Parameters:
Patch: 1.22 C3C
Level: Demigod
Variant: Always War (No initial trading)
Civilization: Celts
Map Type: 362 x 362
Barbarians: Sedentary
Rivals: 30
AI Aggression: Normal
Victory Condition: Any
Culturally linked starts: OFF
Respawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On

I decided against hidden diplomacy for this game. We must immediately declare war (no trading first) upon contact, but can see if we are ahead or behind, look at graphs, etc.

Here is the picture of the start I got:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR14_BC4000.jpg

Roster (changed the order in a semi-random manner):
Greebley
markh
Northern Pike
vmxa
M60A3TTS
ThERat

All I can say is good luck and hope that Caesar or X-man doesn't next to you. :eek:
*subscription post*

I don't think my computer will support this.

I hope this is not another massive plot of desert tiles. That was ugly, I am kind of partial to having some shields in the early towns.

we might be in the middle of some desert or dry land, looking at the position overall on the map. better than some jungle stuff

settle on the spot, game can support shields while flood plains give food

Probably settle on the spot, but may as well move the worker and get a bit more of a view first.

You're agricultural, and you have freshwater next to you. Why would a desert field annoy you? It's basically a plains field (except with Oil and/or Saltpeter!). :)

Anyways, just dropping by to wish you all good luck and hope your computers can handle it. Dont know how tough 362 x 362 is on a computer. :borg:

You either irrigate desert and get zero shields or you mine it and get zero food. I prefer to get some of both. That not with standing we saw miles of deset in the last game, so it would not be bad to get some grass and the apparently rare BG tile.

It would have been nice to see some Celtic green, but it must be out there somewhere. Let's hope there's iron out there within a reasonable distance.

You either irrigate desert and get zero shields or you mine it and get zero food. I prefer to get some of both.

An unimproved desert tile is 1 food 1 shield for agricultural civs. With irrigation it's the same as an irrigated plains tile (until you get railroads).

Edit: come to think of it wasn't it actually 0 food 1 shield for unimproved desert but irrigating it would give 2 food for agr civs. It's been a long time since I last played an agr civ on a map with many desert tiles :blush:

Good luck guys! Should prove to be another classic :)

Checking in. Good ol' Dino would say : Let's have a little fun, folks.:)

What are the changes to the map, if any? Do we have increase movement of ships, I hope not, or planes? What is the cost factor for this map?

The reason I hope no ship movement increase is I don't care how long it takes to move transports, but I do care abot how quickly they can get frigates do bombard us.

If was some what painful in the AWM31, is what annoying in the AWE and it will probably be worse in this one, if they get extra movement.

An unimproved desert tile is 1 food 1 shield for agricultural civs. With irrigation it's the same as an irrigated plains tile (until you get railroads).

Edit: come to think of it wasn't it actually 0 food 1 shield for unimproved desert but irrigating it would give 2 food for agr civs. It's been a long time since I last played an agr civ on a map with many desert tiles :blush:



I know Ags get some food on a desert tile. All I was really saying was I saw enough desert tiles in the last one to suit me for a very long time.

We had scores, if not 100's of desert tile right on the start location. If was depressing. Two food tiles with no shields will not do much for the city.

Checking in. :rockon:

I hope this isn't another start on the Nile. :rolleyes: We're at the right latitude for it.

I know Ags get some food on a desert tile. All I was really saying was I saw enough desert tiles in the last one to suit me for a very long time.

We had scores, if not 100's of desert tile right on the start location. If was depressing. Two food tiles with no shields will not do much for the city.
Base desert tile produces 0 food and 1 shield
Agr irrigated desert produces 2 food and 1 shields
Agr, railed, irrigated desrt produces 3 food and 1 shields
From irrigating to rails desert behaves exactly like plains...

The settings for this game are identical for the 250x250 map that we played earlier. Tech will be a bit slow, boats have some bonus to movement.

I don't think we will get many more cities on this map than on the 250x250 since we hit the city limit there as well.

One difference will be that we will be unable to build more cities. I think we want to grab cities quickly at the start to "reserve" as many cities as we can. We will also not be able to wait a turn to replace a razed city. Some far off civ will build it and we will lose the opportunity forever.

In other words a major difference is that we should NEVER raze a city if we don't have a settler available.

How many we get will depend on our start and the actions of the others, I would be happy if we get 16 before the limit.

What I wanted to know is exactly what the movement changes are and the cost factor, if anyone knows. It is hard to figure things out without some info.

Tech cost is 650. This means tech will be somewhat slower.
OCN is 28 which is actually lower than Huge maps.
Ship movement is the same as Lee's map - the one we just played.

I checked GR7 and the following was listed:

Format is standard game moves first, LK's moves next and then the rate of change() will be the last number.

Unit:
Curragh - 2 - 2 no change
Galley - 3 - 3 no change
Dromon - 3 - 3 no change
Carrack - 4 - 5 (+1)
Caravel - 4 - 5 (+1)
Galleon - 4 - 5 (+1)
Frigate - 5 - 6 (+1)
Man-O-War - 5 - 6 (+1)
Privateer - 5 - 7 (+2)
Ironclad - 3 - 5 (+2)
Destroyer - 8 - 9 (+1)
Cruiser - 6 - 7 (+1)
Battleship - 5 - 7 (+2)
Carrier - 7 - 7 no change
Transport - 6 - 7 (+1)
Submarine - 4 - 5 (+1)
Nuclear Sub - 5 - 7 (+2)
Aegis Cruiser - 7 - 9 (+2)

I am starting to play. I will settle in place unless moving onto the deer (for road) indicates a better choice.

As mentioned we don't care about desert - it being pretty much the same as plains - the only downside is if you don't irrigate it has no food (instead of 1 food).

Edit: Settled in place and we have not one but four deer near our capitol. We got a very strong start. Note that this will be common - larger clusters of resources like cows, deer, wheat, etc.

Preturn: Move worker and it shows another available deer upon expansion. Settle in place and we have 4 deer total.
Science at 100% on Warrior Code. It is still 50 turns but this will go down when we grow and build roads.

Early: Build Warrior, Warrior, Warrior, Warrior
Popped Hut and got 2 Barbarians.
Find some coast to the West.
We have Fur near our capitol.
Pop another hut near our capitol and got 3 Barbarians.

Mid:
Kill 2 of the 5 nearby Barbs - no promotion.
Popped Hut give another Barb (farther away).
Building a Granary.

Late:
Barb attacks us on a mountain and we Promote to Vet.
Popped hut gives us more Barbs (closer again).
5th hut is also Barbs.

BTW, it occurs to me that an expansionist civ has a real advantage here - I believe demi-god level with expansionist civ has one of the greatest chances of giving a settler (for example). We however are not getting lucky. I think it is 5% for settler, tech, gold, etc. with the rest Barbs (so not really unlucky either).

Notes:
We have almost completed the Granary. We are shield heavy so it seemed a good bet.
We still need the 30 turns (50 total) for WC, but are lacking 2 roads for our size. I am thinking at this point we should just run min science and take the 50 turns. The next tech would hopefully be faster. I lowered science to 1 on the very last turn if you all feel I am incorrect we can raise it again, but I suspect I should have had it at 1 the whole time.
I was exploring for huts. There are random Barbs wandering about because of this. We have one some battles and gotten one promotion.
After the granary I would start our first settler - we cannot support more units without costing us more gold and a warrior can be built in 2 turns so we can replace the capitols warrior before we can be attacked (the warrior in the capitol should go with the settler).
Remember to get barbarians to see you and attack, then being NW or SE is the best bet. In the picture you can see that I am gambing our Warrior on the Hill can defeat the two Barbs next to it and promote to Vet.
The IBT pause is already noticable.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR14_BC3000.jpg

The Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/14765/GR14_BC3000.zip)

Greebley, I would have built 2 scouts, they do not pop barbs usually

Celt has scouts?

Ya, I don't think we have them so we have no choice.

Only exp civs which I am thinking might be the most powerful trait on this type of map.

Thank for the stats. I pasted them so I can remember. Yeah we can expect babrs for all huts and if we get anything else it is a bonus. Expansion would be useful, IF we were not AW.

You have to stay at 20% for some time and then can drop to 10%.We will need a few towns before we can do any reserach.

How much land do you want to expose? Do we want to risk running into a civ now? I mean huts are pretty much useless other than trying to get a promotion and we can freely see all the land we can fill before the city limit in the range we already have covered.

oh, I forgot about that...sorry then

by the way, I get this error upon trying to load :confused:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/error.jpg

I just loaded it fine. The granary can be MM'd to come in next turn instead of 2. Interesting choice for worker actions. I'm not a big fan of roading wood tiles until later. Chopping some trees for the granary would have been a better choice IMHO. Next town NE, I presume, hooking up the furs in the meantime.

ThERat, I'm wondering if your file copying for your Rat18 SG had something to do with it. Maybe try loading a different save file to see if it does the same thing.

I competely uninstalled and reinstalled C3C, now it works :D

I wanted to work the 2 food 2 shield tiles so they need roads. Edit: chopping the granary faster would have been very reasonable, but we still get it quick working those good tiles.

You can MM the granary to come a turn earlier but it means the town grows a turn later (since we have exactly 4 extra food). I thought the growth more important than a few lost shields.

So, I am up I think. I will get to it tomorrow. I am renovating my flat this weekend.:cry:

Sorry, I could not get to it yesterday as I had to work late and did not even start my PC. Today in the evening I will get to it and post in about 12 hours from now.

I made an attempt for a dotmap. I would go for the red dot at the furs first.

do we want to settle CxxC on this huge map? I would suggest to settle less dense...

Good that I asked.:) Better to agree on this before I start. Won't CxxC be better against that many civs on Demigod ?

It would on most maps, but we will not be able to get a lot of towns down before we run into the city limit. So it is a trade off between getting as much land as we can and defense.

If we stay close to home, we could get lucky and not see anyone for a fair amount of time. We should not be facing several civs right away. So doing some wide space in the core is probably ok.

The good news is that they will have to travel a long way to get to us. The risk is that we are nearer than the norm and facing some expansionist civ with a strong early UU or archers.

If we get that sort of draw and even worse a second one, then we will probably be in trouble anyway.

Ok, then I would put the second city 1N of the red dot 1NE above the furs.

I agree on a wider spacing than normal. In fact I think that is one of the reason we chose a fast UU so we could space out farther.

IBT : our warrior in the hills dies without scratching the barb

1) 2950BC : moving units

IBT : Entremont : Granary -> warrior

2) 2900BC : the same as the turn before

IBT : nothing

3) 2850BC : some more scouting

IBT : Entremont : warrior -> settler

4) 2800BC : lux back due to the new warrior

IBT : nothing

5) 2750BC : up lux again due to Entremont growing

IBT : nothing

6) 2710BC : moving units

IBT : nothing

7) 2670BC : warriors walking around

IBT : a barb warrior appears SW of Entremont
Entremont : settler -> warrior

8) 2630BC : settler and a warrior start to go N

IBT : hm, the barb warrior moves back SW ??

9) 2590BC : just moving units

IBT : a new barb warrior appears from the South
Entremont : warrior -> settler

10) 2550BC : bring settler, warrior in position to found city next turn

I left the new warrior unmoved if the next player likes to send him scouting/hunting. The save and a pic attached. Looks like quite good land.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/47099/GR14_BC2550.zip

Barbs get tougher as you move up and lose the bonus, so you can expect some less than swell results. I do not even let warriors or archer attack babs on Sid, unless I must.

we should try and expand fast here for the initial cities before the limit is hit. I would thus chop a granary in the capital, second city can produce some more workers

At the same time, we need to find iron, though we don't want such an early GA, better to be safe than sorry.

Not sure what the science rate looks like on this map. May be a while between BW, IW and Masonry. Assume we're doing the GLib. Science can be dropped to 10%. And Entremont already has a granary.

I obviously need to go for a sanity check :crazyeye: first I goofed up the scout issue, now I forgot that we built a granary already (just crossing the 40 line might have done something to my brain).
Sorry for my foolish remarks.

Anyway, I agree we should aim for the GL. With expansionist Civs around, they might have popped plenty of techs already. We should start thinking about it early, in fact city #2 looks like it could be shield rich

I've got it. I'll settle more loosely than CxxC, as suggested.

I cannot see us with any chance to get the GLB in this one. First we will be hard press to learn tech faster than 50 turns until we have several towns going.

Second those expansionist civs will rip through the AA techs and have 30% production advantage on wonders. They will make contacts and we won't have any or few (I hope) for some time.

They will trade for techs and be able to beat us to wonders with ease. If this map was generated with no barbs and hence no huts, we may have had a small chance to do it, but not with huts.

Funny thing is the no trade rule probably cost us practically nothing in this game as we have so little chance to have a tech to trade anyone. We may have made one or two contacts that happened to not have our starting tech, but even that is a long shot, if the contacts are late in coming.

This is not like the Ag3 where they traded the pants off the AI. They reference the worlds largest dogpile upon the Hittites, but I fear we will suffer the largest dogpile and all on us. Should be a real burner with killer IBT's and load times.

2150 BC--settler and worker still have movement (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR14_BC2150.SAV)

2510 (1): Oh-oh--our first move reveals five Arabian warriors in the vicinity of the intended furs city. I'm glad I made a recon move with our warrior rather than founding the city first. We declare war on Arabia, and founding that city is out of the question for the moment.

I switch Entremont to a barracks build.

Two Arabian warriors die attacking one of our warriors in a forest, which helps a lot (2-0).


2470 (2): Our heroic warrior defeats a third Arabian warrior on defense (3-0).


2430 (3): Entremont barracks --> warrior.


2390 (4): Entremont warrior --> warrior.


2350 (5): Our displaced settler founds Alesia five tiles to the NW of the capital, on a site which claims game and a cow without expansion. Obviously this placement is something of a risk, but I think it's worth it to get an immediately productive town. If we can't get Entremont back to settler production soon we're probably doomed in the long run.

Entremont warrior --> warrior.


2310 (6): Entremont warrior --> settler.


2270 (7): An Arabian warrior dies attacking Entremont (4-0).


2230 (8): We cut down the last of the five original Arabian warriors (5-0). We've seen nothing new from the Arabs since, except a scout.


2190 (9): Entremont settler --> settler.


2150 (10): Not much.

I've left our settler and our worker with their movement, since the question of where our next city should go is worth discussing. I would choose the site to the SE of the capital indicated in the screenshot. Entremont is set up as a four-turn settler factory, and Alesia will have a barracks to give us some military production soon. What we badly need is a source of workers, and the SE site, which could use one of the capital's game tiles half the time without disrupting its settler cycle, would be good for this purpose (which the furs site would not be).

Our exploring warrior is still in position to pop the goodie hut it recently found, though I don't much care for the odds at DG.

Spreading out:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR14-2150BC.JPG

luckily Arabia wasted their initial units already. It will take some turns for them to come back. In the meantime I agree with NP.
Found that indicated city for a worker factory, then get that fur city for GL prebuild and use our capital as settler pump. We need to expand aggressive, else we lose.
Alesia will be ready to produce vet archers just in time. Are we going for IW first or head straight for literature in the hope to get that GL?

CA II says we need 2134 beakers for alpha, writing and lit. BW and IW would add another 826. The question becomes can we survive with just archers long enough to build the GLib. Then we would need masonry for a pre-build. The alternative is create a second settler factory and run Entremont up to pop 12 and try to build the GLib there.

Ok, I downloaded the save. Will put in some work on it before going to work in the AM. Just wanted to see if anyone has run any numbers on the research yet?

I just cannot see us getting the GLB. I will have to check on what we are doing, but I would not expect us to be able to beat 50 turn research on the next few techs at these cost.

With a straight run to Lit taking at least 130 turns for the three techs, if that is what we need. A prebuild could do it, but we have to be sure. We cannot afford to take a town out of action for that long and fail.

If that is any where near correct and we have played what at least 20 turns already? That means 150 turns or something like 350AD. Can we really expect the AI to not have it build by then? I think not.

They will take little time in getting the techs for the AA, with the huts helping them so much.

Anyway I pose this again to see if it makes sense and what do you want to do and when in this regard.

I think we should make a team decision. Decide to

1. go for the GL with a prebuild, thus get masonry, alpha, writing, lit
2. go for GL skipping masonry and building the GL in our capital
3. head for IW and do normal research expanding and beating up the AI's

I think 2 sounds pretty impossible to me. I am not sure whether to head for 1 or 3.

We can't possibly be sure since when the AI researches lit is random. It could be quickly or it could be after 500 AD. I have seen both (and the after 500 AD was in a SID game no less). With more opponents it is harder, but I think the prebuild could allow it.

I feel we should go for the GLib as I think are chances are decent with a prebuild. We should consider cities with alot of commerce next - We want to be on the river anyway as it gives us more food.

Therefore I vote option 1. If we fail, with luck we can build the Heroic Epic instead which isn't a total loss.

We should also pop huts. Barbarians don't hurt us much, but if we get lucky and get a tech (or settler; both are 1/20) - well that is huge.

Lurker's Comment: (or however you do that thing)

I believe masonry would be too your benefit. You wouldn't want to run the risk of losing any of your towns simply because your spearmen couldn't defend (at a good rate) against swordsmen by themselves.

Thus, I support the prebuild option.

Well do you want me to wait for others to chime in on this one? It seems that option 1 is the choice.

Two more issues:
1- worker task.
2- town placement.

Worker task depends on the next town to some extent. If we want to go aggressive, we could place the settler on the hill next to the warrior. With the
defensive bonus it should be alright.

The worker is all alone and will be for some time. We need to connect to Alesia and what ever town we found next.

I guess Arabia is off to the east some place. I agree we may as well pop any huts we see, they are no threat to our towns now.

My point is not that we need to fear barbs, but rather I do not see any need to go looking for huts and risk finding new civs. The huts have very little chance to pop us any thing much.

I would only expose as much land as we need to know about to place the next town or two. Minimizing the opportunity to find a new enemy, but giving up on the search for huts.

Actually huts are going to be hard for us to find with Arabia having a scout or two.

Anyway the spot mark would be fine if we do not want to risk going toward Arabia right now.

I support option 1 too. On a map this huge, we'd have to be very lucky to repeat last game's feat of capturing the GLib.

No question about that. I am just hoping we can get in a few sets before we see a bunch of other civs.

So what about the worker and the next town? anybody want to chime in? I will hold off starting until after I get back from work.

I like putting our town at the 1 on NP's map - and have it build a worker. After that I would choose another river town.

Agree on not searching for Huts. We don't want to meet more civs at the moment.

For the worker, I would improve lands to the south near 1 - get it more food. The capitol is set up for settlers and the town north for warriors/archers

Ok, I am at work now, so I will go with the plan to get the GLB and the spot indicated.

Alesia or what ever the name is will need to be connected to the cap to gain some happiness though. It will be some time before we have a second worker.

The save here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42522/GR14_BC1725.SAV

A screenie for the fans and us:

2110BC:
Pop hut got 3 barbs.

2070BC:
Well we have a new town Lugdunum, it starts a warrior.
Warrior kill a barb no damage.
Lux to 30 as we go to size 6.

IBT:
Barb attack the warrior and we go redline and then promote.

2030BC:
I attack the barb anyway and all are cleared. Redlined though.

IBT:
Arab warrior pops up next to the redlined warrior.

1990BC:
Set lux back to 20. I guess we dare not settle to the East right now, so I will go West.

We probably need to settle towards the moutains, if we want to have Iron. I hate to go with so much shield poor land though.

1950BC: nothing, the warrior seems on his way to some place and did not chase me.

1910BC: nothing

1870BC:
Lux to 30 as size 6 again. Redline warrior heading home. Lud finished warrior and starts a worker.

1830BC:
Found Camulodunum and start a worker. I see a barb is two tiles away and the warrior coming will not get there in time, so we will lose some gold.

The Arabian warrior is headed that way as well, but will not get there first.
Alesia starts warrior.
I do not think we can afford to keep the settlers coming out without support right now.
Arabs are out and about south of the border and barbs are north of it.
Only the cap has 2 units and new towns have none. So I break in to make 1 more unit in the cap.
Drop lux.

1790BC: nothing

1750BC:
I managed to guide the redline warrior next to Lud and the abrabian warrior has followed. Cam ransack for 26g. Another barb has shown up, but not sure what he plans as it is midway from the worker and Cam.
Send the new warrior from the cap to Cam. Start a settler, but you may want to make an archer first.
80% Masonry in 28 turns, -3gpt 88 in the bank. Switch Alesia to archer.

1725BC:
Masonry in 29 turns now as cost go up. Switch warrior to cover settler.
Lud is set to barracks, but that is just untl the next player decides what to do there.
There was an Arab warrior south of Cam, not sure where it is going now. The barb forted up with a warrior on each side of him. I did not attack it as I do not want to risk losing the only defender we have right now.

The worker outside of Lud is on its way to the deer and planning on connecting the cap to Alesia, so you can grab it if you have another task. We have 2 workers and one coming. 1 settler and one coming. 10 warriors with an archer in queue. 4 towns.

Oops, we're at peace with the French. Vmxa probably thought their warrior near Lugdunum was Arabian, since the colours are similar.

I'd send our settler presently in the western desert north, to claim some of the good tiles NW of Alesia. This would be a risk, but our enemies haven't been coming from that direction so far, and anyway I don't think we can build a winning position by settling for the safe, but bad, sites west of the capital.

Yikes, I saw him and planned to declare, but by the time I got back to the game, I just forgot about it an did not even notice again.

I figured we would go there with the next settler and was trying to keep the town contiguous.

Roster:

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

Two enemies I think we can handle. Heres hoping to not get many more. I would settle Eastward on the two rivers next.

We should aproximate when we need to start the prebuild. Our best chance is if we have just less than 300 shields when we get lit. I am guessing we can estimate when we get writing and know how long that will take. I guess that isn't for a while yet.

I was wondering where the pre will be build as well as when.

I'd send our settler presently in the western desert north, to claim some of the good tiles NW of Alesia. This would be a risk, but our enemies haven't been coming from that direction so far, and anyway I don't think we can build a winning position by settling for the safe, but bad, sites west of the capital.

I totally agree. Got it and will send him in that direction.

BTW, this may be obvious I would concentrate on expansion now rather than conquest. We actually want the sum of our cities plus our enemies to be as great as possible. I would expand as fast as we can with still being fairly safe in not losing cities.

Pre turn- looks fine

IBT- French advance towards Camu

Turn 1 (1700BC) Declare on France

IBT- French move warrior next to Camu

Turn 2 (1675BC) Move our vet warrior into Camu

IBT- French warrior attacks Camu successfully and they raze it for 9 gold. They kill another reg warrior protecting a worker. I had a second warrior on top, so we’re ok.

Turn 3 (1650BC) Kill the French warrior, and go red but another Arab warrior is behind him. Move another reg warrior to cover.

IBT- Babs finish the Colossus. Reg Arab warrior attacks our reg warrior cross river and wins. Two more reg Arab warriors approach Lugdunum.

Turn 4 (1625BC) Richborough founded. I have to move the worker off his tile as he can’t be protected.

IBT- Two Arab warriors move next to Lugdunum.

Turn 5 (1600BC) Move red warrior to Lugdunum. Two now defend.

IBT- Arab warrior dies clean at Lugdunum.

Turn 6 (1575BC) Entremont archer>archer.

IBT- More Arabs heading to Lugdunum.

Turn 7 (1550BC) Verulamium founded. Start warrior.

IBT- More bad guys enroute

Turn 8 (1525BC) Vet archer dies clean against reg Arab warrior. Second archer kills it clean.

IBT- Two Arab warrior die attacking our vet warrior at Lugdunum who goes elite.

Turn 9 (1500BC) Move vet archer into Lugdunum. Another archer close, but can’t get there this turn. Four French and one Arab archers in a position to attack next IBT. We defend with two warriors and an archer.

Well that’s 60 turns total, so I guess I’m done.

Entremont has gone over to archer production. Another set of combat results like this, and we can call it a game. On the loss of Camu, all we had was one warrior and no roads to reinforce, so we were hoping for some luck there and didn’t find it. Without spears, this is going to be a challenge.

Alternating Entremont between 11 and 9 spt brings in an archer every 2, but of course we can’t afford to do that long. I wouldn’t be shy at this point with workers cutting timber, we need to get local superiority quickly or else they are going to roll us from the south. Masonry is still a couple turn sets away, and even then we’ll defend with warriors and archers.

sounds like a rough set..maybe we need to insert bronze working before alphabet to have a realistic chance here...we need to expand at all costs

by the way, I can't see any save :scan:

M60 that was a nasty break. I was sure hoping we could get lucky and not see any units coming down towards Cam. I almost stop making settlers sooner, now I wish I had stopped altogether.

It is worse to lost towns, than to not make settlers at this point. I think we make a blunder not going for spears before Masonry. At least we are getting archers now, instead of just warriors.

Maybe the NP or whomever is next can get a leader to ease the stress. Good RNG to him please.

sounds like a rough set..maybe we need to insert bronze working before alphabet to have a realistic chance here...we need to expand at all costs

by the way, I can't see any save :scan:

It's invisible, like Greebley's image files. Just do a quote and you can see it.


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

I think that 'quote' should not be there, then it should be fine

I tried but can't get it, could you attach it or post with out that quote....something like

URL=http://forums.civfanatics/uploads/43630/GR14_1500_BC.SAV]save[/URL]

It is here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/GR14_1500_BC.SAV

save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/GR14_1250_BC.SAV)

Pre-Turn
our situation isn't that pretty, only 2 workers and 5 cities
switch Alesia to archer

IT our heroic warrior fends off 3 attacks at Lugdunum

1.1475BC
move 2 new archers towards Lugdunum
capital set to settler

2.1450BC
go all out on attack and defeat 3 warriors with archers, no enemy in sight for now

3.1425BC.
:gripe: of all things our capital gets hit by disease
we get anotehr worker

4.1400BC
thanks to the double disease and a settler our capital is down to pop 2 ( we can run 0% lux due to this)

5.1375BC
Lugdunum has a rax now

6.1350BC
zzz, where is the enemy???

7.1325BC
we get another worker
found Second Chance at the same spot at the coast

IT when I was wondering about the enemy, 3 new French warriors come into view
we have 2 new archers
Mayans finish Pyramids and Persians finish Oracle

8.1300BC
defeat 1 warrior and cover the archer with 2 more units, offensive defense is needed

9.1275BC
hmm, the French try to be smarter than us and do not attack but get closer to our city and more units come into view
retreat our units back to the city while defeating 1 unit

IT French do not attack

10.1250BC
fortify our troops in Lugdunum hoping the enemy will attack
we have enough cities building troops, capital is back to settler duty and will finish the next soon

masonry will come in 5 turns, we really have to think of BW or alphabet

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/gr141250.jpg

Now isn't this fun? That 30% will be felt that is for sure. I think we need spears as we can expect swords in a short while, if they have iron. If we could get an army, we could get by without them for awhile.

I have to agree, we need BW next.

Preturn: Minor change to get some more food. Switch to a worker next turn.

IBT: Elite Warrior holds off 2 Warriors.

1225 BC: Kill a Warrior with an Archer. Fail to kill the Warrior on flat with our Archer even though the Archer has 1 more hit point.
Use the Elite warrior to kill the archer (leader fishing).

1200 BC: Now all the units are heading to Verulum

IBT: Disease again!!!

1175 BC: Got units in Verulum but AI gets to attack first (warriors and one Archer).

IBT: We kill an attacking Archer and Warrior and lose to an Attacking Warrior (lose a Warrior).

1150 BC: Archers heal rather than attacking. Connect Furs and Lux to zero (until our town grows).
Capitol dropped down to size 2 due to disease.

IBT: Defeat the attacking regular Warrior. Only a conscript Warrior left.

1125 BC: We can get no luck this game - Vet Archer loses to Conscript Warrior. Um make that even worse. The second Archer loses as well and the Warrior promotes and has 2 hp again.
Switch a Settler back to an Archer because of these losses.
Bronze working is only 13 turns so worth doing.

1075 BC: Move next to an Archer, but we are on a hill

IBT: Archer attacks and loses.

1050 BC: Disease strikes Entremont yet again!!! Note that it rearranges our citizens each time so we also lose the growth every 2 turns as well as the population. We are size 1.

1025 BC: Build North Town in the north.

IBT: Three incoming Archers Spotted.

1000 BC: Retreat from the 3 Archers (we have only 2 but can be joined by 2 more making 4 for us and 3 for them)
Note that there is an Archer behind them so we may want a Warrior too to absorb the attack rather than risking an Archer (on the mountains a defending Vet Warrior vs a Regular Archer that gets shot at by defensive fire is actually decent odds).

Notes:
I built two settlers and have some more in production. As long as we have enough Archers to defend with I am happy.

Our luck remains abysmal. Bad RNG in combat and disease twice more. If I had known this was going to happen I would have chosen Emporer difficulty :cry: Losing two Vet Archers to the only conscript Warrior we met was plain mean.

I think we should still build towns as fast as we can, without risking too much. We will hit the town limit possibly even soon and then we can work on our Armies.

I think we go for Alphabet after BW. I would like to go for IW and our GA after we have all our towns.

I felt we should make a dot map but wasn't feeling up to it myself. If anyone has the time I think it would help

A picture:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR14_BC1000.jpg

The Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/14765/GR14_BC1000.zip)

If you knew all the disease was going to happen you could have worked few flood plains, I think that would lessen the odds. Now we probably have run through the worse part of it.

Yeah, we have to hold on till we have most of the towns up before our GA, if we are to have any shot at the GLB.

One of the other rough aspects of DG is they will have a larger pool of free unit support for us to deal with.

good call to gor for IW. We need our UU for any progress here.
Once we have 1 or 2 armies, we can go and raze towns and really hurt the AI. This way we should be able to make progress.

Thus we need to always have settlers in position to found new cities in case we raze towns or the AI razes some elsewhere.

I agree the RnG has been horrible so far

ThERat I am not sure what you are saying on the IW. Are you saying you agree with Greebly on BW, then Alpha and then IW? We surely need the UU to do any damage, but we need to have as many towns up before we trigger as we can get.

As long as we do not meet another civ, we probably can hang with archers, unless swords start coming. What is the research rate for BW, have we manage to do better than 50 turns yet?

vmxa, I agree that unless the AI shows up with swords, spears and archers would do for defense.
However, should the AI have swords, we need something more substantial to defend. Also, CS armies would be a real threat for the AI and we could raze towns while expanding.

As for research, looking at the screenshot, there are only 8 turns left for BW, this means we are well under 50 turns...I guess alphabet could be done fast as well

No doubt they will do just that. I was just not clear, as I thought Greebly was saying he wanted to hold on a GA, until the initial expansions is coming to a close.

"I think we go for Alphabet after BW. I would like to go for IW and our GA after we have all our towns."

So that means we do not have Galic Sword to use before that point. So when you said "good call to gor for IW. We need our UU for any progress here", I was not sure what was being avocated.

I think we would be forced to get to IW and GS's if start seeing swords coming. I mean not just one, a clear switch to swords by them. We would have to do that or eat big losses, not sure if we could sustain that.

I would not favor going for IW, as it will delay getting Lit. We should be able to get by with BW.

I was saying we head for Lit and then IW. The GLIb is the single most important thing I feel - if we fall to far behind in tech we won't be able to take out all the AI before losing by diplo or space. We also don't want to take out AI cities until we get the message we can't settle a city. Hopefully that will be around the time we are working on Lit.

I am not sure what town to start the prebuild in though. Verudunum looks good if we can settle east of that city (so mines on hills is inside our territory).

I got it and will play in a few minutes.

Yes we will have to get the GLB to not be in big trouble in the long run. We saw how we fell behind on the last one and it would be worse here. Those streams of cavs and MDI would be very harsh, if we are stuck AA units.

The only saving grace is research will be a bear once the first tier of Industrial techs are gone. Hopefully no one gets a big jump on their part of the world.

IBT : Arab archers closing

1) 975BC : join the two archer groups in the hills of Verulamium

IBT : Arab archers closing in

2) 950BC : just moving units

IBT : Lagos completes the Mausoleum of Mausollos
Arab archers arrive at Vorlamium, another two come after the following the group of three

3) 925BC : found Agedincum

IBT : we lose an archer and a warrior at Verulamium
a French warrior appears from the West

Alesia : archer -> archer

Chichen Itza completes The Statue of Zeus

4) 900BC : not much

IBT : an Arab archer dies on the attack on Verulamium
another French warrior follows the first one and 1 horseman joins the second warrior
two French horsemen arrive at Agedincum, now it gets nasty

Richborough : archer -> archer

5) 875BC : Switch Verilamium from settler to an archer, this wastes shields, but we need troops
kill one of the French horses at Agedincum, our archers loses a HP, but promotes elite

IBT : we lose two archers at Agedincum, but our elite archer kills the attacking horseman, so the town stands
another French horseman and 3 French appear from the West

Lugdunum : archer -> archer
Verlamium : archer -> archer

6) 850BC : kill a French warrior at Verulamium clean and our archer promotes elite

IBT : French horse dies attacking one of our reinforcing archers at Verulamium
Another new French horseman appears from the West, some more Arabs come from the NW

BW comes in -> alphabet

Entremont : settler -> spear
North Town : walls -> rax

7) 825BC : change Alesia from archer to spear
whip a spear in Verulamium

elite archer dies on a reg French warrior

IBT : French horseman dies attacking one a reinforcing archer at Verulamium

Alesia : spear -> spear
Verulamium : spear -> walls (should have built them earlier)

disease strikes Sceond Chance

8) 800BC : archer dies attacking a French horseman
Next IBT will be rough, I hope our units hold Verulamium

IBT : the spear and an archer are killed at Virulamium, one archer defends 2 times successfully and promotes elite
a French horseman arrives at Agedincum

9) 775BC : kill the horse at Agedincum with the elite archer without a scratch

IBT : this is ridiculous, a redlined reg warrior almost kills our spear in Verulanmium and a yellow reg archer almost kills an elite archer
nevertheless we hold the city with no losses

Entremont : spear -> archer
Richborough : archer -> spear

10) 750BC : not much
I do not know why, but the spear in Verulamium is still at 2/4 after the IBT, although it should be healed, or am I mixing up ?

There are two French horses SW of Agedincum which will arrive at the city next IBT.

I left the new spear in Entremont unmoved. I would send it to Virulamium.

I made a bad move not switching to walls in Virulamium when I switched from the settler to an archer.:blush: That was really stupid. I would whip it now.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/47099/GR14_750BC.zip

it does look like a very rough ride which doesn't surprise as this is DG...wait until the AI comes with swords...

I think this game should have been either on emperor or without barbarians to prevent those exp Civs to grab all the techs via huts.

Yes the huts will hurt us a lot as that is what I am afraid of for the GLB. With so much land they will pop everything and then build it. With all the scientic civs, we could have most of the first tier techs discovered right away.

Mark, the unit should heal as long as it did not move. If it moved ino the town or attacked, it will not heal.

Anyway I sure hope the AC's are not near enough to find us before we are well established. I do not want to see MW's either.

We will be crying for cats before long. No CB will make it very hard to get a serious prebuild as we have only one lux.

Mark, the unit should heal as long as it did not move. If it moved ino the town or attacked, it will not heal.

Yep, that is why I do not understand it. I did not move it. It was fortified in the city and killed an attacking warrior IBT. Normally it should be fully healed after the IBT, but it is not. It is still at 2/4 health as after defending the warrior.:confused: I just reread my log and further confusing is that the elite archer is back to full health. That archer killed an archer also on defense and went red and now is back to full health.

I have seen this a few times, but I always figured I moved it and just did not realize it. So it was either that or a bug, what a bug in civ?

The elite shoul dbe back, if it was in a barracks and was on defense. Did the other move into the town prior to the IBT? IOW was it in place for a whole turn with no movement?

I would like to build a town in the hills east of Verulamiam. With walls and spears in a town with a hill, the odds are good even if there are swords running around.

Agree on the huts. Forunately, all the AI would have been grabbing the huts not just the expansionist civs, so most huts should still be Barbs. The AI will get some techs agreed, but I don't think it will be a matter of them getting through the ancient age. No exp civ will grab that my huts (I hope).

I have seen this a few times, but I always figured I moved it and just did not realize it. So it was either that or a bug, what a bug in civ?

The elite shoul dbe back, if it was in a barracks and was on defense. Did the other move into the town prior to the IBT? IOW was it in place for a whole turn with no movement?

Yes, the spear was fortified the whole time there and I did not touch it. I wondered why the elite archer was on top place after the IBT, although the spear should be.

I
Agree on the huts. Forunately, all the AI would have been grabbing the huts not just the expansionist civs, so most huts should still be Barbs. The AI will get some techs agreed, but I don't think it will be a matter of them getting through the ancient age. No exp civ will grab that my huts (I hope).

Hard to say, I hope so as well. Things have not exaclty rolled out to our liking so far though. My concern is that with scouts they will make contacts and trade and so the huts can fill in the more expensive techs.

The good news I guess is the AI does not make many scouts and maybe a few of the expansionist will be stuck in jungles and such or islands. I guess we will find out in later.

Hills are are friends, that why I was think of going for the hill past the furs. We will mostly be defending until we have GS or an army.

Yes, the spear was fortified the whole time there and I did not touch it. I wondered why the elite archer was on top place after the IBT, although the spear should be.

Sounds messed up. I have seen some turns like that, but as I said. I just figured I had no recalled things correctly and dismissed it. If it is a bug, it is not very common and should not be much of an impact.

I can live with that, it is the sending up a nearly dead army, while full health units sit on their butts. That is what I hate. I am screaming, I do not want to lose the army, let the cav die or the infantry.:)

You want to talk bugs, you should have seen the time a galley attacked my defending spear in a coastal city and was sunk. :crazyeye:

Yeah I have seen a ship attack a town once or twice and heard a few other report it. They let a bunch of bugs around. I understand how hard it is to track down something, unless you get the save and can repeat it.

I haven't seen that sort of bug yet. With a rax, all units with full movement left would be healed after the IT.

It's a pity that some bugs (like the submarine bug) were never dealt with. Well, the company made their money and moved on to the next game. I am glad to see that on CIV there is this dedicated group of poeple who improve the game without Firaxis involved. They should do that for C3C, but without access to the code that seems not possible.

Oh, and I agree with Greebley, we should try to remove the pressure from Verulamium since it is supposed to be the GL town. Plant a city in the hills, with a rax and walls...

Roster:

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

I've got it.

550 BC, end of turn (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR14_BC550.SAV)

750 (0): This looks grim. Agedincum is doomed if the French choose to move in that direction, and Verulamium is at great risk too.

I whip Verulamium's walls, as suggested.

More foul RNG luck. The Arabs go four for four attacking Verulamium and take the city, though three of their four archers are regulars and all their attacks are cross-river (0-4).


730 (1): I evacuate Agedincum, which we can't possibly hold against the eight adjacent French units.

The French auto-raze Agedincum, and ride down an archer attempting to escape (0-5).

Alesia walls --> spearman.


710 (2): Entremont walls --> spearman.


690 (3): We try to found a town in the northwest and get the "too many cities" message. So we're stuck with the six cities we have, and the situation looks hopeless, though I'll play out the round.


670 (4): Lugdunum walls --> spearman.


650 (5): We're able to shoot down a French horseman outside Richborough (1-5).

We abandon Second Chance so as to found Bad Times on a better site in the northwest.


630 (6): Two French horsemen attack Lugdunum and retreat.

North Town barracks --> spearman.


610 (7): With the French now rather strung out between Entremont and Lugdunum, we're finally able to counterattack, killing three horsemen and a warrior (5-5).

We slay a horseman and lose a spearman as the French attack around Lugdunum (6-6).


590 (8): After several turns of quiescence, the Arabs appear in great strength in the north.


570 (9): Sixteen Arabian archers close in on North Town.


550 (10): We slay two French archers outside Lugdunum (8-6).

Two elite victories didn't produce a Great Leader this round.

If we lose North Town in the next turn or two, we can resign. If we get good RNG luck there our position may remain stable for a while, since we're defending walled cities with spearmen now. But since we can't found any more cities due to the global limit, and given also that we can't make any progress on a pre-build under this kind of pressure, the long-term prospect seems completely dismal.

The lesson of this fiasco, I think, is that BW/spearmen should come before WC/archers in AW, unless research times are very short. Early in the game it's easier to set up good odds with a defensive than an offensive unit.

The last stand:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR14-550BC.JPG

Wow too many towns already. That means they can freely build and send units. I wonder how we fared on the placement. Did we get a bad break and not have much starting room?

I mean the French do not have scout, but they found us quickly for 362x362. Even with 31 civs.

We could have stood some luck in the fights, but with defense of 1, you get that. The spears, I guess no one expected to be in up to our necks quite so soon or we would have changed the order.

My feeling is DG was a mistake with so many AI's. I am more inclined to restart an Emp game than sink more hours into a DG game that is going nowhere. GLib for example seems very improbable now.

What do the rest of you feel?

Also should we go with no huts if we restart? I am inclined to say yes. I hadn't thought it through, but it speeds up tech way too much to have them.

I think this game should have been either on emperor or without barbarians to prevent those exp Civs to grab all the techs via huts.I stand by this. Let's not waste time on this and restart.
AG3 was hugely different as a expansionist Civ that popped so many techs or settlers and didn't have to defend.
I think emperor might get difficult enough initially. We might want to try with a good starting location on DG without barbs (and thus no huts)

I agree with all of that--a new start, Emperor, and no barbs.

Sounds good to me, so I guess no need for me to play this turn. If you want to try it at DG I think you would need a few tweaks.
1- start with BW and one of these (Alpha,Masonry,WC).
2- strong traits and a good UU

Not sure if any civ meets those requirments.

3- no expansion civ near us and a good distance to the nearest civ.
4- no huts. Not so much for the techs, but they also get settlers and advance towns.

I agree that emperor/no huts is the way to go. Put this one to bed.

Ok, I have started a new thread.

Gr15 Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=196221)

Well, I really spoiled the game and I am very sorry for this. When I came into the situation whether to whip the archer or the walls in Virula... I was acting really dumb and I mean it like I say it.:hammer2: It took me some minutes to finally decide and the moment I decided to whip the archer I realized it was the totally wrong decision.

Just out of curiosity I replayed my turns whipping the walls instead of the archer and Ver.. stood well and furthermore I got an army. I lost Agedincum once, but rebuilt it, so it was my fault and my bad play that got us into this bad situation.

I doubt that we would have liked the outcome anyway, so don't lose any sleep over it.

Clearly we thought we had enough time given the map size to ignore BW and spears. That was the big mistake.

@vmxa : we will not know, but my decision in that situation was bad and it should have been obvious to me. :( I will not lose any sleep. It is just a game.Still it makes me angry about my bad play.

@M60 : it was close, but the early walls against that many attackers make a MGL quite likely and that was what happened to me when I replayed the save 100%, but whipping the walls instead of the archer. I think a defensive army is huge in such a game.

markh, I don't think whipping the archer instead of the walls was the game breaker. We had so few towns, 2 enemies on DG, no spears, lost a town early, popped no techs but barbs. I think this game was doomed anyway.

I think this game was doomed anyway.

Yes. Had we held Ver. and Ag. and hit the limit at eight towns rather than six, we would just have wasted more time before realizing the hopelessness of the situation.