The starting screenshot (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=142077&d=1163084801)

We are Innovia of Arabia. We have discovered mysticism and the wheel. We are philisophical and spiritual. Our UU is the Camel Archer.

Philosophical: Great People birth rate increased 100 percent. Double production speed of University.
Spiritual: No anarchy. Double production speed of the Temple.

Camel Archer
Mounted Unit
strength 10
movement 2
hammer cost 90
techs required Guilds Horseback Riding Archery
Upgrades to: Cavalry
Unique unit for Arabia; Replaces Knight
Immune to first strikes
Doesn't receive defensive bonuses
Can withdraw from combat (25% chance)

I think we should move the warrior SE first.

Our enemies are Qin, Elizabeth, Catherine, Gandhi and one random civ to spice things up. Sea level is low, map size is small, map type is pangaea, game speed is normal, difficulty is emperor :eek:.

Roster:

1889
Mauer
Sir Bugsy
Theoden:
DaveShack
Dutchfire
Lord Parkin

From demographics our mystery civ is Egypt, France, Japan, Mongolia or Ottomans.

On emperor Ghandi may beat us to Hinduism and Buddhism. Unless I'm the only one with Mysticism or if I have a big gold producing tile I usually just go for Bronze first. Hunting may not be bad either so we can scout out our first target.

The warrior move sounds good.

My initial thought is that will be a good and productive site. I would say AH, Hunting (trying to remember if that's the one that gives camp), and BW should be our first 3 techs. If we go AH first and horses are revealed, then I say we forgo BW temporarily and shoot for HBR. I'd also suggest a warrior then worker for first builds, and would almost say shoot for the worker first. We'll need to get the elephants camped before we start growing too much either.

If we go Hunting first we get a 20% discount on Animal Husbandry (I think it saves us a turn or two.) I'd really rather have horses than bronze, because everybody already has Archers. Chariots with a little XP are good enough to start cracking heads.

Sounds decent enough to me.

I agree with 1889 on the techs.

Moving SE makes sense. Otherwise, settling in place looks good to me.

What's the batting order? Stick me between two folks that actually know what they are doing.

From demographics our mystery civ is Egypt, France, Japan, Mongolia or Ottomans.

On emperor Ghandi may beat us to Hinduism and Buddhism. Unless I'm the only one with Mysticism or if I have a big gold producing tile I usually just go for Bronze first. Hunting may not be bad either so we can scout out our first target.

The warrior move sounds good.

Ottomans? It's vanilla.

I'd prefer hunting as a first tech for the elephants, and it leads to animal husbandry (cows + horses) and archery for if we're really skrewed up without iron, coppor or horses.

Looks like we are decided, now who plays first?

Roster:

1889
Mauer
Sir Bugsy
Theoden
DaveShack
Dutchfire

in order of first post in this thread (put myself last as I set up the game). I placed Daveshack after Theoden randomly.

Totally

This is a vanilla game, right?

yep, see post 7

I only played 7 turns but it was a good stopping point. We just discovered Hunting and Ghandi says "Hi, I hope you aren't already planning on invading my country."

I set Animal husbandry next so we can look for horses and improve the cows.

I also decided to build the worker first. The city was going to take 11 turns to grow anyway. I think after the worker we can go scout, warrior, settler and we may want to keep our exploring warrior in the neighborhood rather than send him off to the ends of the earth. All we really need to do is find India and build some troops.

3760 for Mauer.

build a scout, send it SE
We need resources before we can build troops. So Animal Husbandry first.

It looked like all coastline down there. I forgot it was a pangea, maybe I should have taken a closer look.

To the north is jungle/forest, to the south desert, scout move faster through desert, so sending the warrior up was a good choice.

Alrighty then,

Hit enter and start turn in 3720.

3720- I popped the hut, cause I ain't scared yo, and we got a map. We can see China to the NE, and Russia just to the East of them. Nice map eh?

3680- Buddha founded a religion under the name of Gahndi and he converts.

3600- We meet the Chinese and start filming China Beach. Yungun's don't remember that one I'm sure.

3480- Our warrior kicks some wolf behind, then drags the carcass and throws it in the newly discovered Indian territory. They eat it of course, and we laugh cause we know it's road kill. Oh, they are N of us..duh

3400- Build the worker, start the scout. I go ahead and move the worker on the cows since we can road it in the amount of time it takes to discover AH. Then pasture.....after that railroads.

3320- Discover AH, see horses NE of us, where our second city will be going. By now I've forgotten how many turns I played so I save and come and report to yous guys. Oh yeah, a couple turns I just hit enter and moved Mikey the warrior. Pics below.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/19053/borders.JPG


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/19053/resources.JPG

Oh yeah, notice a city by the horses will be connected via river as well ;)

EDIT:
1889
Mauer *played*
Sir Bugsy *up*
Theoden *on deck*
DaveShack
Dutchfire

Oh yeah, notice a city by the horses will be connected via river as well ;)

Wow, now that's rare. I just checked and even if that river ends up passing through Indian country it will still stay connected, even without open border.

If there's still a space, I'd be happy to join in the fun here. :)

We must convene in our private quarters to decide on this.....one second please.........



I say ok, just jump in after Dutch if no one else has a problem.

OK, I have it. Please provide some guidance for the Bugsmeister.

What should we research after Mining? What should we build after Scout? I'm thinking warriors for the builds. We probably want some more economic development before we pop a settler, although we need to grab that horse location. If I understand commerce correctly, by settling Horse City 1W of the horse we can have them connected to the capitol with a corral and a road to the Horse City.

Maybe I should do that. :hmm:

We have what we need for the army, but it gets expensive fast especially if we succeed and capture a bunch of cities, so its nice to be able to demand some techs with a peace treaty. I like to have alphabet around the time I go to war.

I'd like having bronze working.
BTW to me, the site with horses, rice and dyes looks more sweet, but it wouldn't be connected directly, which one do we pick?

(And I'm okay with someone else joining)
edit: never mind the city site, we could always pick up rice, dye and another elephant in the south once we've blocked our nice area off.

I'd definately say BW after Mining. I hate chopping before math, but on emperor it might be worth it to chop a barracks and/or a settler. After BW of course. I also agree with alpha, but what if we don't have any copper? Go for Iron or HB?

Innovia Log
Pre-flight – 3320 – Not anything to do. I think we need to get pottery sometime soon so we can get some cottages.
3280 – Explore towards India
3240 – A panther shows up. Never seen one of those before.
3200 – Indian lands expand and we get kicked out. The cow pasture completes giving us a huge productivity boost.
3160 – Hinduism is founded. Head over towards the elephants to figure out how to tame them.
3120 – Catherine shows up, gives us a wink and makes a subtle pass at us. What a beautiful creature. I kiss her hand and give her a warm welcome. BTW, she’s the orange civ to the far east.
IBT - A panther attacks our warrior and the panther is killed.
Mining=>BW (I go for this against my instinct. I think we need to get pottery for the cottages) due in 14
Scout=>Settler
3080 – Scout heads SE. Warrior continues around Indian lands after his promotion.

3040 – Our warrior spots a lion.
3000 – Our scout climbs a hill, which just happens to be next to a bear. Luckily, there is a Russian scout right next to us on flat ground. I hope the Russian is tastier to the bear.
2960 – we tame the elephants and now we have ivory.
2920 – we get 37G from a goody hut. We also learn that the SE is a dead end. Looks like Gandhi has a second city.

There really isn’t anything worth showing so I won’t add a screen shot. We know a little bit more about the world, we’re a little bit smarter, and a little bit richer. Not a lot. We need to get Catherine to go out with us.

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/32851/Innovation_BC-2920.Civ4SavedGame

Theoden's up.

I'm wondering now. Would it have been better to go for Pottery before BW? I've never considered it, but I know I have PLENTY of room for improvement.

Not that I am a very experienced Civ IV player, but economy seems to be something you need to develop early. The earlier you get cottages and work them, the quicker they will grow into hamlets, villages and towns and the more cashflow you will have. Cashflow in turn assists your research. Unless I am trying for some religious gambit, I usually try for pottery as one of my first techs.

Likewise, when at war, pillaging towns, villages, hamlets and cottages is not only a great way to make money, but also sets your enemy back a substantial amount.

I have read that you should build settlers until you have to drop research below 60%. I don't know if that works or not. By having cottages and working them, you can usually hold off going below 60% for a long time.

It's entirely situational, really. Cottages are good, but there's not much point in getting Pottery really early if you don't have the Workers around to do the improving yet, or if there are better tiles to be improved or worked by citizens first. One example of a situation where it's good to get Pottery nice and early is when you have a few flood plains around your capital location (especially when you're Financial) - but again, there may be other priorities depending on the situation (eg Bronze Working if it's a MP cage match). ;)

Building Settlers is also situational. Personally I wouldn't recommend adopting a concrete "research below X% = stop expanding" strategy, since it won't hold up in all situations. You've got to take a look at what you have to work with, and make decisions from there. Sometimes it may be worthwhile temporarily sacrificing your economy to get an extra city or two out, while sometimes you may be better off sticking with less cities and building up your infrastructure for a while longer. It's all about being able to adapt. :)

It's all about being able to adapt. :)
That is what makes the game so playable.

Looking at our capital, there is not much room for cottages, We need to farm almost all of the grasslands and the flood plains to work the plains hills. It would be giving us tremendous production in the early game.

Got it. How many turns are we taking each? It seems to a bit inconsistent.

I think our capital would make a good early production/wonder city, especially if we switch to bureaucracy.

I took ten turns. I think you would be safe with ten. Or if there is just one or two turns more to get it to an even number, that's usually OK too.

It's a friendly game, so you are safe.

Looking at our capital, there is not much room for cottages, We need to farm almost all of the grasslands and the flood plains to work the plains hills. It would be giving us tremendous production in the early game.I'm not seeing this. It sounds like I can learn something here.

Yeah, looks like our city, after all improvements is gonna max out at about size 17 before physics. That really doesn't leave any room for cottages if we want max growth. We will be getting a hammer from the plains. If we were to work only the flood plains, the ivory, the cows and the hills that would leave us at pop 7. So farms all about is the way to go for this city.

Hang on, isn't this Emperor level? That means the base happiness for each new city is 3 (4 for the capital). Everything else has to be provided by religion, buildings, resources, military police (mainly), etc. So don't plan on growing too quickly, until we have the necessary happiness to support it. In that case, (a few) early cottages might not be too bad an idea.

(this turnlog was almost lost due to my computer insisting on freezing the browser just as I had finished writing it all - the turnlog was only saved because of a precautionary crtl-c... :eek:)

2920 BC - 2520 BC

2880 BC:
Warrior heals just outside Indian territory
The scout spots a whale from the southern tip of the continent

2840 BC:
Exploration...

2800 BC:
Barbarians found a city claiming the rice and dyes :mad:

2760 BC:
Meet Hatshepsut who has reached our capital's borders with a scout
Worker finishes mine, it can't do much else than mining another hill ATM

2720 BC:
Cathy adopts Slavery (bronze working)
Our scout sees that the barb city is defended by three archers

2680 BC:
We meet Elizabeth whose scout has reached us
Our warrior up north is attacked by a barb warrior in a forest and defends succesfully
Worker starts mining

2640 BC:
Nothing...

2600 BC:
Discover BW, start Agriculture (6 turns)
There's copper down at the south of the continent
Switch civic to Slavery
Mecca finishes settler, start a warrior (1 turn)
Settler heads towards the horse city location, scout makes sure the path is clear

2560 BC:
Hatty adopts slavery
Mecca finishes warrior, starts another (3 turns)
Warrior moves towards horse city location

2520 BC:
Worker finishes mine, moves to a forest to chop
A barb archer approaches our northern warrior, it's up to the next player whether we'll make a brave stand or flee

http://img453.imageshack.us/img453/8647/innoviasg2520bctx7.th.jpg (http://img453.imageshack.us/my.php?image=innoviasg2520bctx7.jpg)

I think we should try to chop out another settler before we are outsettled too much. The barb city is also a great annoyance and should be highest priority on the target list.

> > SAVE < < (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/35755/Innovation_BC-2520.Civ4SavedGame)

We should settle 1SW of the barb city IMO.

DaveShack is up!

Let the Barb City grow and then we'll capture it. It won't flip.

That horse city is going to be causing tension with China soon as well as strugling to avoid a flip. I'd sugest we capture the barb city on our way to China.

I usually have pretty good initial success (although China is a bit tough for our first strike). The real problem is that troops, support costs and captured cities kill my research rate and wreck my economy.

Why not take on India before China, they're closer to the capital.

I'd really like to attack India first, I'm just concerned that that Horse city (which I'm sure we need) may force some action with China. In which case I'd rather not be involved fighting India when war with China comes.

Conquering Delhi would give us a religion + shrine. Giving us the usefull +:happy: (edit: we don't have a happy face smily?:sad: )

Got it, but will let the lively discussion run a bit. Plus I'd really better look at it and add my 2g. ;)

Delhi sounds real good. Make that our state religion and we get a bunch of map for free too.

We should get an army first though.

Horse city in this location, right? Maybe if we're incredibly lucky, this will be the only horse location the Chinese had access to. The map seems quite crowded.

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/408/civ4screenshot0132ko4.th.jpg (http://img299.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0132ko4.jpg)

Looks like we'll need to aim for killing off both India and China. I agree India looks like the better idea to start with. We'll want to time it so Delhi is well developed but not so much that Gandhi gets too strong. A few fast workers would be useful too.

I'd like to know where iron is before burning a settler and city maintenance on that copper location. All the desert makes it a pretty ugly location.

I also think we should attack India first. They are closer and a religion without having to found it yourself is always good. In the meantime we should try to stay friends with China, perhaps even get them to join us in the war vs India, to avoid being on the wrong side of a 2 vs 1.

A few fast workers would be useful too.
Unfortunately they won't be fast anymore once we capture them.

It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure last time I played against India I captured some fast workers and they were still fast.

A quick test with worldbuilder will show. I'll make the experiment tomorrow if no one else does... it would definately tip the balance in favour of killing India. :)

India isn't going to be a walk in the park. They have at least two cities, plus they have a lot of culture already.

Not to mention if they have iron/bronze. That would suck.

It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure last time I played against India I captured some fast workers and they were still fast.No, Fast Workers become regular Workers when captured. A bit of a shame IMHO, not exactly sure why they did that (I'm sure it's something to do with balance, but it still seems weird).

Not to mention if they have iron/bronze. That would suck.
They don't have any copper that we can see. We don't know about iron but neither do they, and if we're lucky the peaceful India won't even have IW discovered before the war.

No, Fast Workers become regular Workers when captured. A bit of a shame IMHO, not exactly sure why they did that (I'm sure it's something to do with balance, but it still seems weird).
It's mainly to avoid India becoming everyone's main target AFAIK. Especially in multiplayer games, everyone would dogpile India ASAP to get their fast workers.

DaveShack, you're up! If he doesn't respond within a day, we should skip him IMO. But I don't know when I'll be able to play, and I'm next in line.

oops, sorry.

OK, here goes. Hope I haven't done anything too bizarre for your tastes. ;)

2520 BC - hit enter

2480 BC
Warrior in north gets killed by a barb archer :(
Settle medina, after checking if there are any barbs around.
Build set to warrior.
start a road north. chops should be preserved to after math
except when really needed

2440 BC
mecca warrior done, starts another, fort new warrior
the barb city has 3 archers defending

2400 BC
Medina garrison arrives, continue building road towards it

2360 BC
Agriculture finishes, start archery
Warrior done, start another

2320 BC
Scout fills in some more map of China

2280 BC
warrior done, start rax (until growth, then settler)
continuing road towards medina

2240 BC
gandhi adopts slavery

2200 BC
Archery completes, start IW. we'll need to chop jungle

2160 BC
Medina warrior done, start archer (till growth)

2120 BC
Get a peek at Catherine's new settler
start penultimate chunk of road

I'll play monday, so get your thoughts in before that time.

turn 1 enter
turn 2 enter
turn 3 our scout beats a wounded warrior
turn 4 mecca's culture grows
turn 5 list of advanced nations: Egypt, India, Russia, England, China, Us
barracks in Mecca finished, start worker
turn 6 enter
turn 7 finished pasture on horses, archer in medina finished, start on barracks
turn 8 enter
turn 9 judaism founded
turn 10 worker in Mecca finished, start on chariot

End situation: Barb city is guarded by two archers, one has got 2 city defense promotions. Our first chariot will finish in 2 turns.

Post the save please. Lord Parkin is up.

the save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/78655/Innovation_BC-1680.Civ4SavedGame)

Correct, Lord Parkin is up.

4 turns to Iron, if we don't have it we need to settle that copper. Mecca is ready to start pumping out troops, but India has very defender friendly terrain: their capitol is on a hill and the rivers mean we have to walk around the back side of their southern city.

Okay, got the save, I'll play in about 48 hours once I get the time to read up on the thread and take a look at our situation and such. ;)

I think we should attack the barbarian city first, I don't think we'll stand a chance against India with only chariots.

I think difficulty wise it's about the same. Chariots aren't going to work as well as I thought against cities, but should be able to kill any barbarians that try attacking us. India on the other hand will be culture bombing our borders. I wouldn't worry if a lot of troops die as long as we can replace them fast enough to keep going. On the other hand we could just pillage until we have something stronger, also wouldn't mind capturing some workers.

Let's go for the barbs first. They will probably have three archers guarding. Take six units with you.

OK, looks like I'm not going to have time to get this played before I have to get to bed... I'll be a few more hours sorry guys. I'll finish it off tomorrow afternoon. :)

Right, here we go. Apologies for the delay. :)

1680 BC:
Hmm, there’s another barb city to the north as well as the one to the east. I don’t think we realistically have much of a chance of taking that eastern barb city anytime soon, especially with just weak Chariots. We desperately need to get that Copper settled soon, especially if it turns out that we don’t have Iron.

Domestically, our cities are doing ok, though they’re a little on the small side. I’d like to get our capital maxed out with population to our happiness cap so that we’re raking in the most possible gold and hammers. I also see that we haven’t yet got Pottery yet – this is a situation that needs to be rectified sometime soon, since without cottages we’re going to become more and more backward technologically, which is never good.

All those Warriors in our cities are somewhat useless. They’re such weak units that they wouldn’t be any help at all in an invasion. I’m sending some of them to the lands east of Mecca, to prevent strong barbs which we can’t yet deal with from spawning.

1640 BC:
Nothing.

1600 BC:
Chariot built in Mecca, start on an Archer.

1560 BC:
Mecca grows to size 4. Tiles rearranged to encourage growth to size 5 as fast as possible.

1520 BC:
Iron Working discovered. Beautiful – we have a source right next to our capital! It’s even in our city radius so that we can work it for a massive production boost. What luck! Our Workers immediately move to hook up the Iron.

Send our Chariot north to scope out the barb encampment out there. Begin research on Pottery (much needed for those cottages).

1480 BC:
Scout the barb encampment to the north. Funnily enough, it’s also defended by just two Archers (not three), like the one to the east. Perhaps the 3-Archer defence on Emperor level wasn’t introduced until Warlords. (Or perhaps the AI are just keeping the barbs busy. That would seem to be the case, especially since one of the Archers in the city to the east is at City Defence II already.)

1440 BC:
Stonehenge is built in a far away land (Russia, consulting the Wonder demographics screen).

1400 BC:
We gain access to Iron! Axes and Spears can now be produced in bulk.

1360 BC:
Our Scout has been sealed in by the expanding borders of Catherine and Elizabeth. We’ll just have to wait until Open Borders become available…

1320 BC:
Nothing.

1280 BC:
Gandhi completes the Oracle. Mecca reaches size 5, tiles rearranged so that production is maxed out.

I’ve queued up a Settler next in Mecca, since I think we should settle the Copper site sooner rather than later. Unfortunately there’s no good food around so the city won’t grow very much, but it’ll have excellent production as long as it works the Copper tile, and that’s the main thing (really we’re looking for troop numbers at the moment, above anything else).

For the units – make sure to produce mostly Axemen, since they are uber-units in vanilla Civ4. Maybe a Spear or two “just in case”, and a Swordsman or two if you really want, but keep the majority of the army Axemen. We should be ready to strike whatever target we wish within not too many turns. :)

1889, you're up.

Well cool, I just happened to be up. Getting furniture out of the way because the carpet guy called and said he can come over tomorrow. So won't be able to play until evening. For now though I'm thinking of skipping the settler so I can get 4 axmen to invade India with 2 chariots to pillage and pay for it all. So war with India in about 5 turns.

India's only friend is England, its neighbors are all cautious and its power is equal to our own, rather incredible in an emperor level game.

We definitely want to make sure we have a large enough force for the initial assault. If we fai, then we'll be struggling on a defensive war and probably have to pay a heavy price just for peace. That is after 10 turns of being ravaged. What's India holding in it's cities? 2:1 at least would be good, especially if they've got archers.

Mauer nailed it. I have learned very few things in CIV IV. But there are three things I do know:

1. when you go to war, you better go in overwhelming force.
2. when you go to war, be prepared for a strong counterstrike.
3. wounded units do not fight well.

Pretty sad isn't it.

1280
Disband scout and 4 warriors.
1 warrior sent north to explore
Science increased 20 % to 80
Medina set to build sword
1240
Axe finished
1200
Pottery finished, set to Write and Alphabet
1160
North barb city only defended by 1 Archer
1120
Mine done, start road and cottage
Sword built
South Barb city builds worker
1040
North barb city rushes barracks
1000
North Barb city captured by India
Southern Barb city captured by us with no loss
+64 gold and 2 workers
975
Open Border with India refused
925
4 swords, 1 spear, 1 axe, 2 chariots set to invade India
Writing finishes in 1 turn
Barbarian warrior spotted in East

Medina and Khosian are tentatively set to build Obelisks, but Medina should switch back to units for conquest of India. We can capture Delhi in 5 turns and use new units to capture nearer city. Alphabet next will let us extort techs from our enemies. We should use Open border to scout China, our next target.

I hope your not to upset about the disbandings but warriors were no longer valuable, maybe I should have saved the scout though.

Mauer gets to take the glory.

You don't like to upgrade units? As a newbie, I'd like to hear your opinion on that.

No, upgrading is generally too expensive to be useful on the large-scale. It can be handy for the odd unit though, in emergencies (at least in my opinion).

I guess I don't mind too much about the disbandings, but I think it might have been a little foolish... those "useless" Warriors were in fact preventing any barbs from spawning to our east, and thus meaning that we didn't need to have a defensive garrison and could instead concentrate all our troops on attacking India. Now, we'll need to protect our eastern flank, since we could have barb Archers, Axes, and Swords turning up on our doorstep there. So we won't be able to send quite as many troops out to India...

I haven't looked at the save yet, but how many more axes can we punch out in 10 turns? Just wondering if I should declare or not on my turns.

I think we are ready to invade right now, swords come out of the capitol city in 3-4 turns.

As for the disbandings; those units were costing 4 gold per turn, so keeping them around until upgrade wasn't free, and I don't know when we would be able to afford that. I felt the money would be much better spent on science. Anyway since we can produce experienced swordsmen so fast it didn't seem worth it.

It also didn't seem worth it to spend that kind of money any longer to prevent barbs from poping up because I no longer feel that barbs are very dangerous to us.

OK, yeah, I guess that's fair enough. :)

I knew I was going to learn a lot in this game.

Sorry guys, had a paper I was working on yesterday, and today was a belated Thanksgiving with my wife's family. Should be able to get to it tomorrow, so get in your 2 cents while you can.

no comments, don't be mad then :sad:

Ok, here we go

925 - get OB with Russia and China, start exploring with our wandering warrior.

900 - Mecca- sword->axe
Russia declares on Egypt

875 - Russia wants us to declare on Egypt. I accept, mainly cause Russia is the strongest and it'll just be a fake war anyways (bad idea?).

850 - Barb city to our SE just popped up and a barb warrior is threatening our worker over there. Move an axe to cover.

825 - mecca - axe ->axe.....Declare on Gahndi. Move our stack in one tile but going to move again so I don't attack across a river. Only 2 archers in Bombay.

800 - Medina - axe -> axe

775 - Mecca - axe -> axe...Capture Bombay (133 gold) with no losses.

750 - China builds pyramids

725 - Mecca axe ->axe, China converts to police state and we capture Delhi (134 gold) with a few losses, but were ok. Delhi only had 3 archers garrisoned and 1 archer fortified on the horses. I don't see a long drawn out war and fear retaliation, so I beef up defense in Delhi (letting units heal as well).

700 - warrior exploring China is killed by a chariot, Gandhi converts to Judaism.

675 - mecca - axe ->axe, Medina - axe ->axe, Bombay - set to obelisk
China converts to Judaism, I let Mecca get too big, sorry guys. Maybe we should set it to library and whip? Can't remember but I think I have 3 axes heading towards the barb city (3 archers there). I also made straight peace with Egypt. Gandhi will also give us peace, but we won't have alpha for 6 more turns so no techs if we get peace.

Nice work, looks like Gandhi got a taste of Mauer's Pain.

I think waiting 6 turns to end the war is worth it. We can use the extra time to pillage his improvements or at least scout his land a bit. I seem to get better deals when I have a stack of units in their territory.

Winning wars against the AI is sort of the easy part, paying for it is very tough. Spiritual civs don't get the temporary relief of anarchy either, but we can adopt the new religion for free.

Is their enough time to pillage the Indian city just north of us on the Chinese border?

Lets make preparations to attack China and find some better civics.

1889
Mauer played
Sir Bugsy up
Theoden:On deck
DaveShack
Dutchfire
Lord Parkin

I think the Gandhi AI prefers defensive units. Alphabet will also be good so we can see if China is able to build catapults yet.

I have it, although I can't play until tomorrow evening.

Sounds like waiting six turns for alphabet is the plan. Anything else?

Not sure what everyone else thinks, but I'd like to have a few libraries. Maybe rotate libraries between builds? Might not be a good idea, but it's what I'd do. We'll have Alpha in 6, but after that our research will be next to nothing cause our research is being fueled at 100% by our war booty. Should we work on converting and propagating our newly conquered religion?

Pre-flight – 675 - Gandhi has four cities. One of them is a former barb city. Checking our cities, Mecca is not a happy place. Not much I can do about that at the moment. We have a lot of luxes, but we can’t do a thing with them until we know about months and years.

IBT – An Indian chariot rides up to Medina.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/458/innovationmedinajb3.jpg

I have a momentary panic until I realize there is a road through the mountains for the Axe to get to town.

650 – I move the axe into town and the worker out of range. Heal troops in Delhi and march some wealthy ones towards the western Indian lands.

IBT - Our horse pasture is pillaged by the Indian chariot.

625 – Our axe in Medina kills the chariot. We pillage a hamlet as I gather up our forces for the march west.

IBT - Mecca: axe=>library

600 – We march on Madras, which is also the birthplace of Judaism. There are three archers defending. Our axe promoted last turn, give him CR2. March next to the new barb city. That will take at least two turns. The city is on a hill, so we’ll see how that goes. Science goes down a notch to still get Alphabet in three and save 5gpt.

IBT – Delhi’s resistance is over, but that place is going to starve down with its unhappiness. I select an axe there.

575 – At the barb city – We kill one archer. I refrain from attacking with the second axe. I move all our units next to Madras. Science down a notch.

550 – There’s another archer in Madras. We have six attackers. No losses and…
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/8138/innovationmadrasvg9.jpg

Science down a notch. Alphabet due next.

IBT – Alphabet => Masonry (due in three) We can probably get this in a peace treaty.
Bombay: Obelisk=>sword

525 – Gandhi won’t give us Metal casting for peace, but I get the next most expensive combination: math & masonry. Now I select HBR for research. (due in 12 at 60%)

At the barb city I lose an axe. I move some of our more experienced units towards the barb city.

IBT – Medina: Axe=>Library

500 – Nada.

IBT – Mecca: Library=>sword
Delhi: Axe=>library

475 – nada

After Action: Here is the southeast:
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/5404/innovationsoutheastqh5.jpg

If we want to take that city, we have troops on the way. How do you get rid of the labels?

Here is our new city:
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/9300/innovationnorthwestqz3.jpg

We can get some happies from that elephant.

Feedback is welcome.

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/32851/Innovation_BC-0475.Civ4SavedGame

Theoden's up, nice couple of turns!

Nice turns Sir Bugsy :D

Hey guys, Russia and China are Jewish, maybe we should convert since we have the holy city. Might help with tech trading with Russia. Just an idea.

Alt-s puts you in Label mode.

Good job Bugsy.

What are our research plans now? We need code of laws for courthouse and Forbiden Place and some better civics might help us handle these costs.

I think we can hold off on capturing that barb city for now, but would like to capture China's capital. That way we can begin to hurt Russia and keep them in heck. Otherwise we may have enough troops for now.

We also need some prophets so we can get money from religion. BTW switching to Judaism nigh reveal a lot of map to us.

We might want to go for Code of Laws to stop our economy from collapsing.

We won't see into any Jewish cities unless we hold the holy city for that religion.

Good job on the war. I'm also very surprised by how easy that was. Emperor is supposed to be a challenge! :lol:

EDIT: Code of Laws -> Courthouses might take a fair while. In the meantime I suggest building plenty of cottages. Also, consider razing cities from now on, instead of keeping them... until we can afford it.

We won't see into any Jewish cities unless we hold the holy city for that religion.

Madras, we captured it. ;)

I'll play my turnset tomorrow or in worst case saturday, so you still have time for some more comments. :)

I'd say CoL would be the next tech to research, as I can't see anything that would be more beneficial to us than courthouses ATM.

Hey Lord Parkin, you got any ideas why Gandhi built archers and not chariots? More chariots that is.

I'd guess that probably (as has been stated before), each AI leader has a tendancy towards certain strategies, and thus certain unit types. While they won't necessarily completely avoid one particular unit, they might build less of it and build more of something else instead. In Gandhi's case, he's (usually) a fairly peaceful and defensive type of leader, so it would make sense that he'd prefer to build Archers over Chariots (although I'm surprised that he still does that on Emperor level). That's about as much as I know though, I haven't ever investigated any of the game code or anything (and I wouldn't want to :eek: ), so I can't give you much more of a detailed answer.

IBT - China demand Alphabet, I refuse of course

450 - Elizabeth turns hinduist, I convert to Judaism, which reveals a russian city from the

dark as well as the chinese capital

425 - Resistance in Madras ends, start a worker

IBT - Axeman on hill is attacked by barb archer, wins flawlessly and earns a promotion

400 - Madras' borders expand
Khoisan: Obelisk -> Granary
Mecca: sword -> sword

IBT: Gandhi offers meditation for iron working, I turn him down

375 - nothing

IBT - most powerful civs:
1 Cathy
2 Elizabeth
3 Us
4 Hatty
5 Qin Shi Huang
6 Gandhi
Elizabeth demands Alphabet, I refuse
Hatty offers fur for cow, I accept

350 - Rush granary in Khoisan
I raze the barbarian city of Kassite, but with the loss of a swordsman and two axemen (can't

say I was lucky with those fights...)

325 - Khoisan: Granary -> Library
Mecca: sword -> sword

300 - nada

IBT - Elizabeth demands to cancel deals with Russia, I refuse
Cathy demands to cancel deals with Egypt, I refuse
Gandhi demands iron working, I refuse
You gotta love the AI for this demands-show :lol:

275 - Bombay's borders expand

IBT - peace deal with India expire :satan:

250 - Mecca: sword -> sword
Trade with Hatty: iron working and pottery for polytheism, meditation and fishing
Horseback Riding finished, start on Priesthood (2 turns)
Mecca: sword -> horse archer
I declare war on Gandhi!

225 - Chinese get a great engineer
Bombay: sword -> Library
Madras: worker -> Library
Science slider forced down to 20%, Priesthood will now take 5 turns

200 - I raze Calcutta, no losses

We have to raze anything we capture at the moment or our economy will collapse completely. Courthouses and the FP should redeem our economic situation once we get them.

But I noticed something weird... some of our swordsmen have more promotions than they ought to have. For example one of them has 4xp (=1 promotion) but has City Raider 1, 2 & 3. :confused: (not that I'm complaining, it helped take the Indian city without losses)

Rather than destroying civs one at a time we need to share the love. India is out of the game, lets start hurting china.

Rather than destroying civs one at a time we need to share the love. India is out of the game, lets start hurting china.
Sure, but the reason I declared again on India was that they had Metal Casting, and they might require a little more "convincing" to cough it up.

But I noticed something weird... some of our swordsmen have more promotions than they ought to have. For example one of them has 4xp (=1 promotion) but has City Raider 1, 2 & 3. :confused: (not that I'm complaining, it helped take the Indian city without losses)Eh? That sounds very fishy... :confused:

EDIT: Just backchecked on the last few saves. There are three units (all Swordsmen) which have two more promotions than they should have. These extra promotions were not there at the end of 1889's last turn, but appeared in the save after Mauer had played. As we have not disabled the WorldBuilder on this game, I can only assume that the extra promotions were added in there somehow, since I have never encountered a situation where units have magically gained extra promotions outside use of the WorldBuilder. (Hmm, I did think our campaign went rather more easily than I expected...)

If that's the case, then I'm not angry, just a little disappointed I guess. Where's the joy in beating Emperor level with the aid of cheating? Anyone can do that. :( Disabling WorldBuilder at the start of these games shouldn't have to be the answer either, since we should all be honest enough players that we don't actually bother with it anyway.

What is worldbuilder and how does that add promotions to our units?

In the same dropdown menu as the save/load game options is the world builder button. In a single player game it lets you change terrain, add bonuses/goodies, change units, techs, cities, etc.

I use it often for setting up alternate worlds where I can test out various game play options.

Well, looks like I owe you all a big apology :( . I guess I let pride get to me on that. Surface reason....I just recently finished 3 MP games where I suffered devastating defeats. I play on this team, and this game, and most everything I say is wrong. I know I was thinking that I just wanted to do something right and not be the one to drop the ball. Real reason....I'm a goob. I accept total responsibility for being a goob, and I'll step out of this game. I really do apologize guys and hope you all forgive me. I actually, although it is still wrong, was testing out what it would take to capture Delhi. It got good to me I guess when I answered that question and just decided (in very poor judgment) to play on :sad: .

You could just stay in the game and not do that again. Does that old saw about falling off a horse apply here?

P.S. I often do the same thing, but I load up a different game then use world builder to create the situation I am working out.

I'd really rather not, it's quite embarrassing.

It's no biggie, the next person should just remove the extra promotions in the WorldBuilder when they begin the next turn, to level out the playing field again. Don't feel too bad, Mauer. :)

DaveShack is up.

Mauer: Don't be afraid to drop the ball, I've made many mistakes in my own SG's, but that's the purpose of this game, to learn to play the game better. Just try to continue this game, and learn to beat Emperor without world-builder.

Well, looks like I owe you all a big apology :( . I guess I let pride get to me on that. Surface reason....I just recently finished 3 MP games where I suffered devastating defeats. I play on this team, and this game, and most everything I say is wrong. I know I was thinking that I just wanted to do something right and not be the one to drop the ball. Real reason....I'm a goob. I accept total responsibility for being a goob, and I'll step out of this game. I really do apologize guys and hope you all forgive me. I actually, although it is still wrong, was testing out what it would take to capture Delhi. It got good to me I guess when I answered that question and just decided (in very poor judgment) to play on :sad: .
Who cares. This is about friends playing a game, learning and having fun. I'm a complete newbie. I'm going to make some mistakes too. I expect someone to point them out to me and I will try and learn from them. I have several degrees from the School of Hard Knocks.

Got it.

I don't mind the WB edit. Being honest about it, especially being so open about why, shows honorable intentions. We're all tempted from time to time, and once in a while we succumb to it. We'll edit it back and move on.

I'll admit, I was puzzled by how easily India fell, since I pretty much take a beating even on Prince level. ;)

Things will get tough very quickly. The AIs trade with each other quite readilly so it's not long until we face longbows or crossbows behind +60% culture defencel

Have you looked over the save? Any thoughts? I was thinking: Mathematics (for catapults) after Code of Law (for courthouses and FP) after capturing Beijing.

I think I'll ask for a skip this time please. Only 5 more work days left this year and lots of pressure to make the most of them, and so I'm very short of time right now.

I'll see when I've got time to play then.

It went pretty well, we've now got the temple of Solomon, we're at war with China, we've razed Bangalore of India and Guanzhou of China, and are moving in on Beijing, I think we should keep Beijing, as it has the pyramids. I moved in my troops against China once, but forgot to declare war, so that caused some delay.


turn 1
whipped libary in Medina
Changed Bombay to work cottages
whipped libary in Delhi

turn 2
trade Ivory for Silk with Qin
Russia wants to trade monotheism for Alpha, no way
Medina Library finished, set to axeman
Delhi libary finished, set to archer
two of our axes beat to archers outside Bangalore

turn 3
hatsheput wants alphabet, no way
Mecca Horse Archer -> Horse archer
Delhi archer -> granary
borders of Khoisan pop
attack bangalore, lose one axe, beat 4 archers
raze it, get 83 gold

turn 4
Priesthood finished, start on Code of Laws
Russia wants Horsebackriding, no way
Novgorod has been razed by Egypt

Turn 6
Qin asks if we want to cancel our deals with england, say no
Mecca Horse archer-> sword

Turn 7
Intended to declare on China
Whiped libary in Khoisan, archer in Bombay

Turn 8
Mecca swordsman->horse archer
Khoisan libary->barracks

Turn 9
Declared on China
Make peace with Gandhi for monotheism and sailing because an archer threatened to pillage a farm near Medina.

Turn 10
Madras library -> granary
axeman beats barb warrior
madras borders pop
Raze Guangzhou for 91 gold, with the loss of 1 sword.
Build Temple of Solomon


We might want to start spreading Judaism with Organized Religion.
Lord Parkin is up.
143970

China's capitol is only defended by a spear and 2 unpromoted archers. I suppose we'll make peace after that or do you want to hassle the settler just outside Delhi's border.

Russia's culture is going to be our next problem. How about sending one of our horse archers out as a scout.

Roster Check:

1889 - On deck
Mauer
Bugs
Theoden
DaveShack
Dutchfire - Just played
Lord Parkin - UP!

OK, I'll get this played in the next day or so, hopefully.

Sorry guys, seems that I'm just too busy at the moment to play this save, even though I keep trying to find the time. I'll have to skip my turn for now, hopefully I'll be able to play again once the rush up to christmas is over. ;)

There will be enough turns to play, so you don't have to worry :p.
So that makes 1889 up!

I played a few turns and we are kicking ass!

Time to regroup and grow though. Brought most of our troops back home to save supply costs and stopped all unit builds. Also upped science to get Code of Law.

Russia declares war on China. We captured a Chinese settler and resumed march on Beijing. Captured the city and Pyramids just after the Russians softened it up. China refused to give us anything for peace so the war continues, but Russia will soon wipe them out.

Chariot and horse archers make use of open borders to scout Russia and Egypt and begin looking at England.

Switch to courthouses in most cities after Code of Law but the Jewish holy city can now build missionaries and the capitol is building Hanging Gardens.

I started Calander, but that really wasn't a very good choice because some AI's already have it. We should switch to something that we can trade.

Sir Bugsy's turn now

OK, I have it. Courthouses, exploration, remove the Chinese. Anything else?

I don't think China is worth the trouble any more. Let Russia send its troops out after China's last cities while we prepare an assault on Russia's core.

It might be good to keep China and India alive as polar city states, that will lower the domination limit with a few %. And we might trade techs with them, sell them our resources, things like that.

Pre-flight – China will give us peace. There is a Russian settler galley on the east coast probably headed for that site in the SE. The English are tech leaders, five ahead of the field. Otherwise, we are in good shape tech-wise.

I get calendar for peace with China. Since our economy stinks, I select currency next.

325 – Beijing’s resistance is over. Start a temple to get some culture there, we could use the corn and the silk, and whip it.

350
375
400
IBT – Lizzy demands we cut off Cathy. Cathy captures Xian then makes peace with China.

425 – I trade Calendar and HBR to Lizzy for Metal Casting.

450 – The hanging gardens complete. Beijing expands and we get silks on line.

475
IBT – Lizzy cancels open borders.
500 – We finally have positive cash flow as another courthouse comes on line. Time to think of expanding again?
520 – Hatty wants to give us incense for ivory. Sounds like a deal. It looks like Cathy’s settler galley is headed for the north coast.
540

After Action – We are mostly healthy and happy. I think we can generate a few more settlers now and fill in some spots. Keep building culture in Beijing. We have a culture war to fight there against St. Pete. Our cashflow is presently at breakeven and that will improve with another courthouse or two. We need to rework some of our cities. For example, Mecca could use some more food.

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/32851/Innovation_AD-0540.Civ4SavedGame

Rather than build cities I'd rather attack Russia. St. Petersburg needs to be destroyed before we lose Beijing. We can then capture Rostov and Shanghai.

Theoden is up. DaveShack is on deck.

Going after Russia is good. I think we'll need a lot more military than we have though. We might want to keep St. Pete rather than destroy it.

I'll play my turnset tomorrow. :)

Should I raze or capture cities?

I would certainly raze St Pete, it would just revolt for sure. The rest is up to you. I'd like to keep them but its probably better to raze then have them be recaptured.

Looking at the save now, St pete has absolutely no influence over Beijing. So it has no risk of flipping to Russia, and destroying St Pete won't help change anything in that regard. There are other reasons to raze it though... :mischief:

If we plan to keep Russia around and we care about their attitude toward us, then razing might not be a good idea. Not that I necessarily think we care, just mentioning that in case we do.

If we plan to keep Russia around and we care about their attitude toward us, then razing might not be a good idea. Not that I necessarily think we care, just mentioning that in case we do.
Too late, I already played and razed several russian cities, and royally pissed them off. ;) Turnlog coming...

560
Khoisan barracks -> swordsman
Bombay barracks -> granary

580
Cathy's GA ends
Declare war on Russia

600
Mecca forge -> Chitzen Itza (might come in handy when defending newly captured cities, and we have stone to double the production speed)
Delhi barracks -> axeman
A forest grows near Delhi :D
2 axes vs 2 swords, both axes win

620
Medina courthouse -> spearman
Switch to police state civic to increase military production
I raze Rostov, killing 1 axe and 3 archers with no losses on my side :D

IBT
horse vs sword, horse wins
horse vs spear, spear wins

640
Discover Currency, start Construction due in 8 turns (we really need catapults to lower city defenses and having war elephants doesn't hurt either)
Khoisan sword -> axe
Delhi axe -> axe
Cathy builds the great library in Moscow, I like her timing :mischief:

IBT
2 axes die while attacking Beijing, no losses on my side

660
Beijing library -> walls
Hatty completes the Colossus in Thebes
Raze Yekaterinburg, killing 1 spear and 1 archer with no losses on my side, also capture a worker in the process

IBT
spear (in Beijing) vs horse, spear wins

680
Khoisan axe -> sword
Delhi axe -> axe
Gandhi turns confused(ianistic) :crazyeye:

IBT
axe vs sword, axe wins
axe vs archer, archer wins

700
Medina spear -> spear
Khoisan sword -> sword
Delhi axe -> axe

IBT
sword (in Beijing) vs spear, sword wins
a horse archer pillages the silk plantation

720
Delhi axe -> sword
spear vs horse, spear wins

IBT
spear vs horse, horse wins
China offers OB, I accept
Khoisan sword -> axe
Delhi sword -> sword
Madras courthouse -> jewish temple
Beijing walls -> courthouse
sword vs horse, sword wins

After the attack on Rostov I had to retreat to heal and to build up an army large enough to take on some of the bigger cities. There's now a big healed army ready for the next player who should be able to wreak some havoc in the russian lands. :mischief:

> > SAVE < < (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/35755/Innovation_AD-0740.Civ4SavedGame)

Great work Theo. I think we should march over and bust up St. Pete then turn north and capture all that junk. And how did Elisabeth get all those techs? Thats going to be a tough fight!

Maybe its time for a navy too. Those Russian galleys are going to sail along our coast with impunity. Its not really dangerous, its just the principal of the thing.

Also I had hoped that China and India would trade with their AI buddies and get some techs for us to extort, but doesn't look like thats going to happen. Could we declare war and vassalize them or just wipe them out without too much trouble. Especially India, they're just in the way now.

As long as those galleys don't have troops in them, who cares. we can worry about that later.

Who's up?

Dave is next.

Vassalize? It's vanilla!
Destroying these civs will give us bigger bonuses on researching techs known by others, right?

Oh I never though of that! Looking over the formula, it says "Multiply .3 by number of living civs with the tech then divide by number of civs that started on the map." So our bonuses are reduced by about 10% of we kill them both.

I could still do without India at this point though.

Oh, that sucks.

I'm awash in playing with the kids new toys and games, but will try to get to it this year. It's hard to turn down "Daddy, play with us" :D and there's catching up with all that lost sleep from dealing with "some assembly required" toys at 2 AM. :hammer:

Only 12 more hours in this year, how about passing off to Dutch.

I went skiing with school for four days, skied like 7 hours a day, then apres-skiing (drinking), went to bed about 12 o'clock every day, and up at 7, and then returning by bus, a trip of 14 hours. No game for me now :p but maybe tomorrow.

Have no fear, it is moving forward... ;) Got it, starting to play now.

Ultra-long play session

I always take 2.5 hours per turn when paying attention to what's going on.
Or it could be the aftereffects of pina coladas while playing poker followed by wine to toast the new year. :mischief:

Start of session, 740 AD
Sitrep
At war with Russia
Above Russia in power
Cathy's galley has an archer and a settler in it
They're next to one of our workers, which is gonna
be captured if they decide to land there.

Lizzy has quite a list of techs there. :eek:

OK, hit enter. We'll see if the Russians
come ashore to capture our worker or if they
have another idea in mind.

760 AD Turn 1
The Russian galley did not unload. They moved
some horses next to Beijing.
Bombay finishes granary, starts a spear (7)

Near Beijing, Combat II spear vs Shock horse wins, 3.3 left
Combat II sword vs Combat I horse wins, 2.6 left

Horse in Egyptian territory moves into position to pillage Russian iron

Looks like Gandhi thinks it will be OK to settle the northern iron.
Further expansion is NOT part of our peace agreement,
After thinking for quite a while, I declare on Gandhi.
Axe defeats Indian archer, 2.3 left.
Axe loses to Indian chariot but knocks it down to 1.6
Axe defeats chariot, 4,3 left, settler captured -> worker.

780 AD Turn 2
Construction finishes, start machinery
Medina spear -> catapult
Khoisan Axeman -> catapult
Delhi Sword -> catapult

Advance the army towards St Pete
Take a peek at Moscow's defenses
russians have another iron source, so pillaging the
one near moscow probably isn't worth the loss of a horse.
move the horse to a safer tile, will consider using the
chariot next turn

India had sortied an archer. promote an axe to cover
but RNG gets us and he loses a 74% battle. Another
axe finishes off the archer. Move a sword to protect
our now wounded 18xp axe.

800 AD turn 3
Lose a couple of mounted units to Russian spears.
One horse, one chariot.
The intel we received previous turn was probably worth it.

Medina cat->cat
Madras temple->aqueduct. MM to emphasize hammers.

Great Engineer Archimedes born in Beijing. We have no
wonders available and the most expensive building at
present costs only 150 hammers, so use him to lightbulb
Machinery (a savings of 931 beakers).
Start on civil service.

Spear defeats horse, 3.4 left

820 AD turn 4
Sword on hill defends vs archer
We're last place in tech ?
Chichen Itza completed. Mecca starts a market.
Medina cat->spear
Delhi cat->crossbow

Axe kills archer on the horses next to st pete, 2.6 left
Rest of army camps out on the horses

840 AD turn 5
Hatty offers lit+10g for construction. not a good trade
Khoisan finishes cat, starts another
Delhi finishes crossbow, starts war elephant

Lizzy declared on Cathy !
Sword defeats cat but 6 units suffer damage
Our best unit's chances are down to 11% against st pete.
I give an axeman medic to help the stack heal.

Sword defeats archer up north, captures russian settler, 3.1 left
Continue army buildup

860 AD turn 6
Lose a sword on defense to a horse.

Axe kills an Indian archer which had wandered into our lands

880 AD turn 7
Just realized our units are sitting on Russia's horse pasture
and were put on heal without pillaging first. :blush:

Time to deal with the Russian units running around the forest
east of Beijing...
Sword defeats spear, 2.8 left
Spear defeats horse, 2.0 left
Axe defeats archer, 3.5 left
Spear defeats chariot, 3.5 left

900 AD turn 8
Our horse kicking around the northern Russian cities defends
against an axe.
Medina spear->spear
Khoisan cat->forge
Bombay spear->Jewish temple
Delhi war elephant->market

Give horse at Yaroslavl combat I, combat II, kills archer, pillages

iron
First bombardment drops St Pete's defenses to 51%. 2 cats on station

920 AD turn 9
Madras aqueduct->market
A russian catapult is on the way, so move our force out of
range of a suicide attack to avoid collateral damage

940 AD turn 10
Cat attacks Beijing, not worried about damage there because
their cupboard is getting pretty bare.
Mecca market->wealth (sci dropped to 20% and still neg. gpt)

Sword defeats Indian catapult, 2.8 left

Conquest of St Petersburg
Bombarded down to 15%
Raider 3+Combat 2 sword defeats axe
Combat 3 sword defeats sword
Raider 3 axe defeats archer, city falls. take 162g and raze
given our economy is not in good shape

The save: (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/26840/Innovation_AD-0940.Civ4SavedGame)

So that makes me up, and Lord Parkin on deck.

I'll wait a day to get some discussion.
Should we start up knocking down England soon?

I think we should take Moscow, then move on to England. Since we cats now, it should be much easier.

Build priorities? Catapults, economical buildings, other units?
I don't know how we are on other units, but I like catapults.
And research towards maces?

Let the cities get economic buildings in turn while the rest build units, to keep the troops flowing.

We should get at least one stack of 7 catapults (seven is the magical number here, as that allows them to bomb down a city's defenses in one turn).

Incidentally, I presume we're promoting the Catapults as City Raiders, when the time comes? Over time I've found that that's generally the most useful promotion for them in most situations. :)

I'm going to play today.

The Log

turn 1
silk to Egypt for 4 gpt
MMing cities
whip Beijing
See that Hatshe and Lizzy are the direct threats
Research to 30%, running positive and CS in 12

turn 2
Beijing Courthouse->Granary
Pillage a cottage for 16 and a gold mine for 17
whip temple Bombay
research at 40% CS in 8, 200 gold in the treasury +5

Turn 3
Bombay temple -> spear
elephant beats Indian cat
english settle warwick between Beijing and Moscow
CS in 7, 209 gold in the treasury +5

Turn 4
medina spear->cat
Peace with gandhi for literature
axe -> sword
CS in 6, 214 gold in the treasury +5

Turn 5
whip medina cat
whip beijing granary
CS in 5, 219 gold in the treasury -3

Turn 6
Mecca cat -> Heroic Epic
Medina cat -> sword
Delhi market -> sword
Beijing granary -> National Epic
CS in 4, 216 gold in the treasury

Turn 7
IBT sword beats catapult, another catapult withdraws, axe beats sword
Fish from Hatshe for spices
medina sword -> market
Khoisan forge -> xbow
Bombay spear ->Jewish Missionary
ATTACK!!!
lose 2 unexperienced swords and an axe, beat a horse archer, an archer, a spear and two elephants. We capture Moscow, get 200 gold, and the great library + academy
Make peace for monarchy, music, 150 gold and 2 gpt.

Turn 8
whip Bombay
Civil Service in 1

Turn 9
Adopt Bureaucracy
Research Feudalism
bombay starts on a new missionary, the last one is sent to moscow

Turn 10
Delhi mace -> xbow
Declare on Lizzy


Overview
We capture Moscow, and Russia is a mere footnote in history along with India and China. They occupy the north west of the continent, Russia has like 3 cities, China 1 and India 1. Moscow will rebel for 4 turns.
We can now build maces, and should do so, together with crossbows as England doesn't have horses.
We're building the HE in Mecca and the NE in Beijing.
We're at war with Lizzy. We should destroy Warwick and York, and if possible London, and then move on to Egypt to destroy Memphis to give Moscow some space.
145355145371

Sounds real good this game is wrapping up quick. The collateral damage promotion for catapults is quite nice as well. BTW no save attached.
Lord Parkin up.

Well, our army isn't that large now, but all we need to do now is knocking out England and Egypt and then finish it up.

England is tough, longbows for city defence, pikes against our elephants and maybe knights already too. Will the old SOD still work?

What should we do with Moscow? It has an 8% chance of revolt and I don't know how many troops we would need to keep that under control. The best course of action would be to attack Egypt and destroy Memphis but since we are fighting England right now maybe we should just ditch it for the time being. Maybe gift it to someone?

If we keep it and it revolts, it's not a big problem, at the time it revolts we'll probably want to attack egypt anyway.

It has an 8% chance of revolt
How did you figure this out? Is it listed in some info screen or is there a utility somewhere? :)

But I agree with dutchfire. Let's keep it and just hope it doesn't revolt immediately.

How did you figure this out? Is it listed in some info screen or is there a utility somewhere? :)


Mouse over the culture bar in the bottom left of the city screen to uncover your cities chance of revolting to two decimal places!

How did you figure this out? Is it listed in some info screen or is there a utility somewhere? :)


Mouse over the culture bar in the bottom left of the city screen to uncover your cities chance of revolting to two decimal places.

Not to be a PITA, but SG ettiquette usually follows that if there is going to be a war declaration on your last turn, to let the next guy do the declaring so they get to deal with the consequences of their action.

Roster check

1889 - On deck
Mauer
Bugs
Theoden
DaveShack
Dutchfire - Just played
Lord Parkin - UP!

Sorry guys, been a bit busy. I'll get to the save soon. :)

Not to be a PITA, but SG ettiquette usually follows that if there is going to be a war declaration on your last turn, to let the next guy do the declaring so they get to deal with the consequences of their action.


Sorry, didn't know about that.

My apologies guys, it looks like I'll have to skip this turn so as not to be unfair and hold things up for any longer. Life is fairly hectic at the moment. :)

1889 is up!

Ok I'll play tonight. Nice work to whoever played last (Dutch?) we have troops all over the place, England should go down easy and her war with Russia should be a convenient distraction for any counter attack.

Well I’m pretty sure we own this game (what fun it is to play as a result).

1060 began with my usual disbanding, 5 workers were caught lazing about. Also decided to get Mr. Fogbuster in on the action. He climbed off his hill and joined troops assembling to attack India for the last time.
English crossbow kills axe

1070 Capture Warwick from England, 1 swordsman dies.
Crossbow kills ‘nuther axe.
Catapult attacks our stack outside York, then longbow kills sword.
Russia demands Machinery, Cathy gets slapped this time!
Our Horse kills English catapult.

1080 Catapults begin siege of York.
Mace kills horse.
Crossbow attacks Moscow and kills Horse.

1090 Cat finally kills the Crossbow that has cost us so much.

1100 Heroic Epic completed in Mecca, new unit every other turn now.
Socrates establishes Academy in Mecca
Jewish missionary brings religion to Moscow.

1110 Feudalism discovered, Guilds started.
Gandhi cancels peace, suits me fine.
Crossbow defends against crossbow.
Crossbow kills the worlds most decorated swordsman, 6 promotions! – Sorry guys.

1120 Capture York, loose 2 sword and 2 cats, but England still won’t talk peace.
Missionary brings religion to Delhi.
Declare war on Gandhi, capture worker.

1130 Bring religion to Warwick.

1140 Cathy cancels her peace payments.

1150 Beijing finishes National Epic, begins Forbidden Palace.

Sir Bugsy's turn, enjoy.

OK, I have the game, although it will probably take me the entire 48 hours to get it played.

Pre-flight – 1150 - We have six units ready to attack the Indian capitol next turn. There are three LBs defending with 50% bonus. I don’t think we have enough force. For example if we attack with the axe, we have a 0.3% chance of winning. More cats needed.

Lizzy will give us all the cash in her purse for peace, but no techs yet. More pain for Lizzy. Looks like the Chinese are going to settle a city on the northern coast. We might have to deal with that one next.

Moscow is getting crushed by Egyptian culture. We might need a culture building or two there.

City management looks good.

1160 - Hatty has a new city to our SE.

1170 - Tell me if this is a bad habit to be in, but if I am moving a unit into enemy territory, I make sure it goes in fully promoted. Likewise, if a unit is going to be the primary defender of a city, that may be attacked, it gets full promotion.

1180 – Resistance in York ends. Select a temple and I’ll whip it the first chance I get… like now. We now have eight attackers at the Indian capitol and the defensive bonus is now at 35%. We attack next turn.

IBT – Guilds => Engineering Why can’t I build knights! :gripe: Oh, we have camel archers. :blush:

1190 – Start marching on London.
At Chehalis – Defense is now 27%, but they have four LBs.
Lose the first five attacks including a mace with a 68% chance of winning. That bum didn’t even scratch the defender. We then win off the next three, leaving a 0.6 strength LB.

1200 – At Chehalis – Attack with an axe and…
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/4922/chehalissw9.jpg

Start marching on the last Indian city.

London has 2 Maces, 1 CB, 3 LB, and 2 pikes defending. It has a 60% defensive bonus.

IBT – Lose a sword to an English mace. Kill a cat.

1210 – Upgrade two axes to maces.

1220 – Kill an English mace. At Lahore – lose a crossbow before this happens:
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/9733/lahoreue9.jpg

IBT – Qin Shi cancels the open boarders agreement. Fine, that isn’t stopping us in England.

1230 – Hatty is going to plant a second city on the southern coast.

1240 – Hatty’s settler pair disappears. More marching on London.

IBT – Pike is stomped to death by an elephant.

1250 – Upgrade our four promotion axe. We now have five attackers outside London. You’ll have another five in a few turns. Lizzy has a Mace, a CB, 3 LBs and a pike.

After Action – Our camel archers give us a technological edge for the moment. I think we can press home the invasion of England until Lizzy offers us some techs for peace.

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/32851/Innovation_AD-1250.Civ4SavedGame

Great, I'm glad to finally be done with India.

I like to wait until the last moment so I can pick the best promotion for the situation, but when moving a stack into range of enemy units I usually fully promote at least one unit as a defender for the stack. That may be a little different than the way you do it but both methods make sense.

Please clarify, did you attack India without first bombarding its defence to zero? If so I think the few extra turns to do so are well worth it.

We really have lots of troops. I was thinking: destroy London, may have to wait for a few reinforcments. Then make peace and turn on Egypt. Egypt has a number of troops spread throughout our lands (they will teleport to the border then probably re-enter trying to pillage) and that colony in the SE. The opening rounds of the war will be very costly for Egypt.

Great military work, Bugsy. :thumbsup:

Tell me if this is a bad habit to be in, but if I am moving a unit into enemy territory, I make sure it goes in fully promoted. Likewise, if a unit is going to be the primary defender of a city, that may be attacked, it gets full promotion.
If you're going to give it city raider or another offensive promotion then wait. It won't help you defend on the way through the enemy's territory, but it will help healing your unit if you are attacked and survive.

Theoden, you're up!

...Theoden?

Erm, yes... I forgot about that. :blush: I'll try to get time to play today or tomorrow.

IBT
Hatty offers Compass+70g for Guilds, I refuse of course

1260
Hatty is the first circumnavigate

IBT
Hatty shows her true self and demands Guilds - "when you can't trade for it..." :lol: Of course this was a good opportunity to piss her off

1270
We get a great prophet

1280
Lizzy switches to mercantilism

1290
Discover Engineering, start Gunpowder (so we can research chemistry afterwards and get Grenadiers)
Capture London, killing 1 crossbow, 4 longbowman, 1 maceman, 1 pikeman and losing 1 catapult, 1 war elephant
Make peace with Lizzy, extorting Compass, 190g, 2gpt and world map in the process

1300
Declare war on Hatty
Kill 1 sword
Create the confucian shrine in York

IBT
Kill 1 longbow, lose 1 worker

1310
Hatty switches to Slavery, Theocracy
Kill 1 horse archer, lose 1 camel archer

1320
Kill 1 longbow

1330
Kill 1 longbow
Capture Memphis, killing 2 longbowmen, 1 pikeman and losing 1 catapult (three cats managed to retreat)

IBT
Kill 2 longbows, 1 mace, 1 pike, lose 1 camel archer, 1 cat

1340
Kill 2 longbows

IBT
Lose 1 cat, 1 war elephant

1350
Kill 1 longbow

We've now reached the population criteria for domination... not that it matters much. :)

As is shown by the troop position at the end of my turnset, I think the next target should be Thebes, then a few more Egyptian cities and the rest should be a walk-over.

> > SAVE (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/35755/Innovation_AD-1350.Civ4SavedGame) < <

Well done. I think we should press home the attack on Hatty until she is either gone, or will offer up some great stuff in a treaty.

Did we capture or raze those two cities to our southeast?

Roster check

1889
Mauer
Bugs
Theoden - Just played
DaveShack - UP! and got it but will need to wait till tomorrow
Dutchfire - on deck
Lord Parkin

Did we capture or raze those two cities to our southeast?
The Egyptian ones? They're still there as we have no city attackers anywhere near.

How many % of the land limit do we have? And how many % do we need?

We need 64% and I think we have just over 40% right now.

Roster check

1889
Mauer
Bugs
Theoden - Just played
DaveShack - UP! and got it but will need to wait till tomorrow
Dutchfire - on deck
Lord Parkin

Could Mr. Mod please play the save, or is his schedule filled with his new duties? ;)

Oops...

A few personal items have had me tied up. Might as well skip this time around.

I'll hopefully play it today, I'm now at school.

:hammer: forgot, and I don't have time today, so I hope I'll think of it tomorrow

147079

147080

Log might follow later.
Summary: We captured two egyptian cities, and razed two. We're now at war with England, and we should be able to capture a city next turn.

Well our economy isn't so hot but we are off the charts in everything else. Looks like a domination victory is the way to go, we have 48% of land area and need 66%. Conquer and push culture.

Lord Parkin is at the helm.

I think we should go for Cathy after we finish off most of England.

I'll try to get to this later today.

Do you want to be passed?

Sorry, forgot about this. No, I've passed twice already, I won't pass again, especially as we're so close to victory. I'm playing as we speak. :)

1440 AD - Check over the save, make some minor tile adjustments. Switch to 100% research to get to those Grenadiers faster. Begin to chop the few remaining forests in our lands. We don't have enough Catapults for my liking, so I'm going to build some more. (I generally like 1/3 to 1/2 of the military as Catapults.)

1450 AD - Canterbury falls.

1460 AD - We adopt Mercentalism. Rather large troop buildup (including Maces) spied in Hastings. Nottingham is, however, relatively poorly defended.

1470 AD - Great Engineer born in Beijing. Neither the Hagia Sophia nor the Sistine Chapel is of any value to us, so I suggest we save him for the Taj Mahal.

1500 AD - Nottingham falls.

1505 AD - Chemistry discovered, and Grenadiers are being produced everywhere.

1510 AD - Science slider to zero, to either research later on Steel or to upgrade Macemen, it's the next player's choice.

1515 AD - Lizzy sends her Catapults out against our stack next to Hastings, and then proceeds to waste all of her Macemen in a futile battle against London, for some weird reason. Anyway, the effect is that she's left herself wide open for attack in Hastings, so I take advantage.

1520 AD - Hastings falls.

Lizzy is now down to a single city. It is up to the next player whether we eliminate her, or try to grab some techs for peace. Since we're so close to domination though, I say we just finish her off completely, and then proceed on to either Cathy or Hatshepsut to get the victory. We might need to found a couple of 'fairly useless' cities in places to claim those few extra tiles needed, rather than going to war with a whole new civ (although there's nothing stopping us, since our army is now so colossal).

Anyway, I'll leave it to the next player to decide those things, and to get the first tastes of our new Grenadiers in action in battle. :)

EDIT: Save now attached.

We might want to run some culture too to speed up some border pops.
I'd say that we go for Cathy, as her cities were posing cultural danger too us during my turnset, if we take those cities, we'll get some of her territory instantly.

I'm with Dutch, I'll get it done tonight.

:thumbsup:
What if we don't win yet? Should we PM either Mauer or Bugsy (haven't seen both of them lately), or just let Theoden play?

We got an Engineer so I used him to rush Sistine Chapel out of boredom.

Elizabeth wasn't contrite enough when I offered peace so Coventry was captured and England was destroyed.

Switch to Vassalage/Caste System and invade Russia.

Capture Vladivostok in the west.

Destroy Yakutsk in the east

Win a domination victory in 1565.

88,106 points and the leadership abilities of Augustus Caesar.

That was really fun!

:goodjob: Great job everybody!
Anyone in for a sequel? :D

Anyone in for a sequel? :D

I could be talked into that very easily.

Victory. :king:

I don't think I've ever done so well warfare-wise as we did in this game. I wonder what we did right. :p

I don't usually achive victory this early either. This was a small map so settings may have been a factor, but mostly I think we stayed focused on conquest. When I play by myself I probably spend too much attention on making my empire perfect, everyone happy, no money wasted, micro stuff.

The smaller map definitely helped. Having a larger map, especially with the player numbers slightly reduced (so there's even more expansion room), the higher difficulty levels are a lot tougher. They're also made quite a lot harder by a non-pangaea map (since the civs on a continent that can't be reached until you have Astronomy can run away more with the tech lead). ;)

Well done to all of us. :)

I'll need to skip a sequel for the time being. We have several gigs coming up that I will be spending a lot of time promoting and preparing for. I'll need to keep my SG Civ load to four or less.

Anyone in for a sequel? :D

In:
1889
dutchfire
Lord Parkin
Theoden

Not in:
Sir Bugsy

Not yet responded:
DaveShack
Mauer

In, though I may have to skip the odd turn since I'll be only available intermittently.

If Dave and Theoden are in too, then we should be able to make it.

I'm in, although I might have to skip one or two times.

Yes, I'm interested in another game.

Same settings?

Vanilla
Arabia
Emperor
Normal Speed
Small map
Pangaea
Low Sea Level
5 random civs this time?

Anyone interested in a scenario? American Revolution or WWI look fun.

How big are those maps?
Anything above small goes laggy on my :badcomp:

A scenario sounds fun! It would have to be vanilla, right?

Revolution is Standard, WWI is large. :(

Just tried Revolution, it says standard, but it's quite small.
I could run it without any problems.

The stated map size (small, standard, etc) actually has little to do with the actual plot by plot dimensions. That varies between different map types. More info... (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/reference/map_scripts_guide.php)

I'd say we try out something different to last time, perhaps a scenario, or at least not a pangaea map. Maybe also a larger map, if all of the people can handle it.

Or a variant like always war, or OCC?

Or a variant like always war, or OCC?OCC is very difficult on the higher levels. Always War is not quite so bad, but still tricky.

list of variants (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=85350) (in civIII)

What about an Aztec One Built City? Basically, we settle our first city, and are not allowed to ever build a settler, but we can capture other cities.

Wow, I figured my tough days at work and home would have made me miss this.

I'll learn from pretty much anything we try, but careful not to make it too hard.

I think an always war monarch/prince game is doable on the hub map setting. It's ideal for always war.

:bump:

What about:

Saladin, standard, normal speed, continents, emperor?
Based on the last game, but with continents and standard size, it should be moe challenging.

Fractal might be more interesting than continents. But it sounds fine to me either way. :)

I started a game. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5307747)