In a succession game a group of players signs up and rotates playing a number of turns then posting the save and a narrative. In this game turn sets are 15 turns. When the player before you posts the save, please post "OK it's my turn" within 24 hours, then post your turn set within 48 hours after that, but preferably much less for both if possible. However it's always fine to say "skip my turn this time".

This game is mainly for fun, but also to help develop the mod by discussing strategy in public.

Scenario

TAM 1.96, Normal Med Map, Illyria, Monarch, Epic
Victories enabled: conquest, domination, diplomatic
Permanent alliances enabled
variant: player may not sign a PA
variant: must declare war on Greece by 360 BC
variant: must declare war on Rome by 230 BC

Players

In order of rotation:
1. Hypnotoad
2. Shqype
3. SrWilliam
4. Dux_
5. schlappi (joined circa 0 AD)
6. Jet

Scenario Description

The basic idea is the Roman-style scenario of taking over the entire normal map. So time victory is disabled, because otherwise you just have to take over a few neighbors and you'll get a time victory yourself. (If time victory could be enabled only for AIs, that'd be fine, but it's not possible.)

I would have proposed Rome or Greece because they're centrally located and for a classical flavor. But I realized that Illyria is in the same location and would be a little more challenging without requiring a higher difficulty level. (On the other hand the Raider trait is very practical...)

I considered No Tech trading to keep everyone lower tech and because you can make a bundle of wealth by selling techs to the other 15 civs, but for playtesting purposes it's probably better to keep all diplomatic options open and the settings more default.

Allowing AI PAs is intended to possibly keep things interesting in the end game, as opposed to one big player mopping up the little AIs.

The requirements to attack Greece and Rome are just for historical spice (see Wikipedia). I would expect Greece to be attacked much earlier anyway. To clarify, the rule is that you must declare war on the civ at least once on or before that date, but otherwise you can do whatever you want. And you're exempted if on that date you're at war with the civ because they declared on you.

reserved.....

I'd be up for it. Sounds interesting. I'm more of a builder type myself, normally, so a domination victory wouldn't be my norm, but I'm willing to give it a go.

Cool :) Anyone up for this?

Count me in.

It would be fun to have 2 teams if there is enough interest.

Count me in too

OK, let's start tomorrow! (No worries if we get a slow start because of people not getting this message in time.) I tried to PM everyone on the roster so far. SrWilliam, would you mind enabling PMs?

I originally proposed enabling domination and diplomatic only. I'd like to add conquest as well - please post if you disagree. It probably doesn't matter, because it will should be much harder than domination/diplomatic. But maybe not! In a test game I found maintenance to be a big deal. So it would be interesting to see if conquest turns out to be easier than domination / diplomatic. You know, I have a feeling diplomatic will be easiest, since you only need a lot of population, not land... but we'll see.

So about the game...

It's possible to get all Dorian on Greece and rush it with tribal warriors. Here's one case where having CR on a warrior is not completely useless. On our settings we won't be able to reach Mycenae undefended; if we go straight there we should find one warrior and one worker. In one test game my first warrior had a 68% chance and auto-razed Mycenae; in another it had only a 35% chance and I had to mass-produce warriors to capture it at size 2. Either way I think the way to prosecute the strategy would be to settle in place, work a plains forest hill, and then mass-produce warriors at 5 hammers per turn, leaving warrior #2 as a defender and sending the rest to Mycenae, taking it whenever the ratio of attackers to defenders exceeds 2:1 or so. Well... it's cheesy, but I wouldn't mind if we went for it! Agamemnon's personality in this game... he always has five-foot broom up his ass. I wouldn't shed any tears if we didn't have to hear anything from him after the first contact message. Alternatively we could wait for Greece to build some settlers for us, but that would divert resources that we could use on other things. Another issue is that I'm not crazy about the starting tile for Mycenae - but two tiles west, that's an amazing spot, and worth considering, because if we're going to take over most of the map, we might want to favor city quality over quantity, because of maintenance costs.

Hypnotoad has suggested as a general strategy Hunting followed by a beeline for Masonry/Copper Working. In this game I'd like to at least start with Fishing to get a little commerce and help us grow Skodra and build Settlers from it, but I could live with delaying it. What does everyone think?

I never played Illyria before last night. I don’t think I did a very good job.

For Techs I went Tools, Wood Working, Pastures, Hunting, Animal Husbandry

Everything felt real slow but then again, I never play epic. Maybe fishing is a better opening for Illyria?

One thing I think I did fairly well was that I blockaded Greece with a bunch of warriors. My plan was to attack any settler that Greece marched into “my” lands. Turned out a Greek worker appeared next to my army of observation, so the war started early. I was building a worker when I captured the Greek worker, AH was not done yet and without road building the workers soon had nothing to do except chop settlers!

I built my 2nd city towards Greece such that it had the fish, 2 sheep and olives in the fat cross. (Plus some marble and tin later) I only see two other interesting city locations in the near region, a wheat/gold/horse city to the east and a crab/fruit city to the west. So my 2nd 3rd and 4th city would not be coastal, perhaps the conquered 5th a 6th should be? Perhaps Rome and Athens?

Other Observations:

The lack of happiness resources in the region makes an early religion tempting. This also makes the Sphinx very tempting but there is no stone in the region.

Illyria looks like a very interesting challenge. How do you guys want to play this? I agree that we should work towards some set of common goals. I guess we should decide now what type of victory condition we are going for? I am leaning towards domination/conquest.

Hunting may be a solid first tech if we are going to rush Greece. I’m fine with throwing everything at Greece but maybe we should let Greece linger a little longer in the spirit of the scenario?

OTOH, killing Greece before they get their UU and then killing Rome before they get theirs has its merrits. :)

I agree that we destroy Greece asap. Also, we need to have fewer cities as it's been said.

Alright, I'll send this in by Saturday night.

So, do we want to decide on a general strategy or see where each player takes us? I am happy to try to go stright for Greece or to try to build things up first.
Whatever you think.

Here's the initial save. I did indeed add conquest in addition to domination and diplomatic.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/SGQT-start.JPG

So, do we want to decide on a general strategy or see where each player takes us? Hopefully we can make that up as we go along. It would be good to keep a discussion running, but I'm not sure there's a big need to hold up the game to wait for opinions unless you want to. The Succession Games subforum has many examples of how other people have done it.

Sounds pretty good guys! I think taking Mycenae out early would be a good bet, but make sure to expand north (through Croatia and by Italy) to build a nice historical Illyria.

It would have been smarter to go for fishing first to allow the Illyrians to take advantage of their coast, but a rush for Kambsors will make a lot of sense if going the military route (which the Illyrians don't have much choice otherwise).

EDIT: Okay, the Strech/Skew thing worked [Okay, so I tried writing up a nice thing, but I'm having trouble with the images. I've saved screen shots as Jpegs. But the images are too big -- they take up the whole screen (go figure). How can I make a lower resolution shot to include in the write up? I tried using MS paint, but that didn't work...]

Alright, so I went for the warrior rush on the Myceans. First thing I did was pump all production into a warrior. Once the cow opened up, I moved my laborer there (in part to get the one commerce), but I was already working on my third warrior (counting the first one). (Here's an image I tried to make smaller but ended up just cutting away two thirds of it):
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/2057/screen06smallerhp3.jpg

I did decide to go for Fishing. Not my favorite opening, but the Illians do have a serious problem with commerce. When I tried a tools/lumberworking start in a practice game, it was insanely slow. I think we need to build some serious cottage farms soon. And tap some olive trees.

Once I had my first two warriors (the first one took five turns to build), I headed straight for the Greeks. Once I got there, I moved into the place where you can attack one turn after you declare war. Then I attacked. They had a warrior and a worker in a size one city. They had another warrior about four spaces from my capital and I was 2 turns from building a third warrior. But I knew they wouldn't last that long.


http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/426/screen082wk1.jpg

My first warrior died in the attack (chance of success: 30%). The second won, automatically razing the city and giving us the worker. I used the worker to say hi to the Lydians. With the city razed, we can put our own city wherever we like. I suggest our second settler should go for the pimp Greece location.

Alright, I need to run, but I thought I would write this up quickly. More thoughts on strategy later.

Edit for strategy: So the raider trait is quite awesome (it gives a free city attack promotion to all medium units). I have never played a raider civ before. I think we should go towards bronze working as quickly as possible. That will give us their Axemen UU. I would suggest actually perhaps skipping hunting and animal working. I know that sounds strange, but we are okay on health and production, so the cow isn't essential, and it would allow us to get to bronze working much quicker.

I did Alt-PrintScreen, paste into mspaint, Image=>Stretch/Skew (to 66%x66%; I was originally at 1280x1024), Image=>Attributes to 850x700, Save As JPEG.

Except for commerce, the Illian start is quite nice. Two big food bonuses and then lots of hills -- a real production center. The fish in a freshwater lake is almost ridiculous. Once we get fishing, we'll have a 3 food/ 2 commerce place even without the workboat. I assume we should go for a work boat before the settler. Thoughts?

It's already done.

The Illyrian capitol of Shkodra grew to size 2. A tribal warrior set out for exploration, only to be attacked by a pack of wild wolves. He killed them, and layed down to heal by the river. Upon learning fishing, the Illyrians began to pursue the knowledge of Pastoralism. Shkodra halted production of a cemetary and instead decided to pursue the construction of a work boat, which would allow for fishing in Lake Shkodra and better feed the citizens of the city.

Julius Caesar introduced himself but seemed rather annoyed. Caution should be excercised when dealing with his nation...

You're up, SrWilliam!

Edit for strategy: So the raider trait is quite awesome (it gives a free city attack promotion to all medium units). I have never played a raider civ before. I think we should go towards bronze working as quickly as possible. That will give us their Axemen UU. I would suggest actually perhaps skipping hunting and animal working. I know that sounds strange, but we are okay on health and production, so the cow isn't essential, and it would allow us to get to bronze working much quicker.
The kambsor actually replaces the spearman, check it out in the Civilopedia.

I suggest we do research hunting (not AH) to ensure that we don't get squished by a neighbor.

A city 2W of the ruins of Mycenae will be great, but first I'd suggest 3NE of Skodra, which blocks off Dacia and leaves room for more cottage cities down the Danube.

Dux is up!

T1- Took +10% combat star on the north warrior
T2- Cap size 3, worked plain hill forest to speed work boat
T3-5 All quiet
T6- Pastoralism done, research Wheel
T7- Boat done\cemetery, worked fish, and worked all squares for max growth
T8-10 All Quiet
T11 Cap size 4, switched to settler
T12-15 Toggled between grassland river and grassland forest so to get Wheel done one turn earlier without delaying the settler.

Sadly oblivious to Jets Hunting post, I was unsure what our next research goal should be, so I coped out and took Wheel. Soon our worker can do something. We are 2 techs away from Woodworking, 2 from AH and 2 from Pottery. So Dux will get to decide our early tech path and gets the choice of where to put our first colony. I am a woodworking fan, the timber near the capitol (plus the chop option) will give us a nice production boost. We still need Tools at some point and we may want to build more troops soon. I think the capital cemetery could have waited a few more centuries, it’s production may have been better used for a bunch more warrior war-deterrents.

If we go with Jet’s NW first colony I suggest 3NW,1N. This puts the 2nd city on the Danube, we get horse, timber, copper in the radius and lots more river squares for cottage spam. I am a big fan of a gold city to the west and a crab/fruit city to the north east. I guess I am proposing six cities as our core: two to the north east, one to the west and two to the very cherry spots to our south. Lock in the 6 cities, toss up a wonder or two and go beat on the Romans before they get Bronze Working.

SW

Interesting that you guys want to cottage spam; I have never done that as the Illyrians and have been pretty succesful!

If you want to go the path of the warmonger, and remain true to the Illyrian spirit, go for Kambsors. Our capitol is in a good position and we can move to expand militarily.

I agree that we should go for Kambsors as quickly as possible. I still think we should take a mild risk and skip hunting... Now that we've taken out the Greeks, I doubt we will get in a serious war before then.

But cottages are important to keep a military edge. Ideally we would have Kambsors before our opponents have equivalent units...

I decided to go for Pottery, I hope it's worth the gamble.

Turn 1 Wheel is a turn away.

Turn 2 (4060 BC) Our worker finally gets a job. Starts building a road north of Skondra. Agriculture is 13 turns away.

Turn 3-7 Not much to say.

Turn 8 (3910 BC) Worker finishes road north of Skondra.

Turn 10 (3850 BC) Settler's done. Switch working forest plain to river grassland. We grow in 6 turns. Set production to Warrior, should be done in 7 turns.

Turn 12 (3760 BC) Dyrrahu is founded where it'll give us wheat & horse. Work starts on a Warrior.http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/1245/sgqueenteuta1bfe9.th.jpg (http://img95.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sgqueenteuta1bfe9.jpg)

Turn 15 (3700 BC) Worker finishes road 1N 1NE of Skondra. I suggest we move him to hook up wheat. Dyrrahu should switch to tavern, since Agriculture just came in. We're -1 already on gold, so we need it. Skondra grows in a turn.

Jet, you're up.

The Council of Elders has spoken: it's Copper Working or bust. I did Pottery before Tools because we already have a worker.

I sent the worker to farm the wheat and built warriors and a settler in the other two cities. I sent the settler down to Greece and set the warriors to bust fog in the south to guard the settler and prevent barb cities from popping up.

I figure the first two cities can build taverns as soon as they have access to wheat, which is in 3 turns for Dyrrahu and a few more for Skodra. Sooner would also be reasonable - I don't usually wait for wheat to get hooked up, but I figure in this game we could use the warriors: behold the barb warrior near Dyrrahu, and the power graph:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-Power-3250.JPG

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-3250.JPG

So let's cut to the chase.

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/5549/screen03cf6.jpg

That's on about turn 11 or so.

What had happened earlier is that I had founded our third city down in the pimp Greece spot, built a warrior in our capital and then started back up again on our cemetary. I went for the cemetary rather than a settler because I wanted to build a worker as soon as we invented tools. But Ceaser put a stop to that.

I had sent our three warriors to scout things out a bit more -- one to the east to scout out Romania, one to the west to find Iberian allies, and eventually one to the north to see if the fruit/cattle spot was still available for settling. Ceaser attacked my scouting warrior that was in Austria or so (in the hills). My warrior survived and has headed east to heal in the forested mountains and to be on the lookout for approaching armies (he will see any units that come from south of the alps).

That left one warrior directly north of the capital.

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2425/screen05yg6.jpg

I started building a warrior in the capital (two turns to complete) and sent the warrior from the capital to defend our road between Skodra and Dyrrahu.

http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/767/screen06sd7.jpg

The enemy went to cut off our supply of cattle. Again, I moved to cut it off from the road to Skodra and I brought my second warrior into the hills to directly to the west of the cattle. The Roman attacked and killed my warrior in the hills. I then moved onto the cattle (and built a warrior in the capital). He attacked my cattle-warrior and died. There are now no known roman warriors.

A great debate took place in the council of elders. I argued that we stick to our course and learn how to master copper. We've come this far -- surely we can hold the Romans off a bit more. So I've started down that path, but fear for our immediate survival may convince the more short sighted to immediately research hunting :)

It's 18 turns for Copper working, 8 for hunting.

Turn 1 - healed Tribal Warrior in Shkodra
Turn 4 - Cemetary built in Shkodra, Harbor started
Turn 7 - Met Viritio, Dyrrahi built Tribal Warrior and began construction of Cemetary
Turn 12 - Shkodra produced Harbor, began construction of Granary

Not much happened during my turn; no battles and no sight of the Romans. Copperworking is almost researched, however. It would be nice to get another settler and then another worker out of Rome to better build up Illyria. I propose founding a new city northwest of Rome, since we've already been blocked off at the top by the Germanic Tribes and the area between Shkodra and the Peloponese is ours anyway. For the city in that space I suggest 3E and 1S of Jet's picture here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-3250.JPG), between the Fruit and Sheep and above the Fish.

We have enough warriors in the area to hold off against any immediate threat.

It's your turn again, SrWilliam.

I think it would be good to build some workers. We need to build up some cottages and connect our cities together. On the other hand, as soon as we get copper working we'll want to build weaponsmiths and Kambsors.

My own suggestion would be to build a weaponsmith in our capital and a Kambsor in our second city (in case the Romans show up). Then start on a weaponsmith in our second city. My only question is whether we should build a worker in our capital first. Probably not. I suppose that could be built down in Greece.

Oh, and I forgot to use the Tavern to expand the borders of our second city. If Shqype hasn't done so, you may want to SrWilliam.

Not much happened during my turn; no battles and no sight of the Romans. Copperworking is almost researched, however. It would be nice to get another settler and then another worker out of Rome to better build up Illyria. I propose founding a new city northwest of Rome, since we've already been blocked off at the top by the Germanic Tribes and the area between Shkodra and the Peloponese is ours anyway. For the city in that space I suggest 3E and 1S of Jet's picture

What about a city to the east of the capital on the river to take control of the gold and the sheep (and stop others from settling there)?

I wonder if we just want to leave empty the city space you suggest, Shqype. If we are going for a domination win, we need to be careful of maintance cost.

Ha, ha. The Germans are blocking the Romans from attacking us until Boat Building.

Shqype, I didn't understand what city plot you meant. Did you mean something like this site B? This dotmap is just an idea. We should hear the voice of the whole council on core city placement. F is iffy, but I'll refrain from posting an 800-page treatise on its pros and cons - for now. ;)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-2440-dotmap.JPG

I agree that as soon as we get Copper Working we should build a Smithy in Skodra (and then hire an engineer), and Kambsors. And more workers would certainly be good. But it looks like we'll need to be cautious with units, since we're at our free unit limit now, and I assume we'll want to research Masonry before Nature Cult and Tribal Law? (I think the free unit limit goes up with population however.)

I am fairly sure he meant your site C. Right over your C, NE of the Fish, East of the Olive, North of the Sheep.

I meant your site A.

How did you do the line drawing thingie? I tried to figure that out, but failed.

Also, is there a turn counter somewhere so I don't have to keep on figuring out how many turns have elapsed (after forgetting to mark them down)?

Zoom way out and click the leftmost button above the minimap ("Shows the strategy layer"). Then you can draw lines. Some people just copy and paste into paint programs.

I'm finding it hard to count turns, too.

I will run my turn tonight. I plan to toss up a new city, build a few workers and one or two Kambsor. I am not sure which city to build first.

Site C has the most long term potential.
Site A is essential for the Gold.
Site B/E is most likely to see a Dacian city soon.

If we feel strongly about a B/E city I think it has to go up next. It's a poorer location, I am tempted to say let the Dacian build this city for us.

With so few health resources hooked up, is it too early to build smithies?

> Site A has to most long term potential.
> Site C is essential for the Gold.
??? the Gold resource is near site A... are you referring to commerce from olives and cottages?

> With so few health resources hooked up, is it too early to build smithies?
If Skodra grows one more and builds a smithy it will only be at -1 health, which is no problem for that city. IMO early is the best time to build one smithy, anyway, because if your first great person is an engineer you can rush an early wonder. Since we've beelined for Copper Working we should have a good chance of it. Furthermore Skodra will be in a good position to build the Colossus later, if we want to try building it there.

My bad I mixed sites A & C, now corrected.

Lots of priorities, I would also like to quick-build a work boat in the capitol and swing it down to the Clam so the southern city gets quicker traction.

If we do the Engineer/Smithy trick, I think it should be with the Sphinx in mind, thus the great engineer would have to be done about when we get masonry.

Not that we should do this, but I have had a some success financing my early empire's by failing to complete wonders.

Jet, whenever I play I always take both B and C as cities; although C is more beneficial it may make sense to take B just so it's not taken by the Germans or Dacians.

I'de say that A is unimportant right now but might be a nice idea for a third city. But Hypnotoad brought up a good idea about maintenance costs if we're going for a Domination win.

PS - about this "High Council" stuff... It's a good idea to post ideas and discussions about what to do next so that we play as one coherent unit, but ultimately it's up to the player to play his turn the way he wants. Just keep that in mind guys. :)

PS - about this "High Council" stuff... It's a good idea to post ideas and discussions about what to do next so that we play as one coherent unit, but ultimately it's up to the player to play his turn the way he wants. Just keep that in mind guys. :)

Absolutely. It is interesting to see the different choices people make. The discussion should be interesting for people, not put pressure on you to worry about messing up (or whatever).

It's not even clear to me that we really need to play as one coherent unit. We should discuss overall plans, but I think it is going to happen (and it is not a bad thing) that priorities are going to shift between turns. Part of the joy of discussing overall plans is to see what others consider important.

For my part, I think we should immediately get to work on the weaponsmith in the capital. That great engineer is just worth too much. That could be a Sphinx!

I agree with you on that, but not for the Sphinx, lol. You get me that Great Engineer, and I'll build something nice ;)

The Colossus sounds better and would be useful for Illyria.

!?!

I'm flabbergasted. It's just... I mean...

:)

I decided to make our southern city Lissus a settler/worker farm and did some boldish moves to that end. :)

T1 Lissus, shift squares to max build Tavern
T1 Dyrrahu, hire artist, shift squares to max build cemetery
T1 Skodra, Allow growth (it was clicked to no growth), build workboat

T2 Bronze working done, Woodworking
T2 Capitol size 6, shift squares to max build workboat
T2 The Dacians build a city in our map zone E

T3 Lissus finishes Tavern, hire artist and build caravans (-2 food) for 3 turns so it’s boarders grow super fast)
T3 Lone worker finishes road, build cottage north of Skodra

T4 Workboat done, build 2nd workboat

T5 Dyrrahu grows to fat cross, cemetery done, build kambsor

T6 Lissus grows to fat cross, build worker

T7 2nd Workboat done at Skodra, build smithy

T8 Woodworking done, research AH
T8 Workboat #1 arrives at Lissus clams, work clams

T9 Workboat #2 arrives at Lissus fish, work fish

T10 Our lone worker finishes cottage at Skodra, now build Skodra lumber mill

T11 Kambsor done at Dyrrahu, build worker

T12 Hunting done, research AH

T13 Make sure the cottages are being worked

T14 Lissus Worker done, build harbor. My thought is/was to build the harbor to size 3 (then use Lissus as settler/worker factory)

T15 New worker puts farm on Lissus wheat. Perhaps this could be put to better use, olives? I thought the wheat would produce the most for the factory.

I'm sorry I rushed a little bit. Maybe Lissus should have grown to size 3 before building a worker. Maybe I was wrong to get the timber on line with our first worker. We are 2 turns to our first smithy. A few turns from AH, a 3rd worker and a half-decent settler factory. We can chop settlers if we feel the need. I hope I correctly judged the risks; I will owe the team an apology if a Roman fleet shows up and sinks the work boats. My attempts to make peace with Rome were rebuffed. Dux is up.

SW

No need to apologize SrWilliam; if Rome hits us then we'll just have to hit them back harder!

I'de say you did a lot during your turn and your micromanagement was very beneficial to our game. Thanks :goodjob:

Yeah, seems good to me. Our southern city could use a jump start, for sure.

Once we have the Weaponsmiths in place and some Kambsors, I think we should go to war! We have a huge military advantage right now with the Kambsors and raider. We could either go for boats to attack Rome or attack one of our closer neighbors.

Thoughts?

Who do you guys think is a good candidate for war? I kinda like the Dacians and they don't pose much of a threat right now ... Rome is already at war with us so it makes sense to me to just wipe them out early instead of attacking a neighbor and being at war with 2 different powers.

I think it would be fun to build a couple of boats and send what we've got into southern Italy and move up. How about you guys?

Strategically, I like the idea of taking out the Dacians because right now we are surrounded by other Civs. I would like to develop a hinterland that we could keep basically undefended. But the Dacians have those strength 4 hunters, so they might actually be one of the harder people to attack. And Shqype likes them :) Maybe we should wait for them to become more technologically backwards, then take them out.

So that leaves the Germans and the Scythians. The Scythians aren't that close to us yet. It would be ballsy and fun to attack the Germans to get to the Romans. But we would be in for a big war. Probably best to build up our boats and go sack Rome.

I'de say the Germans after Rome, if not the Dacians .....

If Rome won't make peace with us I think we would have to fight Rome.

If we want a safe small war I think we should make peace with Rome and fight the Germans and score some fruit/crabs.

If we want to slug it out and gain some material gains we should go for the Dacians. The downside is that I think The Dacian UU gets a big bonus against heavy units like the Kambsor?

The builder in me (if compelled to fight) would want to throw the kitchen sink at the Dacians so we can control the Stone resource near their capitol and also give us the opportunity to put a city down at the Amber/Beaver sweet spot that I think lies north on the Danube. I have this unnatural attraction to happy resources!

The builder in me also wants to hook up all our goodies and put up cities at "A" and "C" before war. :)

That's a good reason NOT to hit Dacia just yet. I say we destroy the Romans and build a better, enduring Rome. It doesn't make sense to me to make peace with them (Caesar will still be annoyed anyway and just might declare war regardless) so we can attack the Germans only to have to declare war on the Romans in the future. If we can take them out now, then let's do it!

The Kambsor, even though it replaces the Spearman and upgrades to the Armored Spearman, is a Medium unit, not countered by Javelineers or Skirmishers. It has no counter until Chariots. Heh, heh, heh.

That's also why the Kambsor gets the Raider bonus -- that works for all medium units.

I agree that SrWilliam's last turn put us in good shape economically, thumbs up.

I'll play my turn at night & post it.

We're waiting ;)

Turn 1 (2140 BC) Not much to say, Animal Husbandry is due in 4 turns.

Turn 3 Smithy done. I decided to go for an invasion of rome, gonna build up our forces. Training Kambsor on Skondra.

Turn 5 Started on Boat Building, due in 6 turns.

Turn 6 Gonna do something risky, Kummishuk has appeared near fish & pig, on a decent location, gonna try to grab it. Moves Kambsor out of Skondra. Btw, Dyrrahu is building a Settler. Unit upkeep keeps us at -3. We need Council of Elders soonish.

Turn 9 Lost a warrior trying to kill a warrior with 50% odds. Gonna wait for Kambsor to get there.

Turn 10 Boat Building Here, Research on nature cult.

Turn 11 Building Kambsor & then Galley.

Turn 14 Nature Cult here.

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/9914/sgqueenteuta2ef5.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sgqueenteuta2ef5.jpg)

Those are the good news & the bad news. Good news is the barbs built two cities for us, the bad news is one of the cities is not exactly on the planned spot. It's good nonetheless, IMO. Lumbermill should be hooked soon on the capital, after galley I suggest we build a holy site so it can grow, & we hook up cows. The Settler in Dyrrahu should go to spot C. Btw, we're waiting for the barb cities to grow to size 2 so we can capture them.

I think that besides losing a warrior in a rather silly way, it's been a decent set of turns. Jet, you're up.

Turn 1 (2140 BC) Not much to say, Animal Husbandry is due in 4 turns.

Turn 3 Smithy done. I decided to go for an invasion of rome, gonna build up our forces. Training Kambsor on Skondra.

Turn 5 Started on Boat Building, due in 6 turns.

Turn 6 Gonna do something risky, Kummishuk has appeared near fish & pig, on a decent location, gonna try to grab it. Moves Kambsor out of Skondra. Btw, Dyrrahu is building a Settler. Unit upkeep keeps us at -3. We need Council of Elders soonish.

Turn 9 Lost a warrior trying to kill a warrior with 50% odds. Gonna wait for Kambsor to get there.

Turn 10 Boat Building Here, Research on nature cult.

Turn 11 Building Kambsor & then Galley.

Turn 14 Nature Cult here.

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/9914/sgqueenteuta2ef5.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sgqueenteuta2ef5.jpg)

Those are the good news & the bad news. Good news is the barbs built two cities for us, the bad news is one of the cities is not exactly on the planned spot. It's good nonetheless, IMO. Lumbermill should be hooked soon on the capital, after galley I suggest we build a holy site so it can grow, & we hook up cows. The Settler in Dyrrahu should go to spot C. Btw, we're waiting for the barb cities to grow to size 2 so we can capture them.

I think that besides losing a warrior in a rather silly way, it's been a decent set of turns. Jet, you're up.


Good turn Dux, but it's Skodra, there's no "n," not even in Shkodra!

Turns 1-5:

Dacia settles site B.
Skodra finishes galley; I give it Sentry. Usually I'd give it the movement promotion, but the Adriatic is small, and the recon will help. I load on 2 kambsors and the combat I warrior and send them over.
Tribal Law finishes. I adopt Council of Elders and start Masonry.

Turns 5-10:

I chop a forest near Dyrrahu, intending to hurry its settler but actually hurrying the subsequent Kambsor.
Sentry galley reveals the capital of our nemesis. The Alt key says that the odds of a Kambsor against Rome is 96.9%. Nice. But I go south first.
Raiding party unloads and finds Cumae on a hill on the other side of a river. Kills a Javelineer defending a horse pasture, intending to circle around the south of Cumae, but is blocked by the coast and circles back around north.
Kummukhu grows to size 2 and is persuaded by a Kambsor to join the Illyrian empire.
Albanopoli settled on site C.
Lissus finishes its Holy Site and starts a Lembi. The Lissus olives get a grove.
2 of 4 barb warriors leave Hyksos, the barb city at site A, and move towards Byzantium (exploring?) then reappear in Hyskos; I think they just moved back but it's possible that two new ones were built.

Turns 11-15:

We meet Phoenicia.
Scouting galley reveals Sicily to be unsettled.
Pyrrhus of Epirus is adopted in Skodra and sent to prove himself by leading the invasion of Italy.
Raiding party sets up camp in the woods outside Cumae. At 72% odds (what happened to my %$#@ 96.9%?) the uninjured Kambsor raids Cumae in a frenzy of warrior spirit, but fortune does not favor the bold.
Dyrrahu accidentally grows past its happy limit while building a Holy Site.
Dido urgently requests mighty Illyria's assistance in their crusade against the Tartessian! Mighty Illyria? Well, if you put it that way... I agree in order to cultivate trade relations later. May both our peoples profit from our continued friendship.

Finish:

6 turns to Masonry.
I notice to my chagrin that Skodra has not been running an engineer. Dddddddd'oh! I hired one in the save, anyway.
1 warrior and 1 Kambsor are camped outside Cumae, with Pyrrhus and another Kambsor just off the coast.
There are a lot of troops in the nearby Dacian cities. I fear we'll have to keep more of our Kambsors home for defense.
Albanopoli is stagnant while building its tavern. I left it that way, and I often go stagnant in order to build a work boat ASAP, but I think it was a mistake in this case. It would have been better to work the fish and get the 2 commerce right away, or maybe go stagnant to build a work boat instead of a tavern. In Albanopoli's case it's not like there's any big rush to pop its borders.

It's interesting. We have competing priorities.

We don't have enough Kambsors to defend ourselves or take Cumae.
We probably don't have enough workers.
We have a barb city in our backyard.
We're finishing Masonry in 6 turns. Personally I'm pretty sure I'd trade every other wonder for just the Sphinx, Lighthouse, and Colossus, but I don't know. And I think our expansion is going to delay when we get Bronze Working.
Seeing Southern Italy, I'd be inclined to keep Cumae, since it's so well positioned.
Should we grab the clam/crab spot in Sicily before Carthage does? We can't afford it, and it misses the olives and fish, but it provides a bridge that will save a turn or two when ferrying troops to the West. And if we want to trade with Carthage we can't go razing their colonies.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-1825-Rome.JPG
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-1690.JPG

The Barbs and the Dacians were nice enough to put up two ideally located cities for us. :)

What do you guys think about keeping Roman cities?

My gut says we should burn most of them to the ground as it may be too early for the long range maintenance but Cumea is closer to our capitol than an number of our cities.

At this point in the game the only far away city I would keep would have a new happy resource or new strategic resource.

One empire that is little remembered in history books is what was known as the "Roman Empire." This is the story of their demise.

A new leader was put in control of the Illirian Empire. He immediately decided to focus on infrastructure:

The worker near Albanopoli is removed from the olive grove and starts building a road towards the capital so we can have a great north-south highway. Switch to making a worker in Lissus -- our naval defence will come afterwards.

Meanwhile, the second wave of Kambsors land near Cumae. I realize we can't take it in one turn. I make one crucial attack with a Kambsor at 78% odds against a 2-star Javalineer. I win. This lets my Kambsor get city-attack 3 and makes all of his remaining Javalineers 1-star. The next turn I do the same thing with a brand new Kambsor at 72% odds. He gets City-attack 2. It's now over -- I've weakened him and strengthened myself. I take Cumae on the 6th turn or so without a single loss, gaining a worker.

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/1848/screen06jh3.jpg

Meanwhile, back on the home front, we finish Masonry and start on mining (to get Sappers, wells as well as access to Copper). I start making the capital and our southern city (Lissus) into wonder-producing centers. By the end, the capital has a holy site, one greater population and a carpenter. Lissus has a lighthouse, a carpenter and is working on the great lighthouse.

I sent the Kambsor built in the capital to Italy. I built a second Kambsor in Dyrrahu and have kept it for defense.

So, having taken Cumae, I heal, leave a Kambsor and a warrior in Cumae and then bring our fearless leader and two Kambsors up to Rome. I find just two javalineers, three archers and a couple of warriors. I think: I can take this. One Kambsor has city attack three, the other city attack 2 (our leader is a heavy unit, so has trouble when there are Javalineers).

Then a brilliant thing happens: Rome decides to send out a surprise attack by ship on Cumae of one Javalineer and one warrior, taking these from Rome.

http://img480.imageshack.us/img480/9995/screen09ca4.jpg

I take Rome over the next three turns. Cumae loses its horse pasture and a bit of population, but is basically okay. Here's the picture of our hero killing the final archer:

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/9717/screen11df2.jpg

I keep Rome. It just has a great location. We can burn others.

Meanwhile, I finish completing our north south highway, which is an amazingly good thing for health. Crabs and clams and olives from the south; wheat from the north (the southern wheat wasn't connected by road) and soon cattle and sheep for everyone.

http://img468.imageshack.us/img468/6158/screen10bv6.jpg

So that's how I leave things. Rome has just been captured. I haven't really started building anything in the capital. Right now I have it on the Illyrian Citidell. Here's why: after 33 turns we should have a great Engineer, yet it would take 50 to make the Sphinx. So I thought we could Make the Citadel and the Sphinx both in the capital, thus making an Engineer-breeding ground. I have just started on the Great Lighthouse down south. I just started researching Exploration (so we can get Open borders and extra trade routes). Perhaps that should be writing, instead. I have a Kambsor just outside the Gold barbarian city.

Whew.

Good turnset, HT. Why not Bronze Working? You aren't paranoid about the Colossus?

I guess I don't consider Colossus as high priority as other people do. Sea squares just never generate as much commerce as grassland/cottages, so I rarely am trying to get commerce from them (although it is a nice boost, of course).

Also, I think we have enough wonders on our hands right now. I felt like we needed some boost to our economy, which an open border agreement (with trade) would definitely provide. Also, this way if we get the Great Lighthouse, we will have an open border agreement to use it with. Right now only one of our cities isn't costal.

My inclination would be to not build on Sicily and rather try to have an open border agreement with Dido. Of course, that can be tricky -- she is a bit isolationist.

Also, Shqype: one of the cities needs to have its artist turned back into a worker, now that it's borders are expanded.

Bronze working also is over 30 turns of research. I think we should have libraries and/or foreign trade first.

PS: If people really want the Colossus and someone else builds it, we will just have to take it from them.
PPS: With exploration we can trade goods between Italy and the Balkans -- Wine from Italy, wheat from the Balkans..

Mmm. On this map there's a lot of cottagable grassland, and we're not Financial, and we don't have a big need for the new military units.

Good job Hypnotoad.

Lots of guns and a side order of butter. :)

Turn 1:
Replaced artist from Albanopoli with citizen
Set worker to build route on Timber near Dyrrahu
Attacked barb city of Hyskos with Kambsor (3 barbs left)
Kambsor destroyed Javelineer near Cumae, hooked him up with City Raider 3

Turn 2:
Dyrrahu completed Carpenter, began production of Granary (to increase growth rate and counteract health penalty from Carpenter)
Attacked barb city of Hyskos with Kambsor (2 barbs left), hooked him up with City Raider 2

Turn 3:
Lissus built Carpenter, started on the Great Lighthouse
Julius Caesar asked for a peace treaty; I gave it to him. I figure 10 turns to build up Illyria and heal our army before advancing. Plus, he had a transport galley enroute to an undefended worker near Albanopoli
Scythian city built between Hyskos and Kummukhu, taking the gold
Set worker near Lissus build a road to link up Clay
Had Pirro i Epirit destroy Tartessian Tribal Warrior near Rome

Turn 4:
Hyskos captured by Kambsor and fortified by a Tribal Warrior; 65 gold added to the treasury

Turn 5:
Nothing

Turn 6:
Nothing

Turn 7:
Worker connected Sheep to Albanopoli, which now takes advantage of them; growth in 9 turns
Hyskos built Tavern
Dyrrahu built Granary, production changed to Kambsor

Turn 8:
Lissus worker to build a Copper mine

Turn 9:
Reduced research rate to 50%, loss of 2 gold per turn
Had Skodra work the Harbor plot instead of the forest plot below Timber to help gain more commerce
Had Dyrrahu work a commerce plot instead of a production plot to the left of the city for more commerce. Growth in 6 turns now instead of 8.
Had Lissus work a sea plot with clams instead of the southernmost sheep plot; now +2 commerce and growth in 3 turns instead of 9
Had Albanopoli work a production plot instead of the main city plot; Workboat complete in 2 turns instead of 3

Turn 10:
Nothing

Turn 11:
Peace treaty with Julius Caesar is over!
Tavern constructed in Kummukhu, Lighthouse next
Workboat constructed in Albanopoli, Granary next
Workboat consumed to work Albanopoli fish
Fish plot is now worked instead of production plot at Albanopoli, +2 commerce and growth in 4 turns
Research rate increased to 60%, loss of 4 gold per turn; Exploration in 5 turns

Turn 12:
Worker moved next to Dyrrahu to finish last stretch of route to Timber

Turn 13:
Kambsor trained in Dyrrahu and fortified. Smithy next.
More experienced Kambsor with City Attack 2 is sent from Dyrrahu to Skodra; enroute.
Two workers begin to build Copper mine between Skodra and Dyrrahu

Turn 14:
Cumae grew to size 2

Turn 15:
Albanopoli grew to size 2
Research rate reduced to 40%, allowing for a profit of 3 gold; still 1 turn to Exploration

State of the Illyrian Union:

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8592/stateofillyriaki9.th.jpg (http://img98.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stateofillyriaki9.jpg)

The Illyrian Empire is currently at peace with all of its neighbors save the Tartessians. There has been no sign of further threat from the Romans, although the peace is uneasy. Dacia seems to pose the biggest threat to the security of Illyria with Peltasts not far from the Daco-Illyrian border. Exploration will be researched next turn and the Kala (Illyrian Citadel) will be built in Skodra in under 7 turns. Hopefully the secrets of Exploration will allow for a better economy to enable Illyria to further expand its borders.

EDIT: I guess I must have played a little more than 15 turns ... I notice that the biggest indication of this is the peace treaty with the Romans, and then it expiring less than 10 turns later. The peace may have been signed a turn before I stated it above, but that still leaves a turn or two of "nothings" that I didn't keep track of. Oh well.

EDIT 2: Sometime during my turn, Dyrrahu and Lissus grew to size 7.

Looking good. Expenses are certainly rearing their head! Well, the peace treaty with Rome was a good call, but I don't think the Romans have fully grasped the nuances of Illyrian revenge just yet. According to the scenario rules we have to declare war on Rome at least once, and it might be best to hit them while they're down and don't have a defense against Kambsors. We could go in pillaging, and try to raze cities if they're weakly defended enough. I think it could be done with Pyrrhus and one or two Kambsors.

At our current population we can support 2 more units, and even if we prefer to continue paying zero unit maintenance, we can disband warriors as Kambsors get built. Even a Kambsor that garrisons an inner city increases our power rating and decreases our chance of being invaded at an inconvenient time. I think I'd put the smithy in Dyrrahu on hold and loop Kambsors instead. Also without fresh water or a harbor I think Dyrrahu might be health-challenged later, and the smithy in Skodra is fairly close by. The sapper would also be good: if I'm not mistaken it can be used as an impregnable tile defender as well as for scouting and bombardment, which may be cheese, but using exploits in this game can help show where the mod may need adjustment.

Since we have clay we should take a shot at the Tower of Babel. Even if we don't get it, the hammers we spend will get converted into gold at a 1:2 ratio because of the clay bonus. That's a good investment! Try it in Skodra?

Since we're about to get 8 commerce per turn from Exploration I think we can afford to move some citizens onto production tiles. Skodra and Lissus can certainly afford to starve down while building wonders, although it would have to be managed carefully, especially in Lissus because it doesn't have a granary. Also if we mine over the Lissus forest hills now, the Lighthouse will get both the chop and the mine production.

Well, now that we have access to copper, I would suggest we not build any Kambsors without a smithy -- we want them to get that +10% copper bonus.

Since units can be trained in one city and then sent to a "royal armory" in another city for supply, I'm not sure what you mean.

I did not know that. So should we try to send our units from Italy back for re-armament?

I won't explicitly state an opinion about that, but I think the poor defenseless Roman Javelineers might get lonely if they have to wait too long for the company of our Kambsors.

Think of the Javelineers!

How does the Royal Armory work? Do they need to spend a turn there? I would suggest rotating units through the capital one unit at a time. But whatever people think, of course.

How does the Royal Armory work? Do they need to spend a turn there? I would suggest rotating units through the capital one unit at a time. But whatever people think, of course.
TheLopez helped me write the smithy code; all a unit has to do is pass through a city with a smithy and it will automatically get the best available promotion, if applicable.

One case that doesn't work (or didn't as of a few versions ago) is when you use the Unload button to unload troops from a ship into a city. I assumed that was a bug...

I ran an economic turn while preparing us for phase 2 of a Roman war. I may have run a turn or two long as the Engineer is built in Skodra; I left him for Dux.

T1- Changed northern Dyrrahu to the Tower of Babel

T2- Copper hooked up, for the rest of my turns I marched most of our troops from everywhere through the Skodra smithy to issue new advanced equipment. Exploration done, bumped research up to 50%, research Dynamism because slavery rocks! Hired an artist for Kummukhu.

T3- A Tavern done in Cumae, build a work boat. Hired an artist in Cumae.

T4- Converged workers on Dyrrahu to build mines, thus chopping forests for 68 hammers to Tower of Babel.

T5- Kummukhu gets a fat cross, continue lighthouse. Dido offers open boarders, I except this and I give her a fish. Perhaps this was a mistake as the fish did not improve our relations? Illyrian citadel done in Skodra, build Kambsor.

T6- Dynamism done, revolt to Slavery, research writing. Rome finishes burial mound, build Granary.

T7- Slavery saves us 5 gold, bump research to 60%. Whipped the Lighthouse at Kummakhu. Build workboat.

T9- Kambsor done in Skodra, build Sapper.

T12- Sapper done in Skodra, Build merchant vessel. Rome grows to size 5, whip granary.

T13- Rome finishes Granary, Tavern

T15 Merchant Vessel done, build another merchant vessel. Writing is done research alphabet, so we can trade tech with Dido and set us up for mathematics and a potential the Hanging Gardens. Great engineer is done!

That’s it; there are 7 elite units in Rome all ready to plunder what’s left of the Romans. I suggest the Sphinx goes in Skodra so we stack our free engineers. I suggest we build the Hanging Gardens there as well for the same reason. The Sphinx will help our lack of happiness and at the same time allow for some merciless whipping!

We need more workers. Our southern cities could use a little TLC. (and whipping!) Kummukhu remains a very vulnerable poorly defended frontier city. I built a work boat in Cumae only to discover (when Cumae’s fat cross grew) that she already had a work boat on her clams. :(

We are in first or second place in all key demographic categories.

SW

Dux is up

Very nice! I probably underuse slavery.

I assume city-states with Sphinx. Gotta love that free specialist. And I agree about the wonder-stacking.

So there is a general issue I don't know how to deal with: the AI settles so quickly. If we raise cities, another Civ will try to re-plant them about as quickly. I assume the way around this is to try to work from the edge of the map. Any thoughts?

Ok, here we go.

Turn 1. The rule of the dictator Dux has started. Rome whips a tavern. Hyskos whips a tavern too. Kummiki whips a work boat. Built Pasture at Cumae. Sphinx will finish on 1 turn in Skodra (got that it's without "n" :p ). Moved sappers towards Antium. Its only defended by a Javelineer & an Archer. I declare on Rome on my next turn. Moved our two workers & our warrior near Dyrrahu one tile south so they can chop & build another mine.

Turn 2. Sphinx completed on Skoda. Revolt to Republic. Right now I would prefer to have bigger cities so we can get better production & more whipping power. I declare war on Rome. The mighty Illyrian Republic will punish those Roman's arrogance. Not much else to say.

Turn 3. The Illyrian Republic moves it's mighty Kambsors north. Thank to Republic we're running 60% research, Alphabet due in 10 turns. Skondra will build a lighthouse now. The Illyrian navy sinks a Roman birreme.

Turn 4. Skondra finishes Lighthouse. Starts on a kambsor. I'll try to settle Sicily before Dido does. Merchant ship arrives at Carthage safely.

Turn 5. Worker finishes on Albanopoli. Goes to finish grove on olives. We capture Antium. Pyrrus & a Kambsor are promoted for their bravery. We keep antium, it's a good location & it already has crabs.

Turn 6. Bad news, someone built the tower of Babel before us. We do get alot of money. Switch research rate to 100. Killed Warrior northeast of Antium.

Turn 7. Moving towards Ravenna. It's on a decent location. Kambsor built on Skodra. Switch to settler.

Turn8. Not much to say.

Turn 9. Ravenna is taken. I know it's not the best spot, but I totally hate having another civ city there. It should be a decent enough city in a while.

Turn 10. Roman Birreme sinks out exploring Lembi. Moving towards Neapolis soon.

Turn 11. Disaster!. Romans land near rome, which happens to be only protected by a warrior. I desperately whip a Javelineer in hope for a miracle!.

Turn 12. Miracle happens. We manage to keep Rome. However, Decebal declares on us. Help from our capital has to return. We'll eventually manage to do ok, but right now we're slightly overstretched. We kill the Romans sieging their former capitals with some luck. We're sieging Neapolis.

Turn 13. The Dacians are moving towards Dyrrahu. We're stable on Italy. We built the Great Lighthouse on Lissus.

Turn 14. The Dacians pillaged our lumbermills & mines. Sorry guys, there was nothing I could do about it.

Turn 15. We capture Neapolis. We haven't lost a Kambsor yet. We whip another Kambsor at Dyrrahu. We will hold on to this city, there's enough garrison there, plus two Kambsor on a forest ready to counter attack. I settle on Sicily. It's an undefended city now, but as soon as we can kill that annoying dacian peltast we should send that warrior over there.

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/4651/sgqueenteuta3aw0.th.jpg (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sgqueenteuta3aw0.jpg)

It's been a nice set of turns on the west, crippling the romans beyond recovery. We shuld raze Arretium which is on a bad position, & we could keep Pisae, which is north of where Venice should be, but maybe we should raze it. I suggest we finish off the romans now while they're still weak. The issue now are the Dacians. Those Peltasts are a pest, but I don't think they'll cause that much trouble. I'll leave Jet to sort out my Dacian mess, sorry for overstreching us.

So the flamboyant dictator steps down. Jet, you're up.

lol Dux. Skodra (got that it's without "n" ). But then, Skoda and SkondraBe consistant, man!

:p

Anyway, nice turnset. I knew the Dacians were going to declare on us sooner or later; there was nothing we could do about it. At least you managed to keep all Illyrian cities. I hate when people conquer my cities!

Let's see what warmonger Jet does with it ...

Some other things. I'm cutting some wood near "Skodra":p so it can be put to use on the Oracle, since next turn we get Polytheism. Otherwise it would be a waste of tech, hopefully not. I think we can keep the Dacians at bay & still build the oracle:mischief:

Some other things, I refused a war against Gaul that Viriato asked, I think it was not prudent to war just because Viriato wanted it, plus I don't think he's a reliable ally. About the war vs Argantonio, lets see if we can at least make him give us Archery on the peace table, so far he won't do it. We can make peace with Caesar, but like I said, don't, please wipe him out, we got everything ready for it.

Btw, whoever turns avoid growth on, please say so. I thought something was wrong with the game, cause Lyssus wouldn't grow! Anyway, I figured it out at turn 15, so we lost some growth there, sorry.

I have found the more wars the better in the current build of TAM. It is the only way to have open border agreements and, eventually, tech trading. As things are now, the enemy of your enemy is your only friend...

I noticed that Dido cancelled our OB - I guess she must have declared peace with Tartessia during the last turn set ?

I adjusted some of the builds to emphasize granaries and workers. We were working on some buildings in cities that I didn't think would benefit much from them - like a library in Albanopoli even though it was only pulling 11 beakers at 100% science, and a Holy Site in Hyksos even though it already had 20 culture and was 3 points under its happy limit (admittedly I guess Hyksos was fighting a culture war for the gold tile, though).

When Poly finished I started Heroism and the Oracle at Delphi, which I successfully built/chopped in Lissus and got Currency as the free tech (it and BW were the two most expensive). When Heroism finished I started Urbanization, which together with Currency will allow us to build Caravan Houses. Those will be big bucks because not only will they pull 3 commerce each, but they'll also (if desired) enable us to switch to City States and hire a merchant in each city while remaining in Slavery. So basically 7 commerce per city. It is a bummer, though, that Harbor (+50%) plus Caravan House (+25%) plus Seafaring (+20%) = +95%, which pre-Warlords gets ROUNDED DOWN. With Currency I started on the Riches of Kroisos in Lissus. Unless we get surprise-attacked we'll definitely get the Riches because we're so far ahead on that tech branch - even at the end of my turn set, Rome is the only other civ that even had Writing. Illiterate savages.

Oh, did I say "had"?

In Italy I razed Arretium, but left Neapolis undefended and to my great dismay failed to notice the Tartessian warrior who razed it. I later made peace with Tartessia because Carthage was no longer fighting them anyway. But looking at the last two saves I saw that over the last turn set our city maintenance rose from 27 (10 distance + 17number of cities) to 54 (22 + 32). I declared peace for 90 gold, Archery, and Mathematics, and then gifted Ravenna back. 10 turns later I extorted 20 gold, then declared war and razed both Ravenna and Pisae on the next turn. And THEN - then - Julius Ceasar came to fully grasp the nuances of Illyrian revenge. It might have been more strategic to leave him a city (like Ravenna - heh), but what can I say - we've very solidly achieved the Greece and Rome scenario goals. High five. In Southern Italy I was pestered by a Peltast near Cumae who I never got rid of. At the end I whipped all the builds in Italy, so Hypnotoad now has a clean slate there. The elite raiders are at the top of the Adriatic, ready for whatever. There's an enemy raider near Antium.

After getting Mathematics I whipped an aqueduct and started the Hanging Gardens in Skodra. We're 9 turns away now. If desired, we should be able to get it without whipping, because of the writing thing. Skodra would be a fitting city for the Heroic Epic...

Decebal's stack "of doom" cracked trying to attack Dyrrahu and split up. I skirmished along the border for a while, trading a few units, then got peace for 240 gold. I would have liked to invade Dacia, but I was busy in Italy, and...

Partua declared war. Kummukhu was defended by one tribal warrior, and Partua had Bronze Working! Luckily his attack has been extremely feeble. Right now I'm trying to lure the armored javelineer outside Dyrrahu onto the undefensible wheat tile, and have a garrison in Kummukhu and reinforcements on the way. I suggest we raze Byzantium and hook up the gold for our own bad selves.

Aeetes asked for Ceremonial Burial and got it, which temporarily got him to Pleased, but that was right before Patrtua attacked and he wasn't connected to our trade network, so I put off asking for OB, and later when he was connected to our trade network, the prick didn't want OB any more. I also refused:
- war with Gaul for Germanics
- war with Gaul for Iberia
- Boat Building to Iberia

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-Roman-demise.JPG

I just realized that with Alphabet and Currency we can start selling off techs. It would be good to keep the rest of the world low-tech, but if we wanted to sell some tech now, we could get to Urbanization and Caravan Houses faster.

We lost Neapolis!. Yikes :(

Shoot...

I installed 1.97 thinking that I have 1.96 backed up. I don't seem to. Anyone know where I can download 1.96. Or if you have a copy of it on your hardrive, you could just email it to me at ebrey at humnet dot ucla dot edu

We lost Neapolis!. Yikes :(I know, sorry. :(

http://download.yousendit.com/40B52F645D403668.

There you go.

Thanks for the file.

So since things seemed a bit dishelved I just cleaned up my turn.

The major problem I saw was a lack of Open Borders. We really need these to make the most of the Great Lighthouse. So I started making friends, mostly through trading surplus happiness and health resources. This also made us a fair amount of money. Then I declared war on Viriato so we could become friends with the Gauls. I ended up bringing down urbanization from 20 turns to 9 turns through open borders and raising science rate (through money from resources). We now have open borders with the Gauls, Hiram, Aeetas and Dido.

The AI started trading us techs. We got Mysticism for writing (only time I traded writing). We sold tribal law for a fair amount of money a couple of times. We got Chariot Warfare for something dumb from the Guals, I think. And we got bronze working for urbanization and something minor from Aeetas, who has been our best friend so far. I had a fair amount of money so upgraded warriors to Axemen and a few Javalineers to Armored Javs. We can upgrade Kambsors into Armored spearmen, which isn't really worth it (unless you need extra defence).

I destroyed that obnoxious Scythian city near our gold.

I redistributed our units in Italy so they provide more coverage. I brought our hero and our two best Kambsors to the Black Sea. They now stand outside the Scythians westernmost city (with its deer and silver!) with a group that can clearly take that city. But now that Scythia has Bronzeworking, it isn't clear how easy the whole war will be.

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/893/screen02mf9.jpg

We finished the Hanging Gardens and now generate 11 gpp, all engineer, in the capital (with two engineers on duty).

I am researching Geometry to make sure we get the great person (one turn left). I request we get Genius of Archimedes since we will soon have two great people. Perhaps we should go for a religion next? Oh, we met Babylon, which founded Mesopotanian gods.

Alright -- oh I took a couple of moves on this turn and then realized it was your turn to go. So sorry about that. Oh, and we have a couple of deals that are just like fish for 1 gold (to help our relations). If you see that they have more money at their disposal, by all means cancel the deals and get better ones!

"They now stand outside the Scythians westernmost city (with its deer and silver!)"

That city should have fur as well; it's a keeper in my opinion. Let the happiness roll on in!

Fur, Silver, Gold and Wine will help the cause nicely!

Oh, and I have to say that I found our population rather depleted. This seemed like a vicious circle -- it takes a long time to build things now because we have fewer people, which perhaps encourages further whiping. Remember that population takes a while to build up... I tried to spend my 15 turns building up the population a bit. Perhaps we should try to be a little lighter with the whip, only using it for ordinary builds when the population is at the happy cap?

I did do one whiping -- a smithy in Rome so we have one in Italy now. I forgot to bring our southern Kambsors through Rome though... Oops.

Also: we will have tin in 2 turns. It's re-armament time.

@Hypnotoad: Agreed, we have a high happy cap and could benefit from large cities. Key buildings, race wonders, emergency troops, but after that maybe not so much. Also nice job on the resource trades, I'm bad at that and it's good to learn that it's a way to get open border agreements in TAM.

And certainly agree that we should keep fur/silver!

I'm up next guys, and I prefer to have high pop as well. I never use slavery to be honest, so I'll probably be changing that civic to something else instead.

It seems I have quite a few things to do, so it should be fun to play out my turn :) I won't be able to post until tonight because I'm at school, though. Just letting you guys know.

I would say just don't use slavery. Well the option is to switch to the unlimited artists/merchants/scientist civic. I don't know if that would really get put to use and it is a medium upkeep civic rather than a no upkeep civic. But perhaps I am overlooking its usefulness. With that civic and city states we could have a merchant in every city. Beware of happy cap if you switch to city states. We may want to wait till we get that silver and fur.

No whipping is fine with me, I mostly use it when a city is unhappy, we should not have that problem for a while now.

Dacian culture may take our silver. :(

Then maybe we should destroy the dacian civilization?:p

Slavery is especially useful in small cities (eg, if we raze some and settle one in a more optimal location) because they benefit from getting key buildings (like granary, tavern) quick.

Slavery can also be useful in captured cities - if they're unhappy because they're foreign, you can whip away the unhappy citizens and get a building/unit or two.

And also for emergency defense units.

I'm not necessarily arguing that we should keep Slavery, I just want to state some benefits it buut have for us. Like HT said Patronage could be useful with City States, as an alternative. However I do still want to encourage us to build Caravan Houses because they're awesome and also allow a merchant per city even without Patronage.

I think he question is how far to push into Scythia before taking on Dacia. Eventually I think we should occupy its capital and probably the penninsula but for now if desired we could either ignore it or pillage/raze it and take a rebuilt version later.

EDIT: I think that ^^^ was unclear... what I meant was, EVENTUALLY we should occupy its capital and probably the penninsula. But what to do now, that's the question.

My instinct is to leave Dacia alone and try to take out Scythia -- reduce the number of wars we have. The two reasons I can see to go for Dacia:

It is closer.
They don't have Copperworking yet (is this true?).

Turn 1:
Reduced research rate to 50% (+23 gold per turn)
Attacked Scythian city of Sarmatia with Kambsor; destroyed spearman with full health
Attacked Sarmatia with Pirro i Epirit; destroyed Archer, hooked up with Combat 3

Turn 2:
Researched Geometry; went on to pursue horseback riding (+1 road movement will be useful to more quickly move troops throughout our empire)
2 Great Engineers born in Shkodra!
Kambsor built in Kummukhu, Caravan House started
Hooked up Tin with roads

Turn 3:
Destroyed boatload of Scythian raiders landed near Kummukhu
Kambsor destroyed Armored Javelineer in Sarmatia
Second Kambsor destroyed an archer, captured Sarmatia, and a worker; hooked up with City Raider 2
Research razed up to 60% (+3 gold per turn)
Connected gold to Hyskos and Lissus double production of speed of Riches of Kroisos; done in 5 turns

Turn 4:
Rome built something, Caravan House started
Hooked up elite Kambsor with Combat 2 after defending against a Scythian Armored Spearman
Great Engineer used to rush Genius of Archimedes in Dyrrahu!

Turn 5:
Dyrrahu completes Genius of Archimedes, begins on Barracks
Research rate raised to 70% (-16 gold per turn); Horseback Riding in 2 turns
Landed a Kambsor and an Axeman in the woods near the Scythian capital Kul-Oba; detachment from Sarmatia enroute as well

Turn 6:
Library constructed in Shkodra, Granary next
Harbor constructed in Cumae, Caravan House next

Turn 7:
Horseback Riding researched; going for Burial Grounds and then Priesthood so we can discover "Olympian Gods" as Illyria's religion
Lissus completed Riches of Kroisos, started on Caravan House
Sarmatia to build a Holy Site (for culture and happiness)

Turn 8:
Aetes asked me to declare war against Babylon; I did to keep good relations
Shkodra built Granary; Heroic Epic started
Albanopoli finished Caravan House, began Grocer
Barracks built in Antium, Lighthouse started
Have a nice stack of attackers led by Pirro i Epirit outside of Kul-Oba
Lembi destroyed Scythian Bireme
Scythians dropped a couple of Axemen outside Kummukhu; had them destroyed

Turn 9:
Harbor constructed in Valona; Lighthouse next

Turn 10:
Viratio offered a Peace Treaty for 160 gold; I took it since we weren't doing anything anyway
Dido asked for war against Tartessia; I took it, but cancelled the free copper we were giving her
I continue to hack away at the defenses of Kul-Oba; now down to 16% fortifications

Turn 11:
Germanic Empire asked me to turn back on Dacians; I said no.
I attacked Kul-Oba with a Kambsor and destroyed an Armored Spearman; defenses down to 11%

Turn 12:
Dyrrahu built a Barracks, so I continued with a Chariot Archer
Another Kambsor destroyed an Armored Spearman in Kul-Oba; defenses down to 5%

Turn 13:
Decebal asked for Bronze Working, I wouldn't give it to him; he's pretty mad...
Burial Grounds researched! Priesthood is next, 1 turn to go
Rome constructed Caravan House, Harbor next
Antium constructed Lighthouse, Library next
Valona constructed Lighthouse, Burial Mound next

Turn 14:
Priesthood researched, Olympian Gods founded in Lissus, Advanced Bow next
Lissus completed Caravan House, Grocer next
Holy Site completed in Sarmatia, Obelisk next
Lembi sunk a Scythian transport galley with 2 archers and a settler; haha

Turn 15:
Government restored, Olympian Gods adopted, Composite Bow researched in 3 turns
Kul-Oba captured!

State of the Illyrian Union

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7360/illyrianunion268bcxf0.th.jpg (http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=illyrianunion268bcxf0.jpg)

Economically speaking, the Illyrian Empire is doing quite well. It has a few wonders at its disposal, along with a Great Engineer tucked away at Shkodra for a rainy day. With a 70% research rate, the Illyrians are only losing 9 gold per turn from their 401 gold treasury; but they are technologically advancing. The Scythians have but 2 cities left and can soon be wiped out. Perhaps it would be better to sign a peace treaty and temporarily stave off their destruction to better prepare against the growing Dacian threat. Not only is Decebal angry towards Illyria, but he has stacks of Peltasts amassed in Dacian border cities; Dyrrahu, Skodra, and Sarmatia are all at risk, in that order.

It would be wise to concentrate on military defense at this point in time, focusing Illyrian efforts on units capable of causing collateral damage with a bonus against the Dacian Peltasts. Composite Archers would be ideal for going against Dacian Peltast stacks because they cause collateral damage and have a 75% attack bonus vs. skirmisher units. Until then, Chariots and Kambsors will have to do.

The Babylonians are furious with us and refuse to accept peace. Thankfully they are far away and pose no threat to us as of yet. We are also at war with the Tartessians, but they once again do not pose a threat.

Shkodra builds the Heroic Epic next turn and will be able to quickly produce experienced military units. I recommend using the Illyrian capital's resources to prepare for the Dacian war.

Nice turn. Good to have our own religion. How easy would it be to finish taking out Scythia? I think it would be nice to be done with them. There is still a lot of ancient Mediterranean to conquer. (I think if we keep the city on the peninsula and burn the inland one we would be less likely to have to deal with settelrs.)

I've never really used archers much before, but it does sound like they should be useful here. Should be interesting.

Very little happened in my turns

For research, I finished Composite bow, researched Construction for +50 work rate and started Epics.

I built a few chariot archers, a few kambsor and a few composite archers. I love chariot archers they are so hard to kill.

I fortified the Dacian boarder by walling our cities and building up the army. Builds in other cities emphasized money and happiness. I walled in a few boarder cities.

The Scythians are no more. I captured the Peninsula city and plundered the last on my 15th turn.

Against the odds, Lissus built a great artist. I figured it was destiny and used it up in Sarmatia. (the silver/fur city) With +4000 culture we now have our silver!

I could not decide how to use our great engineer so I didn’t. Albanopoli has started the Aristotelian Theatre perhaps the city could specialize in building great artists. I am not very good at making great people factories.

With a little redeployment we could start a Dacian war. The Scythian wing of our army could sneak through the secret Carpathian mountain pass if we want to start the war sooner.

Only one nation talked to me. Egypt demanded alphabet, I did not want to piss her off so I gave it to her. :(

One final look at my save I noticed that we should send some workers to Skodra to upgrade a few squares. Hyksos could also use a few workers. Cumae is building a workboat for the Valona crabs.

The game should be a cakewalk the rest of the way. I guess we should have played at a higher difficulty level.

Olympian Gods founded in Lissus
:cool:

The Scythians are no more. I captured the Peninsula city and plundered the last on my 15th turn.
:goodjob:

The game should be a cakewalk the rest of the way. I guess we should have played at a higher difficulty level.
Agreed! I'm not sure what to make of that. Is TAM "too easy"? (Maybe deserves its own thread...)

Albanopoli has started the Aristotelian Theatre perhaps the city could specialize in building great artists.
Well.....the way great people points work, if you have multiple cities producing great people they have to be fairly even in terms of GPP/turn, otherwise the ones that lag behind will never catch up. Even with the Aristotlean, Albanopoli would have to run a lot of artist specialists to keep up with Lissus. Even Skodra will have trouble keeping up with Lissus's GPPs without National Epic... Hmm... I'm not sure we can really afford the following (need military, etc etc) but if we could, this might make sense:
* Skodra - Temple of Artemis (2 priests = 4 hammers for units with Heroic Epic, and 8 GPP to keep up with Lissus, even though it pollutes the engineer pool)
* Albanopoli - Mausoleum (helpful for a domination/conquest strategy?)
* Lissus - Aristotlean

I could not decide how to use our great engineer so I didn’t.
Whatever we do, it might be nice to save one engineer for Plato's Academy; ideally that will go in a high-commerce site which therefore would have to be low-production.

About TAM being too easy... It might have something to do with the fact that Vanilla civ has a huge bug in the combat system that makes the AI fight poorly. Discovered by TGA and then Firaxis. Firaxis has fixed this for Warlords. Sorry to interrupt your succession game. Good job by the way.:goodjob:

I find TAM much harder than Vanilla Civ or the old version of Fall From Heaven II (.15). The new version though, with the combat fix TGA pointed out, seems substantially harder. I wonder how hard this is to put in to the non-Warlords version of TAM.

Hey Drtad -- you could still take the 5th slot if you wanted (at least, it is fine by me. I can't see why others would mind).

I think the real challenge for the rest of the game will be to keep the maintance costs under control.

-- HT

If DrTad doesn't take it, i'd gladly join for spot #5...

Just read the whole thread, Illyria seems to be prospering under your dic... err, rule!

Turn 1. Did some changes on builds. Stop building walls where it wasnt necessary. Rome switches to lighthouse, so does Albanopoli. I'm gonna put emphasis on growth, we want to have more pop, I also might start the Dacian war, but Gaul might also be a concern, & a personal priority. Sarmatia switches to carpenter.

Turn 2. I'm planning to settle on Sardinia, should be a productive city. Lyssus switches to Temple of Artemis. Cumae finishes work boat, starts on Barracks.

Turn 3. Finishes Epics, starts on Architecture, we want another free engineer. Also, I had to gift Alphabet to Kolchis, didn't want to waste all the good relations the others nurtured before me.

Turn 4. Rome finishes lighthouse, starts on settler. Valone switches to Carpenter. Moving troops towards the Dacian border. Since we're getting a free engineer, I used ours to build Hadrian's Wall on Skodra, so we get more 2 more GPP per turn.

Turn 5. Hadrian's Wall finished, Skodra returns to National Epic. Cumae finishes barracks, starts on Axemen.

Turn 6. Samatia finishes walls after finishing Carpenter. Starts on Caravan House. Traded Alphabet with Dido for 390 gold & her conversion to our religion. She should be friendly soon, & we'll be able to trade ivory.

Turn 7. Kummiku finishes worker, starts on another worker. We just lost our recently hooked crabs to Carthage's culture, so I hire an artist on Valona. Tavern is finished on Saka.

Turn 8. Rome finishes Settler.

Turn 9. We are about to settle Sardinia, Rome finishes work boat.

Turn 10. We found Damastion on Sardinia, a great engineer is born. I leave that as reserve for any future wonde building plans. We recover crabs on Sicily. Researching Furnace, & after that we should go for Philosophy so we can get Iron working as our free tech.

Turn 11. Hyksos finishes Caravan house, starts on Carpenter. We will declare war on Dacians on our next turn, so we can capture his two workers.

Turn12. We declare on Dacians & capture their two workers, We move towards Perica while just having a defensive stance on Dyrrahu.

Turn13. Dacians land near Rome, we push them back, but that pesky 2 starred Dacian is still bugging us.

Turn 14. We kill that pesky Dacian near Rome at the cost of an Axemen, Italy is secure, we should capture Perica on the next turn.

Turn 15. Lyssus finishes the Temple of Artemis. We capture Perica without losses, Decebalus is landlocked. A great engineer was born on Skodra, so we now have 2 Great Engineers waiting to be used.

Some notes, I took the liberty to build some watermills all around the empire, especially on Kummiku, which is now a decent city. We should reforce our Scythian lands, they're pretty defenseless now. I suggest we use one of our great engineers to build on Albanopoli or Lyssus the Statue of Zeus.

Jet, you're up.

Nice turn. It is always nice having a surplus of great engineers.

I'm glad you guys have given people alphabet, etc. It is a subtle line, but I think it is worthwhile to keep our friends.

@Drtad, don't worry about interrupting, if anyone outside the game wants to comment, that's great. Since HT asked, would you like to join the game? Otherwise let's assign the open slot to schlappi.

@Turnset

I started by whipping several builds on the first turn so that by the end of my turnset the whip unhappiness would be gone and I wouldn't get yelled at for overwhipping. :D I wondered why we were building a carpenter in Saka before it had a granary, and when it was pulling TWO hammers? I guess it does give a bit of a bonus when you whip... which I did! Whipped a granary for 2 pop for yet more whipping satisfaction in the future. :D Sent its clams a work boat from Kummukhu.

Everything that was building at the start, I did eventually complete. I built granaries in the new cities and gave every other city a caravan house ASAP, then in some cities barracks. Started the Statue of Zeus in Lissus and left our great engineers (currently 2) alone. Workers generally emphasized cottages; I was especially happy to get some cottages going in Kummukhu. I did watermill over the cottage in Skodra, figuring that with Heroic Epic it should max food and hammers.

I also drafted and whipped the crap out of Sarmatia (silver city) to protect it from a small Dacian raiding party from across the Carapathians. They were dispatched handily and I moved to occupy and fortify the pass myself.

I moved most units from Italy to the mainland to attack Dacia, but then built more garrison troops in Rome.

Traded sheep to Vercengetorix for 4 GPT. A couple turns later Kroisos offered OB, which I accepted, and I also offered wine for 2 GPT - a bad deal, but since he's in our backyard I just didn't want to deal with him until we're ready. I set Cumae to loop building merchant ships and set its rally point to Carthage, so that every few turns we just click and rake in the bucks. It's not the best we could do (we could be doing merchant missions at a faster rate), but it is easy to maintain. Definitely someone please do better if you want to set it up.

We finished Architecture. I started the Statue of Zeus in Lissus, and Philosophy.

We finished the Aristotlean theater in Albanopoli.

I took Breaza, losing a couple of elite Kambsors en route from Italy. Archers were very helpful for collateral damage + withdrawal. I realized that Chariot Archers don't have a city attack penalty, only a city defense penalty, which is pretty badass (probably unbalanced!) I left some units behind but promptly moved through the woods to the Dacian capital.

Hammurabi offered peace for 30 gold. He wasn't fighting whoever asked us to fight him (Aeetes?) any more, so I accepted.

A great merchant was born in Lissus. I could either settle him in Skodra (for higher food, and therefore higher hammers) or lightbulb Code of Laws, saving 8 turns of research. Seeing that our outlying cities were costing 10-12 GPT in maintenance, I lightbulbed CoL.

We finished Philosophy, and Zoaroasterism was founded in Antium. I usually prefer to slingshot to Education (8 turns), but Dux worked hard to set us up for Iron Working (6 turns), opening up Swordsmen and the Iron Weapons promotion, so I took it, then started Siege Warfare. Suggested priorities:
* At some point we should do Astrology (3 turns) for Path of the Mystics. I really should have done it myself, sorry.
* Siege Warfare (6 turns left)
* Alchemy (8 turns) (Great Scientist + Fire Catapults)
* Literature (7 turns) (Great Library)
* Education (11 turns) (Plato's Academy)

I razed the Dacian capital. It's just wasn't a primo location. But I built a settler (he's on his way to the eastern pass in the Carapathians now). I suggest settling 1S of the old Dacian capital - it could work deer/iron/copper/timber plus eventually I think 16 cottages.

I built a couple Public Courts and started some more on the very last turn, so some cities have units halfway completed and zero hammers into their Public Court. That's just a serving suggestion, obviously. But if we let the courts build, the cities can always swap back and finish the units quick if there's an emergency. And I think we have enough units now to finish off Dacia probably in the next turnset.

Also, Skodra is building Swordsmen at a rate of one per turn :D

The West: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-4BC-West.JPG

The East:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-4BC-East.JPG

The North:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-4BC-North.JPG

Looks Great!

So do we roll up the Dacians, then the Germans, then the Gauls so the army does not have to redeploy?

Perhaps those 3 plus the Lydians will get us a domination victory?

Is there a point approaching where we turn off tech and go 100% military?

I will have zero access to my home Civ PC till next Wednesday so please skip my next turn.

SW

I am going to have to refuse your request to join in your game. You see, I am not a very good player.:sad: I'd probably just ruin all that you guys have accomplished.

Awwww, I'm sure it'd be fine. Maybe next time! :)

OK schlappi I'm adding you in the open slot.

I noticed something weird:
When loading Jet's save game file, the turn timer is at 120 B.C.
Why is this?

Any suggestions?

Hypnotoad, you're up.

Schlappi: you are set for the 5th slot. See the first page.

All Hail Hypnotoad, the great modernizer!

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

When I took over, we were in the bronze age. Literally. Our warriors were using almost all bronze weapons, despite having access to iron. So, after finishing off the Dacians, I had most of our warriors do a tour of the capital to get an upgrade.

Our people starting rioting because they were tired of war. Wussus. So I switched research to Astrology and adopted path of mystics for +2 happiness wherever there's a holy site. I also switched us for forum (see, see: great modernizer). This reduces our maintence costs. It is high upkeep, so the savings about evened out (even without 19 free units from tribal law), but in the long run this will be cheaper.

Then I finished seige warfare went for Alchemy to get the free great scientist. But Aeetas got it first! We've become backwards! I switched to Edumacation, which we have 4 turns left on. Let's use a great engineer to rush Plato's Academy.

After bringing our army into the age of iron, I declared war on those crazy Germans. I took their city north of Venice and kept it so the Gauls wouldn't horn in on our territory. I took their city that overlapped with the Dacian city and burned it to the ground.

Also, as part of my great modernizing project, almost all cities have public courts now. Oh, and we got a statue of Zeus. Umm. Err. That's about it I think. Sorry, forgot to take pictures this time and I'm in a hurry, so no go. Oh, I guess I also made a bunch of roads. I noticed our soldiers were taking really roundabout paths.

We can build the Agora, which will reduce our Maintence costs, but I wasn't sure where. My suggestion: as soon as we attack Gaul, the first city west of Italy.

Right now the net cost of Forum is 24 GPT more than Council of Elders (tried from save, although on paper it looked like it should have been 48 GPT more). But Forum also gives the GPP boost. We'll just have to take more cities! :) Personally I'm psyched for Vice Royalty, although that will take a while. I'll be very interested to see whether Aristocracy or Vice Royalty will be more cost-effective for us!

Oh yes, and those merchant ships from Italy to Carthage are pulling in just over 100 each. Pretty sweet, it means we get about another 50 gold/turn. Make sure you are always building them and sending them to Carthage.

Alright guys, I didn't record everything I did this time because it took too long last time, but here are the main things:

A few turns went by, with some mobilization towards the next Germanic city. Then I researched Education and went for Cartography. I captured Cherusci the next turn. Soon after I finished Cartography and went for Calendar. Once that was done, I headed straight for Crop Rotation, and used a Great Engineer to build Plato's Academy in Lissus. At about turn 10 (or 11) I razed Saxones to the ground and captured Teutonari in the same turn. A couple of turns later I used Lissus' Great Merchant to discover Astronomy, and then I used a Great Artist to discover Drama, which gave us another Great Artist. I then combined it with our Great Engineer to start a Golden Age. Shkodra completed The Statue of Zeus too. I was able to discovery Alchemy and Mounted Combat as well before ending my turnset.

State of the Illyrian Union:

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3580/stateofilly113adxq2.th.jpg (http://img86.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stateofilly113adxq2.jpg)

The Illyrians are clearly the leaders of the ancient world. Illyria's borders are expanding at a rapid rate, and soon by conquest the whole of the European continent will be under the jurisdiction of Shkodra. The Germanic Tribes are nearly wiped out entirely, with Langobardi being the last Germanic stronghold; I say we take it and keep it. Vercingetorex and his Gauls are on a thin line between friendship and foeship with Teuta's bunch. I agreed to sign an Open Borders agreement with him to try and keep him at bay for a little while longer, at least until the Germanic Tribes have finally been squashed. Gaul is likely to be the next target of Illyrian expansion, and the might Kambsors will do a fine job at turning it black. From there, we should move on the Iberians; with our current military it shouldn't be too difficult. Once the whole of Europe is under the Illyrian Empire, we can look to the southeast for new conquests with the next generation of Illyrian warfare units (Cavalry and more advanced military units + tactics).

I recommend we build an Alchemist in Lissus since it's an extremely high science-yielding city - Rome is up there as well. When Lissus is done with its Observatory, it should build the Pyramids of Giza to give +2 science output for each Olympian Gods religious building. After Seafaring we should go for Literature and build the Library of Alexandria in Lissus, since it gives +2 free scientists and that is our best scientific city. Keep building Merchant Vessels since they're raking in a good amount of income (127 gold from Carthage)!



SrWilliam said we could skip his turn since he will be inactive, so Dux is up next!

Sorry for the rather scattered thoughts -- there's a lot going on now that our empire is huge.

We are illiterate bumpkins. I noticed a serious lack of libraries, perhaps explaining (in part) why we didn't get Alchemy. I'll work on this on my turn, of course, but I thought I would mention it now. Oh, and I got Pyparus from Egypt to help us towards this end.

Turn 1. I do alot of micromanagement to optimize growth on our cities. & once again that annoying avoid growth is on in Lyssus:mad: I also move our troops towards the German capital.

Turn 2. Lost a Kambsor near the German Capital, I retreat our siege engines, I don't understand why it was so poorly guarded.

Turn 3. We get seafaring, I start on irrigation. I get world maps from Dido & Aeetes. I also trade Astrology for 340 gold & Aeetes conversion to Olympian Gods. Gauls found Vesontio where a German city layed. I'll be pleased to start the war against Gaul soon. Lyssus starts pyramids.

Turn 4. Bad turn military wise. That Woodsman on the German capital killed an axemen & a swordsman.

Turn 5. Irrigation finished. I should take out the Germans on the next turn.

Turn 6. Wrong, another turn sieging Langobardi. I lose another Kambsor.

Turn 7. I take Langobardi, Gauls are next. Gonna start building our forces.

Turn 8-14. Not much to say other that I'm building up our forces. & Kroisos cancelled our open borders. We might wanna watch him closely. & I cancelled our open borders with Gaul.

Turn 15. Pyramids completed. & a Great Engineer was born on Lyssus. We're a couple of turns from Aristocracy.

War with Gaul is inminent, but I left it to Jet to start it.

Jet you're up.

Actually schlappi is now between Dux_ and me in the rotation, so you're up now, schlappi.

-closed due to criticism-

read my next post ;)

Schlappi, since this is your first turnset with us, you think you could be a little more descriptive and at least give a generalization of what you've been doing each turn?

The rest of us have pretty much broken it down to a turn-by-turn basis at least once thus far, so we all have an idea of how each person plays. From your above post, we really can't tell much about your playing style, so for next time do you think you could tell us a little more?

PS, you can use "yousendit.com" to upload the file and then post the link in this thread.

By the wise counsel of the mighty Queen Teuta of Illyria, General Schlappi was assigned the task to conquer the lands of the treacherous Gallic Tribes.
The troops were in good state, our enemies soon fled from our mighty onslaught. Battles were fought, countless corpses of enemy soldiers littered the fields. One after another the enemy cities and settlements surrendered to our armies.
After the campaign of victorious general Schlappi, all of the Gaul lands were subdued.
All Gaul? One small village of brave warriors resisted the conquering armies...

In the first turn, i declared war on gaul, advancing with all troops and marching reinforcements from other cities towards the battlezone. I decided our army lacks heavy units to counter enemy chariots, so i built a few of those.
Even though our enemy had many units, the war went well. I created four battlegroups, three landbased and a naval assault group.
The first northern group advanced towards the Gaul capital Bibracte, taking it in 2 turns and continuing along the coast towards Alesia, which is still in Gaul hands after i ended my turn.
The second northern group gathered in the former Germanic stronghold Langobardi, setting up for a run against Lutetia and opposing possible counter attacks (which never happened). They achieved their goal, Lutetia was taken with little resistance.
The southern land-based group had a little skirmishes with mounted units in the western alps, after that they advanced and took Cenabum at the Rhone river.
The naval group set off towards the little coast town Uxelludonum, razed it and was deployed again near Avaricum, taking in swiftly. They also destroyed the Gaul naval force (one bireme and a transport).

Basically i decided to keep all main Gaul cities, since they were well-sized and located in good spots. Our armies are gathering in and around Avaricum to prepare to face our next enemy, Viratio. We had only very few losses, a kambsor and one or two fire catapults. Oh, and a stack of three workers, which happened to pass by too closely to the scene.

Researchwise, i decided to go the commerce path: After Aristocracy was done, i did city states and commerce, switching to Plutocracy and city states. Since our merchant vessels yield good profit - especially in the Kolchean capital - and trade barges are being built now, i figured we can easily take the increased costs. After that, i started with military training.
Unhappiness in a few cities due to government change and war weariness +2. Should be fixed with markets completed.

Production: Not much to say except i built temples to keep agreeability +2 atleast and a bunch of slave markets. Anarchy ended on my last turn. A great engineer was born in our capital, i left it there.

Interesting fact: During my tenth turn, Dido declared war on Hasheput.

edit: save file hosted finally
http://www.koolfiles.com/files/Queen_Teuta_AD-0166.zip

Very cool. Thanks man!

PS- does anyone know history about the Gallic cities? Our Lissus is the Albanian Lezha, which was also known in the Middle Ages by its Italian name "Alessia" as it became a Venetian possession. It's interesting that there's a Gallic city named "Alesia" as well.

Jet, finish the Gauls and destroy the Iberians, please! Also, we still have Agora (decreased city maintainance) to build, so it may be a good idea to build it in Gaul ... what do you guys think?

I think its either Lutetia or Alesia that's "old" paris, and burdigala is bordeaux, massilia/massalia is marseilles.

194 AD: I noticed a similar problem, it was 194 AD but the save file was named 166 AD. Also that SOMEBODY switched us to City-States! :) That's cool, I like City-States. Goes well with Forum, too.

Built the usual, including lots of cottages, and temples of Apollo to go with the Pyramids at Giza. Emphasized culture buildings in Gaul, to fill in the empty space.

203 AD: The Senate was unquiet. Why, it was asked, with only the hill tribes of Iberia yet to submit to Illyrian rule in the West, do we tolerate just across the Aegean a regime that "just doesn't like us enough" to admit passage to our merchants... a regime that prefers its local deity to ours... a regime with half our rating on the power graph... a regime that builds its capital one tile off the coast? With all eyes turned East, it was agreed that the philosophical mecca of Lissus would become the new administrative capital, while the old capital Skodra would house the summer palace and the military academy. After the Great library of Lissus was complete, construction began on the new imperial palace. Muster of a great army and fleet began in Hyksos.

Carthage requested a declaration of war on the heathen Egyptians, which we were happy to give. Somehow our failure to actually send any troops was never noticed.

206 AD: Finished Military Training, started Medicine. With Infantry, the only Medium units we could build were Kambsors, so I switched to Kambsors in Skodra. (We could switch back to Infantry; I don't really care.)

209 AD: Great Prophet born, saved for Christianity or whatever.

215 AD: Refused Hammurabi's request to trade with Aeetes. We won't take this lightly, Queen Teuta! Right, when our score is more than triple yours and the only Civ with a lesser score is Iberia. Speaking of which, our emissary reported that prince Viriato declined to kiss the toes of the silver Teuta statue we sent him. We insisted on 240 gold instead, then sent our Western army around both sides of the Pyrenees.

Dido offered 730 for Poly, accepted. Medicine completed, started Mono (1 turn). Rushed Hippocratic Oath in Skodra (for the March promotion). Started Agora in Cereberum on HT's suggestion - it seems like a reasonable Western center of gravity.

224 AD: Noticed an Iberian naval counterattack in an ocean tile where I couldn't attack it. I queued Infantry in the nearby cities, and razed Segede in irritation (and because it had only one resource and overlapped with Termes.)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-Naval-224AD.JPG
I also captured Uxama.

227 AD: Oddly, the Iberian ships retreated to Calagurris. I kept the Infantry units building, though, just in case. Mono finished. Kroisos did not have anything past that, so we can get Christianity if we want it. I went for Steel, though. Don't forget that we have a great prophet. The palace in Lissus completed, so I busted my move thing, but it was THREE turns for a revolution to Aristocracy, which I reluctantly accepted. I also sent workers to cottage over the grassland tiles in Lissus, for maximum beakers.

234 AD: With Aristocracy, beakers in Lissus pumped from 153 to 260. Here are before and after shots of the Financial Advisor. They're approximate because I overwrote the first ones and had to restore from an older save.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-financial-228AD.JPG
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-financial-234AD.JPG
I find them hard to read (why is the left hand column now higher when it looks like it should be lower?) But it looks like we're a little ahead now.

Save: http://download.yousendit.com/1D7CA8C5292CA1CA

BY THE WAY: I just noticed in the final save that an Iberian force DID just land in Sicily! Looks like Infantry can be whipped there, better do it (or the like). Sorry I didn't see it coming.

I like the narrative approach, Schlappi. I may not get to my turn until tomorrow. It looks like things are going well.

So I probably should have just had you guys skip my turn this time. I played about 8 turns but now need to call it quits. Next player should take over. These turns are taking longer and longer and I need to get work done, unfortunately...

So I inherited a war on Iberia. I kept four cities, burning a fifth. It seems like we are going for a "keep Europe" strategy, so I stuck with that.

My basic plan is to upgrade Axemen/Swordmen to Infantry/Heavy Infantry ONCE they have city attack 1, 2 and 3. I've upgraded a couple of units already. We are researching tactics right now (having finished steel). Once we get that, we can build heavy infantry (strength 12). With city attack 1-3, these guys will be unstoppable.

I kept on building up the troops to attack Lydia. I didn't start, although we really could at any time.

The agora in southern france reduced maintence costs by about 90/turn. Pretty nice. I completed a bunch of caravan thingies started by Jet. Started a bunch of things as seemed necessary.

Here's a picture of Iberia. Notice that Carthage has a city in the northwest and Lydia has just built one in the northeast. That's not going to last long.

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/7044/screen02ay1.jpg

Hmm, trying to get the image to work...

http://download.yousendit.com/83951DAC0D201898

(By the way, to use the yousendit, send an email to yourself and it will give you a url.)

PS: I forgot to upgrade our units to steel weapons! This should definitely happen before our war on the Lydians...

OK, here were go:
T1: Hatshepsut offers a peace treaty for 340 gold
T3: captured Osca
T5: Captured Palancia, researched Heavy Armor and went after Republic
T6: Used GP Mencius to discover Divine Right, got a Great Merchant in Lissus, which I consumed to join the city, razed Ocilis in SW Iberia
T8: Hiram offered 270 gold for commerce, I accepted
T9: Captured Ilerda in the north and destroyed the Iberian civilization!
T10: researched Bridge bulding, giong for road building; I demanded 240 gold from Kroisos and he gave it to me ... damn ... but I declared war on him anyway.
T11: conquered Halikarnassos
T12: conquered Miletos
T13: captured Kolophon + Sardeis
T14: Aristotle was born in Shkodra, I brought him down to Lissus to construct a great academy. Science output in Lissus is now 448!
T15: captured Priene

We got RoadBuilding and can now more efficiently move out troops throughout our vast empire (http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3860/vastempirewc4.jpg). The Iberians are long gone, and the Lydians are clinging onto life as Illyrian legions sweep across the continent. There are 3 cities south of Phokaia, 2 on the mainland and 1 on an island: they are weakly defended and can be easily taken before turning to the Lydian capital as conquering what would be the last Lydian stronghold. Phokaia is blockaded by the Illyrian fleet, so there is no chance of escape, and their last remaining Settler will not do them any good.

Remember to keep constructing Trade Barges and sending them to Carthage and Kolchis for over 400+ gold a mission. The Egyptians seem to be a likely candidate for the next episode of Illyrian conquest.

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/6553/wartornlydiabt7.jpg

http://download.yousendit.com/5853A8BF57B53FE9

Please skip my turn, the earliest I can run is Wednesday or Thursday.

Anyone know what % of the map we control?

We may be close to Domination.

SW

I noticed some trade barges and merchant ships were being built in cities with very low production. This meant it took a long time to build them. Since you are limited to 3 total, this reduced our money substantially. I would suggest trying to build them in higher production cities (such as Rome).

You're right HT, but I really wasn't up for the micromanagement... I was more concerned with the fun of capturing Lydia. Whoever massed our military in Hyskos and had those Transport Barges ready, thanks a lot!

Mostly Jet, I think, a little bit me.

@Dux_, you're up.

@All, in general please post at least a "got it" within 24 hours (see page 1), thanks. I'll post again asking schlappi to continue if we don't hear from Dux_ in a while.

Sorry, got it, I'll post my turn tonight...

Sorry guys, skip my turn...

Sorry, hope I didn't make you feel overly rushed. (and the protocol does give you 48 hours after "got it"...)

But OK - schlappi is up. :)

Come on Schlappi, let's see what you can do for us ;)

Long live Queen Teuta!

While the wars with the barbaric tribes raged on all fronts, the Illyrian empire experienced a golden age of culture and arts. Libraries and theatres were built in many cities, displaying the magnificence of illyrian culture.

The wild and barely civilized people of Lydia and Egypt, who dared to oppose illyrian rule, were swiftly subdued; their cities taken by the might of our armies.



T1: Changing production in some cities to trade barges and armoured infantry build we must!

T3: Captured the city on Cyprus and the on in central Anatolia

T5: Captured Phokaia at the black sea, researched tactics, started on empire

T6: Finished conquering the Lydian empire, started sea blockade of egyptian cities

T7: Creating Battle groups and positioning them near Egypt

T8: Finished research of Empire, starting Civil Service

T9: Declared war on Egypt, landed near all Egyptian coastal cities, destroyed their fleet

T10: Captured Thebes, Alexandria and Elephantine. Landed near Mannea (south of the iberian peninsula)

T12: Captured Memphis and Mannea.

T14: Used great artist in Mannea.

T15: Captured Egypt's last city, Heliopolis. Great scientist was born, used him to discover greek fire. Dido, worried about our progress towards her estates, cancelled the ivory deal.

I built amphietheatres in almost every city, along with aqueducts and all we needed to keep health and happiness on a good level.
Even though our monetary balance is at around -450 gold per turn, the trade barges and merchant vessels do more than equalize it.

The domination victory should come soon; the last 15 turns increased land posession from around 30 to over 40%.
Next turn we should switch civics to free religion and vice royalty to decrease maintainance and increase happiness.

The productive coastal cities produce quinqueremes, so soon the navalwise powerful civs cannot harm us. Since our main forces are located in former egypt and lydian lands i suggest to go for phoenicia next. However, its also possible to attack carthage soon, since i started gathering troops in Lissus and Neapolis aswell! I did not have enough time to properly deploy our transport barges yet, they are somewhat spread out at the moment, i used them to transport workers to africa...

http://www.koolfiles.com/files/Queen_Teuta_AD-0272.zip

Given that we have to attack a friend now, I say we go for Carthage. That way the west would be completely ours.

Interesting that we still only have 40% of the map. That will go up as borders increase also (which the ampitheaters should help with).

Too bad that we've gotta take Carthage; I don't like turning my back on my friends.

But, if we do take Carthage it would give us the West and once we filled up that empty space with Illyrian culture we could probably win a Domination victory.

But, I think that's too easy. I like the military route, and it keeps the game going longer, so this is my proposal:
Raze all of Carthage and maintain a naval blockade to prevent settlers from founding cities there. This way we won't win a Domination victory and can continue to conquer the rest of world and go for a Conquest victory.

That's my vote, what do you guys think?

My vote is end this game ASAP so we can play 1.97.

I have a Warlords install and a TAM (non-Warlords) install. I am itching for 1.97.

If TAM Warlords is still a few weeks away, we can start a 1.97 Succession game at a higher difficulty level.

SW

I too think we should end this game sooner rather than later. We should really be playing 1.97 and at a higher difficulty level. Plus the early game is more fun :)

Plus I don't like razing cities. Seems so brutal...

Wow, that was incredibly fast! :eek: Maybe I like building units more than I like using them. :)

I wrote the following before seeing SrW and HT's last 2 posts -- if the overall vote is for fast finish, that's cool, let's just hear from everyone...

Really I'm sure we could attack either Carthage or Phoenecia and tactically it would be just fine. I can't imagine anyone attacking us.

For the fastest finish diplo should be easy because we still have high pluses with both Carthage and Phoenecia, right? Then we could all install 1.97. :) But I'm not sure that's my favorite.

For domination I'd suggest Phoenecia, then Babylon. That would be somewhat Alexander-style (well, he marched down the coast to Egypt, but whatever). Then if needed, whichever of our allies is more convenient to backstab. Phoenecia is big and is in the path to Babylon. Domination would certainly be cool and it would be kind of cool to minimize the backstabbing.

I don't feel strongly about it but I do think conquest would be slightly cooler. Shqype's idea sounds good, we could certainly close borders with Phoenecia, but I don't know about Aeetes. We'd either have to give up a lot of commerce, or maintain a foreign legion in Africa (say, in Carthage) to clean up any Aeetes colonies when we finally declare on him.

I probably won't play until Friday night, maybe Saturday. It might be nice to see if we can get a consensus on the end game strategy.
Edit: yeah, right. Two hours of sleep last night I may have gotten, but I'll Civ before sleep any day of the week. Still I would prefer to hear from everyone before my turnset. Or, maybe I'll just tech towards a diplo victory while maneuvering our troops around. And actually (duh, speaking of time limits) Friday afternoon would be the 48-hour time limit for my turnset anyway.

I never finish a game when I'm this far ahead, so I have no clue what would be fastest.

If it’s diplomatic, I vote diplomatic.

Plowing through Phoenicia and then Babylon would keep all our options open.

Schlappi captured 8 cities in 15 turns, nice!

SW

Me too. I've never won by Domination, Conquest, or Diplomatic in TAM.

Schlappi captured 8 cities in 15 turns, nice!

SW

Well, its quite easy when you are that far ahead in weapon technology, and the troops were deployed nicely for conquest. Usually i do not build that many transport units, but that helped alot, i obviously need to reconsider my current strategy setup. :)

I would gladly join another succession game, any chance we could do it on a huge map setting? My favoured map is the huge med. one and on emporer level it is quite a challenge if you choose some "barbarian" civ.

I wouldn't be surprised if we have enough support for 2 succession games -- if so, I say we go for it.

Some people have trouble playing on a huge map late in the game (the turns take forever to process). So it would probably be good to at least have one non-huge map to play on.

I would be interested in playing. Its just I have no time for it.:sad:
Though lurking is almost as good.;) :(
I'd like to see a rome sg where you replay the roman empire.

Well, if we play a "prime" civilisation like rome, i'd vote to play atleast emperor level, if not even harder...

I probably won't play untilWho was I kidding?



I'm sorry folks missed their last turnsets...
Turn 16:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-win-screen.JPG

That's what I'm talkin' about. :king:

After Vice Royalty (1 turn) Christianity was fast (4 turns) and we rushed most of the Holy Empire with a spare Engineer (4 turns left). It looked vaguely familiar:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-holy-empire.JPG

I immediately voted ourselves Empress: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-empress.JPG

While waiting 4 eternally long turns for a vote to come up, we popped a great prophet. I had something for him to do which was completely useless, but completely awesome:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-Parthenon.JPG
Shrines totally blow in this version. :)

Finally a vote came up:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-vote-choice.JPG

The votes:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-diplo-vote.JPG

Our efforts were rewarded with m@@@d gr@@@FX:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-victory-picture.JPG

And screens O' glory:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-graph-score.JPG

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-graph-gnp.JPG
I always find the GNP impossible to interpret usefully.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-graph-crop.JPG

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-graph-prod.JPG
Did we have a golden age? It's all a blur.

This one, though, is always useful to look at:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-graph-power.JPG
And DE-lightful to look at in hindsight. :goodjob:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-graph-culture.JPG
I wonder what the jump at the end was? The Mausoleum we got a bit earlier. Maybe Ampitheaters, but they take a few turns to build...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-demographics.JPG

Our ridiculous sweep of world wonders:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-top-cities.JPG

And with a little cut'n'paste:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-builds-kills.JPG

The score:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87231/QT-end-place-in-history.JPG
Augustus who? We wasted their asses in 3000 BC! :lol: :lol: :lol:

end game diplomacy

The only AI who voted for us was Aeetes, with a net of +10. Dido had a net +7 and Hiram +6. It makes the AIs seem like jerks, but it's consistent what I've heard about vanilla, that you need (approximately?) +8 to get a diplo victory vote from an AI.

Dido was 1 point away from +8. Maybe if we had spammed her with tech gifts just before the vote, we might have gotten a "shared your tech discoveries". Or if we had not invaded Egypt, it sounds like we'd have avoided some of the close borders demerit.

Hiram was 2 points away from +8. Certainly if we had gotten kept him Greek Poly (was he ever in Greek Poly?) that would have turned the -2 into something positive. Or if we hadn't invaded Lydia, we could have avoided his -2 close borders demerit.

So it seems like with the right moves we could have gotten a diplo victory after taking over Iberia or France, maybe even Germany. I'm not trying second-guess our game at all, just analyzing it for anyone who wants to try a diplo in the future.

Vice Royalty vs. Aristocracy

I did some calculations about Vice Royalty vs. Aristocracy. Actually testing it would be a bit of a pain because you have to interpret the screens, and it would have taken 5 turns (!!) to revolt from Aristocracy to Vice Royalty. (I had no idea! Depends on empire size? Time through the game?)

But here are some "on-paper" calculations from the turn we got Vice Royalty.

Vice Royalty is No Upkeep vs Aristocracy is Low. Difference: 96 GPT. Distance maintenance was 180 (# of cities was 134). So Vice Royalty would buy us 96 + 180 = 276 GPT.

Aristocracy gives +100% commerce in capital. Lissus's base commerce was 77. (In a heavy cottage city it could be more, but it wasn't for us.) So we were getting 77 GPT from that. We were also getting +1 trade route in each city. I scrolled through our 51 cities (the United City States of Illyria... hmm...) and added up the weakest trade route from each city. Four big cities in Egypt were in revolt so I assigned each one of them a value of 3, the same as Cumae. Values of weakest trade routes:
8 (Lissus)
6 (Albanopoli)
5 (Skodra)
4 (Rome)
3 (21 cities)
2 (20 cities)
1 (6 cities)
Total trade route bonus from Aristocracy: 132. So Aristocracy was buying us 77 + 132 = 209. Vice Royalty came out ahead, as it should have for a large empire like ours. Now, you could take Lissus's Great Academy and Plato's Academy into account. Running at 70% beakers as we were, those special buildings were turning the +77 from Aristocracy into (77) * (70%) * (250%) = 135. 132 + 135 = 267 beakers. So even with Plato's Academy (which I personally think is overpowered), Vice Royalty still came out a bit ahead! So our game did NOT show that Aristocracy is completely broken, although in my opinion it might be overpowered anyway.

Well done, that was fast!

Great game guys, it was fun and informative.

Thank you for teaching me the tavern/artist/pop-the-fat-cross trick.

Thank you for showing me the potential of bee lining early to a high military tech. I rarely bee line. I think we milked the Kambsor UU to it’s limits.

Thank you for reinforcing the power of war. Many builders like myself can profit from a little more war.

Thank you for reinforcing the vulnerability of civilizations the first few turns of the game.

Thank you for reinforcing the power of the smithy/great engineer/sphinx trick. I think this strategy is the TAM equivalent of the vanilla civ CS slingshot, which will be no more as soon as the warlords patch goes live.

SW

Nicely done everyone! I think this worked well. A proposal:

2 SG Games, one we start soon (1.97) and another that we start when Warlords comes out.

I definitely learned a lot, but I'm not sure I can put my finger on a lot of it. I think I came to appreciate the power of slavery a lot more. But I'm sure this game also had subtle influences on my game play, which is, I think, one of the biggest benefits, since it is so hard to talk about the little things.

SrWilliam: when it comes to Immortal level or higher, I find that beelining for Masonry is actually a faster and more reliable way to get the Sphinx (unless you lack stone and have philosophical).

PS: Nice to see how to take over the world. Haven't really done that.

Nice game guys! What civ are you planning on doing next? I might join in next time. Babylon? Phoenicia? I always did want to play as the Scythians.:king: But beware allowing me to join, I might make the game harder for you guys to win cause as I stated before I am not a very good player.

Should the next SG game be for vanilla 1.97? or are we going to wait for the next version?

I say we do a 1.97 one. Either: Rome on the second highest difficulty level or something more obscure on a lesser level.

Maybe a normal Med map game Prince difficulty as the Hittites or Kolcheans?

I am interested in a higher difficulty Succession game

I am interested in TAM version of the game of the month. I think this could be as educational as an SG, if we have multiple stop points to report progress. Not that we have to do this every month, but one game could be fun.

I would love to do another TAM pitboss game!

Depending on their ETA, we may want to wait for 1.78 or wait for TAM Warlords.

Drtad:

I think we need a higher difficulty level than the last game. Overall, that just wasn't very challenging. If you are worried about having trouble at the higher level: don't. It is supposed to be a learning experience and you will get help from others.

I mean, I suppose that if there is support for it, we could have two SG: one at a higher difficulty level and another at a lower level.

Whatever difficulty level you guys want is fine by me.:) And SrWilliam, I think the ETA for the next version is later next week. That is subject to change though.