I've played a few SGs here, and in the vast majority of them our team beats up on Huayna Capac. He's either the first AI to get splattered by a sword rush, gets crushed in the middle ages by catapults or survives until the renaissance when we run him over with cannons. Whatever else happens in the game, you can guarantee the poor guy will not have a good time of it.

http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/9020/hcgi6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I often wonder what goes through the poor guy's head. He probably plonks his first city down, sends his quechua out scouting and then wails uncontrollably when he sees a civfanatics succesion game team has settled on his doorstep. He must have nightmares about us constantly.

This game is going to play out the worst possible nightmare for HC.

Civ: Inca, Huayna Capac
Version: Vanilla 1.61
Map Script: Fantasy_Realm
Sea Level: High
Resource Placement: Irrational
Size: Standard
Difficulty: Immortal
Speed: Epic
Victory: Any
AIs: Montezuma, Hatshepsut, Isabella, Louis, Kublai Khan, Victoria and Catherine

Variant rules: None. The first five AIs selected were civs we've bulldozed the Incans with before - therefore sure to haunt us. Victoria and Catherine were added in to make up the numbers and chosen because they're hotties, and sure to feature in any red blooded male's dream sequence.

The high difficulty will mean there's a good chance we'll get smashed ... but that would be fitting for HC, right?

I've gone for vanilla civ because Warlords doesn't add that much IMO except Trebuchets which make the game much easier. Also, HC's aggressive trait in vanilla is much better than the girly industrious trait he gets in Warlords.

Here's the start I rolled. It's not too great.

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/8540/s04startvu7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I moved the quechua onto the ice hill. The ice in the west really is ice, but the ice 1S of the settler is a flood plains ice (with incense!). Note the tundra hill oasis - a nice 3-1-3 tile. I'm not sure if we can improve that tile having never played a Fantasy_Realm game before. I think we should settle on the spot as it has just about enough workable tiles viewable, and 4 more to reveal.

Roster is currently closed while I wait to see how many of the usual crew want to play.

Unfortunately you can't improve oasis tiles (beyond a road). I've been waiting to see a Fantasy_Realm SG pop up. If you have a spot open I may have to come back and beg for it.

LOL. Ive played 1 fantasy realm game before and I gotta say, its different... Tundra hill Oasis and ice flood plains incense, oh man. Ill definately be lurking this one.

This one is looking exciting but i want to play a warlordgame and don't want to play more than one so you have to do it without me this time, sure i will be lurking

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/leaders/leaders0024.jpg

AIs: Montezuma, Hatshepsut, Isabella, Louis, Kublai Khan, Victoria and Catherine

Victoria and Catherine were added in to make up the numbers and chosen because they're hotties ...


:eek:
U sick...




BTW: I wanted to start Fantasy SG with resources variant.

Lurker's comment
...that's a great start (even for a Fantasy game)!

If there's still space in the roster after checking up with the usual crew, I'd like to sign up.

Reporting for duty. Fantasy-Realm cool never played on that before.

EDIT: I just realized that about Victoria. Now mmmmmm she's was a hottie maybe power wise but could scare the side off a barn. Now Isabella she's a hottie or even Elizabeth but Sooooo I would have to have a lot of beers to call Victoria a hottie in the 21st century sense.

OK. This should be fun. But I'm pretty sure we'll get our rear ends kicked.

We've got a couple of powerhouse tiles there for the start though. Incense on a flood plain will be awesome. Oasis on a hill will be nice too.

Suggest we build some quechas while we work the hills oasis and flood plain and discover hinduism, then pick up hunting and start a worker. Unless we want to go worker stealing...

Sooo, I have to warn you off Victoria. I don't want you guys making eyes at her. She's MINE I tell you, MINE. Any more of this and there will be a couple of gunboats off Vera Cruz before you can say Jack Robinson.

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one to pop a boner when Victoria's diplo screen comes up. From Mihau and Cosmichail's comments I was beginning to think I was a big weirdo. But in the spirit of diplomacy, I'll let you have her rodneysandy (you big weirdo!).

@Mike and Cosmichail: Glad to have you on board. Agree with quechua(s) first. With 2 great tiles to work first we won't need a worker for a while to upgrade any other tiles. I've never fought with quechuas so I'm not sure what they can achieve yet. I guess we'll just have to see.

@Asperger: OK, I'll allow it ;). You've gotta periodically download the save and tell us all what we're doing wrong though!

ill join i finally gott of school oh wait.... its monday......
well any ways i finally got my crap finished
and ill find out someway to make this HC's worse nightmare :satan:

OK here's the ro(o)ster:

sooooo
Cosmichail
mike p
Qwack
pindicator

Not sure if Blid is around but if he wants to join as a sixth then that's OK. For now we'll start with 5.

RK and Xtream: Sorry, but lurk as much as you want. I'll come to you if we need a replacement.

I'll play some turns tonight or maybe tomorrow morning. I might try a practice game with the Incas to see how to use the quechuas. Or maybe I'll just play 20 or so turns and pass the tough part on to Cosmichail :lol:.

Lurker's comment:
Go ahead then. I'd love to see how this turns out.

I've been wondering, can you improve the flood plains ice?

@Asperger: OK, I'll allow it ;). You've gotta periodically download the save and tell us all what we're doing wrong though!

What you do wrong is roster in Qwack while he says he will only be lurking;)

That's OK, Qwack has been upgraded from lurker to player.

I think the ice flood plains tile can get a watermill or plantation. I doubt we can put a farm over it, but we'll see :p

Reporting for duty! :salute:

I think the ice flood plains tile can get a watermill or plantation. I doubt we can put a farm over it, but we'll see :p

hydroponics ...cooool :cool:

BTW: never seen polar floodplains before

Sooooo[o], thx for the prior game but, at the moment, the pattern is full (been watching too much top gun :D) so I will be lurking this game.

Immortal, fantasy realm : all unvisited ground. Can't resist , bye bye RL :cry:

I'm having technical problems at the moment so end of roster is fine for me, hoping you won't blast through it in 48 hours :lol:

I settle on the spot. It reveals another floodplains incense :eek:! This time it's your regular desert floodplains.

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/4436/s041gq7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I started Meditation, not Polytheism because it is 4 turns shorter (12 vs 16 turns). Unless Izzy has her own oasis I don't think she'll beat us. Start a quechua too.

We popped fishing from a hut in the north, then started to dream about Catherine in the north east of our mindmap. Though on this toriod, north is also south and east is west.

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/2483/s042rj7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Quechua finishes, start another. We're now size 2 and work the incence floodplains.

In 3610 BC we dreamt about all things Buddhist.

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8905/s043nw2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Set research onto Hunting.

We meet Louis and suffer flashbacks from when he beat us up with musketeers and catapults (remember that blid?).

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1289/s044jb5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Next turn we popped another technology from a hut: Sailing.

In 3460 BC we met Montezuma, and remember that time we were in the jungle with him. It wasn't much fun.

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/8008/s045ly4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Hunting finishes, start mining. Quechua -> Worker (size 3).

We get 42 gold from a hut, but the brave quechua that ventured into the open to pop it died to a lion.

In 3280 we dreamt about that scary lady Victoria.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3926/s046sb4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Mining came in and we started bronze working.

Finally in 3100 BC, my 30th and last turn, Hinduism is FIDL. What was Izzy playing at? We could have has the hydra by now if we tried for it. I'm guessing Monty and Izzy both went for Buddhism and we beat them by a few turns. Louis and Hatty normally go for religions too, so this date is very late.

Our capital:

http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/981/s047lh3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We've got a few decent locations for future cities:

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/1264/s048rj6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

So we need a plan! Do we build one of the early wonders? We have both stone and marble on hand for our second city. One of the prophet wonders would be nice for our shrine. Or we could go and annoy someone with quechuas. Let's have your thoughts. Working three 3-commerce tiles means our science rate is amazing.

Looks like Cosmichail is up. I suggest a quecha rush on Catherine. We already have trade routes linked via the river apparently so all of the resources at her capital will be available right away for ours.

The worker should build a fur camp for the happy, a hammer and some more much needed commerce - this is immortal after all, then probably build a mine along the river.

The only problem with a quecha rush is that the AI will have BW pretty darn early.

Got it and will play tomorrow sometime.

Thanks for the ideas Mike. I like that Quechua rush and hopefully the AI won't have any copper in their fatcross.

Lurker comment:

Although you probably know this already, I was just gonna point out my understanding of the quechua rush: you get there before they get a chance to hook up their copper. So just go on ahead and get that quechua in there. :) The downside is that she'll start pumping out archers, and you might not have many quechuas yet. The upside is that they will only be archers, which you should be able to whomp on pretty good. (Try to steal the worker on the first attack, too...) Um. This is not well-written, but hopefully you'll appreciate the attempt to post something helpful.

A pacifist interjection: no wait, I can't think of one.

Even the builder in me says it is easier to capture cities than settle them on immortal. Hopefully take a couple Russian towns, a couple workers, and then when the war is wrapping up go for a religious wonder.

Although with all the commerce we have, heading for Writing for an Academy in the Capital and delaying the prophet seems tempting. (Again, after the quecha rush -- I can't think of a reason NOT to quecha rush right now.)

I gues hightmare having HC has found himself innocent victim.
:p

sooooo - Just Played
Cosmichail - UP for 20 turns
mike p - On Deck
Qwack
pindicator
blid

OK, I'm agreeing with the quechua rush. Since we're not building a settler yet, if we don't have copper at Cuzco then I suggest archery next so as not to get reamed by barb axemen. Then probably The Wheel.

The worker should chop+mine the grass hill and also camp the beavers to increase the happy limit. Not necessarily in that order. A mine on that ice hill would be useful too (a 0-3-0 tile if I'm not mistaken). We can leave the deer for now IMO. We are at the happy limit (3), but that will increase to 4 once we get a garisson and to 5 once the beavers are camped

Until around size 8, that capital is an absolute monster, but after that.. well :lol: I agree with quecha rush, Cathy is only 7 turns away, cant pass up a quecha rush when they are so close.. I think she may found another city before we get enough quecha's up there though, as this is immortal level, and she will also probably get her second border expansion before we get enough quecha's up there, so to be safe, I would go with a pure 2 to 1 ratio of quecha's to archers. 6-8 should be enough.

Sounds like a Quechua rush. Tried to play tonight but had to work late so will do first thing tomorrow morning since I'm off.

Yes we'll need over 6 quechuas to take the russian cities, but we shouldn't wait that long to declare war because we've got to get in there and pillage any copper she has.

Turn 1

Quech attacked by lion and prevails

Turn 2 thru Turn 4

zzzzzzz

Turn 5

Finish worker and start Quech move worker to Beavers
(can’t do mine as we haven’t discovered BW yet)

Turn 6

Lion attacks Quech and looses
Worker starts camp (can’t road it but should be available being on a river)

Turn 7

Lion attacks Quech and looses

Quech move to hut and hut pop us a tech – Animal Husbandry
(no horses in fatcross)

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g240/cosmichail/Civ4ScreenShot0503.jpg

Turn 8

zzzzzz

Turn 9

We discover BW and there is no copper in fatcross but just on edge of borders.
The copper is in a jungle so we will need IW to work it.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g240/cosmichail/Civ4ScreenShot0504.jpg

Turn 10

Move Scouting Quechs

Turn 11

Move Scouting Quechs


Turn 12

Move Scouting Quechs

Turn 13

Cuzco finishes Quech start another
Move Scouting Quechs
(Was thinking of starting barracks for experienced units but will wait until we chop for it to speed it up)

Turn 14

Worker starting mine on Grass hill
Discover Archery and start wheel
We also meet Hatty (oh Baby)

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g240/cosmichail/Civ4ScreenShot0507.jpg

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g240/cosmichail/Civ4ScreenShot0508.jpg

Turn 15

Quech attacked by barb archer in forest and prevails

Turn 16

Move scouting Quech

Turn 17

Move scouting Quech

Turn 18

zzzzzzzz

Turn 19

Finish wheel start Iron Working
Finish Quech start barracks
Let chop go into barracks to get more experienced units.
Our happy limit is 5 now. Did not revolt to Slavery just yet but maybe in the next turn.

Turn 20

zzzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzz can't see zzzzzzzzzz the save zzzzzzzzz

nice resource allocation. Wondering, can you get floodplains/plains/ forest/gold?

The bronze looks like it's 2 border pops away, so unless we want to wait to build a settler we're probably going to be bronze-less for our early rush on Cathy.

Since we are on Epic speed, I would go ahead and revolt to slavery as soon as possible.

sooooo
Cosmichail - Just Played
mike p - UP for 20 turns
Qwack - On Deck (15 turns from here onwards)
pindicator
blid

Cosmichail cannot post or upload saves so he emailed it to me.

I've noticed that we have a quechua that can steal a russian worker in any of the next 7 turns. We should probably do that.

Got it, and we're off to war.

Hi guys I'm back and everything is set straight. Thanks Sooooo for your help.

Grrrrr, the board system keeps banning members of my team. Mike has played but is somehow banned from civfanatics, as was Cosmichail yesterday. The curse of HC?

They must have a soft spot for Huayna in the administrator's lounge and are trying to delay the inevitable whupping he's about to get.

:lol: I wasnt in your previous games but sounds like theres some supernatural forces at work here :lol:

Cosmichail, how did you get unbanned? Mike will probably need to know.

OK, after a few hiccups I have the save from Mike. He says:

OK. Here's the save. Moscow was too tough a nut to crack since it was on a hill, so I attacked St. Pete's instead hoping to get some promotions. As of the save, we are 99% to take it with our last quecha on the scene, but the battles didn't go as well as a I hoped. Not sure if we want it or not, so I left it untaken with the quecha still to move. I think we should take it so we can whip out some more quechas to take Moscow.

Yes, lets take St. Petes. Moscow is ridiculous, with 3 gems, gold and pigs in the BFC.

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/3593/2010bcuz2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

sooooo - Not banned yet
Cosmichail - Banned, then unbanned
mike p - Just Played, Banned
Qwack - Not banned and UP for 15, soon to be banned
pindicator - On Deck to be banned
blid - French

EDIT: and lets convert to buddhism to get the +1 happy in Cuzco

HC is still upset about that Jungle game when we left him with a little town and jungle. He wasn't too happy about that and somehow used "hacking" to disable some of it's opponents. A dastardly plan indeed.

PS. That happened to Mike too? Was told it is a system glitch of some sort and being investigated. AlanH helped me out if Mike needs help.
Almost afraid to post in fear of it happening again. It happened just when I was about to the use upload file system. (I could have easily attached but find can keep better track in easy upload and delete when not needed)

Got it, ill have this played in about 12 hours.

Qwack, in the short term I suggest you attach your save file instead of using the "easy" upload system - I hope this avoids bannination. I've pmed a mod to get mike unbanned and to investigate the problem.

Yeah, it happened when I was uploading the save. But it looks like it's all better now.

And I suggest everyone toggle the resource bubble things to on. Otherwise it's too easy to miss things like the wheat on a hill under a jungle or silver or gold under a forest.

Qwack, in the short term I suggest you attach your save file instead of using the "easy" upload system - I hope this avoids bannination. I've pmed a mod to get mike unbanned and to investigate the problem.

I dont understand.. Do you mean the "Manage Attachments" thing. Because thats what I usually use anywyas.

Yes, that's what I mean.

After the turnset I just had.. I think I believe that this curse you talk about is real...

Start off by attacking St.Petersburg at 99.8% odds, we win and take it for 57 gold and free worker.

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/9148/civ4screenshot0018oz2.th.jpg (http://img54.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0018oz2.jpg)

Next turn, barb warrior attacks our quecha from across river and wins at 21.1% odds. Meh!!! :mad:

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/9540/civ4screenshot0019nd4.th.jpg (http://img54.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0019nd4.jpg)

Catherine shows up with a archer near St.Petersburg and another one 2 tiles behind. I decide that its better to attack this archer and have a turn to heal rather than letting her attack with 2 archers at the same time. So I attack at 94.1% odds.. and LOSE1!! :mad: :mad:

The worker we captured could have been recaptured a turn later, but knowing the AI, it would probably fortify the archer in the city rather than stealing the worker, so I decided not to disband, and I was right, this gives us enough time to move worker away from St.Petersburg.

Next turn I attack with quecha from north at 63% odds, and fortunately we win... but he gets weakened badly, making it unable to take the second archer down and retake St.Petersburg. IW comes in 1870, we have no iron, but Catherine does. Good thing is even immortal AI wont have iron working this soon, so we probably have a bit more time before she starts pumping out axes.

I move 2 more quechas towards St.Peters and attack. First one loses at 35% odds, which was expected, but his job was to weaken the archer. Second one goes in at 75% odds anad LOSES. WTF? :mad: :mad: :mad:

So yeah, thats the story..... Not exactly a turnset I would brag about. I have 4 more quecha's at St.Petersburg ready to attack next turn against 2 archers. 2 of the quechas are slightly weakened, lets hope next players luck is better than mine...

Because of the craptastic RNG luck I had, I dont think we can grab Moscow now..

save:

Thunderfall's theory is the auto-ban kicks in if you try to upload a file with one of three illegal extensions: .php .htm or .exe Is there any chance that was happening here?

Oh man Qwack, I don't know if you guys want me up next in line then. My pRNG luck lately has got me back in a ranting mood. Hopefully I'll hold myself back when it's time to report for Epic 8. In any case, I doubt I can play tonight (but will if I can) and tomorrow is my birthday and I definitely can't play that evening. So if blid can play before Tuesday 7pm Pacific US time, perhaps we should swap.

Nothing you can do against bad RNG. I had bad RNG running through my YYY-01 turnset (8% followed 4% odds losses against AI) and in last SGOTM turn (no spoilers but the odds of what happened were 1/1000).

@pindicator : I can't play tomorrow and have another SG to play on tuesday so we better keep roster as is. As for now, it is high time I get to sleep :)

AlanH, at the time I was trying to upload a save with the civ4savedgame extension. I do recall at first when accessing the file upload page I ended up on a page telling me I didn't have authorization which I didn't understand how I got there. Then I tried again and the autoban kicked in.

All I ever upload is civ4savedgame only and nothing else.

I was uploading civ4savedgame and possibly jpg files, but nothing else as far as I know.

Fortune favors the bold: too bad I wasn't bold, I might have missed a great window for taking Moscow, but as it is we still should be able to take the city in the next turnset. I did take one town, though:

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/5476/s041540bcstpetevc2.jpg

I waited for our Quechas to heal, and then we marched on St. Pete's. As if karma was about to come full swing, we won both battles at 20% & 57% odds and St. Pete's was ours! I started a barracks, chopped it out, and then connected the town to our capital. It's building Quechas now, albeit slowly. It's a pretty crappy town, to be honest.

Barbarians are starting to show in the south. Several times I've moved the lone archer to the grassland mine to entice a barb warrior to attack across river and uphill.

Our troops our now converging around Moscow: I had 4 troops nearby with only 2 visible defenders, but didn't move to attack -- that hill makes defense very tough to crack. Now Moscow has 3 defenders and one is a CG archer -- but we have 6 Quechas nearby and 2 more en route. I think that 8 should be enough. Here is the picture around Moscow now.

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/155/s041150bctroopseg3.jpg

The lone archer is being sent to promote our Quechas. Currently St. Pete's is defenseless because I wanted to cut the road from the archer. Our back Quecha will be able to make it to the town in a turn. At the same time, Moscow is currently undefended as the archer is being used to prevent a barb warrior from pillaging our improvements. A quecha will finish next turn to stop the unhappiness.

Currently science is turned off. We learned Writing, Priesthood, and Pottery, and I figure we can just burn through the cash I'm earning. I was thinking about heading towards Math for Construction, or Alphabet to trade technologies, or maybe even Metal Casting because we're about to pick up a lot of metal happiness when we take Moscow.

Speaking of taking Moscow, I think that could be done in the next turnset. You're going to want more than 2 quechas per archer because Moscow is on a hill. I looked and a Cover promoted Quecha attacking that city had a 2% chance of winning, which means some Quechas are probably going to die without even doing damage. So bring LOTS! I imagine the 8 I have in the vicinity should be enough as long as there are only 3 defenders.

The save might help, I imagine.

The more I look at St. Pete's the worse that town looks.

Great work Pindicator! That makes blid up.

Got it
Expect to play tomorrow, hopefully we'll get that russian capital

Was about to argue that St Pet had 2 food resources and that was enough to make it viable and then I saw that rice on an ice/hill gave only 1 food :crazyeye:
And how would you spread irrigation to a farm on a hill ?
Hope we'll get more out of the banana plantation

I've got our workers irrigating the grassland beside the hill. I'm hoping that will spread irrigation when Civil Service comes online, and that will at least make it an okay tile.

My favorite tile is Corn on a flood plains (but Pigs are good too)!

Why will the ice rice hill only get 1 food? I thought it would be 1 for resource plus 1 when we farm it, plus 1 when we irrigate it post-CS. Let's hope buddhism spreads there soon. The floodplains, dyes and bananas make that city pretty good IMO. Some production too from the iron.

Why will the ice rice hill only get 1 food? I thought it would be 1 for resource plus 1 when we farm it, plus 1 when we irrigate it post-CS.

The hill takes away 1 food.

I got banned too :cry:


Turn 0 : switch from maths to alphabet. By the time we'll be able to trade, maths would be known by all those immortal AI

Turn 1 : kill the barb warrior with the archer. Capital finished queshua and starts a lib. I configure it to slow growth and get more commerce since we hit our happiness cap. A russian archer tries to go for undefended StPet but a queshua is put there for defense. I will have to attack 8 vs 3 hoping that Cathy won't have another archer in between. Just to make sure the odds are on our side, I pillage a mine knowing that Cathy will have 1 turn using it freely

Turn 2 : I kill the archer near StPet before he pillages a farm.
Cathy has a fourth archer in Moscow :(
I try to bait her to attack with quesha surrounding the capital

Turn 3 :
dancing around Cathy capital, waiting for my 9th attacker.

Turn 4 :
Cathy 4th archer has disappeared somewhere ??? . I decide to attack with 8 guys

attack : 2.6/3
attack 2 : 1.3/3
attack 3 : 2.6/3
attack 4 : 2.6/3->2.2/3
attack 5 : 2.6/3->2.1/3
attack 6 : 2.2/3->1.3/3
attack 7 : 2.1/3->0 with 35%odds. A lucky strike here.
attack 8 : 1.3-> 0 with 80% odds.

Attacker 9 can't move this turn but we're down to 3 queshas to 1 archer

Turn 5 :
Cathy fourth archer is back from nowhere. Damn
Attack at 28% odds and loose. Archer wounded
Attack at 35 % odds and loose. Archer 2 down to 0.2
Attack at good odds and win.

Turn 6 : My quesha gets a promotion. Russian archer don't and remains at 0.2. I attack at 100% odds and win :)

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset1/01-TakeMoscow.jpg


That was a close call. Our queshua army was blown out
A cultural civ capital at a hill is a hard nut to crack. We lost 8 queshas just to take Moscow

That barb archer is annoying, he dosen't want to take what was a huge cost for us huh ? Please heal quickly my queshua

I also realize we have trade routes with Monty and Louis. I open trades with Louis, don't want to mess with that nut Monty on our door. Guess he'll have to die next.

Turn 7 : I send the worker in Moscow to road the gems before we get out of revolt and can mine them but he meets a barb archer. Oops, gladly he still has 1/2 movement point

The other archer is heading for undefended StPet. I whip the quesha there.

Turn 8 : barb archer attacks at St Pet and looses.
A barb axe appears :help:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset1/02-FirstBarb.jpg


I send the archer to the hill, give him guerilla and fortify him. I think after that I should have put him in capital to benefit from the +40% defense and give him city garrison, but I hoped to defend the mine too. I'll see if it's a mistake.

Anyway, I don't like to take chances so I whip the capital lib for 2 pops. The overflow should give us an archer in time.
I could have switched to an archer and whipped him next turn for 1 pop, but I hate popping 1 guy and especially when at happiness cap


Turn 9 : barb closes in.
St Pet finishes another quesha and goes for a granary. I send the quesha to check on the situation of Novgorod, the last russian city
The archer in cpital needs 2 turns to complete, the time needed for the axe to get at the capital

Turn 10 :
The barb pillages road to capital ????? we have a river flowing from Moscow to our capit so all cities are still connected
The archer attacks moscow and don't even scratch the quesha defending there

Turn 11 : Capital finishes archer, goes for a buddhist temple. I just realize we already had a religion :crazyeye:
That open borders with Louis was not needed maybe. Your call to cancel it when we are able to, though we may not be able to pick any religion at the moment with the hindu monty and the jewish Izzy so close
The axe attacks our archer fortified on hill and looses. Ourrah
Moscow out of revolt. People there are bery pissed, city is starving. Whip an archer there, so anger is dissipated.

A barb warrior appears at Moscow

Turn 12 : Moving out troops. I want my queshas free to take a shot at NovGorod


Turn 13 :
Axe near Cuzco, Axe near Moscow. Maybe going after Novgorod isn't such a good idea. What are those immortal AIs doing ?

Turn 14 :
Eastern axe chases a spanish scout. Good for him, he'll probably go for an aztec city next
The western barb axe is at Moscow door. The archer there just killed a barb warrior last turn. He gets city garrison I and fortified in city. He has a quesha to help him in case of dire need

Turn 15 :
There was dire need. That damn RNG is back at work again

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset1/03-Poooh.jpg


I am sure that axe (now at 1.5) would get promoted and attack again and may take back Moscow. There is not enough pops to whip an archer so I whip a quesha knowing well that they don't hold against axes. But we don't have a better choice. Hopefully, next time the axe would be wounded enough that we can take him down in forest

Iron mine in Moscow is due in 2 turns

You can take a look at Novgorod. It has 2 archers, one of them with City garrison I. The city shares borders with Izzy.


http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset1/04-NovGorod.jpg

Good luck sooooo

Here's a screenie of the page telling me those good news :

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset1/banned.png


If no other people are getting this problem, it may has something to do with our savefile who has an unfortunate sequence of bits confusing the robot checking uploaded files

That's exactly what I got too and it sounds like its related to the save from this SG like you say Blid.

AlanH thinks its the save too and is investigating. You should be unbanned now Blid. I played my turns and wiped out Catherine, keeping Novgorod. A barb town spawned on the river, so we have none of the northern resources in the capital until we reconnect the road. Had to whip the capital again for an archer because I chopped an axe here with 2 barb axes and a warrior in our territory, but the turn the axe was to appear the barb town popped, cutting off our iron. How unlucky, this game is cursed. On the brightside we have 4 cities now and our neighbours are closing in to seal us off from the barbs. On the downside we have 2 barb cities nearby and our neighbours are Monty and Izzy. I whipped an obelisk in Novgorod.

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/3601/empire610bcxi9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

There are multiple buildings queued up in all cities but feel free to ignore them. I changed my mind a bit after the capital was starved of resources.

Things are going OK. If we can build some swords/axes and capture those 2 barb cities we should have a decent sized empire to consolidate. Alphabet is due in, er, some turns, depending on which tiles we work. Maybe Cosmichail should pause when it comes in to show us the options we have.

I got slightly lucky at Novgorod, but also pretty damn unlucky elsewhere, losing a combat 1 archer on a forested hill to another archer.

Here is the cursed file:

Oh, and about that barb axe blid left me with. He attacked, and our city raider 2, cover quechua defended instead of our combat 1 one. So we lost that guy. After one turn's healing, he attacked again and I had another C1 quechua there, thinking he would die but an archer would arrive next turn. But the C1 quechua won at only 19%.

I hafven't unbanned blid yet, as I hope Thunderfall can see the status before I change it all. Is there a difference between the players who can upload and those who can't? Are the ones that can using Manage Attachments, and the ones who get banned using Upload Files? If so, we have a workround.

PS. Maybe one of the upload systems doesn't like the apostrohe in your file name?

I used the manage attachments tab(which is something I always use) and never got banned. It definately looks like something is up with the save file here.

Are the ones that can using Manage Attachments, and the ones who get banned using Upload Files? If so, we have a workround.

Yes, that's the case.

PS. Maybe one of the upload systems doesn't like the apostrohe in your file name?

Ah, that could be it.

I see that I am up. This is I "got it". Will probably play tomorrow sometime.

I was thinking of making a dot map, but those barb towns are in pretty good spots! Possibly a couple future fishing villages: 1 north of the Fish and 1 NE of the Whales. There is one spot I like the looks of: in the west, southwest of the Sheep. Don't know if we'll beat Egypt to it, but it would be nice if we did.

I couldn't play tonight and won't get to it until tomorrow in the evening eastern daylight. If anybody wants to grab it before then please feel free.

(Plus I am paranoid of getting banned again. Are we going to rename the file without the apostrophe).

Cos, just use the manage attachements link and you'll be fine

Thunderfall PMed me and says the problem is fixed now.

It wasn't the apostrophe, just a sequence of letters in your file name triggered an alarm bell in the forum software. It's been dealt with..

How's it going Cosmichail? Do you need a skip?

Yes Soooo it appears I have my hands full for a couple of days with work. Sorry about that I just got bogged down.

OK, that makes mike up!

sooooo
Cosmichail
mike p - UP
Qwack - On Deck
pindicator
blid

OK. I've got it. Looks like we finish Alphabet and trade techs around.

Anyone have any direction or strategy for me here?

Well, with Monty and Izzy around we'll have to keep our power high with swords and axes. And if we're building swords and axes then we may as well take the barb cities rather than build settlers right now. As for next tech, we've got a choice of (a) poly and literature for the library, (b) head up to code of laws, (c) trade for mathematics and go for currency or (d) compass to trade for currency and calendar. I'd probably go for compass, but I'm not completely sure.

Well, I decided on Compass, since it should have decent trade value and it probably won't be prioritized by the AI.

Here were our choices, note that actually research time is about 1.6 X listed, since we're running a cash deficit.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m260/mikes_civ_shots/s-04/s04techchoices.jpg

I didn't build any swords or axes, I only whipped out two Quechas to deal with Barb archers entering our territory. Otherwise we're finishing Granaries for the most part.

My number one priority was hooking up Russia to our capital. The barb city on the river cut out our trade routes. One road built just outside the barb city did the trick by connecting to the river just upstream of the barb city. This meant 2 extra happy, and much health, and iron in Cuzco.

After Alphabet was done, the only thing we could get for it was Mathematics. We could also do an Iron Working for Polytheism swap, but that didn't seem worthwhile. I did trade Priesthood and Meditation to Vicky for Masonry, hoping that Construction would open up next turn, but no one has that yet either. 11 turns later, at the end of my set, we're still in the same situation. No one else has Alphabet, and the only techs they're willing to trade are Math and Polytheism, so I continued to hold Alphabet as a monopoly, even though it is a depreciating asset.

I also used the whip once in Moscow to get the borders popped sooner. Getting the Flood Plains Pigs working will mean that we quickly get the gold and 3 gem mines working too.

Here's Russia in 400 BC:
http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m260/mikes_civ_shots/s-04/s04snapshot400BC.jpg

A few points to note:

1. Novgorod will expand in two turns. The jungle over the wheat will be cleared by then and the wheat and cows are already roaded. There's a worker there for each of them, but you may want to consider taking the worker that just finished clearing the forest over the cows and moving him to build a connector road to the wheat tile. Once that road is done, he can help build the farm, then the two workers can also combine on the pasture without losing any turns since everything will be roaded.

2. Hatty just put a city down in the last turn or two 3 tiles from Moscow. Since she's creative we're going to lose at least one gem until we take her out.

3. Rice on an ice hill sucks.

4. I've been chopping jungles around Cuzco to help its health.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/56599/s04_400bc.Civ4SavedGame

I also changed the save game file name to s04 400 BC to avoid being banned by the board gremlins. Why take the chance?

Since we have a monopoly on Alphabet, how about Literature and the Great Library? Once Moscow pops its borders it would be a prime candidate for building that wonder. Cuzco has decent production as well.

We should try to scout out to the NE of St. Pete: those two irons look tempting for a production city. Hopefully there's a food bonus or two and a couple hills in the area.

Got it! Watch me lose some more 95% odds battles :mischief:

I am back and more time on my hands now. I noticed this has stalled a bit and Soooo I can play tomorrow (my day off -- finally). Let me know if I can jump in tomorrow sort of a delayed turn.

I think Qwack has it now, so I'd rather give him his full 48 hours first. But thanks for letting us know you're back Cosmichail :goodjob:

Played 10 turns.

I start off by checking our power. This is not looking good with Monty right next to us. I decided I would try to get some extra troops going in my turnset.

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/7048/civ4screenshot0001es5.th.jpg (http://img269.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0001es5.jpg)

Next, I checked the trade situation, but decided that for now, its better to just hold off. We probably have atleast a decent bit of time before the first AI gets alphabet, we should hold it off until they are about to research it themselves. The only tech ew have to trade is alphabet anyways. Confucianism is founded in distant land in 370 BC. Monty has code of laws but wont trade it yet. Both Loius and Hatty came to me for a math for alphabet trade, I declined both. I ask pleased victoria for 100 gold, which she happily gives :goodjob:

Moscow's border expands, and I take notice of this monter tile:

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/3950/civ4screenshot0009ya2.th.jpg (http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0009ya2.jpg)

7 FOOD! :eek: This is a great city and im happy we got it. Once it grows to size 6 or 7, we can easily work all those gold/gems and still grow at a strong rate. I whipped a swordsman in St.Petersburg and used overflow to get quecha. We have a sword and quecha in position to take barb city Usbek in 2 turns. Good thing I wont have to attack, I was expecting to lose both battles.

Ive started buddhist temple in St.Petersburg, I suggest going max food there and whipping the temple once we have 6 population. Compass is due in about ~15-20 turns depending on which tiles
we prioritize.

Save:

Seems like fantasy realm map is toroidal, we already wrapped north to south. And the empire is quite stretched in this axe. We are paying 22 for distance maintenance :eek: COL must be a priority in tech trading. Calendar would help us a good deal too.

I see that Monty is already pissed about border tensions and it would only worsen from now on unless we share a religion and that would give us 5 new enemies. Can we go raze/steal some cities from him before he gets longbows ?
We would turn short on things to build anyway so let's get an army (:whipped: ). There are aztec cities close to Cuzco so they should not hurt in maintenance as much as russian ones


We should explore more, like around those 2 iron deposits north east of St-Pet. Concerning tech trades, let's hope the AIs go for currency before alphabet, that should give us more trading flexibility. Those bastards are already using calendar resources

Victoria has currency already, thats how I begged for her 100 gold :). She also has CoL so my guess is she will have alphabet soon. If we can get Compass before victoria gets alphabet I think we will be able to pick up all tech's we are missing.

Go ahead and take it, Cosmichail. I won't be able to play until Sunday evening as it is.

Before we think about expanding into Monty, we need to pick up those barb cities.

Ok sounds good Pindicator and if ok with Soooo will play tomorrow am (eastern standard daylight).

Yep, fine by me Cosmichail.

Looking at the game and I see our science is pretty low and we are needing techs like Construction and Monarchy. I find with this tilted axis type games my video card for some reason displays a blackened area that doesn’t go away. The first picture I put up will show that. It makes it difficult to see what to do with the workers but I just go into the city and then decide what to do with the workers since in the city it displays properly.

I did not trade alphabet but considering our poor state of science I think that we should whilst we still can benefit from it.

On turn 1 we get world’s most advanced and its official our science blows.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g240/cosmichail/Civ4ScreenShot0565.jpg


Turn 1

Move Quech, sword across river to attack Uzbek.

Turn 2

Cuzco finishes BT starts sword.
Sword attacks Uzbek and loses at 87%
Quech attacks Uzbek and wins at 69%

Turn 3

Quech attacks Uzbek and wins (93%) against wounded archer
Vicky asks to trade incense for gems and accept

Checked around with AI’s and not much to offer but I don’t like the look of Monty. We should get our military in shape just in case he decides to attack. I think he should be our next victim.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g240/cosmichail/Civ4ScreenShot0566.jpg

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g240/cosmichail/Civ4ScreenShot0567.jpg

Turn 4

zzzz

Turn 5

Uzbek comes out of revolt and obelisk for border expansion.

Turn 6

Vicky asks for Alphabet decline.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g240/cosmichail/Civ4ScreenShot0568.jpg

Turn 7

Cuzco finishes sword start axe.

Turn 8

Workers doing their thing.

Turn 9-10

zzzzzzz

hier is zzzzzzzzzzz save……… not banned yet………..

hier is zzzzzzzzzzz save………

you haven't forgotten me :)

Very glad to see we got that barb city! One more to go (though there is a scary-looking sword down there that I hope doesn't travel north). I see Izzy has kindly decided to improve the iron city site for us while our city upkeep is too high to claim it ourselves. We'll let her know when we're ready to take it over. :cool:

Some observations that I'm making now just in case someone wants to jump in and play this before Sunday, which is when I can get to it next:

Economy: St. Petersberg and Moscow should be MMed for commerce. We'll be able to up our science to 40% in the black and get Compass in 7 turns or less (move Moscow's iron tile to the gold mine and pick up every lake tile we can; move two of St. Pete's citizens to work the lake tiles -- maybe even MM Cuzco as well, but I think we need the production there more).

I'd suggest founding a city on the shores of the ocean north of Cuzco. Put it one north of the fish (after we chop the forest of course). Being financial, the city will quickly pay for itself and then some, and it will not need defense as it is surrounded by friendly cities.

Trading: Again, Compass needs to be researched ASAP in order to catch up. We need CoL and Currency desperately: Moscow costs us 10gpt, Novgorod 12gpt, & St. Petersburg 8gpt. Those 3 cities are currently eating up 50% of our GNP by themselves! But I don't think we should trade Alphabet: I'd propose a run to the Great Library. If any AI picks up Alphabet, I'd trade it to everyone else, though.

Units: We do need some with Monty as a neighbor, but we are currently paying 5gpt for unit upkeep. Making too many will kill our economy even more. If Monty is the only one we fear, then Cuzco is the only city that needs a good garrison, possibly St. Pete's. Capturing the barb city is a priority. Here's a question: since the barb city is defended by archers and on a hill, is it more efficient to build a bunch of Quechas to assault it with or to build Swords? We'd need probably a dozen Quechas to take the city (22 hammers X 12 Quechas = 264 hammers), but we'd also need probably 8 swords (60 hammers x 8 swords = 480 hammers) to be sure to take it as well. There are certainly other factors than purely hammers spent.

Worker actions: right now we are farming a tundra tile at Cuzco. That is pretty inefficient. I'm sure there's something better for him to be doing. I'd consider building a road to be better, honestly. (Are those tundra tiles even worth improving? They will be 2 food 1 commerce tiles: wouldn't it be better to cap growth and run a specialist 40 turns eariler than waiting for our city to grow to work one extra commerce?)

Actually, there's a chance I'll play Saturday, but only if I'm not doing what I should be. :lol:

Any other ideas?

I would change from working the ice hill at Cuzco to work the FP incense, and stop working the plains cottage to hire a scientist. Then when the city grows again in 7 turns I would hire a second scientist there. Let's get an academy (EDIT: or philosophy slingshot if we need to catch up by trading).

I would work the gold instead of the iron at Moscow, and switch St. Pete over to military rather than a temple. Our hapiness limit is really high for immortal - we're lucky here.

And yes, lets stop farming the tundra.

About that barb city: It's pretty bad; very short on food despite having 2 food resources. I wouldn't worry about taking it. I would rather save our axes for Monty. There are some other good city sites left over, like a fishing village 2W of the whales. Should be low on maintenence and go well with our financial trait. Build a settler in Novgorod once its axeman is done? We also need to scout our SW and NE for any better sites.

Next tech? I'm not sure about the great library this game. Our cities are pretty low on production and we have no marble. I think I'd rather build military. Thoughts? Plus if we're not chasing the GL, we can trade away alphabet. In my experience, we can get loads of cool stuff for compass+alphabet together. Calendar, metal casting, construction, CoL, Currency etc. We'd have to trade alpha for maths first to see if anyone has currency and construction though. Maybe do that with Louis, because then even if no one else will trade currency or construction, then we can still get CoL from Izzy or Vicky for compass+alpha, and metal casting from Hatty when it stops being a monopoly for her.

Is the distance penalty for our Russian cities so high because of the world wrap? That is, is the distance being calculated along a line SW from Cuzco, rather than going NE over the edge of the map?

I agree with Soooo's trading plan. I think we should pass up on GL and trade alphabet + compass together.

Turns played, report will have to come tomorrow because I am so tired. I ran a marathon today, so you'll have to forgive me. But, I'd hate to leave you guys with nothing so here is a teaser:

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9313/s04125adwarzi4.jpg

Edit: Here's the save too, in case you guys want to pick it up sans report

Asperger..........never forget your sense of humour....

My video card really doesn't like these tilted axis maps as I couldn't see all that well with a blackened area right over Moscow/Novogrod. I find it hindered my play somewhat last time. I was able to view better inside the city but it sucks not being able to see the city outside the city. So if I erred with the workers it is likely due to the difficulty of seeing the terrain.

I played 14 turns to get us back to an even number. But it was busy enough to fill 20 turns.

We started by making the concessus changes: increase commerce and slider to 40%, start St. Pete's on military, stop farming the tundra. I'm still looking to the west at picking up the city site with the gold, marble, ivory, and sheep, but it looks kind of food poor. Maybe a coastal site right beside the oasis would work better?

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/812/s040085bcwestcityjg6.jpg

I keep shifting the proposed city location around, mainly because all the land tiles suck -- aside from the oasis plains hill and the gold grassland. This location seems the best one spot to pick up all those resources while also working a good amount of water tiles (which are better than the nearby land tiles). There's already a barb city in the area, most likely at the quesiton-mark due to the lone tile we can see.

I would put this city at a high priority so we don't lose the site to Egypt. Our south has also been filled up: to the west is the only peaceful expansion we have left!

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/3148/s040070bcfullsouthfz6.jpg

Izzy and Monty are such chums. Great minds think alike, or something like that. (I'd roll my eyes here if I wasn't already at the image limit.)

So I chummed along the first couple turns. I was building axes for the impending war with Monty (since he loves those Jaguars). I had the farm worker re-connect the road between Cuzco and the north (later he would chop the forest north of the Fish), and Novgorod was building a settler to claim the tile with. The proverbial poop hit the stereotypical spinning blade on my 5th turn:

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/6793/s040025bcthingsgetuglydc0.jpg

I had seen the barb axe coming and tried to lure it away with one of our Quechas while I moved in axes. But I wasn't able to buy enough time and Uzbek was re-captured. The axe to the south didn't waste in time in taking it back:

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/2658/s040010bcretakeuzbekxw5.jpg

I was very tempted not to take the city back: our GNP shot up when we lost the city! But long-term it was more valuable to get the city up and running, so we took it back.

At the same time, we were taking on Monty's invasion. He came at us with an initial force of 5 Jaguars and an archer. 4 Jaguars and an archer went north; a lone pillaging jaguar went south. Somehow I forgot to take pictures of all this, but the initial phase of the war had us attacking with Swords because that was all we had to attack with: still, a shock sword was ~80% to win, so of course it lost against the pillager. And the sword who came to mop up lost as well. Now Monty had all those Jags and we only had 2 archers and a Quecha in Cuzco. Not so good. I double-whipped an axe, using the spillover for 2 axes in 2 turns. The first axe killed the archer, mightily injured. The second axe killed a Jaguar...

then the next turn promoted to heal and killed another jaguar...
then the next turn promoted to heal and killed another jaguar...
then the next turn promoted to heal and killed another jaguar.

I wish I had taken screenshots of that! He's Combat III, Shock right now.
Here's the current situation against Monty's forces. His initial troops have been eradicated and he is sending in one or two at a time.

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/4300/s04125admontytheatrevk2.jpg

Our lone Axe is in danger from Monty's Horse Archer. I thought about promoting him to Formation, I thought about leaving him unpromoted, and I'm thinking now it might not be a bad idea to move the Combat/Shock/Medic axe out to cover him. Someone will have to do the math and see what is the best odds on defense, but maybe we should just leave it how it is and if the HA wins we'll mop up and kill it off. We're also short of Spears, so I'm making a couple of those throughout the empire.

It wasn't all warfare and blood and guts. I was very peaceful and loving and tried to get along with everyone. I even met a new friend:

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/7016/s040020adkublaibu0.jpg

Doesn't he look friendly?

I met him the same turn that Compass came in (20AD) and noticed that he was teching towards Alphabet at the same time. It seemed obvious to start making trades, so I did so immediately. My first trade was to get Math so we could open up all the other techs we so sorely needed. I traded with Lizzy because she was the tech leader and therefore seemed less likely to trade Alphabet to anybody else:

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/9562/s040020adtrade1ig6.jpg

That was followed on the next turn by these following trades over the next few turns:

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/8863/s040035adtrade2zb0.jpg

Looks like I cropped out the 230 gold that Louis gave us as well. Somewhere in here I know I traded Code of Laws to somebody for Calendar as well. So in total we traded Alphabet and Compass for:

Mathematics Monarchy Currency Code of Laws Polytheism Monotheism Calendar 550 gold

I probably shouldn't have taken the cheaper religious techs because of WFYABTFA, but I was drugged on the rush of getting as good a deal as possible.

I set our research to Drama because a part of my brain told me that was a tech the AI didn't research on its own so could be used for future tech trades. If it's a bad idea, nix it. Maybe we'd want to go for Civil Service now that we have some cash to burn?

Unfortunately, Izzy decided she wanted some of her cash back. The turn after I took her gold she made this demand:

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/1993/s040095adtributehb0.jpg

Of course I didn't want to be fighting a war in the north AND in the south at the same time, so I caved in and gave her most of her money back. But then 2 turns later!

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/7357/s04125adfooleh1.jpg

Obviously I was the fool. Last time I give her any money. Since I annihilated Monty's southern forces so easily, I didn't bother to shift units made in the north down south. We may actually get to take some of her cities because of it: Izzy doesn't appear to have any metals. She also doesn't appear to have any horses. The only unit she's moved in our territory is an archer next to the iron of St. Petersburg. I have an axe in the area.

In Novgorod we have 2 Quechas that can be upgraded to axes: they are both Cover promoted, one is also CR1. If we want to take an Izzy city we can, but it would come at the expense of deficit research (to upgrade the Quechas). I really like where Izzy put Salamanca; Novgorod is food poor to begin with and won't be able to work all of its tiles anyway. Salamanca also picks up the grassland furs, a lake tile, and a floodplains tile.

I have a bit of a beef with Novgorod's tile improvements. I understand we needed commerce immediately and that was why we cottaged its only floodplains, but the city needs food to work all of its tiles: that flood plains is going to need to be irrigated when our economy is in better shape. Fantasy Realm maps can be very food poor; we can't get away with just cottage spamming here.

The settler is due out of Novgorod in 3 turns: where does the city go? 2W of the Whales is the safe spot -- but how about the red dot I outlined above?

Finally: I didn't revolt us to Hereditary Rule. With us being at war I didn't want to lose a turn to anarchy. Plus, with Calendar luxuries now online we may not need to.

Well that was certainly exciting! Thanks for the detailed report Pindicator :goodjob:. Blid is up now. Can't look at the save right now, but the trading looks excellent. Good choice going for compass Mike.

Yeah, I love it when a plan comes together. Though Compass wasn't my suggestion, I just ran with it. And I can't believe I didn't get around to quoting Hannibal Smith in the Lambs SG!

Good job there, pindicator. Now do I have to face two immortal AIs together ?:help:
I nearly wrote a "got it" before realizing there's no save :p

I don't know if you'll have to worry too much about Monty, blid. His initial attack has been taken down; he's just sending units in 1s and 2s now. Izzy may be a problem: I don't see any metal units, but there are a LOT of hills in the north and if she comes at us with a bunch of archers we're going to need units defending our tile improvements: either that or attack at poor odds to prevent pillaging. I think it may even be possible to take a city or two from Izzy, should our economy be able to handle it. All the cities to our north are fringe cities on her empire, and so they are lightly defended. You'll be able to give us a good picture after your turnset, but I don't fear us losing any cities to her.

One thing I would do is make sure every border city has a spear. HBR is getting passed around the AIs.

What technology do we go for next? Civil Service seems like the usual choice at this part of the game for Beaurocracy. Maybe we could get "creative" with our tech choice and try to pick up the free great artist from Music. Get it? Creative? He he he :rolleyes:

Thanks for the details pindicator. I finally see that the save was in your teaser spot. This is official got it.

Going for music means we can't trade drama. I am sure one of those AIs can research twice faster as we would. Looking at the demographics, I see we are 5th in GNP ranking and dead last in all the other areas. Personally, I prefer to go civil service and trade for metal casting and machinery.

Concerning settling, IMO we should go to that red spot designed by pindicator first. I don't think it can work all its resources, but at least we will hook them for trading opportunities. Hopefully, Louis won't steal the fishing village from us

I would see if I can't start an AI-AI war. Right now, they are all peeking on us. I would try to turn us above Isabella in power graph. Why is Kublai saying "you declared war on our friend" ? is this immortal distortion ?

EDIT : the flood plains in Salamanca is icy and can't improved. Do you really want to keep that city. It would start with -13 maintenance like Novgorod

blid, I agree for the most part, but the flood plains can be farmed, even if it is on ice. Look across the river to St. Pete's - we have a farmed ice flood plain. It's still a pretty crappy city site though.

Nah, I didn't really think Music was a good idea. Even if we could do it, the artist won't get us much and the tech itself isn't needed for anything.

Salamanca is a town I would eventually like to grab. It's low on the list, though. It does pick up another luxury for us and the grassland furs is no slouch of a tile.

IHT : I emptied StPet moving the axe and archer to the barb archer.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset2/S04-01.jpg


He would probably go to the iron to pillage and I want the archer to finish him if the axe fails. Better one turn with an angry face than leaving the barb pillage and take promotions.
I also set Moscow to emphasize everything to accelerate growth, I would whip the courthouse there once city gets past its happiness cap

I upgrade the queshua in Cuzco to spear to deal with Monty HA next turn.

Turn 1 : Louis comes asking for 100 gold. I refuse. He is till cautious, but we took -2 hit. I check and he has enough on his hands too. I am taking spain reaction as example, he is probably already decided so

Monty HA attacks our axe and looses. The crossing river penalty helped us. I sent the queshua made spear to the north to deal with an eventual french attack. Louis has horses

The barb archer goes to the iron mine like expected.

Turn 2 :
I give our axe near StPet cover and kill the archer with 80% odds. Sent the archer back to play military police.
Louis has construction. If he attacks, it would be dirty
Hatty would go against Isabella for COL and monotheism. I keep this as a B plan for the moment. I want to trade for metal casting with her and it is still red
I send an axe to check terrain for the upcoming settler

I also drop the research slider to keep 110 gold for urgent queshua upgrading

Turn 3 :
Novgorod finished the settler and starts a sword. We need to attack cities if we want te get reasonable peace treaties
StPet : spear->sword

Monty sends another HA. I have an axe guarding our cottage.
Isabella sends an archer towards Uzbek. I send a queshua from NovGorod to deal with him


Turn 4 :
Monty HA suicides against our axe on the cottage. He was again attacking cross river because a forest is blocking the direct path.

Capital finishes a spear and starts a market. It is getting +18 commerce so the bonus would be nice

Turn 5 :
I change my mind about the marker and switch to a sword. Need to go on the offensive
Isabella showed with an axe and an archer in the north. She does have metals

Drama is in. I go for civil service. No interesting trades yet

Turn 6 :
I kill another HA from Monty
I doublewhip the courthouse in Moscow

Turn 7 :

Monty shows with 3 jaguars and horse archer near Cuzco.
Louis offers 30 gold for drama, so he would get it next turn. I refuse and check for opportunities. Still nothing to trade around. Hope Louis won't get anything from drama too

Turn 8 :
Kublai has enough on his hand too. Arghhh. Would it be us ? We don't even see his borders. Sure he has a better target, right ? How would we fare against 4 immortal AIs :run: ?

I position troops to deal with Monty stack

A barb archer shows near Uzbek, garrisoned by an axe. If he moves to the farm, I will attack with the axe. Since I am paranoid, I queue a queshua in case RNG hates me

Turn 9 :
Our settler is finally in place to find Tiwanaku. It was close, Hatty was sending her settler too, unescorted !!!

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset2/S04-02.jpg

The city starts on a granary

The barb archer just attacked at Uzbek and died.

Euh, about Monty. He is really serious about this war. I underestimated his remaining power, with me sending the spear north to deal with a theoretical french threat.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset2/S04-03.jpg


There's a total of 4 jaguars and 4 horse archers here. I queue new spear in the capital

Turn 10 :
Novgorod and Moscow finishes swords and start axes. Spain is starting to send axes north
Monty killed my spear with an HA. He lost an HA and a jaguar to axes and the remaining attack forces advanced to the capital

I whipped the spear in Cuzco and sent our axes back inside city. A horse archer would probably pillage our farm IBT.
Monty is finally willing to talk and I am surprised to see he is paying a good price for peace

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset2/S04-04.jpg

I like that city Texcoco



There is 2 archers, 1 HA and a jaguar there. A sword is going to Cuzco from the north and another sword is due in the capital in 2 turns. Once we deal with the forces inside our land, we can try to go for Texcoco. I like this city, it has many resources and the food to work them. It is close to capital so no big expenses

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset2/S04-05.jpg


OTOH, if Louis declares, we may as well take that peace treaty and send all our forces in the north

At the moment, I can see three axes from spain along with an archer and a spear. They are converging on Novgorod. We have a sword, axe and 2 queshuas there and enough money to upgrade one of them. We also have an axe and a sword who should get there in a couple turns.

I was torn during my turnset between making a big stack to start attacking and having small stacks on each side to be safe and deal with pillagers. I went for the second option. The two fronts being on opposite sides didn't help.

There's still no interesting tech trades, so I didn't bribe Hatty to the war with spain. Don't forget that option, especially if things turn grim with spanish war.

If you think we have enough forces already, you can switch Novgorod to a courthouse. I started one in StPet on my 10th turn when I realized it has resumed its buddhist temple. We really need to reduce that killing maintenance. I also hired a scientist in the capital, feel free to fire him if you think it's a bad idea. He would help with civil service though (still 45 turns to go :mischief: )

EDIT : attached save.

Great job on picking up that city before Hatty! We should make one more settler to pick up the site 2W of the whales: that will be a good commerce town as well.

I would like to take Texcoco, too, but it has walls and is on a hill. We will need cats before we take that town, and we don't have a one. In fact, we probably don't even have Construction yet, do we? I would take the Monty peace deal. In 10 turns we still won't be in a position to take one of his cities, and if he is dumb enough to pay us for peace then we should let him. Or is we really want to build up a force for that, then we need to bribe Hatty into war to tie up Spanish troops so we can focus on Monty. In fact, it may be worthwhile to buy in Hatty just to get some bad blood going amongst the AIs.

Wow that's a lot of horsies man. As usual Blid you put up a good fight. Louis and Kublai are with their hands full. That doesn't sound good and Blid you've called that before and were right.

Right, I've got it and will play today.

sooooo - UP
Cosmichail - On Deck
mike p
Qwack
pindicator
blid

OK, for being at war with two of the most aggressive neighbours in the game at immortal level, we are doing surprisingly well. 2 AIs (Louis and Kublai) will also declare on someone soon, let's hope it's not us. However, I make peace with monty for the deal that he offered to blid. We could have held off his current forces, but would have gotten our nice improvements pillaged. As pindicator said, we can't take Texcoco without cats. I hire 2 scientists in Cuzco.

T1: Bribe Hatty into the Spanish war for Drama+Mono. Most people have these techs anyway. She throws in 40 gold too. Upgrade axe at Novgorod to shock.

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/981/hattybribeyj5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Hopefully she will trade MC before she gets CoL.

T2: Our newly promoted axe kills an attacking Spanish axe. There are 2 spanish axes, 2 spears and an archer in our borders. I upgrade a quechua to an axe for 110 gold so we have a full strength axe in Novgorod.

T3: Our new axe kills another attacking Spanish axe. A mine gets pillaged here by a spanish spear.

T4: Kublai wants help with his English war. What English war? Ah, I see, he declares on Vicky later in the turn. This is good for us, hopefully it will slow Vicky down. I kill an axe threatening to pillage our cottage at Novgorod with our shock axe. No more spanish axes in the area, just spears to mop up. Hatty now has CoL so we can't get MC, which she still won't trade. Is she building colossus?

T5: Kill spanish spear and archer. Whip courthouse at St. Pete. Spot some french troops near St. Pete (2 HS and an archer), fear the worst and move a spear towards the city.

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/1456/frenchtroopsrx6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

T6: Sure enough, Louis declares war. Who decided it would be a good idea to play immortal against these aggressive AIs? Kill spanish spear.

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/3593/louiswaraq9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

T7: Louis starts a golden age, fantastic.

T8: A french HA attacks St. Pete, incredibly killing our C2 spear at 9% odds.

T10: Both french HAs attack again, this time the same spear kills both of them without a scratch. That's better. The archer runs home. Kill spanish axe. Take Salamanca, losing one sword:

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/3724/salamancatu5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Revolt to HR.

T11-13: Not a lot, no sign of more french or spanish troops. Izzy will sign peace and give up 60 gold, but I figure it's best to keep the war going because she will be suffering from WW and we get mutual struggle bonus with Hatty. Drama is widely known so I sell it to Vicky for Literature + 190 gold for more deficit research.

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/7730/vickytradeoq5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We should prob build the HE in Novgorod once its courthouse is finished.

T14: Monty demands 190 gold. Think about it for a long while and turn him down. We need that gold for deficit research towards CS to trade for construction, and are going to fight him soon anyway.

T15: 2 french HAs and 1 cat appear near St. Pete. There are 2 spanish axes near Novgorod, but we have some highly promoted axes there to deal with them. CS is due in 4/5 turns, and a scientist is due in 11 turns.

http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/456/empire500adwy9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Some people have feudalism. Not monty though. Vicky is most advanced, being the only one to have philosophy. We can prob trade CS around for construction, metal casting etc. I think we whip some cats and take monty on. His lands are close to our capital. We may need to reinforce St. Pete more against the french. Salamanca and Tiwanaku need culture, hopefully a religion will spread soon. I started a buddhist monastery in Cuzco, but maybe that wasn't wise.

Cosmichail: Are you able to play, or will your graphics problems hinder you? It must be pretty annoying playing with black tiles. I don't want to skip you if you can play because you've been a great servant to the team, but equally I don't want a team member to make mistakes because he's playing blind. Let us know.

Sooooo,

I updated my graphics drivers but still no change in the black tiles. I was hoping that would fix it. It seems to happen with tilted axis and occassionally I get a black area near the bottom in regular games but it's just in the mini display only and not during game play. I am looking into getting a better graphics card to play with the goodies too.

I don't like to make errors in judgement because of difficulty in ascertaining the terrain but don't like to skip so I will give it a go and just watch the terrain carefully by bringing the mouse to it and ascertaining the terrain type that way. A two front war is always interesting too and I do say we are doing well for immortal.

So this is "I got it" and will play later today.

Ok I started to play and tried different things to alleviate the blackened tiles. Nothing really worked other than panning in tight on an area which is too close for gameplay. I am finding it very disorienting and feel that I best let this go until I get a new graphics card. Might head up to Future Shop/Staples and see if they have any good deals on a 256mb card. For now I will have to skip/lurk until I rectify the problem.

Thanks Sooooo for the enjoyable play as usual and am honored being a loyal servant to the team.

EDIT: Sooooo, I do have Warlords now thanks to Veritass's gift. It runs good and boy I would love a game with a "Viking Blitz". Do those Berserkers Rock man they gobble everything up especially those Generals who gain experience. Had a Viking with 30% combat CRIII General Wings - gains 50% experience with every battle and amphibious. I kept saving him for 100% odds (didn't want to loose that sucker) and by the end of the game he had two lines of promotions.

Cosmichail: Sorry to hear about your computer issues. If they get sorted out, the spot will still be open to jump back into this game.

So that makes mike p up and Qwack on deck.

Good turns, sooo! :goodjob: I prefer to have the war in the north rather than around our beautiful capital. Hatty will keep our western flank secure if we can get her to friendly, so good call on keeping the Spanish war going.

Speaking of our beautiful capital, since we have a bunch of unused units there, perhaps we could send one scouting out southwest? Izzy has a town down there, and it wouldn't have much for corruption is it is any good (although it doesn't look like much). Plus it'd be nice to know the land.

Novgorod is already capped out on population at size 6. We are going to want to farm over that floodplain cottage now, and Machinery would be nice for some windmills -- well, as soon as the Spaniards leave us be. I agree with HE going here; this town will have nothing better to do for us than pump out military all game.

Whip Tiwanaku's granary. It's only growing at +1 right now. I would go for a theatre next to get some cheap culture there, and follow that with a lighthouse so we can work those ocean tiles.

We have unprotected workers doing tile improvements nearby enemy lands. With horse archers out there, that is asking for them to be taken. The north does look pretty weak on troops. I would set Cuzco on troop production; nothing wrong with the monestary build but it seems a negligable return for the hammers right now.

Any chance we can squeeze a settler out somewhere to settle 2W of the whales? Novgorod is already capped in population. Madrid is capped at happiness. Maybe Cuzco?

We can sell Monty Lit for 120 gold. He's the only one without it, and we could use the cash.

One thing I love about SGs is that they let you take a clean, hard look at a game every 10-15 turns. Not something that is easy to do in a normal game! So I'm not trying to berate play, I'm just trying to help us improve our position. (In other words, it's constructive criticism and I welcome the same on my turnsets!)

Edit: I just noticed this tidbit!

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/1038/s04500adnoironmontyjm8.jpg

Monty has no Iron! What would be the best time to leverage that to our advantage best? I would say Knights, because pikes require only iron, but we have no horses! Maybe we'll find some before we get to guilds?

Also, I suggest we sell our only rice to Hatty for 5gpt. The AI usually has more problems with happiness than health, and we have another rice we can hook up at Uzbek.

Some good points Pindicator. Only thing I would disagree with is whipping the granary in Tiwanaku. I was working the forest-hill instead of the coast to hand-built it and I think it only has 6 or so turns left, so I would keep it going. I'd whip a lighthouse though.

Agree with scouting and getting one more settler out for the whales+fish site.

Monty has no metals but does have horses, while Izzy has at least copper but no horses. I haven't seen any french troops which require metals, but he does have horses.

The north does look slightly weak on troops, but Izzy is just sending lone axemen around - which don't fare well against our combat 3, shock axemen. But we could do with reinforcing the french border.

EDIT: We are in HR now so our happy caps can be shifted around.

OK. I should be able to play this today. Sorry for the late Got It. I was playing the SGoTM and my own GoTM yesterday, and didn't realize I was up here too.

I'm having so issues with the PC as well, as you can see! (Double posts and such)

OK. Looking at the save, it might be beneficial in the long run to move the capital to Moscow, of course, in the long run we'll probably be overrun by AI anyway. I do send a couple of units out of the capital to level up on barbs SE of Cuzco and send the medic axe north where the action seems to be.

515 AD Our Spearman near St. Pete's kills off a French Horse Archer.

2 Barb archers approach our worker building a road to Tiwananku. That city will probably never be productive for us. For some reason the barbs skirt along Egpyt to make a beeline for us, and Hatty will take the city just to the north of it soon, which means that since she's Creative, she'll get the Ivory and Sheep in the overlapping tiles.

I also lose a Combat 2 Shock axeman attacking a Spanish Combat 1 axe on a flood plain. That was one of only 2 bad rolls this set, so that's OK.

530 AD A spear kills another French Horse Archer. But our swordsman dies attacking a catapult. Alas, bad roll #2. Our axeman cleans up the remains though.

545 AD Loius shows up with longbows. This is going to get not fun pretty quickly. I promote one of our axes to cover and really wish the Sword of St. Petersburg was still alive. He's got a longbowman and a horsearcher and I manuever to the hill tops so he'll have to go across the plains to get to St Pete's.

560 AD A barb archer assailing Uzbek is killed by one of the swords I moved out of Cuzco. We're spread pretty thin between Uzbek and Tiwananku.

575 AD Revolt to Bureaucracy. I haven't made any trades with it yet, figure I'd leave that up to the team. Pick construction next because a few cats will let us start decimating Spanish cities.

590 AD Monty demands that we cancel our deals with Egypt. I tell him no.

We have a spear and two axes opposing a French longbow and horse archer, neither of which is getting a defensive bonus since I've been camping out on the hills near St Pete's. We're only 30% to kill the longbowman, but I figure that as long as we wound him enough, we'll be trading an axe for longbow and HA. So I attack, we lose, but redline the longbowman. Our spear can pick of the Horse archer, and the other axe cleans up on the wounded Long bow. St. Pete's is safe for now though.

605 AD Actually, Loius sends a single HA to harass St. Pete's again, but our newly built spearman can reach him this turn and kills him.

620 AD Khan demands Fur. I give it to him, since we're already fighting two wars already.

And there are more Frenchies coming up from the south of Cuzco (A HA and a cat).

635 AD A Spanish Archer is in position to pillage a mine near Novgorad, but I can't do anything about it, since Izzy has an axe and another archer on our door and I only have 2 axes there. I'd much rather lose the mine than the city.

650 Monty declares war on us. On the bright side, after killing the two units Louis sent towards Cuzco, he's willing to give us 10 gold for peace, which is much more reasonable than his earlier offers of our giving him St. Petersburg. Isabella is also willing to give us 100 gold or so for peace, so it looks like we're wearing them down some.

I stopped here at 10 turns. I suggest we make peace with the French and Spanish and take the fight to Monty. Hopefully with a couple of catapults we can grab a few cities near our capital for low upkeep.

Do we want to trade Civil Service around?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/56599/HC_s_worst_nightmare_AD-0650.Civ4SavedGame

Agree with making peace with Spain and France and suggested. Only AI with CS is Kublai. We could get construction, HBR and feudalism for it, but I think we should hold off until someone is willing to trade metal casting.

We should whip an army and take Monty on. We really need some culture in Tiwanaku to get access to that ivory. And some reinforcements in that city against the barbs. Use the GS in 2 turns for an academy in Cuzco? Then we can assign the specialists back to food tiles for better whipping.

Qwack is up.

sooooo
Cosmichail
mike p
Qwack - UP
pindicator - On Deck
blid

Nice progress guys, ill have this played tonight.

sooooo, I meant to point out that we'll have a GS in two turns in the capital. Would suggest putting those scientists back to work in the fields once the GS arrives, but put them in commerce rich tiles. There's a town along the river that's going unworked, and the capital should get the most of bureaucracy that it can. Or does the bureaucracy hammer bonus apply to whipping too?

If we can spare a build there, perhaps we could sneak a missionary into the queue to pop the borders for the ivory, but obviously defense is the first priority.

Played 10 turns. This was a very diplomacy oriented turnset. Start off by pulling off a few deals. First, kill Isabella's archer on the hill, then declare peace. Heres how it looked:

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/6216/civ4screenshot0000bq2.th.jpg (http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0000bq2.jpg)

She has seen the light. Good girl. :rolleyes: Loius, do you see the light also?

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/5638/civ4screenshot0001su1.th.jpg (http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0001su1.jpg)

Horay! See, who needs war when we can all get along together. We will forgive you loius, because you gave us 20 gold. Now.. why dont you do this for us?

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/2631/civ4screenshot0003db8.th.jpg (http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0003db8.jpg)

Very nice. Loius, you are learning. I had checked to see what we can get out of civil service before doing this, and it wasnt much. Victoria was offering 50 gold, which meant she was probably about to research it. And we had nothing to research except metal casting, so I saw no reason in holding CS off. A turn later, Hatshepsut picks up feudalism..

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/4985/civ4screenshot0005gp7.th.jpg (http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0005gp7.jpg)

Me like it when a plan comes together. I bring our entire army from the north back near monty's border. Our weakened troops werent enough to hold off his initial stack, and he managed to pillage 2 tiles before I could kill it off. Metal casting researched in 740 AD, machinery next for maceman..

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/3012/civ4screenshot0007pe0.th.jpg (http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0007pe0.jpg)

Victoria comes to us and tells us to declare on Kublai. I decline. Loius and Isabella both come with offers for open borders(They both saw the light), I decline Isabella and accept Loius's offer. And thats about it, we have a decent stack getting ready to attack Texcoco, I chopped a theatre in Tiwanku and it will expand borders to pick up the ivory in 5 turns. Ive also whipped St.Petersburg for 2 population. I did not whip Cuzco though, it is producing a unit every 4-5 turns, so I really dont see any advantage in whipping it.

Save:

Good stuff Qwack. Pindicator is now UP to take the fight to the Aztecs, with a little help from the French. T-Hawk stated in another thread that maintenece costs on this map are much higher than usual because of the two wrapping axes. That's annoying, because the immortal AIs get big discounts on this cost.

sooooo
mike p
Qwack
pindicator - UP
blid - On Deck

Maintenance..

That's probably the black hole I see on my computer. The money pouring into the Quantum Singularity.

The game is going well keeping them at bay and hopefully take out the Aztecs. Am still lurking and following the game as I always learn something in Soooo's games.

I think our diplomacy has been great so far. The more we get the AIs angry at each other, the less chance they'll come after us. But it definitely is time to start taking it to Monty: I'll whip us up some catapults for an assault on our green friend. Will take a closer look at the save later tonight and post a game plan. I will probably have time to play tomorrow night.

(Oh, this is my got it)

First off, I want to give a BIG :goodjob: on the diplomacy front. Getting other AIs involved in war is absolutely necessary and very worth the techs. Turning France from an enemy into an ally brought tears to my eyes :lol: Okay, maybe not, but I loved the move.

There are a number of things we need to get done, and I'll try to do that during my 10-15. Here are my plans, which I'm listing in case the team wants to veto me.

Novgorod
This is a production town, and those cottages have no business being there. They were a good idea early on when our economy was barely being propped up, but now they are superfluous. I'll spare grassland one until I can get some irrigation there. I think soooo was the one who mentioned Heroic Epic here and I agree 100%. I'm swapping that town to go Forge -> Heroic -> Units until infinity. We'll do some chops here too to get the Forge and HE online quickly, because we really need the units.

More workers
We probably need 3-4 more, but I won't be able to make that many. And we'll want a settler, too, for that town 2W of the whales that we've only talked about doing forever. I'll try to get the settler + 1 or 2 workers in my turns.

Military
Our units are not the type that are used to take cities: axes promoted to shock moving against a city on a hill guarded by LBs?? :eek: And we've left ourselves wide open to a Spanish attack in the north. We really aren't in any position to take on Monty. I do agree that Texcoco is the next town we want to take, but it's not going to happen until we get maces and more cats. I'm probably going to shuttle some troops up north to defend and then produce/whip maces and cats. But I don't feel there's any plan here and I don't know entirely what to do with how little we have.

I'm looking at the Barb city to the west of Cuzco and it's not that bad: the pigs will be a 4f tile, the deer a 4f1h tile, and two lake tiles will be 3f3c with a lighthouse. Add in a grassland hill tile and two grassland tiles and this could be a nice commerce town for us. Something for us to pick up if we get the chance. Because Hatty is heading there with a stack right now!

Not sure about that barb city. The pigs and deer will both be 2F tiles. It would be nice to have, but I think Hatty will easily take it. Still, we should send a sword or two to see if we can snatch it.

I don't think we have to wait for macemen to take Texcoco. What we need are more cats - all cities on military should be on cats.

Our units are not the type that are used to take cities: axes promoted to shock moving against a city on a hill guarded by LBs?? And we've left ourselves wide open to a Spanish attack in the north. We really aren't in any position to take on Monty. I do agree that Texcoco is the next town we want to take, but it's not going to happen until we get maces and more cats. I'm probably going to shuttle some troops up north to defend and then produce/whip maces and cats. But I don't feel there's any plan here and I don't know entirely what to do with how little we have.

I think there is a good plan here. I think we simply have to risk Izzy not declaring on us and put our efforts into going after monty. There are only 2 longbows in Texcoco, but we only have 1 cat in the area. He will take a few turns to bombard the defenses, but once that happens we just have to lose a few units while taking the city. We have two CG2 archers around (in Cuzco) to stop it being retaken. We don't have enough money to upgrade our units anyway, so losing them while taking cities is not much loss.

I think we cancel the library in Nov and start the HE here. Whip Salamanca's granary too. I wouldn't farm over the cottages at Nov just yet, as we do not need the food until our mines are built. You are right about us needing another worker and settler - just not sure where to build them while we need cats. Olmec?

I thought pastures on pigs netted +3 food; chop the forest for the pasture and it's a 4f tile? Anyway, I finally played:

Started things off by switching Moscow to a Catapult, switching Novgorod to Heroic Epic, thought long and hard before deciding I wanted to go for a Lighthouse in Tiwanaku (but am not sure that was the right move yet), and whipped the granary in Salamanca.

Took a look at the diplomacy screen. Thought this was worth bringing up:

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/4499/s04800adbestbudsck1.jpg

Looks like Louis and Hatty are best buds, so maybe we should be friendly to Louis too? (At least for now?)

1) 815AD
Khan asks us to join in against Victoria. No thanks.
Izzy wants us to give up Feudalism + 40g for Horseback Riding. Um, no.

Hatty's stack disappeared? Guess they're not going after the barb town after all.

2) 830AD
Start St. Pete's on a settler.

Ugh, Hatty does something to sour our relations:

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8711/s04830adbyblostj0.jpg

Now we're going to need to push culture out of Tiwanaku. We will fight over the gold, but the sheep is probably gone. At least we'll be able to keep the ivory.

3) 845AD

Make this trade with Louis to help relations (and happiness):

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/9799/s04845adlouistradeww6.jpg

Louis is also short of Iron.

5) 875AD
Machinery is in. Set us to Philosophy (due in 8 at current pace), as only Victoria currently has it.

Tiwanaku's borders expand:

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/2915/s04875adhattyselespw7.jpg

And I doubt Hatty will have trouble taking that barbarian town.

8) 920
Texcoco just put out another LB, so I'm waiting for a few more catapults to arrive. In other news, Hatty is throwing everything she has at the barb town. I've got 1 sword in the area, hoping he can get lucky.

I also pull this deal with Louis:

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/4324/s04920adsellmachineryip5.jpg

It's not much of a deal, but it gives us cash to continue spending and hopefully improves relations with Louis, and everybody else seems to know it now.

10) 950AD
Ready to attack Texcoco. Here is the setup:

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/2589/s04950adtexcocopt1zb4.jpg

Sacrifice 3 catapults:

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/8448/s04950adtexcocopt2yd9.jpg

Combat II, Cover axe loses at 16%, knocks LB to 1.4
Combat I, Cover, Shock axe wins at 15%!!!
Sword wins at 97%
Cover Sword wins at 98%

http://img289.imageshack.us/img289/9644/s04950adtexcocopt3mv2.jpg

That went smoother than expected. Catapults and a little bit of luck made it possible. Speaking of luck, we're going to need it if we want to snatch up Cuman:

http://img289.imageshack.us/img289/8203/s04950adcumankh9.jpg

We really have no shot at it, but you never know. Also, Khan has a horse archer and a catapult in Hatty's lands to the west of Tiwanaku. Doesn't look like a proper stack, but he isn't too happy with us lately.

Monty won't take peace. Looks like we need to take a few more towns, but we're going to need more catapults. I've got a couple maces being built, and was planning on another round of catapults. St. Petersburg is finishing up a Settler. Cuzco also snuck in a worker. Novgorod is 12 turns away from the Heroic Epic.

For technology I was thinking of a run towards Liberalism. This is a game heavy on warring, so possibly we want to head for Guilds. I bet we could take Monty's horse resource (wherever that is) and start making some knights. Since Iron seems to be rare, there would only elephants to take those. Speaking of elephants, that should be the next job of the worker at Tiwanaku: connecting Ivory.

I played 10; should I have done 15? I'm too used to C3C SGs, even if I don't play them any more.

Nice job pindicator, axes taking down LBs is a rare sight
I'll check if there's other interesting aztec cities. Monty doesn't want to hear about peace anyway so we better make him change his mind. I'm planning to change the maces builds to cats. We don't have enough of those. We can upgrade a couple of our highly promoted axes to maces. Hope Hatty or Louis would help us with some money for that
Monty and Isabella are technologically backwards, can't you tell that they chose unwisely :lol: ? Speaking about that, Vicky should be treated as a pariah, no tech trading with her and if we can avoid, all other sort of trades too. Financial bastards, phewww. What nightmare did she come from by the way ? Did you play Vicky in an SG before sooooo ?

Yep, good work Pindicator. I like your plans blid - go get 'em! I did not play Vicky before, but her face is something that would appear in a worst nightmare.

Pindicator: Play 10, 15, whatever you feel like.

Good call on the cats, blid. I was a little star-struck by the prospect of building maces.

Sorry for keeping this so long, had some long work days lately. So here we go :

I start by switching maces to cats in Cuzco and Moscow like discussed. Hatty is willing to gift us some gold

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset3/01-Begging.jpg


I burn it immediately on an axe->mace upgrade. I do another upgrade with our own reserves. Theses guys are level 5 and 4, they better stay alive !!

Louis made peace with Monty. What cowards they all are. Someone out there finished the hanging gardens. We really can do with horses to go explore the remaining parts of the world

I start by regrouping troops and healing wounded units. An axe is sent to check the aztec city in the peninsula east of Cuzco.

We can trade gems for silver with Kublai. I check active trades and see he was getting fur for free. Probably a demand. I cancel that and make him pay fur coats with silver coins. Kublai has 5 spare sources of copper. He must have one in nearly every city :crazyeye:

Hatty just razed the barb city. Brining all that stack just to raze Cuman !!!

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset3/02-CumanInvasion.jpg


Don't know if we need to build a settler for that city or to grab it with the one planned for the fishing village. If the spot is left alone, Izzy would probably claim it

That city east of Cuzco, Tlacopan, is pressed by french culture, so I would let it be

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset3/03-AztecUnderPressure.jpg


When we get philo, the only tradable techs are theology and HBR. I hold on the tech. Vicky would trade it away now since it's no longer a monopoly but I think she has all the techs apart from music and Louis won't give it since it's monopoly. I go for paper since no one knows it yet.

Hatty came asking for free philo, I check and there is still no interesting trades so I refused. She is still pleased.

Izzy came asking for drama. This was more reasonable a demand and I agreed. Check her and she don't have antyhing on her hands. We are safe or should I say she is safe for now

I lost an axe to a horse archer attacking Texcoco. I hate when they appear out of the blue like that. The spear there should heal and be able to cope with future threats

Vicky wants me to convert to christianity. No way. She don't know I decided to ignore her in this game. Well, at least until she declares war or we do

Monty is willing to sign peace. He offers 10 gold. Go home

I whipped a market in Cuzco and started a mace after it

Texcoco is out of revolt and starving. A granary is not whippable so I whip a theatre. It would help us get the culture to grab the nice resources in the second ring. It is already paying for itself, with the expansion it would net us nice extra commerce

An aztec cat managed to get near Cuzco so I am forced to upgrade one of the archers to longbow to deal with him. Don't want him to pillage our nice villages

I start bombarding Tlateloco. This is a city with corn and pigs.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset3/04-Tlateloco1.jpg


I don't even bother to check what else is there, may it be all desert

I whip a forge in Uzbek. Lot of food there and not much hammers (forge was still taking 28 turns). But workers are there building a mine

I have decided to take ex Cuman site with the settler and see an egyptian settler. Don't know where she's going to settle. I checked the blue circles and they were 2 tiles away. I hoped she would go for it and sent the settler for ex Cuman on the hill

Kublai offered open borders and I didn't want to deny him. He is friend with Louis and cautious with Hatty so it should be OK. Still only HBR and theology on the trading table. What the heck ? this is immortal. Seems like the AI are struggling with the lack of food

The only serious counter attack on our stack in Aztec lands consisted of a cat, HA, phant and LB. Talk about mixed arms. Problem for Monty is that he had nothing to deal with maces in a forest. Our 2 maces handled it all and went out barely scratched.

Hatty annoyingly didn't go for the blue circle and settled ElAmarna before I can settle new Cuman.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset3/06-ElAmarna.jpg


I'm leaving the settler where he is. We have the option to settle on the coast 1south to culture press Hatty from both sides or just get him back to the fishing village. Hatty is creative, so it would be hard to do this. I switched to a theatre in Uzbek by the way to be safe. I started a forge in Cuzco but if we decide to settle south of elAmarna, we may train a new settler in the capital for the fishing village


Now, to Tlateloco battle :
The city is down to 0% defense, so I launch the attack :
first couple of cats got collateral damage and one retreated. The defending longbow is not scratched. The next couple got city attack and one retreated. Then all our units win and I take the city with last available attacker

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset3/05-Tlateloco2.jpg


See that clam. I love this city !!! The pigs are 7 food. Feels like national epic should go here, don't you think

Monty probably don't have horse archers nearby to take back the city IBT so we can reinforce it next turn. He is willing to pay this for peace :

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/S-04/turnset3/07-Peace.jpg


Don't know if we should take this or push over to get the capital. Horses may be there. In any case, Monty should not be a threat any more. I think this is time to decide on a long term strategy. If we want a domination win, we may leave Monty alone and go for a stronger AI. The only immediate option is Hatty since we don't have borders with Louis or Kublai. She is our best friend and a reliable AI (no backstabbing) so we may consider carefully before doing such a thing. We can