed the border of a civ east of the cow, probably Babylon. So early contact from that direction very possible. Next, Thebes is on the west side of the Nile, so it will take two turns to reinforce a town there from the capital with foot troops until engineering. I like green dot to the south, and again don't expect we're going to see the Zulu or Songhai for a while. GL- agree, a necessity here. Chariots I wouldn't rush to commit to just yet as I'm not sure an early GA would be a big benefit.

ok, can I summarize what we discussed and decided:

City placements:
next city: green spot -> worker and settler factory
choke city: 3 tiles NE as we can defend that easier with enemies on flat terrain

Research:
WC - BW - wheel?
or do we go alphabet, writing, maths literature?

Maths would be sure nice to defend the choke in the northeast with catapults
Knowing the horse location would be nice too...

Build order
settler (done in the IT), warrior for MP duty and minimum defense, rax -> archers/spears?

By the way, Greebley, you said we should play 10 turns now. May I suggest that we play roughly 10 turns initially as I prefer to play until a decision has to be made.
Let's say I can foresee that 11 turns would come to a point where a decision has to be made, I rather play 11 turns and this early nothing much will happen.

save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/GR13_BC2550.SAV)

I played 13 turns as this is a good point to hand over.
I founded Memphis that went for high growth and a settler
it will grow to 4 in 2 turns and the settler can be whipped for 1 pop
I would go for a worker after that as we need more of them

Our capital finishes the rax in 6 and should then go for archers as we get WC next turn

where do we settle next? I suggest to shut off the choke and then settle towards the incense I spotted in the south (there are some hills south of the incense too)
The choke city should go walls -> rax and then churn our military as well

some suggested spots, be we should discuss this
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/gr141550.jpg

I'd suggest that the new settler should go north, and then the next player can decide at the time whether to found at the choke or on the plains/river tile next to the northwest FP wheat (not indicated by Rat). We may not have enough units at that point to risk settling towards the Babylonians, i.e. at the choke.

I think Rat's pink dot next to the incense should go 2 tiles SE of its present location, on desert rather than plains. Of course I see the point of settling next to the oasis, but I think it's more important to avoid killing one of our precious plains tiles, and to give the city access to four FP tiles rather than one.

Man that is some ugly land, to bad we are not AG to get something out of those white tiles.

Anyway I do not know how soon we can expect visitors via the choke, but if we let any past it will be trouble later. Nice to have Babs first up since the Bowmen will be so pleasant this early.

By the way, Greebley, you said we should play 10 turns now. May I suggest that we play roughly 10 turns initially as I prefer to play until a decision has to be made.
Let's say I can foresee that 11 turns would come to a point where a decision has to be made, I rather play 11 turns and this early nothing much will happen.
I agree stopping at a good stopping points seems reasonable.

I think I like the dot map modified by NP's changes (adding one and moving one). Our capitol blocks the choke right now to a certain extent, so I would go for another city rather than rush the choke. As mentioned we don't want to meet someone until we have to. A city up there would make meeting an AI more likely. Our capitol already covers the choke fairly well (so that we can move on roads while the AI moves one). I would consider building more workers sooner than later to connect the cities and road the north.

Since we want more workers and settlers both, I would consider settling another higher food city next. Once we have more workers we can also mine the desert (as well as irrigate). Multiple wheat FP and mined deserts probably will work out to reasonable towns.

I like the North one at the NW wheat. Then the southern red dot of Rat's map. The incense can wait a little IMO. We have only one worker currently and I would like to work on the food tiles first then connect all cities and finally I would work on the luxes. The third city I would put at NPs suggested site at the incense.

I cannot play today, so I will take it for tomorrow.

Your plan sounds good to me. I too like the spot near the wheat to the north. The wheat can allow us to use the two forests nearby for much needed shields.

We have a lot of stuff we need workers for. I agree that getting cities up and running is first priority. Build more workers when you can.

I like red dot next as neither pink dot provides the same amount of immediate growth. Building NE of Thebes would increase our chance of early contact, so I'd avoid that right now.

I applied the art and when I looked at the Tribes it has the new ones, but the Pedia uses the same info and is not updated. It shows the new name, but has Rome and its traits and UU.

The units have representations, are the stats shown correct for them? IOW is the infantry repalcement exactly like the std infantry or is it some what tweaked?

I do not know whether the batch file installed correctly. It said that it could not find the path, altough I ran it from the correct position. The civilopedia shows the new civs and new units though.

Turn 0 : 2550BC : hit enter

IBT : warriror comes in -> bronze working

Turn 1 : 2510BC : zzz

IBT : nothing

Turn 2 : 2470BC : rush settler in Memphis

IBT : Memphis : settler -> warrior

Turn 3 : 2430BC : zzz

IBT : Thebes : rax -> worker

Turn 4 : 2390BC : Hammi has settled a city East of Thebes. The borders cna be seen, the city not yet.

IBT : Zulu scout appears from the South

Turn 5 : 2350BC : as they did not contact us I declare war

IBT : Thebes : worker -> archer

Turn 6 : 2310BC : found Heliopolis -> warrior

IBT : nothing

Turn 7 : 2270BC : zzz

IBT : nothing

Turn 8 : 2230BC : zzz

IBT : nothing

Turn 9 : 2190BC : zzz

IBT : nothing

Turn 10 : 2150BC : zzz

A pic and the save.

I do not know whether the batch file installed correctly. It said that it could not find the path, altough I ran it from the correct position. The civilopedia shows the new civs and new units though.I think Greebley stated to install this in the Civ3 units folder, however I am convinced it should be the conquest unit folder.

As for the game, I would switch the warriors to settlers/workers and only our capital produce military for now. We need another shield rich city for military though soon.
Where are we going to settle next? I suggest the choke as we will automatically meet Babs once our capital's borders get their 2nd expansion which is soon (not too sure about that, should be after 50 turns)

edit: If our cities grow too fast, we can employ scientists instead of increasing the lux rate. This won't slow those high food cities down a lot and benefit us.

I think it is correct to put the art in the vanilla directories as that is how all the other mods do it. I did it there and recievie no msgs. I loaded the game and it did not complain and then I loaded an old game and it did not complain.

I too think we must settle the choke. We will need to have a barracks and a wall up there to handle incoming. It will be impossible to kill all the units coming in that way in the open field.

We need them to attack us in a forted town with a wall and a rax. We need the full health after each round. Maybe by the time we have horses, we could kill and retreat, but that is a long way off.

It is a shame it is not a hill.

I've got it.

I understand the desire to settle the choke, but we can't found a city in such an exposed position and then garrison it with one archer. So that project may have to wait until we have a spearman or two.

I'll probably whip another settler in Memphis, unless there's strong objection. I hate to abuse a core town like this, but it's hard to see how else we can produce settlers at reasonable speed.

I kind of like settling in the NW-NW-N because that is a high shield city that can help build military. The choke city is going to see too much action to be a great producer. I also think we need more units before building a choke city - though I also agree we want to build the choke city when we can. It would be nice to get walls around it.

Ideal might be two settlers if we can do that without using the capitol (I would go full Mil there).

mining the desert and plains will help a lot to gain more shields...food we do not need to worry, we got plenty of that

The batch file seemed to work correctly. At least vmxa could load the save without problems.

Originally I set Memphis to a worker, but changed my mind before handing it over. It can be changed back to a worker which would finish on growth. The first Zulu units might appear soon and just a warrior there seemed a little low. Bowmen and Impis. I love it.:vomit:

Without any idea of how much they will send at a proposed choke and when it is hard to know how much time we have. The thing is we need to get the choke up soon in order to be able to get a wall up and then a barracks.

If the town that is near is a leading edge town for that civ, we can probably expect little action for some time. They will not have a lot of units to send and they will take time to travel.

What is our choice? If they are coming so soon, they will be be into our core and be able to pillage or attack. I am just not that comfortable with waiting, maybe we can get away with it.

I've played seven turns, with no dramatic developments. We're at war with the Songhai, but still haven't met the Babylonians.

Anyway, we've discovered BW, so I thought I'd give the team a chance to make final comments on what we should research next. (I know there's been discussion of this...but rather indecisive discussion. ;)) IW I think we can rule out, since with this territory we can hardly have iron; so it comes down to Alphabet versus Wheel. I'd rather get to cats as quickly as possible than gamble that we've got horses, but it's a close call. So, your opinions?

If we have neither horses or iron, that could make things real tight. Don't know how effective we'll be with just archers and cats. Maybe we get lucky with some ivory, but wouldn't count on that either.

I'd go with the wheel. We'll need our chariots sooner or later.

I would lean towards The Wheel as it is much cheaper and Math will take a long time. Alpha will get cheaper. It looks like this is a std huge map, but has more than 25600 tiles, so I am not sure.

It looks like the cost factor for the map size is 550. Can anyone verify that? That means research is going to be a bit slower than a normal large map for us. The wheel cost 275 rather than 200.

1750 BC, end of turn (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR13_BC1750.SAV)

2110 (1): Thebes archer --> archer.

A Zulu warrior appears around Heliopolis--a conscript from a hut, fortunately.


2030 (3): Memphis settler (whipped) --> worker.


1950 (5): Thebes archer --> spearman.


1910 (6): A Songhai warrior appears in the NW, and we declare war.

The Zulu conscript dies attacking one of our warriors, after which a regular Zulu warrior appears (1-0).

Heliopolis settler (whipped) --> settler.

BW --> Wheel.


1870 (7): We defeat the Songhai warrior with an archer (2-0).


1830 (8): We shoot down the second Zulu warrior (3-0).

We found Elephantine on the northwestern coastal site. The city has two offshore grassland hexes it'll be able to use eventually, since Crete is an unusual spot on this map. ;)


1790 (9) - 1750 (10): Not much.


We have a force of a settler, a spearman, and an archer in position to reach the choke in two turns; but they can wait a few turns if the next player feels that's safer. Excluding this force, we have three units for four cities.

We've whipped Memphis twice for settlers, and Heliopolis once. I suppose we might as well be consistent and whip Heliopolis once more before we stop doing this.

This is one of those situations in which a city (Memphis) is content at 1-6-3 but unhappy at 0-7-3.

A gift of the Nile:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR13-1750BC.JPG

I got it. Hum too short so, I repeat I got it.

550 sounds correct from what I remember for tech.

I think we may want to whip Elephantines barracks to get more military sooner (when we can). That town can grow swiftly too.

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

Elephantine will be hard pressed to make troops as it has no shields, unless we expand it borders or mine a desert tile. Anyway that can be decided by the team as I was told to whip a settler there and it will be a while before it can do much.

We are berift of shields as far as the eye can see, just a few plains tiles.

The save, I hope:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42522/GR13_BC1500.SAV

I left the new archer for the next player to move. I was leaning towards Elephantine as it has no MP and will need more lux after next growth.

Lots of places could use an MP though, Thebes and the new town, well every place. Not a single foriegn unit came into view.

IBT: nothing

1725BC: nada3

IBT: disease hits Thebes, now size 4.

1700BC:
could not drop lux, even after loss of pop.

IBT: nothing

1675BC:
Hum, I did not see any msg, but Thebes is down to 3 pop, so must have been hit by flood plains again.

Worker from Memphis. So I drop to 20%. I leave Memphis on worker as we only have 3 for 4 towns. I send the worker to Elephantine to chop the forest and then mine and road the plains. I know the forest gives 2 shields, but so will a mine and the 10 shields will speed up the rax.

Found Alexandria and set to a wall. I move the pop to the forest to speed the wall, rather than growth. Just paranoid, but we cannot afford to lose units right now, but we can wait on pop.

IBT: nothing

1650BC:
Lux back to 30%, can't rush settler yet.

IBT: nada

1625BC:
Spear done in Thebes, switch to archer as we will need some attackers. I am not real sure where to send the spear, but decide to go with Helio.

Grab the worker heading towards forest and have him mine the plains near Thebes.
Workers finishes wheat in Elephant and move to forest.

1600BC: nothing

IBT: nothing

1575BC: nothing, spear arrives at Helio.

IBT: zero

1550BC:
Whip settler there.

IBT: 0

1525BC:
Start rax in Helio. AFAIK we have now whipped twice in Helio and Thebes and one other place, so we will need to watch it. Settler heads out for the lux, but has no unit support.

IBT: nada

1500BC:
Thebes epxanded and finished an archer and starts another.

Have we met Babylon? The next player should make sure we are at war if we have. I mention this because someone mentions that we would meet Babylon when the border expanded (which just happened).

Sorry I did not check as Thebe's expansion should not do anything for Babs as I recall. If the blue is Babs and it probably is, but I thought we were already at war with them and Songhai?

We haven't met them, we just see their borders. Got it, will play tomorrow. Wheel in 3, any thoughts on what's next?

Hum, I did not see any msg, but Thebes is down to 3 pop, so must have been hit by flood plains again.

When disease comes it always strikes two turns in a row, AFAIK.

Makes sense, we can expect our share of disease that is a given. Glad to see I did not miss a contact. I was unsure about the F4 rule, so I did not look at it at all.

I use the Shift D (when a worker is not selected - always hated that part) will bring up the list of civs. You can make sure you are at war with all of them there. You can also pick the Diplo D button on the UI for the same thing.

So I don't use F4, but don't think there is any real problem if you do. Provided all you do is declare war.

Yeah, I had forgotten about those options. I can't remember using them, but I have seen the Shift D.

Ok, I was not sure about it so I just left it alone.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/GR13_BC1250.SAV

Preturn- The lack of military is concerning but no major threats in sight yet.

IBT- A pair of Songhai reg warriors appear next to worker in Memphis. Elephantine rax>spear

Turn 2 1450BC- Our vet archer kills songhai reg warrior at Memphis. Heliopolis needs taxman. Wheel > alphabet in 16. No horses in sight. 2 more reg Songhai warriors appear south of Memphis. 2 Zulu warriors appear one tile east of them. One Songhai warrior cuts our road.

Turn 4 1400BC- Heliopolis rioted on pop growth. Zulu and Songhai lost a warrior attacking Memphis. Their 3rd warrior kills our depleted spear defending the town.

Turn 6 1350BC- Killed Songhai warrior and archer at Memphis.

Turn 9 1275BC- At Memphis we are defending with a spear, 2 warriors and two archers against 6 Zulu/Songhai warriors and two archers. I leave only a single archer at Heliopolis knowing all the AI has to do is move the Zulu troop stack opposite Heliopolis and our archer will be overrun. I gamble that the attacks so far on Memphis indicate the AI will continue to attack there regardless of the far more favorable odds against Heliopolis.

IBT- Sure enough, Memphis is the target. 3 Zulu warriors and their 2 archers die there along with a Songhai warrior. We incur no losses, spear and archer promote elite.

Turn 10- I leave a settler in Memphis. And done

Post turn- That settler which vmxa left has been on a potentially suicidal scout mission to the west in search of horses. Still alive though. Our troop levels were so low, it just seemed settling the town without a garrison when we already had one in that condition made no sense. I would say as soon as we have a couple more spears we can use our two settlers. No horses spotted yet, and the military situation in Memphis is stable for the moment, but let's keep building spears for a bit.

I gamble that the attacks so far on Memphis indicate the AI will continue to attack there regardless of the far more favorable odds against Heliopolis.

Good call. :goodjob:

No horses, probably no iron, next to no shields, three fronts to defend--this is going to be a really impressive victory. :lol:

this game will be super tough and I wonder whether we will survive

no resources and no shields are a little too much. Maybe, we can survive if we get an early army break with a archer army to defend properly

by the way, there is some extensive MM needed after looking at the save.

I was afraid to say anything, but this is some homely land. It is one thing to fight with spears and archers, but another to not be able to make them in a decent time frame.

Some how we have to get the hills on either side of us to get some producion and the hopes of Iron or maybe even horses. WE can hope a hill just out of sight has some. Even if we had either it will take some time to get any built.

No horses, probably no iron, next to no shields, three fronts to defend--this is going to be a really impressive victory. :lol:

I was thinking the same thing. :D

Good to see you're still at least lurking, Handy. :hatsoff:

Ok, I got it.

Hi Handy :cheers: Feel free to comment on the game. :D

I have settled two more towns and we should get the incense soon.

Opposition has been low so far. Just a bunch of warriors from the south.

We met Babylon. No activity from them yet.

I have sent out some exploring units To the south is a warrior that won't last too long, but can find some hills before the real units come at us and kill it. Near the Babylons, I checked the nearby area, but no more hills. I think the Spear can head back as I don't see a reason to explore outside the choke more. Going that way would mean fighting everyone at any town outside the choke and we can see all we could get with a choke town.

I went for Iron Working and we will finish on the next players turn. That will tell us if we have iron nearby. If we don't I would try to send out one or two more units to explore.

I was building temples for border expansions. This really will help us and temples are only 30 shields. We also should start a GLib prebuild on the next players turn for sure. I was thinking either the capitol or one of the towns after the temples complete.

To discuss: What tech to go for next.
I think we should go for Mathematics next. Catapults are too valuable - we need them before the swords come at us. After that we head toward Lit.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-BC1000.jpg

I agree completely. We will have to hope Iron is one one of those hills.

save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/GR13_BC750.SAV)

Pre-Turn
MM a little, but nothing major

1. 975BC
set Elephantine on palace duty for GL
send a new archer south, we are pretty thin on troops
our warrior climbs moutain and runs into 2 Songhai archers

IT warrior defeats both archers and is elite now :)
babs start coming with 4 units

2. 950BC
archer turns around to help the choke

3. 925BC
incense is connected, lux to 20%, IW in 5

IT we defeat 1 babs warrior at the choke, but in the south 2 pesky Impi's appear, now those can get problematic

4. 900BC
defeat 1 warrior at the choke
move units around in the south

IT retreat both Impis at heliopolis

5. 875BC
defeat one of the Impis

6. 850BC
another Impi has shown up

IT retreat another Impi, defeat spear / warrior at choke

7. 825BC
more disease hits us
reduce science and defeat Impi

IT defeat Impi and babs warrior
IW is in, maths next

8. 800BC
the only iron I can spot is at Ashur, but nothing on our side

IT defeat the usual warrior/Impi combination
Songhai's archers will show up sooner or later as well

9.775BC
zzz

IT defeat Impi and babs bow

10. 750BC
have been building troops and tried to imporve land, there is a settler ready in 1 that should go where the archer is on

the hill for better defense; maths is due in 12, but the palace is ready in 35, we might want to slow that down

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/gr13750.jpg

as I am flying back home on Friday morning, I need to be skipped the next few rounds. I'll be back in October, but immediately need to go for a staff retreat after coming back :vomit:

That was some tough warrior. I could not down load the save. Get Telefrag 404 msg, guess it is down now.

Does Elepantime have a temple? If not switch to that, it will need one to handle any growth while making a wonder. Otherwise I am not sure what coudl be built as we are probably a long ways from Lit coming in.

I think we may be able to get to the Iron - settle right on it and strongly defend. A city on a hill with walls can do fairly well with enough units. Hopefully before things got really intense we could find Iron to the south.

We could also build a very well defended colony - we don't get the wall bonus though

Edit: BTW, I don't think we are ready yet to do this. We would need archers to take out the town and spare Spear to defend the road and town.

Roster:
Greebley
ThERat - Just Played
markh - Up
Northern Pike - On deck
vmxa
M60A3TTS

Keep building the military. We will need it.

Aside: I joined a AW RaR game Emp1. It needs players if anyone can handle two AW games.
A link to the thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185927)

vxma, the temple in Elaphantine was done in the IT and then I started the palace. We can always work coastal tiles to slow the palace and IIRC th prebuild (which is now 600shields) will grow if we exceed a certain amount of cities.

I still cannot DL the sav, so I could not see for myself.

Try this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/GR13_BC750.SAV).

That seems to work--thanks. :thanx:

I got it and I will take a look at it tonight.

Ok, military build up and getting the iron. No problem, I will do that.:rolleyes:

That worked, thanks.

0) 750BC : looks good

IBT : an impi suicides on Heliopolis, redlining our spear though
Memphis : settler ->settler

1) 730BC : nothing much

IBT : an impi retreats at Heliopolis
some bowmen appear
Thebes : archer -> archer
disease strikes Memphis
Pi-Ramesses : temple -> rax

2) 710BC : still not much

IBT : 2 bowmen suicide on Alexandria
disease strikes Memphis

3) 690BC : retreat one impi

IBT : nothing
Heliopolis : worker -> walls
Giza : temple -> walls

4) 670BC : retreat an impi

IBT : a songhai archer is killed by our scouting elite warrior on defense
Thebes : archer -> archer
Alexandria : acrher -> archer

5) 650BC : not much

IBT : an impi kills one of our elit archers
Beijing completes The Oracle
Philadelphia completes The Statue of Zeus

6) 630BC : nothing much

IBT : an impi is retreated at Heliopolis and another songhai archer is killed by our scouting warrior
a babylonian galley leaves Ashur

7) 610BC : 2 elite archers kill 2 songhai archers

IBT : our scouting warrior is surrounded by 4, 5, 6 or 7 songhai archers
Thebes : archer -> archer

8) 590BC : archer kills babylonian warrior

IBT : ha, ha, the songhai archers still hunt our warrior and cannot get him
Alexandria : archer -> archer
Washington complets Mausoleum

9) 570BC : archer kills spear at Ashur
2 archers suicide on Ashur, but the third kills the remaining spear and razes Ashur
2 elite archers kill 2 songhai archers
found Byblos on the Iron -> walls

IBT : one impi is retreated by an elite archer, another impi kills our archer

10) 550BC : I leave it here to the next one. I am not that sure whether to attack or play it defensively.
No unit is moved.

:goodjob: you got us the iron, hope we can defend the city and the supply lines though. The south looks very thin on troops and we have to be really careful not to lose ground there. Hopefulle we will get a sword army, that would surely help a lot

Yes, fine work. :thumbsup:

I've got it, but I can't play for at least 24 hours. So, Vmxa, if you'd like to play on Thursday, just go ahead and we'll swap.

The south is quite thin, I agree, but I thought the iron is more important. If we lose a town in the south it would not hurt too much although I think we can hold there. It is just impis and archers that are coming. Memphis and Heliopolis can now transfer units within a turn, so it is a little better there.

The iron town should be quite secure. IIRC there are two spears and 3 archers. As soon as the walls are up it should be strong enough to hold. Cats are also not far ahead, so it does not look too bad.

Go ahead NP, I can wait.

350 BC--one worker has movement (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR13_BC350.SAV)

550 (0): We manage to kill two Impis around Giza, but there's nothing we can do about the one in position to pillage our incense (2-0).

Our incense is duly pillaged.

Memphis settler --> settler, Giza walls --> catapult (eventually).


530 (1): A Bab Bowman perishes attacking our iron town (3-0).

Disease strikes Memphis.


510 (2): We get some bad RNG around Giza, and defeating two Songhai archers costs us two of our own (5-2).

Pi-Ramesses barracks --> swordsman.


490 (3): We have to get a Bab spearman off the Alexandria-Byblos road, and it costs us an archer (6-3).

We found El-Amarna on the Red Sea--the only useful site that won't add to our defensive burden.

An Impi attacks our spearman in Heliopolis, a little surprisingly, and perishes (7-3).

Our heroic exploring warrior is finally trapped and slain (7-4).

A Bab swordsman appears.

Mathematics --> Writing.

Thebes swordsman --> swordsman, Heliopolis walls --> catapult.


470 (4): Alexandria swordsman --> swordsman, Byblos walls --> barracks.


450 (5): We dispose of an Impi and a Songhai warrior around Giza (9-4).

We endure a very close call at Heliopolis when the Zulus attack en masse, but it works out well, as we strike down three Impis and two archers for the loss of one spearman (14-5).

The Babylonians are building the Great Library, and we're still twelve turns away from Writing.


430 (6): We get incense hooked up again.

A Bab swordsman and a Bowman fall attacking Alexandria (16-5).

Thebes swordsman --> swordsman.

Giza catapult --> catapult.


410 (7): Not much.


390 (8): Helio catapult --> catapult, Pi-Ram swordsman --> swordsman.


370 (9): We bombard and destroy an Impi around Giza, with the Imp's irritating retreat ability necessitating two attacks as usual (17-5).

Two Bab Bowmen attack Alexandria and perish (19-5).

Thebes sword --> sword.


350 (10): Seven elite victories this round, three of them defensive, didn't produce a Great Leader.

Right now our losing the Great Library to the Babs looks like a greater threat than the military situation, so some of our cities are micromanaged more for commerce than for shields. Memphis is the extreme case, since I don't think we should sacrifice population for settlers until we've discovered Literature. We could extend the same principle to the capital, if the next player feels confident about accepting slower production of swordsmen.

The Zulus could have pillaged our southern lands into the Stone Age this round, but wasted their Impis in foolish attacks on cities, or in moving towards ungarrisoned cities. The latter wasn't conscious manipulation on my part, just the natural result of our unit starvation. :lol:

Alexandria is unusually micromanaged because it's about to complete a build, and Pi-Ram because it has no garrison at the moment.

We're at 60% research presently, but we can go to 70% whenever we have enough gold to cover the deficit involved.

I've left one worker with its full movement, so the next player can decide whether to use it in risky projects around Byblos or return it to our heartland.

Many of our units have used 1/3 or 2/3 of their movement, so if you're inclined to make moves before pressing Enter, check carefully.

The present danger:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR13-350BC.JPG

good turns, NP

we will be in trouble if we do not get the GL. in case babs get it, at least we could capture the city and try to hold it

hope you guys will do well!!!

If you lost the Glib, what would you build instead?

Ok, I got it and will get to it later today. I have no idea what we would be in position to make as I doubt we will be up to the FP count for this map.

If you lost the Glib, what would you build instead?

A 185 shield swordsman, and I suggest we discuss paying the bill without delay.

Here is the math. We are 215 shields short. At 6 spt, that's 36 turns. We know a despotic GA is of no real benefit here with regards to shields, so if a horse showed up in Thebes it really wouldn't matter for this build-other than getting the techs a tad sooner.

The danger isn't that the Babs build the GLib. ThERat is right- we can capture it. The real danger is in their geographic location they probably already have contact with a lot of civs who are not at war and before too long more of them will jump into the contest. I'm fine with Hammy completing the GLib, my concern is that someone like Mao could. It's a long haul to Beijing. If the AI starts building it in a 15 spt capital, they would complete it in what? I forget the discount at emperor, but I'm guessing like 22 turns at a 20% discount.

Their 22 is a lot less than our 36. Even if we go to 8 spt after discovering literature, the best we can probably hope for is 30 turns. If we change Elephantine to a sword, our loss is 156 shields, but given that we can then up the town to 8 spt immediately, that 36 turn build window would allow the town to produce a further 8 swords- or more cats if you prefer. That could go quite a ways towards improving the military situation.

In any case if we decide to stick it out, the next turn set should tell us who our competition would ultimately be for the GLib. Anyone who comes in later than that would probably be too late.

Yes we have no chance at the GLB at the rate we are going. It is 400 for us and 320 for them. So 22 turns is the number, unless they have problems with pillage, happiness or something.

I agree 100%, we may as well get a unit out now and hope Babs is the one. Are they in a GA yet? I do not know if they have had a bow win Vs us or not.

I have not looked at the game yet, but will in a few minutes. I guess I need to run a check to see what the OCN is for us and if we are close to the FP number.

If we were 2 or 3 towns away, we could wait for that.

Pre:

Nothing much that I can see. I move a cat into Giza and the aforementioned worker moves out. The best I can figure is that we are making 44BPT now and will not be able to maintain that for long.

We are +6GPT now, but that will drop as more units are made. We can squeeze out a town or two to sort of hold the level. Even if we assume 44 all the way, it looks like 7 turns left for Write and 16 for Lit. That is right on the edge for the LIB going up elsewhere. What it all means is we will finish the palace beofre we get lit anyway, unless we build more towns. I am too lazy to figure out how many towns for how many shields.

I am not real clear on how we can up the shields Elephantine. I mean if we add pop we need more food. If we irrigate we do not get shields. If we move ove the coast, we lose 1 commerce and the beakers will drop.

We would need to up the lux to have more working pop and that comes out of beakers as well.

All of this presumes the Babs are the front runners for the GLB and they may not be the ones.

Since I have company right now, grandkids, I will wait for some feedback. My question is do we give it up now or not. If we do what is the tech we go for after writing, instead of Lit. Do you want lib anyway or do we go for Monarchy?

I figure that markets are not a top priority right now and aquas can wait. Do you want horses over all the others?

I don't think our chances will be very good if we don't build the GLib ourselves. Even if we were able to take it from the Babs, doing so would push us into a wrong strategy, in which we'd be making the contacts we've so far avoided and trying to hold cities beyond the choke.

So I'd rather make a maximum effort to win the race to the GLib. A crucial point here is that our workers don't have a lot of important jobs to do now. So as soon as we discover Literature, or a little before, we can adjust the improvements around Elephantine--this would involve irrigating some mined plains--and then merge some workers into the town, raising the lux rate as necessary. I believe (without opening the save) we could get the town to twelve shields before corruption by doing this.

15 spt seems high for a capitol for this early in the game. 10 seems more realistic to me. However, at 11 it is still only 30 turns for them. The AI also switches cities.

So I am torn. Going Max on the GLib would be a huge gamble with probably less than a 50% chance of working. I would still give it 1/3 or 1/4 of working though which isn't non-existant.

If we do bag the GLib, I would like to consider going on the offensive. If we can take land we can research faster and have a better chance. I think following the Nile south and going for Songhai makes most sense.

The reason for the attack is that we have tech parity now. We will never have it again and need to grow large to have a chance.

I think if we just sit here and don't take out an AI and lose the GLib, then we will have the smallest chance of winning.

Try to maximize our chances for an army.

If we hire a bunch of scientists, we can get writing in 5. We could have vmxa play to that point and then see how far we are from lit. Elephantine can do 11 spt with zero growth and no terrain changes. If we go max science like that, it is likely going to stretch our military right to the edge.

I do agree that building down south along the Nile and taking the fight to the Songhai is the way to go.

Well it is late, so I will check in here around 10AM my time and see if anyone else has some input and then get to it. Looks like the consensus is to give it an all out run.

I was wondering why we decided they were doing so many shields, but if they are at full size or near it and in a GA..... The draw backs of being at war are they are not pushing out settlers to stay small.

I have not played much emperor in the last 2 years, but I am some what surprised to see them jump on Lit and the GLB so soon. I often see Sid games where they go deep into the middle age or even into industrial and not research Lit.

I have a bad feeling that they have several more civs in contact. Also we can see the greenish borders. I will try to remember to look to see if we have contact. I think not as the price for writing is about right for three civs.

Tech is random. They can go for Lit right away or they can avoid it for a long time. It depends on chance.

We simply got unlucky and one of the AI's went for it pretty early.

I think we stand no chance to get the GL as babs would certainly be in their GA. Unless you guys defeated every single bowman, they are right in there and would make decent shields.
I rather we try and expand towards Babylon and hold the ground in the south. Babylon looks better land. Maybe they have horses as well (anyone seen horses from any enemy so far?)

I did not see and horses and I just had two bowmen suiciding on our defenses, so no GA for Hammi during my set.:)

I think we stand no chance to get the GL as babs would certainly be in their GA. Unless you guys defeated every single bowman, they are right in there and would make decent shields.
I rather we try and expand towards Babylon and hold the ground in the south. Babylon looks better land. Maybe they have horses as well (anyone seen horses from any enemy so far?)

I don't think the quality of the land is as important as the number of fronts. We need to hurt the African civs so we don't have to devote resources to the southern front. We take out songhai and it is only 1 vs 1 on the Zulu. We can do those. Then we have one front and a good chance to win even without the GLib if we can stay close enough in tech.

I did not see and horses and I just had two bowmen suiciding on our defenses, so no GA for Hammi during my set.:)

That assumes he wasn't fighting or won't soon fight someone else.

We just need to be clear if we're going for the GLib, we need to focus our efforts on getting to lit ASAP and hire as many scientists as it takes. Elephantine needs to get to max shields as soon as it makes sense. It can always be dropped to 2 spt. What we don't want is to discover literature with the palace several turns from completion. Obviously same turn is what we should be aiming for.

For what it's worth, I agree with Greebley: more fronts, more trouble. TGL is a nice accessory but it isn't quite vital, not if your closest neighbor has a decent shot at it. Heck, I'd even consider suiciding a warrior on a bowman to gift them a GA and make sure they win the race.

Also, the land gets better and better as you go south, from what I observe, and anyways covering 2 fronts actively is never a winning strategy. Holding a tighht front while cleaning the other side of the map was a positive factor in last game, as I recall.

ok, Greebley and BeF, you guys are right, we should expand south not north with a smaller front. But, we might be able to acquire Arabia without expanding our front too much, if we can put a foothold into Iraq.

The south of Africa should be better of course, then Sahara desert we have now.
BeF argument to get babs to GA to make sure they get the GL sounds very good to me too

Well it is clear as mud as to the team strategy, about split it seems. I am very fond of holding the choke and not going to extented oneself.

I like the idea of taking down those civ behind us and then moving out. we probably will not have any horses for some time though. Without an army we will be unable to defend new towns in the Babs land. Just not enough shields to deal with the new civs we will surely face then.

I have no issues with a false attack to give then a GA, but they may already have one. They could be fighting elsewhere, but I suspect not.

Anyway I personally do not believe we can get the GLB, without a huge piece of luck and an all out effort. As I mentioned, I doubt we can keep up the research and the war effort.

I think I will play 5 turns and keep at the GLB. Then post the save to see if how the team see it, rather than just cut the chord. I would vote to cut the chord now though and take an expensive sword now, rather than later.

Anyway at that point I can either play on with a better view the rest of the set or pass it on to someone that has a clear plan and wants to execute it.

The thing is that emperor civs will do a better job of cranking out units than we faced in the Monarch game. They will soon be making MDI's and in some numbers. We will have no units that can hit and return, so all will be exposed, unless covered.

Once a civ gets into the war effort and is making mostly troops, they will be flowing in at a steady pace.

I read ThERat's post and reread the rest and I am now leaning towards dropping the GLB. Have we had notice of things like ToA being started?

With some civs most likely having Map, I would think a trade is possible for Lit. If several get Lit and any switch to the GLB in a cascade it will be lights out for any shot.

I am inclinded to expect a GLB from that more than anything and I have no idea who will get it, but I do not see it as being us.

I think I will wait till 1PM my time to start and will cut the chord, unless I hear not to. I want to get my turn in today. So can we have an up or down on the GLB please?

If you are looking for a vote, I believe this is the feeling of the team about continuing on with the GLib

NP- yes
Greebley- undecided
markh- not voted
ThERat, M60- no

The good news is someone has to be right. ;)

I'd say just make a decision and go. There are no slouches on this team. :D

As long as there's focus in the direction we're taking we should be ok.

Sounds right to me.

The save, I hope:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42522/GR_BC150.SAV

Finish of Pre:

I go with the abandonment of the GLB and switch to a sword.

IBT: some movement of units towards us, nothing else.

330BC:
2 cats hit and I swap the sword for a spear at Giza to kill a yellow spear sitting on the oasis. Don't want it to cut the tile up. 5 units near Giza. (1-0)

The capitol is unhappy and if I use a pop for specialist, we lose the 3 turn swords. We also have Pi-Ram unhappy so it would need a taxman as well. I go with the 30% lux.

Send a reg warrior to the Bowman stack.

It is now 50 research 30 lux at +1 and we have 8 gold.

IBT:
1 bowman dies at Alex. (1-0) [2-0]
Many songhai show up and we now have 12 of them and 2 impi Zulu archer at Giza, not good.

310BC:
Sword kills Zulu archer (1-0). One impi is in position to reach Memphis. Ok I give up a warrior to a bowman and trigger their GA, if it was not going already. (1-1)
Vet sword kills the bowman and is redlined (2-1).

I peek at F4 and we do not have contact with the green guys. I hope they are not Persian.

Sword kills another bowman (3-1). [5-1]

IBT:
archer dies attacking sword near Giza (1-0) [6-1]

290BC:
Sword redlines impi and it retreats. I cover with the other wounded sword as they have an impi next to us. I had to risk it to drive them away from Memphis and Helio as they only have 1 spear and no attackers.
Sword at Giza kills archer. (1-0). Still no promotions and near as I can see all elites are spears.

I go ahead and move the not quite healed spear to cover the sword as a warrior and an impi can reach it and it is yellow. Not sure if it would attack, but now it probably goes for Memphis.
Songhai have 8 archers still on the hill over looking the incense. I pinged 1.
[7-1]
Pi lost its MP and had to get a taxman for a turn.

IBT: no action, two more Zulu archers move up.

270BC:
Pi makes a sword and the pop goes back to work to stay on 5 turn swords. Hum, we have 4 zulus just past Giza and towards Helio. We have 8 Song archers in one stack next to them and a single archer that I just pinged red and a warrior on the hills and closer.

I need to cut them down or send them back, but I have only 2 yellow swords and a wounded one on the scene. The towns of Helio and Giza have a spear and an archer respectively.

We have 2 spears on the lux and another 4/5 spear near and a sword that has gotten to Memphis.
Archer from Giza kills redlined archer on the hill. The 8 archers can attack it though. (1-0)
I see an additional impi behind the stack of 3 Zulus now.
3/4 sword kills warrior (2-0) [9-1]

IBT: went worse than I had hoped. The archer dies without even killing a single archer.
A galley from Hammy is closing in on El-Am, which is not defended. (0-1) [9-2]
I really hate archers, they are hell on your ratio.

250BC:
Pull a sword from Alex and send to El-Am. More risk, send the yellow sword at Giza to kill the archer on the hill. I just feel we cannot afford to let them heal and attack. Worse make us attack in a spot we do not want to do it. Anyway it kills the archer and goes elite. 1 impi could reach it, but it is now 3/5 on a hill and it may leave it alone or lose. One can always hope. (1-0) [10-2]
Sword redlines an impi and it retreats, do they always get to retreat?

IBT:
Sorry another not so good one. The impi that retreated was now 2 moves away from what I thought were safe workers. He grabs them. The 2 Zulu archers attacked the wounded sword and it kills one and redlines the other, but dies. (1-1) [11-3]
So far this is not shaping up as a very good set.

Oh, Babs finish th ToA, Gemany finishes Lighthouse and Az does the Wall. Bow lands at El-Am.

230BC:
Sword kills the Bow at El (1-0). Sword at Memphis kills the redlined archer
(2-0).
Spear at Helio kills a redline unit (3-0). I see a Song archer heading for Pi and I send the two new swords in that direction.
Just to let you know how scary it has been I had uncovered the incense, but now it is covered as 4 Song archers are next to it and 1 impi. Ping the impi and 2 of the archers and we will see how it goes. The last 2 IBT's were not the best I have seen. [14-3]

IBT:
Well not so bad, the impi retreated to heal, the 2 good archers moved and the damaged ones left.

210BC:
Sword at Giza kills archer and is elite. Now we have 2, but both are damaged. (1-0)
Many damaged units out there, but I cannot reach them. [15-3]

IBT: Songhai ask for a talk, I guess they want peace. Did not see what they price was, not even sure if it is allowed anyway. OH OH, sorry guys I slapped in the default research intending to check it out after the IBT awhile back, but forgot.

So we are close to learning Pottery. I am not so sure it matters, since I bailed on the GLB anyway. I am starting to get a bad feeling the Babs would not have beat us, but that does not mean someone else won't. I am wonder if they went with a 5 shield town and now get 7 or so shields.

190BC:
Cats have a good round and hit all but once. 2 swords and a 4/5 one kill 3 archers at Memphis (3-0). Ha, a sword kills archer and goes elite and is 5/5.
I send the settler towards the hill on the right past Giza. I think that the hill will give us the defense we will need immediately, without waiting for walls. We have the next hill for shields (eventually) and the CxxC from Helio is available and then CxxC from it towards the wheat will be a CxxC fit for it. Anyway I have road up towards it and will be able to road the tile next to it on the next turn and bring along some spears and cats and swords to clear the path. [18-3]

IBT:
the cost of the GA is starting to come home. 4 bows and a sword head for Alex. I send a cat towards it.

170BC:
Well it turns out they were 3 swords and a bow, ugh.
A spear is going up in Byblos, not sure if you want to switch it, but I think it could be good there and will be up sooner than a sword.
5/5 kills impi on the hill and I cover with a spear. (1-0).
4/5 and 3/4 kill archers (3-0) [21-3].

IBT:
I see Song moving a spear/settler towards the Nile (south of our hills). Zulu sends 4 units to Helio. Archer dies, redlined our spear on the hill. (1-0) [22-3]

150BC:
I get 3 more units to Helio, but the cat missed the impi so it can run off and pillage or attack. It cannot reach any of the empty towns.
Two units on the hill can be moved. The spear is 1/4 so need to go, maybe to the next hill. I was debating attacking the archer with the sword, but I did not want to expose it, if other units are near.
I pinged the bow at Alex, but did not attack it either. Again with no ability to move back into town, it could be killed. 3 swords and a bow would be in position to hit it. I cannot see covering it with all that is needed, but it could be done.

Of course it is not written that we would even beat the bow. The settler is on the hill and covered. I wanted to joint the 5/5 sword, but did not want to risk the 2 workers to the impi with only a damaged sword left to cover them.

Helio is using 2 mines, after the cats pops out, you may want to swap one to an irrigated tile to grow again. I wanted to get that cat out to use on the Zulu squad.

I did not turn down the research, so that needs to be done.

Nice tactical play. :goodjob:

OK, I've got it. We have a few units coming on line in the next couple of turns that should allow us to move forward down in the south.

We'll see if any four-legged critters appear during my watch.

edit: Short update at turn 5: 20-1 kill ratio and we have our first MGL, Ramses. Will finish tomorrow night.

nobody has the GL yet? hope my advise was not wrong :eek:
anyway, way to go vmxa, nice play really and now with having our 1st army. things should get better and we should be able to hurt either Songhai or Zulu. I am inclined to send the army out to hurt them and find the resources we need, ie horses

Yeah an army. Not to worry ThERat, I was right there with you and thought we had no chance. Now I am just as sure we could have beat Hammy, but they are not the only civ in the game.

I do think I would have not been able to avoid some big problems without those extra swords from the wonder city. I needed every single unit.

Anyway it comes down to how many shields they are getting and I suspect it is less than 10. Nothing says they could not have switched the ToA to get it.

I wonder if we did not let them get the GA, if someone would have beat them to the ToA and then they would have switched. Only a mini cascade took place. Nothing we can do now other than kid butts.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/GR13_50_AD.SAV

Pre turn- Change Pi Ramses from sword to spear. At 7spt we lose 5 for a sword but only one on a spear. Science down to 10%, pottery still in 1.

IBT- Impi and 2 Zulu archers die against Heliopolis. (3-0) Our spear goes elite. Mysticism in 5. Babs bring up 3 swords and a bow next to Alexandria.

Turn 1 (130BC) Abydos founded. Cats frag two Songhai archers and elite swords do the rest. (5-0) Bab bow and two swords by Alexandia are killed. (8-0) Knock a hp off the remaining sword.

IBT- No combat. Babs not coming in numbers. Songhai are creeping up north with solo archers, so no real threat there.

Turn 2 (110BC) Cats take a couple points off a Zulu archer and vet sword kills it (9-0)
Kill impi and Bab bow near Heliopolis. (11-0)

Turn 3 (90BC) Quiet

IBT- No combat

Turn 4 (70BC) No action again, dancing around a little bit, drawing up a reserve to deal with Zulu archers.

IBT- We lose a defending spear at Byblios to Bab bow (11-1)

Turn 5 (50BC) Sword kills offending bow at Byblios (12-1). The three Songhai warriors kreeping along our western front come in range of 3 swords and a cat and are dispatched. (15-1). Undefended Bab settler south of Heliopolis provides us with two free workers (16-1). Kill four Zulu archers and an elite spear attack produces Ramses. :) (20-1). Lose two swords at Alexandria after a cat misfires and kill Bab bow and sword (22-3).

IBT Myst> Polytheism in 25.

Turn 6 (30BC) Vet sword kills Songhai archer in the west (23-3). Kill 1 impi in the south with elite sword (24-3)

IBT- No action

Turn 7 (10BC) Kill Songhai archer (25-3) Elite sword storms out of Byblios and kills Bab sword. (26-3) Cheops emerges from the battle as the latest Egyptian war hero. :) :) Vet sword apparently didn’t get the word he should kill a 2hp bow (26-4) Another sword does the trick. (27-4) Clear out another impi and archer (29-4).

IBT- The Battle of Alexandria rages on. Not once, not twice, but thrice our elite sword holds it’s ground against a Bab sword onslaught and Khufu joins his brother warriors as a war hero. :) :) :) (32-4)
Turn 8 (10AD) Send him to Thebes and rush HE. We don’t have 12 cities for a third army as it stands. Army of Alexandria kills Bab sword. (33-4) Sword in the west kills Songhai archer and promotes elite. (34-4)

Don’t try this at home, kids. Cats redline three impis and three spear attacks win. (37-4)

IBT- Bab bow lands by empty El Armana.

Turn 9 (30AD) Cat attack and elite sword autoraze Songhai town of Diara in the south. Rush vet spear and cat to El Armana. Two more cat/spear attacks yield two more Zulu archers (39-4) Sword army kills vet impi (40-4). Army of Alexandria kills Bab bow (41-4).

IBT- Lose our scouting sword in the west clean to a Songhai archer (41-5). And the Great Library comes in. Um, no, it wasn’t Babylon. Try a few thousand miles northeast. :cry:
We have a new player in North Africa, as yet unmet. The town of Cherbourg was founded.

Turn 10 (50AD) Asyut founded in the south. Cats redline Songhai spear and elite sword attacks. (42-5) Local villagers sing the praises of MGL Metuhotep. :band: He takes up residence in Thebes. Send two elite* swords to Thebes and position our Army of Memphis to cover our remaining settler who can build town #12. That will give us Army #3. And done.

I failed. Yes, I failed to find a single dang hoss. Where the heck are those critters? :mad: Even our enemies haven’t come up with one. I hang my head in shame with only the consolation of 4 MGLs created. :lol:

Next up- make sure you deal with that Bab bow just north of Heliopolis next turn. Army in Alexandria is red and needs a couple turns to heal. I have a couple granaries going just to speed up the pop in those towns. The military situation is that we are starting to get thinned out, so be wary of leaving too many towns vacant. Poly in 18. Not much we can do to speed it up.

So it was 19 turns that we had to get the Glib. Unfortunate, but we were right to cut our losses. Good news is it’s still just impi and archers in the south, so we can continue to press our advantage there. :goodjob:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/GR13_50_AD.SAV

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/Glib.jpg.JPG

WHAT IS WITH THIS SAVE STUFF????? IT'S LIKE INVISIBLE!!!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/GR13_50_AD_2.SAV

OK, here it is. Never mind...

Amazing round! :woohoo:

M60 on MGL-steroids.:D Amazing.:yup:

Good turn. 4 leaders is great. I got it. Hopefully the next one can be pentagon.

I may be fairly aggressive on my turns if we have the units. More cities will help us keep up in tech better and less cities in the south means less units coming at us.

great to get so many leaders. Hmm, I wish I could play some turns, but I have only internet access... :(

Now we are going to have to get up a lot of cities to allow many armies. At least there are some shield making hills now in our land.

We just did not have any real chance for the GLB with so poor of a shield producing land and the small research base. We probably should not even have tried. If only someone would have beaten the Babs to the ToA, they would have switched over that build and gotten the GLB.

I think the GLib is always worth going for at emp level or higher. You often get it. We just didn't get it this game.

Preturn: Looks good. I see I was thinking the wrong civ was south of us (Zulu are south). I want to try to hurt them on my turn if I can.
There was some MMing that could be done to make things a bit more efficient. Also because I want to launch an offensive, I changed over some builds to Mil.

The pink city is France by the way (I have the option on that prints the Civ name for cities). We can also light green city to the east but no indication who.

We still have a ways to go on Polytheism and then Monarchy before we can switch govts. One nice thing about having cities on the river will be we can get some over size 6 with more unit support in Monarchy so I think we should switch right away when we get there.

Oh I moved a unit south and discovered another civ with a city to the south. It is the teal color which might be Persia? I will avoid getting closer - I think it is a coastal town like France built rather than another civ in Africa.

Thinking some more about it, I am guessing that light green will be Greece and teal will be Persia. Egypt really starts with the early age UU civs nearby - Zulu, Greece, Persia...

70 AD: Build the 12th town and form the 3rd army. This army is heading south. One army was badly hurt - went from 9 to 3 hp attacking an archer!

IBT: Pentagon message.

90 AD: All sides holding though I need to send more to the west I think. I spot horses to the South![b]

110 AD: Another Leader!

130 AD: Rush Pentagon.

150 AD: Capture Zulu town, but our Army takes too much damage and I will probably have to retreat if any units show up.

IBT: Two swords show up.

170 AD: Retreat out of the town.

IBT: Town is captured back.

190 AD: Kill units in town and it auto-destructs.

IBT: Spot a French worker. I will have to declare war next turn.

210 AD: Declare war on France. Armies now all have 4 units. One army is healing in town, and one is still heading south. Build a town near the horses.

IBT: Also spot light Green (my guess is Greece)

230 AD: Yup its Greece. They have 2 settlers I will try to grab them if I can. About to road the Horses.

250 AD: Move onto Zulu Iron. Horses roaded and will build a war chariot next turn

IBT: Accidentally hit enter. Oh well at least I can be sure the Zulu Iron is pillaged. This is the only move I do.

Notes:
We met France and Greece on my turn. I got one leader which built pentagon in the middle of our lands (safest town)

We have 13 cities with one city at its spot in the south. One more just completed and a further one will complete in a turn. I think we need more to expand south, but we need defenders down there as well. So after the one that completes in one turn, we have 16 cities.

[b]I would build a settler in the Capitol next We can be at 10 shields at size 7 with MM. We want as many towns as we can get so we need the settler.

Be careful not to go near the (probably) Persian city (teal border) in the southeast. Instead grab Zulu lands.

Keep the choke to Africa closed at all times! This is very important (it can be blocked by anything even a worker). The reason is that every civ will send its settlers at us if it is open. I made this mistake and that is why we met Greece. Babylon was also sending setters. If we leave it open we will probably lose our iron town as every civ meets us when the send settlers and the Iron town cannot stand against many civs.

5 or 6 turns from Polytheism. To discuss - When to have our GA - wait until Monarchy? I think waiting is probably stronger as the GA bonus often is lost as a despot and we are not that far away. So for tech - finish polytheism, head straight for Monarchy, revolt right away, Start GA right when Monarch is my vote.

Picture didn't work. It is attached in a post below.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD250.jpg

The 260AD save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/14765/GR13_AD250.zip)

This screenie scared me, until I realized it was 1000BC. Yes GLB is worth a shot at this level with this many civs, but you have to have a credible chance or you waste shields that you could use to make troops.

The problem is it is very hard to be able to get a good gauge. I think we could safely say it was a long shot from the start. We have a shield poor land and would be pressed very hard in combat as we had no horses and iron was a time in coming.

Couple that with the difficulty we would face getting to Lit, it was a real strain. Not being able to trade before declaring is the straw that broke the back. If you remove any of those three legs (handicaps) we cold have a decent shot.

I should have spoke up when the first idea came up to start the palace. I chickened out and that was my fault. I doubt it would have been well recieved anyway.

I just do not have enough experience playing these special maps to be confident about what to expect.

Absolutely wait. We're religious so we won't have to deal with extended anarchy.

My bad on the choke, I used it to lure in the Babs which actually generated MGL #2.

I'm afraid the iron town of Ashur will fall sooner or later, for sure once knights show up. But the Zulu town of Mpondo can provide us with another source.

I would not recommend going any further south than Mpondo. We're extending our western flank too far. I'd shift the armies west/southwest. Until they connect up an iron source, the Songhai towns are easy prey with spears and archers.

Ultimately, Alexandria has to be turned into a fortress. It's a safe bet we're going to get a growing wave of units there. With enough cats to clip them, we should be ok, until knights appear in quantity.

good work, Greebley.

Wait for monarchy to trigger our GA. It will provide the chance for us to get some infra up. We surely need libraries and such.

As for expansion, Obormot has taught me how to expand like mad and have very thin defense. We should try and go after Zulu as their land is more promising I guess.

As I cannot load the game. could someone post a nice screenie of the situation?

As for techs I would go poly, monarchy, curreny, const, then the rest...

and I guess markh or NP are up, I am skipped

Yes, I am up then. I do not know whether I will manage today, but tomorrow I can play for sure.

You sure that Currency should go ahead of Construction? The places that do not have rivers need an aqua and I am not to sure that we can put up many markets rights away.

This screenie scared me, until I realized it was 1000BC. Yes GLB is worth a shot at this level with this many civs, but you have to have a credible chance or you waste shields that you could use to make troops.


Gah! Thats what I get for not double checking that the picture uploaded correctly. Apologies.

Edit: Ok, now I have it pointing to the right picture and nothing is showing up. I am going to attach it below.

Hum some decent land is in the offing. Too bad it so far from home.

As for techs I would go poly, monarchy, curreny, const, then the rest...



What about squeezing in HBR before either currency or construction? It would be nice to be able to finish off some of those redline units and get back inside a town.

I also wonder if we should not swap currency and construction, but I am not fanatical about it.

I get the prior owner of those horses did not get them hooked up as none have been seen afaik.

I don't think HBR gives us anything because our UU is already 212

I would go for that last.

I am not as worried about the length of our front as I think we can kill off the south and close off to the west giving us a shorter front in the end. The best thing to me seems to be to use the armies to hurt the zulu and Songhai enough and then we don't care how long the front is.

Owning all africa ASAP I think is the best goal. Then we only need worry about coastal landings and we have lots of cities for support and production. I do not want Songhai or Zulu to become established.

I don't think HBR gives us anything because our UU is already 212Yes but it saves your GA for when you have all that continent claimed :mischief: or when you have a crowned king. EDIT: I am now realizing that this would be good only if HBR could be sneaked -fast-, before monarchy, so probably disregard that comment.

GJ pressing on, btw. I told you you were better of with M60 ;)

Roster:
Greebley - Just Played
ThERat (vacation)
markh - Up
Northern Pike - On Deck
vmxa
M60A3TTS

That is sort of what I was thinking. We can put off the GA and use those horses with no fear. I also agree it would be best if we want to do that to do the HBR next and wait on Monarchy.

1) 260AD : we kill 2 bab spears and a sword (3-0)
1 songhai archer (4-0)

IBT : Hammi asks for an audience, sorry no time for that
a bab mace leaves Akkad :mischief:
We can build a second palace

Alexandria : settler -> sword

Hammi starts Sun Tzu

2) 270AD : kill a songhai spear, 2 archers (7-0)
kill 2 impis and raze Mpondo (9-0)

IBT : 2 impis are dropped off at undefended Heliopolis

Memphis : spear -> spear
Giza : catapult -> catapult

3) 280AD : kill 2 songhai archers, 1 spear and raze Sokoto, some more horses are in that area (12-0)
1 zulu sword (13-0)
1 bab sword (14-0)

IBT : Thebes : sword -> sword
Elephantine : spear -> spear
Pi Ramesses : sword -> sword

4) 290AD : kill 1 songhai spear (15-0)
kill a bab sword and get a leader (16-0)
kill an impi (17-0)

IBT : a redlined mace suicides on an exposed esword (18-0)

Byblos : catapult -> catapult

5) 300AD : kill 1 songhai archer, 1 spear and raze Agadez (20-0)
1 bab sword (21-0)
2 zulu swords (23-0)

IBT : nothing

6) 310AD : kill 1 songhai spear, 2 archers (26-0)
1 bowman, 1 mace (28-0)
1 zulu sword (29-0)
2 Greek archers (31-0)
lose an esword on a Greek archer, damn (31-1) :mad:

IBT : Zulu request an audience, I decline
a wounded bab mace suicides on a fortified spear (32-1)

Polytheism -> monarchy

Thebes : sword -> sword
Elephantine : spear -> sword
Alexandria : sword
Giza : catapult -> catapult
Avaris : catapult -> catapult

7) 320AD : kill 1 songhai archer (33-1)
2 bab maces (35-1)

IBT : Pi Ramesses : sword -> worker
El-Armana : catapult -> barracks

8) 330AD : found Edfu -> walls
lose sword on a bowman (35-2)
kill 1 bowman, 1 mace (37-2)
1 songhai archers (38-2)
1 impi, 1 sword (40-2)

IBT : Memphis : spear -> rax

9) 340AD : found Pithom -> walls and we have a fourth army, but not enough units to fill it yet
kill a Greek archer (41-2)
1 bab mace (42-2)
4 songhai archers (46-2)
2 zulu swords (48-2)

IBT : kill a Greek archer on defense (49-2)

Thebes : sword -> settler
Byblos : catapult -> catapult
Pi Ramesses : worker -> sword
El-Armana : settler -> catapult

10) 350AD : found Busiris -> walls
kill 2 zulu swords (51-2)
2 songhai archers, 1 spear (54-2)
1 bowman (55-2)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/47099/GR13-350AD.zip

A couple things. There is a Persian worker in plain sight in the south. Are we not obligated to declare? Also if we go southwest against the Songhai, there is a gem town that could provide a needed lux. IIRC there are a lot of jungle tiles in Zululand and it would be nice to let their workers improve the land before we move in.

I agree HBR buys us very little. If the horses had been found early on, there might have been a case for it. After monarchy, I'd put currency and lit before construction.

What about the FP with a leader? May get us some help out on the fringes, especially if one comes up before we can get the extra towns planted.

Ok, can someone explain to me why currency is so important at this point? Markets are not going to come in quickly and with 1 lux and low taxes are barely going to pay for themselves or am I missing something?

As to HBR, I am fine either way, but consider it will be 23 turns before we get Monarchy. We surely do not want a GA before then, so no fast movers, until after the revolt. HBR gets us some to use as we please as the armies cannot be everywhere. Just a thought.

Sounds like another good turn. We have 4 armies now? Did I read that correctly? I would like to send it west into Songhai if the choke is holding ok. That will keep them from getting strong enough to be a problem.

I would like to start the GA as soon as we can and still be in Monarchy. The reason is it will help us most now by more quickly allowing us to grab all of Africa. If we do that sooner we could gain more than by having a later GA as our entire civ will be much larger.

For the same reason I would like to build armies as much as we can and build the FP only if we are at army limit and it will be a while before we have enough towns.

Once we have only one front and lots of land to work we will be golden. I think we can do this by being agressive. This is how we started winning AW games on the higher difficulties - push back the AI in the early game.

And this game has the perfect one choke front making this strategy stronger. Boats will still require coastal defense, but often they all come in at one or two spots we can lure them to.

Note that once we have control of the AI, I would keep cities. Building less settlers will help us. So we raze when keeping a city would slow us down. When that isn't the case and the city placement is ok, then keep.

We will need markets, but that can wait until after Monarchy. Since I want the earliest GA possible, the HBR solution is not one I would choose. I think markh made the correct call by going for Monarchy next. We start producing more units in Monarchy which means more risk of hurting our science with too many units (als unit support goes down) - to counteract that, we should buld markets - I usually have 1-3 cities building markets at a given time after getting currency (rather than building them all at once or waiting).

NP, you are up.

Greebly I do not disagree with what you are saying, except the part about holding cities. We have no culture and they will. Until we get a given civ down to the last couple of towns, flips are going to occur.

Even the lost of 1 unit from a flip will be painful right now. Since most we be right on the front they will be under pressure. With all the flood plains and being out of despotism we should be ale to make replacement settlers.

Ok, I also am not very strong on the markets either. They seem like they will just be a drain for some time as we do not have engineers to speed them up and will pay off how? I would think aquas would be better and currency could wait.

Can you explain to me why markets are good right now? Worth giving up the units for. I could see the scales tipping if we have 4 luxs or they were on the horizon, but we have 1 last I knew. Are probably running 80 or 90% in lux and research and at time 100%, so little taxes to get the 50%.

Ok, can someone explain to me why currency is so important at this point?

I don't think it is vital, or anything like that, but an aqueduct isn't a clear winner over a market because with one luxury, our towns that need an aqueduct pretty much top out at pop 6 with a specialist anyways. Our lack of luxes is one reason I suggested we push on the Songhai and get their gem town.

I've got it.

I am not so sure on the Culture. We built our temples pretty early this game being religious and the Zulu have been at war with us a long time and are more likely to put off building their own temples. So far the cities have not had an expansion. I would have to load the game, but I am guessing that we are not doing badly in the Culture department vs them.

I do think a flip chance that is low can be worth a risk (or you can simply not put a unit in). Small towns don't seem a problem to me. Saving a settler is much bigger than a flip that loses a unit. Settler = 30 shields and 2 pop. Spear is 20 shields. Additionally the settler we know we have to make while we may only have a small chance of a flip that would lose it.

The only benefit of razing is you don't have to build the city right away but can leave empty land. This has the drawbacks of costing us 2 or 4 gold per turn for lack of unit support not to mention the loss of the gold the city produces (we are still close enough that production may not be 1) plus you lose all the shields the town can make - or a scientist if the town is totally corrupt.

It does depend on how long we think until we kill the Zulu, though starving to size 1 also works.

All in all I am a big believer in keeping cities. I know others have other opinions. Above is why I would keep cities in this game. In part because I keep cities, I know better on how to do it so a flip doesn't cost. I mean if the Zulu don't have horses, they cannot take a city in a single turn, so there is no reason the defender actually has to be in the city. It can be next to the city and only risk a flip if the attacks can't be killed off and we need to defend the city. The cost can be as low as the bother of going back and taking the city again (not hard with an army).

------------------------
On tech.
Actually we need code of laws too, don't we. I think it is close between CoL, construction, and currency. I don't feel currency is the clear winner. I just feel we will need markets more once we are a Monarchy than we do now.

I do think that our first priority is clearing the continent so in the very near future all those techs keep us from building more units so none is really useful and it doesn't really matter.

Note also I think razing cities makes aquaducts even lower priority because cities can make settlers rather than an expensive aquaduct and then slow growth past size 6.

@M60 : Did not notice that Persian worker. I think then we have to declare war according to the rules

@Greebley : Yes we have a fourth army, although it is filled with 2 units at the moment. It is in Alexandria which will complete a sword next IBT, so it will be a 3 man army then.

The choke can be held quite easily as long as the cats hit, but a few more swords cannot hurt as the Greeks send more units, too. The babs were well under control during my set.

Markets are still some way to go. By that time it may be useful to build some. The Songhai have some gems which will be ours soon.

We need 4 more cities to build another army, so the next leader could rush the FP if he appears soon. IIRC two settler are on the way south.

thinking about it, we should get CoL -> currency -> construction in my mind. Markets will be useful once we have 3 luxes for the double happiness. Did we spot a thrid lux somewhere?
I can't recall that.

I am with Greebley regarding keeping cities. Once we have Zulus or Songhai down to few cities, we should keep them all. Even a flip doesn't matter much as we should not station our units inside there.

markh, great kill ratio...

You don't get double happy faces until you have 6 luxs. You get 1 additional happy face at 3. IOW 3 lux get 3 happy, with a market it gets 4. At 6 you get 12. Still not a bad deal, but we do not even have 2 right now.

I agree at 2 or 3 towns left we are solid. It looks like you are correct we do have a culture edge over Zulu and Songhai. I guess I am not use to even thinking about having more culture. It is usually 3x mine or worse.

One more question. Why are we making a chariot now? It is a long time to we want to trigger a GA. Would not a few swords to use now be better?

That must be a mistake. I did not want to build a chariot. I just built swords. The one we have was built before my turns and I just used it as MP.

I was looking at the 250AD save and it had the cap making one. This may not be the latest save, I will check. I just figured we could wait till Monarchy is close to coming in.

I don't suppose they would be bad to use as MP's as long as they were not used in combat or did not come in place of a sword.

Edit: ok, I see I have a 350AD, so that one may be the only one.

250 AD: Move onto Zulu Iron. Horses roaded and will build a war chariot next turn

Greebley didn't know if the consensus was to wait on the GA which is why the WC was built so soon.

That is fine, I just wanted to see if we were going to make a bunch of them so soon. Making one or two is not a problem, making lots of them to sit around would be though.

You never know if something was done as part of a plan or an ovesight. If it is an oversight, then we want to raise a flag. It is quite easy to accidently do something and forget to change it.

I agree with you, they are good to point out just in case.

I am looking forward to the next 30 turns. The Zulu are already losing towns and Songhai has no Iron. I think we can own Africa soon.

440 AD, end of turn (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR13_AD440.SAV)

350 (0): Tremendous expansion recently :goodjob:, though we seem stretched to the limit and I don't expect to match that pace this round.

M60 is right that we have to declare on the Persians, so I do that.

A cultural expansion at Byblos will help our defenses more than one more catapult. I switch that build to a temple.

Helio barracks --> swordsman.


360 (1): On the northeastern front we smite a Bab MDI and two Bowmen (3-0).

In the SE we dispose of two Zulu swordsmen (5-0).

In the SW we cut down three Songhai archers (8-0).


370 (2): We slay two Bab MDI, a Bowman, and a Greek archer in the NE; two Song archers in the SW; and a Song spearman, a Zulu swordsman, and a Zulu archer in the SE (17-0).

A Persian horseman appears near Babylon.


380 (3): We defeat a Persian horseman, a Bab MDI, and a French swordsman in the NE; and five Song archers in the SW (25-0).


390 (4): We eliminate two Greek archers, a Bab MDI, and a Bowman in the NE; two Zulu swordsmen, a Zulu archer, and an Impi in the SE; and two Song spearmen in the SW (35-0).

Bizarrely, given that we haven't seen a mounted unit from them, the Babs have horses right next to Babylon. I send an army to pillage the tile.

A elite spearman covering an archer falls to the attack of a Bab MDI (35-1). I was going to cover this archer with an army until the opportunity to pillage Babylon's horses appeared.


400 (5): Our SW army defeats two spearmen in Songhai Kangaba, but the town remains garrisoned (37-1).

We pillage Babylon's horses.

The situation in the SE is a little delicate at the moment; we have to defend Lisht from the Zulus and Asyut from the Persians while also shadowing a Persian galley which is sailing far up the Red Sea without committing itself.

We extirpate two French swordsmen and a Bowman in the NE; one Zulu swordsman in the SE; and one Song archer in the SW (42-1).

We kill a French warrior near Pi-Ram, as they finally start attacking in the NW (43-1).

The Persian galley drops a single warrior off next to Heliopolis, after advancing as far as El-Amarna.

A Zulu horseman appears.


410 (6): We account for the Persian warrior near Helio (44-1).

We dispose of another spearman and archer in Kangaba, but the town is still garrisoned (46-1).

We overrun a Persian Immortal and warrior, ending the threat to Asyut for the moment (48-1).

We wipe out a French archer in the NW; two Greek archers, a Bab MDI, and two Immortals in the NE; and an Impi in the SE (55-1). We gain the GL Ramses on our twelfth elite victory of the round, as though probabilities were additive. :lol:

We only have seventeen cities, but with things heating up in the NW (fourteen Immortals in sight at one point) I definitely want to use this GL for an army, not the FP. In the next two turns we should be able to found two cities in reasonable though cramped locations, and one in a spot I would have chosen anyway; and since we have no elite attacks left to make this turn, we'll only lose one turn's worth of opportunites by holding the GL.


420 (7): We root another three units out of Kangaba, and finally auto-raze the wretched place, gaining zero gold (two archers and a spearman; 58-1).

We smash three Greek archers and three Immortals in the NE; three Song archers in the SW; and two Zulu archers in the SE (69-1). One of our armies has an incredible run of bad luck against an Immortal, falling to 1 HP.

We found Kahun near the ruins of Kangaba.

A Persian warrior--a conscript, no less--perishes attacking Byblos (70-1).

Memphis barracks --> swordsman, Byblos temple --> swordsman.

The Babylonians are building Knights Templar, which could work out well for us--or not. :crazyeye:


430 (8): We found Athribis and Mendes, pushing our border with the Zulus forward a little. I would have liked to put Mendes in the less cramped position one tile NE, but with the Zulus and Persians using the mountain range as a path, a city next to a mountain would be too troublesome tactically.

Ramses founds our fifth army in Alexandria.

We exterminate a French spearman in the NW; five Immortals and a Bab MDI in the NE; and an Impi in the SE (78-1).


440 (9): We liquidate two Immortals and two Bowmen in the NE, and a Zulu swordsman and an Impi in the SE, gaining the GL Cheops in fighting around Byblos (84-1).

I don't have time properly to consider what to do with the new GL, or where to put the FP if that's our choice, so I won't play a tenth turn.

Fourteen elite victories this round produced two Great Leaders.

Once our army in the area has healed, we should be able to advance on Koumbi with catapults and take the Songhai gems.

I'll repeat that we've seen horsemen from the Zulus, but not from the Songhai.

We have no settlers in play, after I used three almost at once, but two will complete soon.

We're still feeling the effects of our shield-poor start. Our lines are about as thinly held as I've ever seen in an AW game that wasn't obviously headed for disaster. The southeast, where we have only one army facing a lot of Zulu units, needs the most careful handling at the moment.

The policy of keeping the choke closed so that AI civs don't come our way trying to settle is working well. Our only new enemies this round were the relatively close Persians.

Our MM right now represents a compromise between research and shields. We can produce units a little more quickly if it seems urgent.

Alexandria can normally produce three-turn swordsmen, but this involves setting the city for more than 10 spt when the cow is available, to compensate for turns when it isn't. The town's MM will need adjusting after it produces a swordsman this interturn.

We have an asterisked elite swordsman next to Byblos, and a three-unit army also next to Byblos, so....;)

Remember not to use our one War Chariot in battle until we're ready for our GA.

I assume that this is the time to rush the FP, since we're the full four cities away from our next army; but as I mentioned, I'll leave that decision to the team.

Cheops is relaxing in Alexandria.

Closing in:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR13-440AD.JPG

I assume that this is the time to rush the FP, since we're the full four cities away from our next army; but as I mentioned, I'll leave that decision to the team.

Cheops is relaxing in Alexandria.

Should I hold off starting my turn to get some feedback on the FP or just slap one up. Normally I put little interest in where the FP is located as it is usually hand built.

Here we can rush it and I would think getting it close to the hills in the SE would be of some value. The issue for me is how long it will take to get the MGL on site. If it is more than 2 turns, I don't like it much.

I guess given we cannot found 4 towns very soon the travel time is not so important though.

try to get a site for the FP that has shield value so that it can serve us as a wonder city. We might be far behind in techs but we could use a city with many shields for good value.
and even if the MGL travels far, we can't build an army for some turns anyway. I would start keeping Songhai cities to preserve settlers.

Also, remember to bring the chariot in position to get us the GA as soon as we are monarchs

Alright no other responses and that is about how I see it, so off I go.

If noone has a better idea...

Kahun looks like it has lots of shields someday (mostly after rails though - only 2 hills before) and it is sort of centrally located. I would go for that one. It is far enough away to have decent corruption to eliminate and will reduce distance corruption in our African towns.

Edit: I see I am just a bit late... Ah well.

Not too late. I am just now going to start. I do not know where the town is right now, but it probably is as good as any.

OK, I have it up now. I like it fine. My other choice does not have a river, but does have lots of hills as far as we can see, so other towns will get some help.

So Kahun it will be.

Ok, it getting late and I have 9 turns in so I will post it. I just got the GA going and came out of anarchy.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42522/GR13_AD530.SAV

Pre:

Sword kills Song archer (1-0).
Spear kills redlined impi (2-0).

IBT:
units head our way, 3 MDI land on the cow near Alex.
1st kills two swords that attacked Lisht. (2-0) [4-0]

450AD:
Cash down to 18 gold and losing 10 per turn, so drop research to 50% and break even. We stay at 8 turns to Monarchy for now.
4th kills archer (1-0).
Sword kills archer (2-0).
Sword kills Song archer (3-0).
Sword goes elite after killing Zulu sword at Lisht (4-0).
Star archer kills MDI and 2nd kills 2 of them, cows cleared (7-0).

IBT:
fast units appear at Lisht and Athribis. [11-0]

460AD:
Archer kills Fr archer at Pi (1-0.
Sword kills Song archer near Eduf (2-0).
2 swords kills 2 Song archer near Busiris (4-0).
Sword kills bow (5-0).
Fr warrior a reg no less does a lot of damaged to the attacking 4th army before falling (5-0).
Sword kills Greek archer (6-0).
3rd kills Gr archer and Fr warrior (8-0).
Sword kills impi and 1st kills archer (10-0) [21-0].

IBT:
ugly rng and a lone horse kills a forted elite spear in Athribis. The good news is I had moved in a wounded sword (0-1) [21-1].

470AD:
Found El-Ash and starts a place holder cat for now. This site is gross, but I need towns some place that are not going to be under lots of pressure right away.
Sword kills bow (1-0).
3rd kills Gr archer and then a second one (3-0).
2nd kills 2 of Hammies MDI's (5-0).
Rush FP in Kahun.
sword kills Song archer (6-0).
Sword kills Zulu sword at Mendes (7-0).
Sword kills the offending luck horse (8-0).
1st kills another Zulu sword next to Lisht (9-0).
2 Zulu swords are next to Mendes, which has a cat and 4/4 spear and a 4/5 sword. Move the 3/3 spear from Avaris to Pithom as it had a damaged sword and an impi was in range. I have had lots of bad luck with imps, so I prefer to be sure it cannot capture the town. Especially after the elite spear died to a horse.
Avaris need a beakerhead to be happy.
Buto need its beakerhead to be an entertainer.
El-Am needs a taxmen. We need those Gems to get some pop back to work or at least deal with grow unhappiness. [30-1]

IBT:
I get another ugly rng on the inter. First sword attacks Mendes and the spear goes redline, but wins. Then the elite sword drops their sword to redline and proceeds to lose the rest of the rolls and dies. (1-1) [31-2]

480AD:
FP is up and we move from a minus gold per turn to a +9. The bad news is that 5 Fr swords show up near Alex. Lots of Song units moving around.
Cats go on strike at Lisht and miss nearly everything.
Pithom the sword manags to kill the impi (1-0).
Swords kill 2 Song archers (3-0).
5th captures Koumbi and we will try to hold it to get those gems now. I start a temple, but we can switch it later if can get starved down. (5-0)

Miss click an elite sword and moved it so it is not out of range of 2 archers, ouch.
Well well 4/5 kills Song archer and makes an MGL. I do not know how many town we have, but I think I made 2 and captured 1, so we may need 1 more (6-0). Move the spear from Kahun to cover the sword.
4/5 kills Imm (7-0).
4/4 do as well (8-0).
3rd kills bow and 12x kills Imm (10-0).
3rd struggles, but kills another Imm (11-0).
2nd kills MDI and Fr sword and 4th kills Fr sword (14-0).
1st kills impi and sword (16-0).
Sword kills spear on our road, but I cannot cover it. Hope no one comes out of the fog.
Up research to 60% and get to 4 turns at +8, thanks tothe FP.
(17-0) [48-2].

IBT:
Barely escaped another bad rng on ibt as the sword attacked the spear at Mendes and redlined it before giving up the ghost. (1-0) [49-2]

490AD:
3 horses and 2 impi show up near Athribis which as has 5/5 and 2/5 sword.
Ok a Hop shows up with a settler in tow, so I use the 2nd to get it. (1-0)
Sword kills Fr sword (2-0).
4th kills Fr sword and spear (4-0).
I move a 3/3 spear into Athribis to help with the attack coming. May be able to get lucky with 3 units.
Sword gets brave and attacks Song archer across a river on a forest and takes no damage (5-0).
5/5 sword kills the other one with no damage (6-0).
Found Tanis and start a reg spear for now. I would just as soon have a few more MP's to use that do not ever fight, than another cat right now. It can be switch though.
Hum that is still not enough for the army? I count heads and we have 22 towns.

IBT:
some slack this time the two wounded units in our land do not attack the lone spear and leave. The 5 zulu units do not attack and move to Lisht.
Greeks show some horses near the choke. [55-2]

500AD:
I have not moved the chariot as it has been serving as an MP and I did not want to give up the pop working. It has to move now to be in place or maybe the next turn for sure.
Sword kills Song archer (1-0).
Another sword kills archer (2-0), not doing well in promotions.
1st kills 2 zulu units at lisht (4-0).
3rd kills Bab LB (5-0).
4th kill Bab LB and MDI (7-0).
Lisht is in danger here as it seems the Zulu move after the Persians. I left an Imm next to Athribis in the hope it and the army would block the Zulu units. Now I have to hope the wounded Imm will pillage the tile and stay put or at least the army pings the units and the spear and cats do the rest. Even though Mendes is only 2 tiles away I cannot get any units from it to Arth due to the river and lack of roads.

IBT:
Nice break here. The Imm leaves and two horses attack Arth, one dies and the other retreats. The 3rd horse cuts the road. 1 impi dies and the oher heads for Lisht. Very sweet (2-0) [64-2]

510AD:
Drop research to 50% Monarchy this turn.
Sword kills Imm (1-0).
1st kills Imm (2-0).
Man cats go 0 for 5 on an Imm.
Sword kills Gr horse. (3-0).
5/5 sword kills Imm (4-0).
4th kill Imm and covers the sword and cats on the hill (5-0).
2nd kill Gr horse (6-0).
Sword kills Bab spear (7-0).
Spear kills redline impi (8-0).
2 swords kill impi and a horse near Arth (10-0). [72-2]

IBT:
no action. Monarchy comes and I revolt. Many cities pop up for happy issues and we fix them. Select Currency, I think that was the next one requested.

520AD:
2nd kills Fr sword (1-0).
sword kills Zulu archer (2-0).
3rd kills MDI (3-0).
12X kills a bow (4-0).
Sword kills Song archer (5-0).
Sword kills Song archer (6-0).

IBT:
Horse attacks sword and dies. (1-0) [79-2]

530AD:
Sword kills Imm near Alex (1-0).
Yeah we bad, GA kicked off as Chariot kills redlined Imm (2-0).
Sword kills Imm at Asyut (3-0).
1st kills Zulu horse (4-0).
1st kills another horse (5-0).
Sword kills Bab LB (6-0).
Sword kills second LB (7-0).
4th kills Bab spear (8-0).
2nd kills hop and archer (10-0). Oh they were covering a settler, second one I caught. They all came to this spot.
Sword kills Song spear by Giza (11-0).
2 swords kill 2 Song archers at Tanis (13-0).
5th kills Song spear (14-0).
Switch 1 joker to science and drops to 8 turns.
Do some MM and drop to 7 turns and +12gpt.
Raise to 60% and go to 6 turns. Swap 1 sci to tax and stay at 6 and now -8gpt with 62 on hand.

I think I only had one vet make elite and since I had an MGL nearly all the time only one of them.

Another nice round, vmxa. I got it. Will check it out and play tomorrow. Feel free to comment in the meantime

Yes, good turns. :goodjob:

Nice call on Kahun for the FP.

Given that we lost the GLib, I don't think we can afford to go through our GA without making some progress on libraries. So I'd say our next tech target should be Literature.

We're working too many zero-shield tiles for our GA, so a fair amount of MM is necessary.

Consider that we may come out ahead if we work the extra FP tiles. If for instance you get another pop in 1 turn rather than in 3 or 4 turns. That extra pop works a mined tile for 2 or 3 turns and we keep growing.

Also take note to see if the extra shields gain anything useful.

I almost forgot about the commerce. Any loss of income will probably cost a turn on research.

In our shield-poor position, I'd gladly lose a couple of turns on research--and any amount of pop growth, which is easy for us--to squeeze every possible shield out of our GA.

Your other points will certainly be true in some cases, but even allowing for that, I think we'll want to work fewer shieldless tiles than we're using at the moment.

That may be the best way to go. What I am unsure of is what will be be doing with the extra shields? We are basically building troops cats and rax and settlers.

I just wonder if we really need to give up gold to speed them up and if in the 20 turns we don't come out with as many shields anyway with the extra pop.

Switching off an FP gives up lots of food and usually lots of gold. Now if we had more workers or could get away with using them in better spot we could do some good. I know we have unroaded tiles that are being worked near Lisht, but we cannot cover many workers.

I think Lit after Currency makes sense. I will try to build Libs on my turn (latter GA).

I also would love to be able to get 3 armies down into the south to start taking towns. We NEED more towns to increase our science otherwise tech will go badly for us. I am hoping that 2 can be enough to handle the choke.

Edit: I would also keep all Zulu towns. Looking at their towns with unexpanded borders, I almost guarantee we have a lot more culture than them. The same is probably true for Songhai. Remember how early we started or temples (because of us being religious) and how many we have.

Yes we are surely culturally ahead of those two. I would be very leery of the Babs though. Also any civ that has build a Great Wonder early.


BTW I forgot to list that three civs started the Sun Tzu.I know that Song and the Zulu are two of them, so pikes are probably in our near future.

Most likely all of the civs we now know have made it to the next age, so uprisings should already be going, if any fog exists. I would expect that little is around and any that there may be has had any camps extingished by the AI.

I saw a lot of units at the choke and the Greeks had just started, but I think 2 should do it. What do you think of making a few more chariots to hit those redline units and get back?


One problem for moving any army so far is it will take some time to get there. The 5th in the gem town has not had much to do, but I could not relieve it with any units. 1 spear and 2 sowrds and a chariot on that spot would probably hold if some of the cats stayed.

The Song are sending units, but they left that town alone. An MGL is still sitting in the next town.

Ya, I agree civs outside the choke may well have higher culture. My hope though is to avoid needing as many settlers in Africa. Our expansion seems limited mostly by our ability to build settlers.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/Gr13_630_AD.SAV

Pre turn- Change some outer barracks builds to granaries and queue up a couple more settlers.

IBT- Songhai want a meeting. Forget it.

Turn 1 (540AD) Healing Songhai archer dies at Kano by sword attack (1-0) Four Songhai archers killed north of Kahun. A close call with the last one, elite spear redlined, but got his 2hp archer. (5-0) Greek archer and Persia immortal, Bab MI die by army (8-0) Our vet sword dies clean against reg immortal (8-1) Used army to pillage cow at Babylon

IBT- Hammy decided the army pillaging wasn’t nice. He gets nervous and pulls his units back that were moving on Byblios. Regular Persian knight spotted 2S of Babylon. The reg immortal that smote our sword wasn’t quite so immortal as he fails vs. sword.
(9-1)

Turn 2 (550AD) Two more Bab LBs and an immortal die by army (12-1) Songhai archer killed by sword at Kahun (13-1) Reg impi dies defending Tugela. Zulu archer as well (15-1)

IBT Quiet

Turn 3 (560AD) Songhai spear defending Segu killed by army (16-1) Two more impi at Tugela (18-1) Two Bab LBs and a Persian knight by Byblios (21-1)

IBT- quiet

Turn 4 (570AD) Tugela falls to army. Impi and horse defending. (23-1). Timbuktu defenders are two spears and both die. City captured (25-1) Two spears defending Segu are defeated by army and town autorazed (27-1), Two swords cannot defeat two spears. (27-3). Two spears die vs swords and Kano is ours. (29-3) Zulu horse and archer die at Lisht (31-3) At Byblios, Persian knight and two immortals gone. (34-3) Babs lose a spear (35-3) Kill Zulu scout (36-3) Another two Songhai archers at Kano (38-3)

IBT- Not very good as we’re rather thinned out. Persian reg immortal kills elite spear in hills (38-4) Songhai kill two swords, and recapture Kano (38-6)

Turn 5 (580AD) Songhai town of Tadmekket taken as two spears die vs army (40-6) Trade sword for immortal (41-7) WC kills Songhai red archer (42-7) Two Songhai archers killed by WCs (44-7) Zulu impi killed by WC at Lisht (45-7) Timbuktu army kills Songhai archer (46-7) Two French spears and four swords die for one of our swords (52-8) Bab bow and spear whacked by army (48-8)

IBT The bad guys are pouring into the Byblios area. Lose 4 swords there as 2 reg Greek archers get two, Bab LB one and French sword one. (48-12)

Turn 6 (590AD) Songhai lose an archer and spear (50-12). Babs lose an MI to our army (51-12) Songhai archer dies at Kahun (52-12) WC kills red Persian spear (53-12) Another Songhai spear and archer out west die by sword and WC (55-12) Knock off two impi in the south (57-12)

IBT- Zulu lose an archer attacking a spear (58-12) Songhai capture an unguarded cat that I’ll reclaim next turn.

Turn 7 (600AD) Buhen and Bubastis founded in the desert, but a couple oasis in the area. Kill Songhai archer and get the cat back. (59-12) Get three Persian knights by Byblios (62-12)

IBT- Three Bab LBs die attacking Byblios (62-12)

Turn 8 (610AD) This founded. The RNG turns favorable again as two elite swords generate two MGLs (64-3) Elite sword at Alexandria kills Persian knight (65-12) Byblios sword kills Bab LB (66-12)



IBT- Tadmakket was empty and a Zulu archer walked in.

Turn 9 (620AD) Reclaim Tadmakket and kill the two defenders. (68-12). Kill two impi at Imbabango (70-12) Kill Songhai archer by Gao and capture two workers (71-12) Army kills reg spear at Gao (72-12) Two Bab knights die by Byblios (74-12).

IBT- Greeks lose a horse and Persia a knight by Byblios and Alexandria (76-12) Lit in, construction in 7.

Turn 10 (630BC) Ibabango attacked by army and defeats impi/archer. Captured along with a cat. Two more spears killed at Gao (80-12) French sword, 2 immortals and a Persian knight killed, but lose another sword. (84-13). And done

Post turn: Archer by Alexandria isn’t covered, but don’t see anything safe to move up. Persian knight is lurking in the southern regions.

A bloody set of turns compared to the last couple, but acquiring real estate was a priority, so I pushed the troops as far as they could go. The Alexandria area is seeing a lot of activity. There were three armies there to start, but I pulled one of them to push the Songhai back.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/Gr13_630_AD.SAV

This upload system is for the birds. An invisible url ain't much use. If you put http// in front, this address should work:

forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/Gr13_630_AD.SAV

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/Southern_progress.JPG

This upload system is for the birds. An invisible url ain't much use. If you put http// in front, this address should work:



I love it. Just use cntl C to cut the address and cntrl V to paste it in oyur post.

That's what I did. When the file is uploaded, the name doesn't always appear.

Nice progress! Ok, I got it. I will play tomorrow.

nice progress, africa seems to be soon ours and that will help us a lot.
what are we going for in terms of research?

are we going he Cavalry route immediately or do we aim for knights first?
If we decide to go for knights, we should head for it straight and then move on to Cavalry all the way
what do you guys think?

I will need another skip as you guys are very fast. Maybe next round I'll have a chance :sad:

BTW, I get an error message whenever I try to load the latest save. Is anyone else having this problem?

are we going he Cavalry route immediately or do we aim for knights first?
If we decide to go for knights, we should head for it straight and then move on to Cavalry all the way
what do you guys think?

It looks as though the research path to MT will be long and slow, and I don't think we can win if we just sit around in Africa for that length of time. I'd say that we have to achieve something with knights.

Of course, we're far enough behind the non-African civs that knights might be attacking musketmen by the time we develop them. But if the tech situation is that bad, we're probably beaten anyway.

A couple other things, I hadn't seen a Zulu sword towards the end, so Tugela may have beeh their only source of iron.

Also, after the GA it may be worth merging some workers into Kahun. Since it isn't food rich, the growth rate is very slow.

Don't know what our game plan is, assuming we gain control of Africa. Capturing the GLib isn't an option, so it seems we have to irrigate everything around the highly/totally corrupt towns and hire scientists everywhere. Then leave the core to military unit builds.

BTW, I get an error message whenever I try to load the latest save. Is anyone else having this problem?



It looks as though the research path to MT will be long and slow, and I don't think we can win if we just sit around in Africa for that length of time. I'd say that we have to achieve something with knights.

Of course, we're far enough behind the non-African civs that knights might be attacking musketmen by the time we develop them. But if the tech situation is that bad, we're probably beaten anyway.

I am able to load the 630AD save. I also think we have to go to knights. We need a decent hitter with some speed. Knight armies will hang with the cav that will be coming.

MDI armies are not my cup of tea as the lack of movement really hurts. They are better than nothing though.

I had to go back 3 pages to find the list:

Roster:
Greebley - up
ThERat (vacation)
markh - on deck
Northern Pike -
vmxa
M60A3TTS - just played

Does this look correct?

Do we intend to make a temple in Tanis? It is 3 turns away and does not need an expansion.

Preturn: A few changes. Nothing major.

650 AD: Capture Gao.

670 AD: Capture Ulundi and Kuyika. Ulundi gives us Wine.
We step next to a Persian town and they already have Muskets!
Use the leader to build our 8th Army.

IBT: Mongols finish Knights Templar.

680 AD: Capture Ghulaman (for now at least - it is Persian so we may want to replace) after killing 2 Muskets.

690 AD: Capture Nioro and Jenne.

710 AD: Auto-destroy Isipezi, Tagazand
Capture Hombori

720 AD Auto-destroy some town or other.

730 AD: Capture Walata.
Ghulaman abandoned.

740 AD

IBT: I miscalculate and we lose the wines town.

750 AD: Thebes riots - adjust rest. I was unable to take wines town back this turn.

Notes:
Rounded off years to 750 AD.

I rushed the kill for Songhai. We have an army next to the last Songhai city we can see, but that doesn't mean it is the last one. There are Archers around - if that is the last city and we can take it next turn, we don't need to worry about it. If there is another city then we need to track them down. I think we have enough units to do this if need be, but it looks a bit chaotic.

I built a goodly number of libraries and less markets which we will need. I am thinking that once we settle Africa, there will be a pause where we can build the Markets. (also once we have 4 lux they make sense for happiness).

We are definitely behind in tech. We have 2 1/2 more techs needed for the middle ages and Persia at least has Gunpowder. There is a solution to this - Take 4 armies after we conquer Africa and walk them until we find the GLib - then take it. If we heal up, I think we could wear it down and grab it for a turn for tech parity. This will take a while so we may be using Knights vs Cavalry and Rifles before we get to it. It does seem our best bet though. Catching up via research will be difficult even with all of Africa.

We have 2 Lux and there are two more (the wines we lost last turn and Spices within visual range) so Africa has at least 4 luxes.

I have been recently working on settlers - we have 5 with 7 in production. We also have 2 backup iron to connect - first one connected in 3 and the other one has enemy Zulu on it. I think we have enough space for all those and it allows us to raze the high culture civ cities.

We need to close the choke again. This last turn I needed the unit that was keeping it closed.

Persia is definitely the worst civ actively attacking us with large numbers of knights coming at us. The 8th army went North so again we have 3 armies at the choke. Since we have been building Libraries most recently we need more swordsmen up north. Army absorbed a lot of the existing ones.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD750a.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD750b.jpg

The 750 AD save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/14765/GR13_AD750.zip)

There is supposed to be two pictures, but I am not seeing them

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD750a.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD750b.jpg

A third lux will be very nice. Even 3 lux is good for a market as we get 1 extra happy. Glad we can get another iron for 2 reasons. First is we could have ours deplete. The second reason is we may want to let the iron town go as it ties us down too much.

It makes us have too many tiles to defend. I too think we may need to locate the GLB, if we can.

Sadly we had the third Lux until I goofed and let them capture the town :cry:

I wasn't in best form when I played. We should be able to get them back next turn and 4th lux in I am guessing 2 - 5 turns

Well you can either be aggressive or be safe. You can't do both and if you want to be aggressive you can expect to step in it once in a while.

At times aggression is the way to go and at other times, safe is the way to go. Now if you are lucky you always pick the right times, but so far I have not met anyone that can do it 100%.

Like you say we will get it back. I am just glad to hear a 4th is in the area, that is very big. The real crunch looks to be heading our way fairly soon in the form of lots of fast strong units and not much more of the easy archers and spears.

Good work getting libraries built. :goodjob:

Gao is micromanaged to starve down, which isn't necessary with the Songhai about to disappear.

This is just a quick thought and comes with no guarantee of sense ;), but might we want to seal the choke with armies, abandon Byblos if necessary, and then send armies out to make as many contacts as possible? We'll probably be in contact with all the Eurasian civs anyway by the time we're in position to attack beyond the choke, and the real question is whether it happens in time to help us with research.

I am able to load the 630AD save.

Thanks for the help. I can load the 750 AD save, so I hope it was just a random quirk.

I like Greebley'sTGL grab and further more, NP's plan to go all out to go after everyone on our continent. This game should be fun that way. We could seal the choke from time to time and kill many units as the choke it pretty small. We want to expand towards Europe anyway I guess, thus the chole will lose it's all-important role sooner or later.
Most important is to get knights and take the TGL for 1 turn

I like Greebley'sTGL grab and further more, NP's plan to go all out to go after everyone on our continent.

Doing both would be a stretch, even for this crew.;) Everyone keep thinking, and let's see see if the next ten bring about the end of the Songhai and come close to pushing the Zulu off the continent.

Yes I would be concerned with the choke being over run, if most have knights. If we do get all the contacts, we should consider making a pike army (when we can) for defense of the choke.

These boys will not be all that long in getting to MT, I fear and then sword armies could be at risk.

That puts me up. I got it and will play tomorrow. I like the idea of the GLib catch. I'll see what I can do about it.

FWIW, I don't care for the GLib plan at this point. Our only units with staying power are the armies. They are the only thing on which we can base effective offensive action. If we send half of them off across the plains, consider that they will certainly encounter every Eurasian civ. So we will then be bringing in Keshiks, riders and war elephants plus the Russians and Germans. And the plan is to hold the choke until this group gets to Karakorum? That goes against what we've always practiced which is an expand or die strategy. This sounds like the latter.

I also have doubts that four armies are enough. Their knights were already attacking our armies defending behind walls in Byblios. If we get to Karakorum, let's say after four attacks against vet muskets that our strongest army in the stack is 10-12 hp. What if the AI smells blood and attack those armies? If those armies go, it's more likely to be game over.

Although we can't see the map, we know where things in general are. My suggestion is we use our armies to keep pushing forward. If we can occupy Turkey, that gives us a choke point where Istanbul would be. Then we would have mountain terrain between the Black and Caspian Seas which pikes could fort in. The hardest terrain to manage would be between the southern edge of the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, but then the European AIs have to go a long, long way to reach us.

When we reached those objectives, we could look at our options. That would include cutting the armies loose for the GLib or sending them against Europe, a la the Ottomans. Obviously time is not on our side, but giving up the initiative for four or five turn sets has to be a concern.

I'm with M60 on this, TGL is really nice, but you can manage until knights, and regular expansion will make you meet enough people to have your fun. When knights start pushing forward, you can probably capture and hold TGL for an IA elevator.

I think that was what Greebley meant anyway, go for knights, take over whole of Africa, then slowly creep towards Europe (Istanbul and northeast Turkey being nice chokes) and then send out a few armies to grab the TGL while we research cavalry. The time line should fit this scenario

Yes I did. And we can do more to guarantee success. For example, if we have ripped up the roads around Karakatorum, we can guarantee that cavarly cannot get there in one turn. So we isolate it and then start attacking with the sword armies. If we think the AI is in danger of having Rifles we may even need to bring Cats (not sure the odds of a healthy sword army vs rifles is good enough).

I am hoping though that the AI is still a ways from rifles. I haven't seen copernicus (wonder with astronomy) yet. I think they got gunpowder fairly quickly.

In any case the Armies are needed to take Africa and should do that first. After that expansion will be difficult when we are behind in tech. I think we need tech parity to expand. Getting past the choke is not going to be trivial and may be impossible if we are behind in tech.

Note that the AI will target armies in cities. If we do take the GLib, and we have ripped up the roads, then we can keep it the one turn we can't be attacked and then decide if we want to abandoned or if we want to let them have it back (probably the former - though if Sun Tzu is in it (I don't think it is) we may want the free barracks later on).

The most dangerous unit is the Ottoman's UU because they seem more willing to attack defense 2 armies (Cav don't seem to attack full health def 2 army from prev games - but Sapahi have). I am unsure if they would attack a stack of armies though. It might even be worthwhile to add a knight army to the stack.

Note that if we can push forward without the tech boost then holding off on the GLib does make sense. I am just worried about trying it when so many civs are attacking us. We may lose the ground we gained if they have Cav and we don't even have Muskets - I am unsure if we will have muskets first.

We have a real probelm with getting out of the age and to knights. IIRC we have construction going. We need Col/Philo/MM to finish the age. We need Mono and Fued and then Chiv.

We are very much in need of Eng so we can cross rivers with roads with no penalty. If we can get a bead on where the GLB is, we can determine are chances of reaching it. It may be that we have to send out 2 armies to look and pillage on the way.

Ottomans aren't on this world map so no need to worry about the sipahi.

As for the GL grab.. this map is huge so it will take many dozens of turns for sword armies to reach it. Scouting first doesn't make much sense to me as you do know pretty much where Karakorum (or was it Karakorum?) is. It's definately in the Mongol core which of course is north of India and west of China. Just send your units east and then turn north when you reach India. This way you won't probably even meet the rest of the European civs yet (all of them should have cities in Siberia by now). Scouting only wastes time and gets you in war with more civs.

In any case, I would send the armies out asap. You can't probably get to the GL city in less than 30 turns and that's a lot. If you wait until you get knights it might be too late. You have to be risky here in my opinion.

Scouting first doesn't make much sense to me as you do know pretty much where Karakorum (or was it Karakorum?) is. It's definately in the Mongol core which of course is north of India and west of China. Just send your units east and then turn north when you reach India. This way you won't probably even meet the rest of the European civs yet (all of them should have cities in Siberia by now). Scouting only wastes time and gets you in war with more civs.

In any case, I would send the armies out asap. You can't probably get to the GL city in less than 30 turns and that's a lot. If you wait until you get knights it might be too late. You have to be risky here in my opinion.

In an AW game such as this, scouting a distance that great isn't possible unless you're talking using armies. Go north when we hit India isn't a particularly direct route either. Mongolia would be north of China, so a northeast track is a better approach. And finding a single tile city after traveling 50-100 tiles is hardly an exact science.

What I tried to get across is that pulling the armies now will deprive us of offense, and we should be able to push on ahead a bit more. I do agree we should focus on completing the African campaign, then sort out next steps.

Go north when we hit India isn't a particularly direct route either. Mongolia would be north of China, so a northeast track is a better approach. And finding a single tile city after traveling 50-100 tiles is hardly an exact science.

True. Turn northeast when hitting India would have been a better advice :) If you send out e.g. four sword armies you could split them up when you hit the Mongol territory and sweep a wider area without losing much speed in the process. What I was thinking when I said that scouting first didn't make much sense to me was: if you first send out e.g. one army to scout the land and then send the rest only after you've found the city, it could easily take fifty turns before you get a chance of striking the city. Scouting would also make you meet many enemies along the way and they would get a chance of hitting you with (most likely) their cavalry before you manage to capture the GL and get modern defenders to stop them.

That is my concern, that if 4 armies head out, we will be very hard pressed to defend, until we can mostly ignore the land behind the choke. I don't know how many tiles are facing sea routes and could have landings back there either.

Not a big problem with gallies, but they will have caravels soon and 3 units can be a problem. Especially if they are 2 knights and a musket.

Oh those desert starts, with lots of desert tiles and few green tiles. Have we seen a BG tile in all of the land we have?

I think the armies are better suited to getting us tech rather than guarding the shores. I personally am willing to lose a 2-bit town on a temporary basis to get tech parity. Hopefully we can keep most landings in the same place. The AI isn't really good enough to require using our armies to patrol the shores. Normal units plus perhaps an occasional army should do.

We can afford 4 armies. We have the cities for 10 armies or so now and probably 12 when we own all Africa. That will give us 6-8 armies once we can get the leaders even if 4 head off.

I do agree with Salarakas that doing it sooner is better. Once we are nearly caught up, I think we will have enough towns to stay close in tech.

Not sure I want to purposefully meet civs before the we get the GLib.
Slightly faster research isn't worth larger numbers of units coming at us.

I started to play, but could not finish yesterday. I will finish today and post this evening.

0) 750AD : looks good, hit enter

IBT : Xerxes moves all his knights from the choke, it is too crowded

1) 760AD : capture Gwandu, it is not the last city of the songhai
it looks like they have another city East of Grenoble
capture Ulundi and we have wines again

IBT : Zulu requests an audience, no thanks
the Persian knights come back

Delhi completes Leo's

2) 770AD : capture Umtata
get a leader

IBT : map making -> horseback riding

3) 780AD : capture New Zimbabwe

IBT : nothing important

4) 790AD : found a few new towns

IBT: Persia drops 2 longbows at our wines town

5) 800AD : capture Izibia

IBT : lose the wines town and a Zulu town, both will be captured back next turn

6) 810AD : destroy the last songhai city
Could not get back the two lost cities as defenders were rushed

IBT : horseback riding -> philosophy

7) 820AD : get back Ulundi and wines are connected again

IBT : uh somebody has printing press
we are at war with America, Russia, Mongolia and India

8) 830AD : due to a misclick I load an elite archer into an army :wallbash:
capture Grenoble

IBT : we are at war with Aztecs
Persepolis completes Sixtine's

9) 840AD : not much

IBT : Uruk completes Copernicus'

10) 850AD : get a leader

There is a three sword army in Byblos. The sword getting us the army is under one of the guarding armies and should be joined next turn.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/47099/GR13_850AD.zip

ppl should feel free to just replay the turn if you do something like accidentally put an archer in an army.

Glad that Songhai is gone.

Sounds like there may be a rush at the gates soon as new civs show up. We should definitely have the other iron connected up as we may have to abandon the town past the choke during the rush. Also keep the road back to the choke occupied so we can retreat (don't let it get cut).

Are we close to connecting up the spices? I remember they were just at the edge of our vision at the end of my turn in Zulu lands.

I checked and we can get the Spices connected soon if we send workers to do it. We need some roads before it can be done.

We have 6 armies at the choke. If we sent off 4 that would leave 2 which seems short. We may have to wait for another army so we can leave 3 instead. That would either be if we get another leader or when we finish up with the french towns.

We have Catapults to the South that are not being used. I would save some cats to bombard and annoy boats, but the rest can go to the choke to bombard more units.

I think feudalism is the obvious next tech, then I would head for knights.

I guess the archer army will be the first one we disband down the line. It is not the worse thing that could happen. It is not like we lost a movement point.

I'm too busy to play before Monday, so I'd better ask for a skip. My apologies. :(

by the way, for planning purposes, I can play sunday night singapore time, but will be on a retreat until wednesday night after that. So, if possible, I play sunday or wednesday onwards

I guess that means I am up, so off I go:

Roster:
Greebley -
ThERat (vacation)
markh - just played
Northern Pike - skipped
vmxa - up
M60A3TTS - on deck

The save is here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42522/GR13_AD940.SAV

Pre:
Locate the spices, but they need a border or another town found and a road. Maybe there are others around, this is by Umtata.

Avaris size 8 and growing fast, so market would be nice there soon.

IBT:
LB attacks swords and dies (1-0) [1-0].

860AD:
We are in the middle ages and start to learn about pikes.
Up research to 50% at -47 gold, need 8 turns. I switched 2 tax to sci.
Giza finishes aqua and starts a barracks as it can do little of value. Can't really make settlers or workers here as we grow to slow and will not be able to stay at size 7. Market is not needed as it will be size 7 with no growth.

Byblos see a stack of Russian knights to go along with the Bab knights and French ones.
UU kills musket at Byb (1-0). Sword kills Bab knight (2-0).
3rd kills spear (3-0).
I wish I knew where the settlers were heading, but one with a spear is heading smack into trouble. Three Zulu horses and 4 archers are near it now. We have lots of land in the back that could be settled with no danger, why not clear the zulu out before heading in their direction?

Kill 2 Fr knights (5-0).
7th kills LB (6-0).
5th kills Fr pike and spear and razes Amiens. Sorry missed what gold we got, but 6 slaves. I suspect we would have trouble holding it as we have no units to send and they have culture from across the bay and it was size 5.
(8-0) [9-0]

IBT:
2 Fr LB attack our 2 swords and all go to the hill (1-1).
Got lucky at Umtata and the archers and horse retreat from the yellow army.
We get a call from Mao and he wants to sell us contact with Germany, no thanks and I declare war for bugging us.

Russia sends more horses and Knights to Byblos, thanks. [10-1]

870AD:
Put a couple of pings on a Zulu ship by Bursa. Cats do some damage to the archers near Umt. They stink it up on the knights at Byb, but I have enough to get them all redlined.
2 swords and 4th kill 3 R-knights and Persian LB (4-0).
3rd kills R-knight (5-0).
6th flawlessly kills elite hop (6-0).
Sword kills Zulu archer (7-0).
Unnamed army kills 2 Zulu horses (9-0).
8th kills 2 impi and autorazed New Ulundi for 0 gold (11-0).
Beakerhead in Avaris and we are able to shave one turn off. [21-1]

IBT:
Not much, Russian units blocked by Persian an Greek units, so they can only approach.

880AD:
Spear kills redline Zulu archer (1-0).
Ping that galley now it is redlined.
Sword and WC kill 2 spears at Cherbourg and we capture it for 0 gold. Iron nearby being roaded now. (3-0).
3rd kills R-knight (4-0).
7th kills P-knight (5-0).
WC kils Zulu horse (6-0). No promos or elites so far.
1st kills Zulu archer (7-0). [28-1]

IBT:
More crappy ibt. Zulu horse attacks the spear combo and dies. Horse attacks Izibiz and kills an elite spear. Another horses attacks the combo and redlines it. BTW it made elite the first time (2-1) [30-2].

The bad news is that the Mongols have allied with the Iroq and declared war on us.

890AD:
Starting the turn we are now at war with:
India/Babylon/Mongol/Zulu/Russia/Iroq/Persia/Greece/China/America/Az/France. Not bad, 12 up and 1 down (Song).

Couple more cities require a specialist. We need those spices or we may have to up the lux soon. Right now we do not have that many specialist. The newest ones are taxmen as we cannot use more bearkers right now.

The combo that was twice attacked is trying to found a town to get the spices.

Persia lands two LB at Sebennytus. It has a spear only, but luckly I had a sword passing by to found a new town. The thing is they arrived via a caravel.

Found New Giza.
5/5 sword kills the horse at Izi (1-0).
Found New Byblos and set the pop to taxman for now and put on wealth. This is a size 2 max town without rails and may as well not build anything.
1st kills 2 Zulu archers (3-0).
Iron connected at Tugelua.
Sword kills one of the landing LB (4-0).
Byblos cats are 8 for 21 Vs 7 Russian knights and horses. I could have used a bit more luck here.
Kill all 7 units and a greek archer (12-0).
War Elephant and settler lands near New Giza. They want the fish I guess.
Switch temple in Ul to a wall and rush it. I moved the spear form New Giza to Ul and send the sword at Heira to Ul as well. I see ships and I am worried.
I do not want to risk this town.
[42-2]

IBT:
Well the Russian knight leaves? The Persians leave? Hammy moved his units away as well?
Hammy does land a Knight and a LB at Ulundi.

Last LB that landed attacks Sebenn and dies. 2 Zulu horses hit the sword near IZibiz and both retreat.
I was shocked that the WE left the settler and razed New Giza (4 gold). I do not recall seeing a covering unit go on an attack. I thought the town was safe for a time, but I would rather loose it than the wines. That would be a huge pain as no armies are in range to take it back. The unrest would be expensive. Of course it is not written that I can hold the town anyway.
(1-0-2) [43-2]

900AD:
I hate to see redline units get away so I attack with the 2/5 WC and kill one, whew (1-0). 4/5 sword kills the other (2-0).
Sword kills impi (3-0).
2 Gr horses die (5-0).
Greenoble needs to be connected to get the lux in, have to go a specialist.
Found New Giza (again).
Yahoo, the sword heading to Ul, killed the Knight with no lost of hit points (6-0).
WC killed the LB (7-0). Now I need to find the WE. I panic and switch to a spear at Heira and rush it. [50-2]

IBT:
quite

910AD:
Found New El-Amarna near spices. workers coming to help road it.
8th razed Amatikulu after killing 2 impi's. 1 slave, may have to disband it, will see.
I know that the Zulu must have many more towns about and we have no units to sit on this town. The Zulu are sending impi and horses and are 1 move units mostly force them to retreat. (2-0)

Found another town with a long name. Ping a Fr galley.
Sword retreats an impi. 10th finished it (3-0).
WC 5/5 kills Russian knight (4-0).
3/4 sword kill Bab knight (5-0).
4/5 sword kills Persian LB (6-0).
5/5* sword kills LB (7-0).
4/4 kills LB (8-0). All are units are redlined as bombardment hits us each time.
7th kills Bab knight (9-0).
4/4 sword kills LB (10-0).
6th kills 2 LB and finally get a second promotion now its 16/17. (12-0)
I run my numbers on research and it looks like we should be getting a 41% discount. The thing is I am not sure if the price we pay is exact. I run the research down to 1 turn and find I can only switch 1 beakerhead and still get the breakthrough.
[62-2]

IBT:
Az kill off Venezulea. Bismark wants to sell a contact with Australia. Did not expect them to be knowing each other, but I kindly declare war on the Germans. What is one more irate civ amongst friends?

930AD:
We now are making pikes and MDI's. A few towns I switch the builds, but I am not sure what we should do in them, such as Nioro. So the build will not finish for a time and can be switched. It may make more sense to make some WC instead of reg pikes to just act as MP's and free up vet units.

Found New Abydos.
5/5 WC kills archer (1-0).
Upgrade two redlined swords at Byb.
6th kills Gr horse (2-0), we don't want no gifts. Then R-archer (3-0).
7th kills R-knight (4-0).
2nd kills R-knight (5-0).
Raise research to 40% with +30 to allow some upgrades. Otherwise at 9 turns we go -29g.
We have 280 on hand right now.
Switch Izibiz to a rax as we need some place to upgrade some of the swords and spears at that end of the world, but it will take time so it can be switched or rushed.
1st kills Zulu horse and 10th kills Persian LB (6-0).

Switch a few pop to better tiles and Cherbourg gets a beakerhead as it may as well stave down to 1 as have one joker. Change all taxmen to beakers. Down to 9 turn for Mono.
[68-2]

IBT:
WE attacks New Abydos and dies without making a mark on the sword? (1-0) [69-2]

940AD:
1st kills impi (1-0).
10th kills Zulu horse (2-0).
Ok, I have to stop as I will start my new job in the AM and I have not worked in over five years. Well retirement was fun while it lasted.

The 8th army is nearly healed and can be move. It is just past Umatata. I think you can breakout from Byblos with the 4 MDI and an army and a few cats, if you like. None of the newly aquired civs have any units in sight. Road has been started on the spice and 2 more workers will be on it next turn, so they should be online and relieve some of the specialist.
[70-2]

ok, I got it. Looked at the save and everything looks fine. Another good set of turns. :goodjob:

Mid-turn update: Over 100 dead enemy units, but it's turning gradually uglier. Can't kill the number of knights pressing into the Byblios region fast enough. Twenty Keshiks alone appeared during one IBT. Without any real pillaging of enemy resources going on, the situation is hard to improve upon.

BTW the way I guess we now know about everyone. I think we have 15 civs at war and 2 dead. So no need to be concerned about bumbing into anyone.

BTW the way I guess we now know about everyone. I think we have 15 civs at war and 2 dead. So no need to be concerned about bumbing into anyone.

Haven't seen any Chinese yet. Can hardly wait. :rolleyes:

Have we sent out the armies to claim the GLib yet? I am hoping the answer is yes, but I didn't see it mentioned.

No, I thought you said you want to get control of the contient first? I did mention we can do it now that we have some MDI's.

Depending on how many you want to send out. If it is 2, then no problem, if 4 you may have to abandon Bylbos or whatever its name. We now have 3 iron hooked up and 1 more with a road, not in our border.

forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/GR13_1050_AD.SAV

Another invisible save

Preturn- 3 sword armies and 20 cats move out

IBT- Persia drops 2 LBs by Ulundi.

Turn 1 (950AD)- About 44 enemy units in sight around Byblios.

3 French MI and 2 knights killed by 4th , 7th, and 9th Armies. (5-0)
Persian and Bab knight killed by 6th Army (7-0)
Bab and Persian knight killed by 3rd Army (9-0)
2 Bab LBs killed by MI and WC (11-0)
Russian knight killed by 2nd Army (12-0)
Persian musket and 3 knights are catted and killed by 4 MI (16-0)
Persian LB killed by 1st Army (17-0)
Zulu impi dies by 8th Army (18-0)
Zulu horse killed by 10th Army (19-0)
2 WCs kills both Persian LBs by Ulundi (21-0)

7th Army is alone at 7hp, and almost certainly will get jumped by all the fast movers, so cover it with 2nd Army with 14hp. This sacrifices 4 cats, now unguarded, but knowing the AI, we can capture them back next turn. Jenne needs a taxman.

IBT- Lose 3 MI to Persian knights (21-3) Oh, and 10 Keshiks just showed up.

Turn 2 (960AD)- 6th Army kills Bab musket and Russian knight (23-3)
Russian MI and LB killed by Armies (25-3)
7th Army kills 2 Bab knight (27-3)
Kill French settler pair (28-3)
1st Army kills 2 Persian spears and Jinjan falls. (30-3)
10th Army gets 2 Zulu horses (32-3)

IBT- Lost an MI to Greece and sword to Persia (32-5). Lost the cats again.

Turn 3 (970AD)

Kill 2 Greek horses with 2nd Army and reclaim the cats (34-5)
Kill 3 Keshiks, Bab spear, musket and LB (40-5)
Kill 2 impis with 8th Army. Zulu now have LBs.

IBT- Mongols building Newtons

Turn 4 (980AD) Kill Indian LB. (41-5)
Kill Russian warrior and horse (43-5)
Found Tangiers
Trade 2 MI for 5Keshiks. (48-7)
Capture Zunguin after 8th Army kills 2 Zulu LBs. Get a gold piece. (50-7)

IBT- Zulu horse kills a sword. Lose the four cats, this time to France. (50-8)
India sends in galley to New Kolhapur

Turn 5 (990AD)

MI kills Keshik (51-8)
5th Sword Army reinforces Alexandria
Kill French MI (52-8) with 9th Army.
Kill Keshik with 7th Army
WC kills Zulu horse at Ulundi (53-8)
Cat attack on New Kolhapur indicates a War Elephant there
2 sword armies kill 3 Zulu horses in the south (56-8)

IBT- India loses LB against a sword at New Kolhapur (57-8)
Grenoble riots

Turn 6 (1000AD)

Kill reg Persian LB in south (58-8)
9th Army kills Persian LB at Byblios (59-8)
Trade WC for Greek horse and French knight (61-9)

IBT- German reg horse attacks a full strength army at Byblios. Whatever. (62-9)
Mono>Chivalry in 5. India lands WE and warrior at Ulundi

I guess the Mongols figured out sending 10 Keshiks against us wasn’t enough. Now they send 20.

Turn 7 (1010AD)

Indian WE and warrior dead at Ulundi (63-9)
Kill 9 of the 20 Keshiks (72-9) Take an hp off the rest
Kill Zulu horse in the south (73-9)

IBT- Russia sacrificed a knight against pike in the hills (74-9)

Turn 8 (1020AD) Destroy 2 spears defending Borazjan and capture it from Persia (76-9)
Kill Keshik and 5 Babylonian LBs and musket (83-9)
Trade WC for Zulu horse (84-10)

IBT- 2 Russian knights kill pikes on a hill (84-12) Persia has a galleon, so they are up to astronomy.

Turn 9 (1030AD)
Kill Greek horse and French MI (86-12)
Kill 9 Russian knights, a spear and a French knight. Another MGL. (97-12)
Kill 3 Keshiks (100-12)

IBT- Russia loses a knight to our MI. (98-12)

Turn 10 (1040AD) Kill 2 Bab LBs, Keshik and Russian knight. (101-12)
Found Casablanca

IBT- Quiet

Turn 11 (1050AD) Kill Greek archer and 4 Persian knight & LB (107-12)
2 Bab muskets and LB but we lose MI (110-13) Also get Zulu LB in the south. (111-13)

Chivalry in 1. And done.

We have an empty army at Byblios in anticipation of filling it with knights.

I only just moved the 4 sword armies forward at the end. At the start of the turn, we had way too many enemy and I needed the armies to kill some of these guys. Our sword armies are pretty invincible, but they have to cover single units and only can kill two enemies at a time.

The Persians are far and away the strongest AI out there, but we’re seeing knights from everyone but Greece and Zulu. The southern effort is a lot slower now because of the time it is taking to get units south. I moved one of the armies in a position to clear out New Kolhapur which has a jumbo and musket at least.

The AI is building Newton’s. Again, no sign of the Chinese yet.

Ok, I got it.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/GR13_1050_AD.SAV

Good work recently, in the circumstances. :goodjob:

Has anyone pointed out that the Indians are in the IA? :eek:

I know that it's hard to pay full attention to worker actions when the turns are so long anyway...but our workers are doing some strange things. Why are we roading so many useless desert tiles in the NW, seven of them outside our cultural boundaries? Why are we clearing so much jungle, when we can promote population growth in much faster ways?

It's not a sin to spend worker-turns just on movement when the workers have no sensible actions where they are.

Gwandu in the west is about to complete a regular pikeman. I'd change that to a settler, and then MM the town for much more pop growth, since it's completely corrupt anyway (although I realize that the reg pike may be an intentional attempt to build MP, and that's not bad either).

We need to settle that crap land so we can keep on eye on things and get all the unit support we can. The AI will do so much better in this game on research than the last one.

The lower map cost and better cost factor combined with the quick contacts, let them rip fairly well. Emperor civs will not suffer as much from unit production as those Monarch boys did.

Last I knew we could make a 20 shield MP units and that is better than a 30 shield one.

I see a value in making roads to towns in the jungle, but only cutting a tile with a bonus and then with workers that cannot be used elsewhere for a long time. This is why we need to clear that land south as workers were potentially in jeopardy if they were too far out.

Zulu impi and horses were coming out of the fog. Not to mention Ghandi had dropped some WE's and landing can occur at any time.

I had to play kind of quickly as I wanted to pass the game off so ThERat can play. I will just summarize.

You will want to MM as I was rushed at the end.

We had troubles with landings. Not enough units in the north and west and lost two towns. They were nothing towns however so not a big deal. I did bring over a knight army (probably should be replaced by a sword army) to handle a landing.

I did well with leaders - we got 4 more of them. We have 2 knight armies. One army I filled with MDI (because I had so many empty ones) and have two more that occurred to the far west and are heading across (can be knight armies).

We just took Zimbabwe. We are making more progress on the Zulu. They seem to own Madagascar so we may want a boat or two to knock them out of the game.

I made a bunch of settlers. We have 12 unsettled so I turned off further production as that seems enough. Town count is now high enough I don't think we will run into army limitations for awhile.

I sent off 4 Sword armies. I am afraid we waited too long though and Karakorum will be guarded by Rifles. We may want to join it with about half our catapults under a knight army. I feel we NEED the GLib at this point. We are an age behind and tech is slow. We really won't go far until rails and artillery/Infantry IMO. Too many enemy units.

If we do send out a second group then head straight east. I think I went the long way with the sword armies.

I saw the first Cavalry on the very last IBT. Next player will be fighting them. I accidentally hit enter so it is 1160 with no units moved (disbanded a worker on us too as I hadn't fixed science yet).

Choke can be opened and closed to lure the enemy.


Some Pictures:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD1160a.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD1160b.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD1160c.jpg

The 1160AD Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/14765/GR13_1160_AD.zip)

Still having pictures not always appear for me: Here are their URLs

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD1160a.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD1160b.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR13-AD1160c.jpg


ThERat, you are up. BTW is Sunday night Singapore time Sunday day or Monday day for me (in the US)?

I think now is the right time to grap the GLB. It can now give up cavs. Did Byblos get overrun or was it abandoned?

Are you pillaging as you go or not? I am not sure a sword army will be able to handle landings for long, so the knights are better. They can get from A to B where swords won't and can kill cav and probably not be attacked.

I hope Zim does not flip, we will be a long time in taking down those island cities, unless we get at least a caravel, not sure we should care about them right now.

If we do not capture Zulu towns, we need not bother with ship at this point. Just let them rot until we get galleons.

We just shouldn't put units in Zim. I took it last turn. Since Zulu don't have speed 2 units, Zim doesn't need a defender. Just leave an attacker outside the city. It can kill the Longbows as they come at us.

In other words we don't care if it flips or not. We lose nothing. The only cost is we need to keep a MDI next to it (we need to defend it anyway).

thanks Greebley for playing so fast. I am still in Dubai and will be taking my flight soon, but will need some rest first at home. I will post a got it on Sunday evening (which is Sunday morning US time), if I can play my turns. Might well be that I fall into bed totally exhausted, but I think the jet lag will keep me awake at night.

Last I knew they were still sending horses, I guess we cut them off. Still with no MP, they will not end resistance for a long time and could be a flip risk much later. I just do not like to fool with captured cities.

I guess you can get away with at these levels. When you are used to being last in culture it is hard to think about holding anything unless the civ is about to go extinct. For the price of a settler, I just prefer not to deal with the issue.