Welcome to your C_IV Warlords SGOTM 4 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

The Game
This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, fractal map, at Epic speed, against 7 rivals including India. All victory conditions are enabled except Diplomatic, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Space defeat by Gandhi.

Versions
This game will be played in Warlords Version 2.08 only.

It will be played using the current version of the HoF Mod. This is version 2.08.003 for Windows. There are insufficient Mac players to form a Mac team. so it will be played in Windows only.

If later versions of Warlords or the HoF Mod are released they cannot be used for this game.

Your start file will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) at midnight, server local time, at the start of February 23.

Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm4_start_small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm4_start_large.jpg)

Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Ragnar of The Vikings
Rivals - 7 civs including Gandhi (who is locked in war with Ragnar)
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Fractal, cylindrical, medium sea level, temperate
Game Speed - Epic
Diplomatic Victory Disabled
All other settings are defaults

Notes

Please visit the C-IV Warlords SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=208462) to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.

Warlords v.2.08 is supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with the same version throughout the game.

Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.

Awards will be given to teams who achieve Space defeats to India in the least turns.

All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.

Please enjoy the game :)

Checking in.

Welcome to our two new members cubbiesin08 and Mighty Dwaarf :goodjob:

Anyone got any ideas how we're going to do this?

We will need to cripple/vassalise all other AIs while just playing defensive against Gandhi. Hopefully he isn't right next door.

We could also conquer Gandhi's neighbours and then let Gandhi retake the cities by leaving them undefended once the neighbour is gone/vassalised.

Actually vassals might be a bad idea as we don't want Gandhi to be crippled by other AI.

Will need to build a warrior first, just in case Gandhi pops up straight away, then maybe workboat --> worker? We'll need to get a trireme up on the clams once we have Sailing.

Research wise, Bronze Working, Animal Husbandry, Sailing and Archery seems goodies.

I'm away for the next couple of days so won't be able to grab this, ngraner is up in SGOTM3 so anyone else should grab the save once it is available and ge this thing going.

Checking in - Hello everyone

In Alan's description he said that we met and are a neighbor of Gandhi - so we are probably too close to him. We should probably conquer away from Gandhi, so we can then abandon our cities to let him have them.

We should also let Gandhi "capture" a bunch of workers.

I'm assuming we'll just settle in place? I can't see why we wouldn't.

I like the idea of warrior->workboat, but after that we may need to see how close Gandhi is to decide if worker or 2nd warrior.

Hi everyone

Checking in.

I agree we should settle in place, plains hill, coast, hills, grassland, 3 food resources = nice.:D
I think initial builds should be warrior (just in case) and wrkboat to bag those clams, (which way round depends on how brave we feel), then it depends on tech and mil situation, if needed we cant ignore the need for military early on, if not should look at expansion i.e wrker (if techs make it wrthwhile) /settler.
Tech wise we should try to bag BW asap for copper, tree chopping and whipping puposes, archery may be needed earlier than usual too. Religionwise, I think we should look to found at least one or two, most likely conf or christ to aid happiness and gold. I assume we will look to build Oracle, I think CS may be too far away to grab this way, so prob aim to bag COL or MC with it. After that much depends on what we find, I have sneaking suspiscion we will initially be stuck on continent with just India which means we will have to dig in until Astronomy if not we could use other civ as middleman to feed India tech.
Once we are set there should not be too much trouble, although the strangeness of the goal may mean we need to be a little more creative in our play than normal.
I will probs be busy for next few days so a position in middle to end of roster would suit me best.

Not sure that Oracle is a good option. It ties up production of a city for too long with no marble and non-industrious. We probably should be heading towards the military techs, BW, IW, Construction rather than the early religious ones. If we want to go for an early wonder I would prefer Great Lighthouse.

Much will depend on the early landscape.

The first round we might go 20, 20, 20, 15, 15, 15 turns and then 10 each from there?? I'd also say when Gandhi is found whoever is playing should post a position to get some thoughts as the proximity is going to determine a lot of what we do.

@cubbiesin08 and Mighty Dwaarf - In the three previous SGOTMs, we haven't determined a roster before we start, just use the order in which people are able to pick up the save first go round (ie first in best dressed).

If no-one else gets in before me, I'll start off tomorrow.

I Can't see how the Glighthouse is better option than Oracle. :confused:
As suggested earlier I have feeling our trade partners will be limited, if any, until Astronomy which kind of nullifies any extra trade routes the GL will give us. Plus, the Glighthouse costs 25% more shields than Oracle!! The Oracle will give us either free religion and early courthouses or early forges and Colossus both of which will give boost to economy irrelative as to how unknowns turn out.
With a few forest chops and gentle persuasion of the whip I do not see it tying up production for too long. Of course though, all this comes second to establishing early defense against any early Indian probings. I think after BW and archery we should have the ability (pending access to copper) to produce advanced enough troops to deal with anything Gandhi has. Therefor then we could persue Oracle via myst, med and priesthood which are all relatively cheap techs.

I agree with the idea of taking pause for thought when we discover Gandhi's whereabouts. As regards team rules, etiquette etc I am easy to follow your current ways, just let me know.;)

I agree with Oz's approach. The Oracle is not worth pursuing since we have no advantages and can probably skip the entire middle section of the tree for a long time. Bronze working then Animal Husbandry makes sense to get production up and locate Bronze.

If it is just us and Gandhi in this continent, I think a good plan is to get off the continent as quickly as possible and get out of Gandhi's way. Any wonders we build will then be form him. We will need to wait and see what the start looks like.

Good point about moving off shore if we're neighbours with Gandhi.

@Mighty Dwaarf - I actually would prefer not pursuing an early wonder at all, was just saying that GL is on our necessary research path. It is actually a very powerful wonder, dependant on the map, which we still don't know about. It also need our UB, which we will be building. Oracle is on a section of the research path we can safely ignore.

Since I've got some free time, I'll kick it off


- I've got it and will stop and soon as I find Gandhi

I played the first 20 turns and did not meet Gandhi.

T0:
Settled in place
Mining(12)
Warrior(11)

T11:
Met Genghis Khan's scout
Warrior -> Workboat

T12:
Mining -> Bronze Working

T13:
Buddhism FIADL

T19:
Lion decides he's hungry and kills our scout for lunch

We will have BW in 14 and workboat in 6

Here's a screenshot of what we can see so far.

We have a new warrior out scouting, a worker due in 1 and AH due in 3. There is a perfect city site to the west where we can work 3 gold mines and still grow. We have copper to the north just outside the fat cross, so metal will not be a problem. I would suggest pop rushing the Settler as soon as possible so we can get the huge increase to our tech rate going. Writing may be best next; there is no need for Archery, Axemen will defend us.

T3. Workboat complete, started warrior to grow to size 3.
T8. Warrior complete grown to size 3, started worker.
T11. BW complete, begin AH.

148763

GOOOOOLLLDDD.

I think we found our second city site. :D. I suggest we use the plains south of the river north of gold. This way we can use pigs and fish to counter shortfall in food to work gold.

BTW,
Cubbies, where did you meet Genghis scout? I would assume that Gandhi would be found in opposite direction.

I suggest next builds be wrkr, settler, with warr or two mixed in there if needed,
If we are not looking to Oracle, :sad: I would suggest AH next to get pigs online.
This should take us nicely through next turnset, where we should hopefully have more of an idea where Mr Gandhi is located.

We will need Mysticism to expand the borders of the second city. Combine that with a fast tech rate and possibly using the Oracle for Metal Casting is not a bad idea.

That's a killer second city site!

I'd go Writing next as well, get some Libraries up and running, or maybe Sailing to get a galley out (or build a second workboat).

Ngraner good to see you coming round to the power of the Oracle. I think at this moment we need to decide whether to attampt to pursue this or not, and if so we need to start now or it will be too late.
If not I think Granaries will benefit us more than Libraries at this stage so I would aim at them first.
I promise this is the last time I'll mention the Oracle as I must be getting annoying by now.

I promise this is the last time I'll mention the Oracle as I must be getting annoying by now.

:lol: :lol:

All points of view are very welcome.

I think libraries would be good as we could work the fish in the 2nd city, whip the library to increase the tech from the gold mines and get a border pop, while we're at it (I hate using monuments for border pops, waste of hammers).

If we decide to go Oracle for MC, then you're right we need to start redirecting research this way now. Is it worth attempting Feudalism instead??

I've got the save but will hold of playing until we get a consensus on Oracle from the others as we need to head down this path next turn-set if we're going for it.

Even if we decide to go for the Oracle, getting Writing for the Library is a good idea. I would just go ahead in that direction first.

Greetings all and welcome to Cubbiesin08 and Mighty Dwaarf. I'm checking in and will try to get caught up in the next 24 hours. From what I've read so far, this sounds like a fun one!

I met Genghis' scout SW of the city.

As for the Oracle push, I'm indifferent to it or not. The only bad part about us potentially getting it is declining Gandhi of getting it. He is one of the few civs that has a chance to beat us to it and I would rather have him get it than us.
I would lean towards not getting it or the religious techs and push military to take out Genghis, but I won't care either way.

The only bad part about us potentially getting it is declining Gandhi of getting it. He is one of the few civs that has a chance to beat us to it and I would rather have him get it than us.

He only has one in six chance to get it. Will the fact that he is at war with us change his behaviuor to a more militaistic one also??

I would lean towards not getting it or the religious techs and push military to take out Genghis, but I won't care either way.

I'm not sure we should be as hasty as to look to dispose of Genghis so soon.
There is enough space and resources around us to expand into. As difficulty is only Monarch we are going to have to help AI in tech race quite a lot. We are going to need third parties to feed Gandhi tech, Genghis could be our only early conduit to help India in this respect.

I believe that Gandhi is more likely to beat us given the fact that he is one of the few civs that start with Mysticism.

I'm not implying go to war with Genghis now, just start teching that direction and start building up our military. We need to be ready for war at any time - we can't allow any other civ to slow down Gandhi. We should make sure that he never gets involved with any war (other than us).

Checking in, thought this would first start in March, so I've been focusing on other things.

Research wise, I think we should drop the religious and culture lines, and focus on the science and war lines. Because Ghandi will be focusing on religion and culture, so we need to be able to feed the necessary techs to him.

I think a general approach to this is to build some extremely good production cities very close to Gandhi. And when time comes, "lose" them to him, so he has something to work from. At the same time we need to make sure that those production cities has as little a culture as possible, so Gandhi wont have any problems converting them.

I also like the sugar and gems site to the south. Added a couple of farms, and cottages, this could also become a great research city.

Another possibility for doing this, could be to simply take the intire map, and let Ghandi expand into our territory, until we are tied at 50 % landmass, and then just hope he doesn't get a cultural victory before he gets into space. Actually that could be avoided, by picking out his high culture cities, when they get into the danger zone. Are the no pillaging option set?

Hmm I think that was my two cents, if any were in doubt, that was a no to Oracle, I like it, but I wouldn't go for it in this game.

"Post Quick Reply", yeah right.
Time to install warlords ;)

Looking at the most recent save and reading all of the correspondence to date, my thoughts are:

- The oracle is always a nice item to pick up, but I think we need to pursue the more miltary and reserach driven track.
- The Indians should have the best chance at the oracle given they start with Mysticism and given they have the fast worker to improve tiles. Let's give them a chance to grab it.
- If our job is to train the Indians to fight, we must first be prepared to defend our homeland. It will be tricky balancing feeding the Indians while not giving them the tools of our demise. We need to keep up or stay ahead of his military tech most of the game. This will be useful in keeping other, less nice civs at bay as well.
- Writing, agriculture, wheel, iron working and metal casting would all be good items to get soon.
- We need to get the gold city up and running soon. This alone will give us a giant boost for research. Next city should probably be the one McArine mentioned above. Our culture should expand to capture the copper north of the capital in the near future. The addition of a library would hasten the culture expansion.

The Indians should have the best chance at the oracle given they start with Mysticism and given they have the fast worker to improve tiles. Let's give them a chance to grab it.

Usually they will tie themselves down with Stonehenge and worker techs to be a contender for Oracle. I believe if we leave it neither Gandhi/Genghis will build it. Rendering it useless to us or Gandhi. Even if Gandhi does build it he will more than likely waste it.

If our job is to train the Indians to fight, we must first be prepared to defend our homeland. It will be tricky balancing feeding the Indians while not giving them the tools of our demise. We need to keep up or stay ahead of his military tech most of the game. This will be useful in keeping other, less nice civs at bay as well

Keeping up in the tech race should not be too difficult at Monarchy especially with all the nice trade resources we have nearby. As we have metal, we should not have to much early trouble, after that all we need do is make sure we get key military tech when needed i.e feudlism, rifling, assembly. As long as we don't do anything silly we should easily be able to at least defend our ground.

- Writing, agriculture, wheel, iron working and metal casting would all be good items to get soon.

I would add Alphabet into there as well the sooner this is about the sooner the sooner the general world tech pace can increase. I can see immediate benefits of first three and MC but I would leave researching IW ourselves as we our bound to be able to get it off Genghis straight away.

We need to get the gold city up and running soon. This alone will give us a giant boost for research. Next city should probably be the one McArine mentioned above. Our culture should expand to capture the copper north of the capital in the near future. The addition of a library would hasten the culture expansion.

Agree, but we need to discuss where our main GP city will be. With not much immediately jumping out at moment the only one I could poss see is somewhere around the corn SW or on coast W. Although this is prob a few cities away yet.

OK, I'll play the turns now (15 of them). Will head down Writing path.

Well I'm going to inherit a worker first turn in :goodjob:

Instead of waiting for Animal Husbandry to come in and hook up the pigs, I mine the forested hill south of Nidaros, to save on whipping the settler as well.

We have horses in BFC of Nidaros :goodjob:

HELLO

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/1339/civ4screenshot0003oj9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Didn't stop straight away as I was trying to see if his land joins ours. I don't think it does (but may in the far NW).

He IS close. He'll be able to get to us via galley. The gold city will be particularly at risk and we may never have cultural control of the fish, do we still settle it (giving it to him later) or go for the gem/sugar site further south?

In any case Sailing just became a big priority for triremes and galleys for defense.

This is going to be an interesting game. :)

First thoughts about India.

1) Gems (*2), Gold, Clams and is that Corn in Delhi, and that is only half his FC we can see. Maybe he won't need as much help as we thought!!!

2) I think we should still stick with the gold city as planned. We should whip a library asap there and that should be enough to take the fish. Although we might not be able to work it till we can defend it.

3) The channel between us should actually help us defend against Gandhi as we can should be able to see into any city built on it, to keep watch on any troop build up and be able to move our troops to counter.

4) As I understand we currently have Tech wise Fish, Hunt, Min, BW, AH. Gandhi has 2 cities but only 28 points score wise on us, so tech wise I can't see him having much more than Myst, Min, (WHICH STARTS WITH) (SORRY MY CAPS LOCK IS STUCK) AND AG HUNT AND ARCHERY WHICH WE CAN SEE HE HAS IM NOT CONVINCED HE HAS MEDITATION WHICH (IM SORRY TO SOUND LIKE BROKEN RECORD) MAKES ME THINK HE IS NOT GOING TO BUILD ORACLE HE MAY BE ABLE TO CATCH UP WITH HIS SUPER CAPITAL BUT HE DOES SEEM TO BE GOING A BIT MORE MILITARISTIC THAN NORMAL HE MAYBE ONTO BW AH FOR THE MILITARY BENEFITS OF THOSE

The problem with the channel is that in warlords you can't see what's inside any transports, so we will be able to see the ships coming but won't see if there are any troops inside until they land.

Do we really want to steal the fish from Gandhi?

Anyway, I'll continue the rest of the turns tonight.

Given our proximity to Gandhi, I think we should focus on vacating our starting area quickly. We should find someone else's land (maybe Genghis), take over their cities and abandon our area. We need to think differently in this game vs. other games - we are not trying to win. Why do we need to defend this area if we are really looking to vacate it. The further we are away from Gandhi, the less likely he will be to build military.

Yeah I think vacating our lands is going to be on the cards. We still need to have enough research and production to take new lands of Genghis I presume.

Will finish the turns and found the second city for the gold if settler pops.

I'll head warrior back south to try and find Genghis' land. Maybe we need to head straight for Mathematics and take him with axes and catapults (Writing, Maths, Masonry, Construction).

Well I completed the last 9 of my 15 turns.

The hut popped gave the warrior experience. I gave him woodsman I and II and sent him down south to find Genghis.

Worker is now farming the horses.

And hello to you as well.

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/5347/civ4screenshot0000ty2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

He's not too far away down south. I'm tempted to settle the gold site, tech to Construction asap and start taking Genghis down. As soon as we are on top of him, empty our cities and leave them for Gandhi and head south.

We maybe then should head for Astronomy anyway we can and sail far far away. :lol:

Souds like a good plan.

I like that plan.

I also see in the screenshot that Gandhi is now Hindu - hopefully he's got priesthood and heading for that Oracle.

Ok guys, Lets forget the Oracle.

New plan

I'm not a huge fan of running away but I can see that it is going to be on the cards. But please, lets not throw away Gandhis only likely trading partner pre Optics, and then invite him onto our doorstep. Ok Gandhi is close to us at the moment but at least he is the other side of the channel which is surely better than having him on our land. This principle has helped save us English many times in the past. If we are to leave our current position we should wait till we can move out of the way. This will have to wait till Astronomy but so be it. So we should do what we can to get there asap. Short term we need, Science, Science and more Science. That translates to Pottery for Cottages, then we need Alphabet, we can then give/trade this to Genghis so he can start tech trading to Gandhi. I think it is also prudent for us to help the spread the word of the Hindu faith so we need to get Sailing to Genghis asap too. We should maybe look to Optics as a key tech also, allow us to get out looking for the promised land. As we are to move we should not waster time with too many cities I think our current capital, gold city, Gems to south and a cottage spam city to SW with corn to help grow should be sufficient.

As I am otherwise engaged over the weekend I WOULD LIKE TO PLAY NEXT TURNS PROB TOMORROW NIGHT
I WOULD LOOK TO SETTLE GOLD CITY WITH LIBRARY FIRST BUILD BIT MORE MIL FROM CAPITAL THEN POS START ON SECOND SETTLER
AFTER WRITING GO FOR POTTERY FOR COTTAGES AND GRANARIES>

I THINK THAT THIS IS SAFE NEXT FIFTEEN TURNS FOR WHATEVER PLAN WE GO FOR AFTER THAT

I'd better pick this up. and play.
Edit:
The plan will be to build by the gold, and start researching Mathematics.
I agree that we need cottages, but they will become a cheap trade tech down the line, and we don't really need them right now.

Not much happened.
I switched to Mathematics, but it may be worth it to get Agriculture before that. Iron working is going to be a must too.

I founded Uppsala. I decided to settle south of the Gold, the city wont be on a river, but Bombay just expanded, and getting the food for working three mines, will be a lot easier to the south.

Genghis is on the southern tip of the island, so I don't see a reason to keep him around. He will just become a pain later.

Preturn: Nothing.

Turn 1: Zzz

Turn 2: Writing -> Mathematics.

Turn 3: Nidaros Settler -> Warrior.

Turn 4: Moving settler.

Turn 5: Waiting a bit for a warrior. Decided to settle south of the Gold, the city wont be on a river, but Bombay just expanded, and getting the food for working three mines, will be a lot easier to the south.

Turn 6: Zzz

Turn 7: Nidaros Warrior -> Warrior.

Turn 8: Zzz

Turn 9: Zzz

Turn 10: Nidaros Warrior -> (Warrior) Settler.

Turn 11: Zzz

Turn 12: Zzz

Turn 13: Uppsala is founded.

Turn 14: Zzz

Turn 15: Zzz

Postturn: Mathematics in 19.

Ok I'll pick this up and play fifteen tonight I will stick with consensus for goal of Maths and Construst with aim to take on Genghis unless any other counter arguement in between.

I would fancy pottery as a quickie first if it is only a few turns as I'm sure we can put in a few cottages around the empire. How long is the border expansion so we can pick up the copper? I'm getting a bit twitchy thinking of barbarian archers.

OK got save gonna play 15 report back later.

Turns
Pre end turn.
Looked at our position and saw two problems. Uppsala due to unhealthiness from jungle was unhealthy this means we are unable to work the gold and could only get to size 3 max by wrking corn and 2 g'land tiles (size two if we worked corn and g'land hill). Although Niadoros border popped in five turns we still couldn't connect to bronze without road (same for horses). Which would mean we could only use warriors until we hooked up resources, or drastically increased tech level. We were building settler in Niadoros but didnt really have anywhere for it to settle. To the south would have meant unhealthy problems from jungle and north is sparse hills I didnt believe an extra city at this point would give a net benefit to our economy. Therefore I changed to research wheel, and Niadoros to build worker.
Not much actually happened during terms so only give brief summary.
Research - We now have wheel, and shortly will have pottery (I thought we need it now rather than wait till we can trade it).
Resources - We now have Bronze and horses hooked up and are half way to connecting Uppsala.
Production - Built 2 wrkrs and are currently building barracks ready to start build up mil in Niadoros, continued Library in Uppsala.
Diplomacy - entered open borders with Genghis to scout his land, he has horses but no bronze.
Exploration - have explored Genghis land and whole SE corner, there is 1 barb town in very SE corner. Warrior is now returning to our land.
Military - Fought off couple of barb warriors, one to north one to south. On last turn noticed barb town to SW of Uppsala (can see two black tiles) unfortunately town would seem to be in not the best position.
Economy - Gained 33g from hut used it to increase science rate.

Genghis land is made up of mostly FP at the moment, with corn and horses. He also has stone to W, and marble (between him and us on E coast). Gandhi has found Hindhu and Judaism in Bombay so his borders have now encroached across the channel. He seems to be progressing very well on his own at moment. :D

Terminator is the only one not to have played so far I think, so must be up.

The choice of second city site was horrible:


Insufficient food to work all the gold tiles
Only one gold tile available before expansion
No access to the already developed pigs for quick growth
A worthless desert tile could have been made productive.

Choice of early city sites is one of the most important decisions in the game. If we discuss one location and then factors come up suggesting a change, the player should come back to the team to discuss.

I think at the moment we should take a step back to discuss more of an overall goal, as how we want to see this game develop. We need to decide as a team where we are going to build our cities and thus our strategy for first half of the game. To this I can see we have three options.

1) Stick where we are.
2) Move south taking Genghis land and pos vacate original area.
3) Look to move to different land mass

I think we can only do one of the three, I believe if we move south as a stop gap to moving abroad we will fall behind too much.
My preference is for the first, but I agree that the third option has benefits in this type of scenario. I think the second option is a weak one, it would not eliminate any of cons of the first, would eliminate a good trading partner for Gandhi as Genghis will more than likely become Hindu state too.

Once we are decided on which option to pursue we will have more of an idea of what is needed in short term as regards science, economy and military.

I like the second option, and I don't think it precludes the third. We just need to survive until Gandhi wins, we don't need a large empire, so multiple moves are possible. We should establish some tech before moving; that was the idea behind getting the gold on line, which of course now will be problematic.

Genghis is not a good trading partner generally. If we push to Optics we can then send Caravels out and trade the tech to other civs to help encourage tech trading with Gandhi.

I also like the second option and agree it doesn't preclude the third. Bummer about the second city (haven't looked at the save) as a boost to research now would be good.

I think head for Construction, take Genghis and then head for Astronomy and find another location.

The choice of second city site was horrible:
Choice of early city sites is one of the most important decisions in the game. If we discuss one location and then factors come up suggesting a change, the player should come back to the team to discuss.

I agree, and I'm sorry, I guess I got blinded by wanting to get the diamonds. :sad:

If Terminator can't pick this up today (has been more than 48 hours) cubbiesin08 should continue the charge.

Seems as though Genghis option is favourite.

That means completing Maths and Const should be priority.

Mix of Axe, spears and Cats should be more than enough for his arch and horse at moment. We should poss keep eye on whether he shows sign of having Iron available as that could put spanner in works.

Once Niadoros has completed Baracks should look to start on axs.
We should look at whether the time it takes to invest in Library in Uppsala is going to be worth it.

I will play tonight unless I hear otherwise from terminator.


- I've got it now.

I played 15 more turns and this is all that happened.

Turn 88
Pottery -> Agriculture
Nidaros Barracks -> Settler

Turn 95
Agriculture -> Mathematics

Turn 97
Nidaros Settler -> Axemen

Notes
I made the decision to pick up Agriculture because w/o it, Uppsala won't be productive since it can't work the pigs.
Genghis is up to 5 cities now - including one directly south of Nidaros to get the gems.
I sent the Settler to the west to get the 2 gems and the fish, but there is already a barbarian city there, so we need to get Axemen to expand anywhere.
Since, I wasn't sure where to send the Settler, I put him to sleep in Uppsala.
Gandhi also got Judaism and switched to that, so hopefully he is getting close to the Oracle.
I also think we need to get a scout on Gandhi's portion of the continent to see if there are any civs next to him.

Sorry everyone. I got the game and will play turns tonight.

Picked game up at Turn 100 (1000 BC)

Turn 104
Nidaros Axe->Axe

Turn 105
Research of Mathematics completed. Next is Masonry (heading toward Construction).

Turn 108
The Oracle is built in an unknown land.
Haithabu is founded between gems and clams near the Barbarian city of Chinook. Starts building a workboat.
Nidaros Axe -> Axe

Turn 111
Research of Masonry completed. Next is Construction.
Nidaros Axe -> Axe
Switch Nidaros to a Settler

Finished at Turn 115.


For the near term:

1. Once the settler is completed in Nidaros, suggestion is to raze Chinook and found the new city between the sugar and the horses (follow the sign). Although Chinook would have access to fish upon border expansion, there is no real production within the city’s fat cross if we keep it. Founding a city just south of the sugar should give a decently balanced city and give us access to the two sugar, one spice and one horse.

149312

2. Continue to crank out axemen and take the weekly defended Mongolian cities to our south (New Sarai and Old Sarai each have just one archer).

3. Make iron working a high priority to clear jungle and get access to the gems (and other good stuff).

4. At some point soon we should take a break from axeman and cat production and build a library in Nidaros.

For the later game:

1. Maybe found a city north-east of Uppsala to work the pigs and 1 or 2 of the gold tiles.

2. Maybe found a city between the sheep and corn near the top of our continent. It would be a good gift if nothing else.

Comments? I think NGraner is up next.

Founded the new city of Birku as Terminator suggested. Unfortunately lost Haitabu to an Indian seaborne attack. The city being size 1 was razed rather than captured.

T0. I switch to Iron Working since I think it is a higher priority than Construction. It is needed for the Gems.
T2. Genghis Khan adopts Hinduism. We adopt Slavery.
T3. Settler is rushed in Nidaros.
T4. A Workboat is completed in Haithabu, but an Indian trireme is nearby.
T6. The city of Chinook is captured and razed. Since the trireme has moved on we establish a fishing fleet at Haithabu.
T8. Gandhi comes back with a Trireme and a Galley. The fishing fleet is not pillaged yet, but 2 Superman are dropped off. Lets hope Haitabu can survive. The new city of Birku is founded near the Horses and Sugar.
T9. Gandhi's Superman attacks and razes Haitabu. :cry:

Sorry about the slip up. I should have reinforced the city.

OK I'll be able to play tomorrow.

Bummer about losing the city.

T8. Gandhi comes back with a Trireme and a Galley. The fishing fleet is not pillaged yet, but 2 Superman are dropped off. Lets hope Haitabu can survive. The new city of Birku is founded near the Horses and Sugar.
T9. Gandhi's Superman attacks and razes Haitabu. :cry:

No wonder Graner couldn't stop them. Usually they just attack with spearmen. However, somehow India got a hold of SUPERMEN! I hate it when that happens! :lol:

It's early and we can recover.

OK sorry for the delay, forgot about this one :blush:

The two Indian supermen are heading for the (gold) hills but we put an axe there first.

Iron Working comes in and I pick Construction (in 25). Only iron is in the north.

Nidaros becomes unhappy so I whip a library.

Last turn I actually had to kill one of the supermen.

I still think we catapult/axe rush Genghis once we can form up some catapults, I wouldn't worry about founding any other cities ourselves yet.

We have 6 axes (2 due next turn).

Gandhi has Alphabet.

We need to cottage or farm Uppsala before we can work another gold mine.

So who is up next? Is it Mighty Dwaarf?

OK lets put up some sort of roster for this.

cubbiesin08 - started it all off
ngraner42
ozbenno - just done
McArine - UP
Mighty Dwaarf - on deck
Terminator3k

Ok, then I got it.

Preturn: Nothing.

Turn 1: Uppsala Axeman -> Barracks. Nidaros Axe->Axe.

Turn 2: Destroyed a Indian Spearman, India pillaged a fishing boat.

Turn 3: Birka Barracks -> Axeman.

Turn 4: Zzz

Turn 5: Zzz

Turn 6: Nidaros Axe->Axe. Uppsala Barracks -> Axeman.

Turn 7: Zzz

Ghandi got christianity.

Turn 8: Zzz

Turn 9: Nidaros Axe->Axe. Barbarians appear from the north, two units scramble to intercept.

Turn 10: Destroyed the barb axe at the cost of one axe.

Postturn: Construction is in 4. We got 4 axes ready to strike Old Sarai if we want to, we can get 3 workers if we do it this turn.

Ok should hopefully have time tomorrow night to play my turns, otherwise Termi should go before me as I will be away all weekend.

Ok have played, have uploaded save, briefly we now have Old and New Sarai gained at minimal cost.:D Will post more details tomorrow morning as need to go to bed as very tired. ;)

OK have finally woken up now!!

Initially I decided to wait to DOW on Genghis, I split our axes into 2 groups intending to attack Old and New Sarai simultaneously. As the northern of the two cities is on hill save our cr2 axes for that.

IBT
Axe kills barb arch.
Birka Axe => spear (Genghis is going to counter with chariot/horse arch)

Turn 1 ZZ

IBT
Niadoros Axe=>Spear

Turn2 ZZ

Turn 3
Whip Spear in Birka

IBT Construction to Currency (Our economy is poor sci at 50%)
Confucianism found in distant land
Spear=>Cat Birka

IBT
Gandhi lands Axe (cr1) and Archer nr Birka.

Turn 5
Move Axe to cover Birka
DOW on Genghis

Turn 6
Lose one Axe (Cover) attacking New Sarai, 4 victories Axe vs Archer in New and Old Sarai.
Capture Old and New Sarai for combined 183 gold.
Upgrade Warrior to Axe in Birka.

IBT
Spear=> Cat Niadoros

Turn 7 ZZ

IBT Genghis moves Chariot and Archer inbetween Old and New Sarai.

Turn 8
Axe kills Indian Archer.

IBT
Gandhi lands another Axe and Spear nr Birka.

Turn 9
ZZZ

IBT
Indian Axe dies attacking Birka

Turn 10
AXe kills Indian Axe.
Axe kills Indian Spear.

Future thoughts
We are only 9XP from first general now.
There is a barb city North of Niadoros, we need to at least move an axe or two back to cover copper.
Genghis has three more cities we have not found?? Therefore he might be close to the Iron to his East!! We need to stop him potential getting this to keep our military advantage over him.
He has whipped Turfan a couple of times.

Good stuff, sounds like a promising start.

Good job on the expansion! :goodjob:

I've got the game and will play my turns tomorrow.

Nothing much happened on my turns. Troops are outside of Karakorum and simply await the arrival of cats to take down the city’s defenses. Given the Mongols have 2 Keshiks now, either pillage or keep a unit on top of the horses south-east of Karakorum to prevent additional Keshiks from being produced. Note also that two Mongol archers and a settler are heading toward the area between the marble and gold southeast of Old Sarai.

Details are in the spoiler thread.

Picked game up at Turn 157 (145 BC)

Turn 158
Upsalla spearman -> cat
Terminate Mongol spearman and archer outside of New Sarai. :scan:

Turn 159
Nidaros cat -> cat

Turn 160 - 162
:sleep:

Turn 163
Nidaros cat-> cat
Start march toward Karakorum

Turn 164
:sleep:

Turn 165
Two Keshiks appear. One Keshik ambushes a cat on the way toward Karakorum.

Turn 166
:sleep:

Turn 167
Nidaros cat -> cat
Move troops on top of Mongol horses to prevent further Keshik units from being created

The Mongolian capital is ours. We are experiencing some war weariness and could really use Calendar. Currency is in 3, but our economy is only being held together by the spoils of war.

Gandhi has a Galley near Birka. We will want to turn over some of our northern cities to him, but need to be careful that he does not simply wipe us out.

Turn 169: Continue military unit production.
Turn 170: A Keshic attacks our Axeman defending a Catapult. The Axeman is reduced to 0.2, but the Keshic is reduced to 0.1 and withdraws. We kill the weakened Keshic and an accompanying Chariot with a Spear and a Catapult. A great general is born in Upsala.
Turn 171: The bombardment of Karakorum begins.
Turn 173: Another Keshic comes out to attack us, but withdraws at 1.0 strength. We kill the Keshic with a Spearman.
Turn 174: A Keshic attacks our forces and dies.
Turn 176: The attack on Karakorum. First cat attacks and withdraws. Next 3 cats attack and die valiantly. 1 Axe and 1 Spearman die, but the rest win and the city is ours.
Turn 177: A Keshic kills one of our catapults and we kill the Keshic.

Sorry if I jumped ahead of Cubbies08. I just looked at the last turn set and saw that I played after the Terminator.

Got it and will play shortly

Things are not going well...

I was unable to take any more cities because Genghis got Longbowmen on turn 3 of my turnset.

I vacated Uppsala because Gandhi sent 2 Swordsman after our 1 warrior. I could have whipped units, but with Karakorum coming out of revolt, we were running negative even with 0% research - and we still are. We also need to vacate Nidaros to get our capital further south.

I think we might be able to take Turfan with the units I've assembled there, but I would recommend peace once we take that city.

I moved our Great General to Old Sarai, we should probably settle him somewhere.

Currency finished, and I chose Alphabet. However, since we are running 0%, it doesn't matter.

Oops, I just realised I'm up here. If I realised yesterday I would have been able to play but won't have Civ IV access until Friday, so if McArine wants to jump in ahead...

Firstly, apologies for the delay in getting this done, has been a big week (and weekend of RL).

Secondly, OUCH! We'll go broke at 0% in 3 turns, the unhappies are killing us and we've lost Uppsala, our only decent commerce city :goodjob: :lol:

I swotch everywhere to markets in a vain attempt to get things going. I might have to suicide against Turfan to get cash to survive.

Let's see shall we...

First suicide catapult withdraws at 0.4% to win and puts longbow at 2.9/6 :goodjob:

Next one dies and only brings another longbow down to 3.8/6 and this one was at 1% to win :mad:

In the end we prevail against the longbows and keshiks at Turfan. I think long and hard about the relative merits of razing over keeping and decide to keep.

I then get a peace deal from Genghis (20gp plus 3gpt).

Great Library built in a far away land, hopefully India.

gandhi drops of an axe/sword pair near Birka. I desperatly need the cash from the new cottage they are standing on so I clear them.

Gandhi has a sword sniffing around Nidaros.

We're in deep trouble again (but we were also in SGOTM1 and 2). Research is back to 50%. Alphabet will come in next turn set. We should look at selling Genghis old techs if we can. Code of Laws or Sailing next.

Where do we go from here. We will need to take Genghis out at some stage, so maybe redeclare. Or see if we can get economy back in shape first. Not really sure which is better :confused:

If we go on the re-attack, replace the markets (or whip them) with catapults. I left catapults in Old and New Sarai and there is a GG in Old Sarai (merging to a unit,probably warrior for free upgrade, is best). We have his horses so no need to worry about surprise keshik attacks, just CG longbows (one of his 5 remaining cities appears to be on a hill)

ok, I got it.

The turnset went with market building and rejecting some of Gandhis troops.
CoL is in 10 at 50% -3gpt.
I lost one unit at 67.1% :-(

Preturn: Nothing.

Turn 1: The sword close to Nidaros is no more.

Turn 2: Zzz

The Parthenon biafal.

Turn 3: Zzz

Turn 4: Once again Ghandi lands near Birka.

Peace treaty ends.

Turn 5: Zzz

We're fifth largest, with Gandhi as second and Genghis as 8th.

Turn 6: Sailing -> CoL. The axes near Birka are defeated at the loss of one unit.

Turn 7: Zzz

Turn 8: Zzz

Genghis wants horses, I dont want to see any more Beshba-whatever.

Turn 9: Zzz

Turn 10: Zzz

Postturn: Nothing

I believe Mighty Dwarf should take his turns, otherwise terminator should jump in.

Cripes

I have been under impression for days it was someone else before me, sorry.

Have had a quick scoot at the save, Tech wise I think we need (after COL) to concentarate on, bearing in mind we are quite behind on tech, getting to a point we have adequate troops to defend against Maces. Longbows are at least 5 techs away and would involve some research of backward techs. Pikes would be of little use as GK no longer has horses and I have seen little horsie action from Gandhi either. So combination of Beserkers and Cbows (pending access to Iron) is our best bet. Along those lines MC, Machinery, CS should be our next tech path (Hopefully use one of these to trade for Calender) and we should look to plan it so we can utilise some GP to help us on our way. This can then lead us to Compass, Optics and Astro when we can find other civs and trade for what we haven't got.

Anyway, plan for next 10 turns should be IMO concentrate on rebuilding internally. I think we need to keep Genghis on side for now. ;) . I would like to change some of the builds in the less gold productive cities as I dont think they will have much use for markets at the moment. Especially Old Sarai, needs some culture so we can hook up the gems there. Military wise, I think we should look to recapture Uppsala, gets us back the gold in them there hills, and gets Gandhi off our land. Possibly take barb city to north also as prob best hope of getting Iron and those annoying Crossbows.

I will play early evening tomorrow.
Please let me know your thoughts!!

PS What plans do we have for our great general?? Am mostly experienced in vanilla civ4 so not so sure on best uses for them??

Had forgotten about this one as well...

Crossbows will be our best defense I think at the moment.

Optics should be a tech we are aiming for, to get this world explored.

Best use for GG might be to create a medic III out of a warrior (free upgrade to axe as well). Merging is only a short term fix as we may not have our current cities all game.

Short term tech path of MC and Machinery then we can evaluate between CS and Compass,Optics. Although we need to get Iron from somewhere.

Best use for GG might be to create a medic III out of a warrior (free upgrade to axe as well). Merging is only a short term fix as we may not have our current cities all game.

My thoughts too, not much point in settling somewhere if we were planning on moving.

I am fine with pushing to Beserkers next. On the military front, we do not want to kick Gandhi out of our(?), actually his land. We gave Upsalla to him. We should expand against Genghis.

On the military front, we do not want to kick Gandhi out of our(?), actually his land. We gave Upsalla to him. We should expand against Genghis.

Am just a bit wary about our ability to defend ourselves at the moment. Whilst Gandhi has foothold on our side of the continent he can build up his troops their ready for an attack. (Which Genghis could more than likely use to his advantage). Therefore I think it is safer that we have Uppsala rather than Gandhi, (also the gold would be nice). In the short term any move against Genghis would prove too costly for us economically and militarily. Whereas a concentrated prod towards Uppsala would not cost us much economically and hopefully little militarily.

If we want to retake Uppsala we need to do it sooner rather than later.

You do realize we are trying to help Gandhi win.

I would like to see us push south and even give up our capital. By relocating that further south - we might be better economically.

I realize that this is not normal play, but our goal is not to win, but just to survive.

I'm not the greatest Civ player and have spent numerous GOTM's just surviving. We will be fine with just a few cities if it comes to that.

The key is to make Gandhi move faster through the tech tree. If we take out several civs, that may not be a good thing because you take away potential trading partners for Gandhi. Since we know that Gandhi and Genghis will never trade - Genghis must go. If that cripples us to only a few cities - all is ok as long as Gandhi launches faster.

You do realize we are trying to help Gandhi win.

We will never find out who wins if we don't survive.

Played, not much good news to report.

Before end of turn
Old Sarai mkt => lib
Birka mkt => lib
Thought. Culture needed for defense and libs help sci, only minimal gpt so mkt little effect.

Turns 1-4
Nothing really happened, Taoism found in distance, few GS found in distance.
Niad Cat to TP, Turfan Axe to Lib.

IBt Gandhi lands 2 cats and 2 swords next to Birka

Turn 5
Move troops to cover Birka, thought had enough but

IBT
Lose spear and Axe, kill 1 catapult. Looking at damage done to Gandhis troops he definitely got the roll of the dice, he still has one sword at full health.

Turn 6
Move another Axe into Birka in hope to save it

IBT
Lose two borderline battles both swords have 0.4 or less remaining.
Lose Birka

Turn 7
Retake Birka

Turn 8
Rush lib in Old Sarai
Kill lingering gandhi sword.
Niadoros TP to Axe
IBT
Islam found in distance.

Turn 9+10
Nothing.

Although in someway may have been unlucky in the battles defending Birka, I will hold my hand up and admit that probably could have handled it better resulting in less unit loss maybe even not losing Birka temporarily.

Next turns
Gandhi has a combat 2 shock promoted sword a couple of squares north of Birka, watch out for him.
New Sarai and Kakorum should have mkts whipped next turn, this should ease the burden on our gold reserves, COL is in next turn, I think we need to discuss our next tech option fully as think it could be critical.

I think heading for optics is the way as it includes Machinery on the way (I think). Crossbows will stop Gandhi getting any more of our cities as we look for a new land.

I think heading for optics is the way as it includes Machinery on the way (I think). Crossbows will stop Gandhi getting any more of our cities as we look for a new land

I agree in pinciple for aiming towards optics, for Cbows we will also need Archery and Iron, we could possibly go archery and HBR first to get horse archer to help defend against cats??
We should utilise merchants in at least one of our high food cities as a GM, once MC is researched will allow us to lightbulb most of CS.

I've got the game and will play at some point today (it may be late).

Mighty Dwaarf may yet get a "I told you so". :nono:

The Mongols declared war on me as soon as I pushed the red button. Five turns into my ten I am doing okay, but I am going to call it quits tonight to sleep on the next moves. As long as the Indians stay away for now we should be okay. If they don't, well .... :assimilate:

It’s always fun when you pick up a game, press the red button, and war is declared! :D

Take a look at the spoiler thread for details. Given there were no further attacks after turn 4 and given no more horse units have shown up, I am hopeful that the last of the Mongol offensive force has been put down.

The question is do we now try to pursue an offensive push? We will need the iron to the east of Karakorum but it would be good to put away the cities to the south and west of Karakorum including the current capital. My suggestion would be to send an expeditionary force toward one of the Mongol cities to see if we can find a target of opportunity. Keep in mind that we do have a great general in reserve if we need to use him. A great general axeman with promotions focused on city attack may be a good thing.

One piece of good news is that the gems outside of Old Sarai are now online. I have the workers now trying to hook up the marble but watch this carefully to make sure that a Mongol unit doesn’t pop up and try to steal them.

Picked game up at Turn 215 (725 AD)

Turn 216
WAR!!!!

The Mongols declare.
Attack is focused on Karakorum with 1 longbow, 1 keshik and 1 chariot.
Turfan is also under attack by 1 immediate longbow and 1 more damaged longbow 2 turns away.

The defense plan:

Karakorum:
Already in place: 1 spear
Move axe into city.
Whip spear.
Take axe in New Sarai and merge with great general. Unit already has combat 1, cover and city raider 1. Promote to combat 2, morale (movement +1 to get him to Karakorum this turn) and medic 1. Note that we still have 1 great general left.
Use spear to attack Keshik (94% chance). Spear is successful and is now 2.8/4.0.

Turfan:
Already in place: 1 axe, 1 spear and 2 cats
Whip axe.
Allow longbow to take a hit against the dug-in troops.
Send cat to take on damaged longbow in woods northwest of town. Cat is successful and is now 1.7/5.0 but will be eligible for promotion to accelerate healing.

Let’s just pray that the Indians don’t attack Nidaros right now …

Oh, and research for Code of Laws completed. To continue on path to Optics I choose Metal Casting.

Turn 217
Nidaros axe -> axe
Karakorum: Newly whipped spear takes out chariot. Longbow retreats back into Mongol territory. Immediate concern thwarted.
Turfan: Enemy longbow moves to south of city. Our injured cat begins to head home.

Turn 218

We now have 2 Mongol longbows running around between Turfan and Karakorum. Time to take them out. I get lucky and kill the first LB with a regular axe from Karakorum. The second LB takes out the regular axe from Turfan, but our great general finishes him off.

Turn 219
Move units back to city to heal.
Nidaros axe -> axe

Turn 220
:sleep:

Turn 221
Nidaros axe -> axe (leftover forest chop

Turn 222
Nidaros axe -> cat

Turn 223
Karakorum axe -> cat
Birka barracks -> axe
Gems online!
Turfan - I purposely used a citizen instead of a tile to avoid growth. None of the tiles that can be worked have more than 1 hammer anyway. When the war is over this can be reset.

Turn 224
New Sarai axe -> cat

Turn 225
Nidaros axe -> cat

Got it - will be playing shortly.

Well, things are going better - we've caught Genghis in score! I've also managed to take 2 of Genghis' cities.

Turn 225
Scout Samarqand - south of Karakorum. It only has 2 longbowmen, so I'll go for it.

Turn 226
Lowered Samarqand defenses

Turn 227
Karakorum cat -> market
Lowered Samarqand defenses

Turn 228
Lowered Samarqand defenses

Turn 229
Nidaros axe -> axe
Found Tubris - east of Turfan. It only has 1 longbowmen, so I decide to go for it as well.
Scout Tiflis - it has 2 longbowmen
Gandhi drops off 2 War Elephants near Birka
Lowered Samarqand defenses

Turn 230
Capture Samarqand losing only 2 cats

Turn 231
New Sarai cat -> market

Turn 232
Nidaros axe -> axe
Captured Tabriz losing only 1 cat

Turn 233
Found Olmec to the east by the iron - it has 2 longbowmen

Turn 234
Nidaros axe -> axe
Karakorum market -> axe

Turn 235
ZZZ

Turn 236 (accidentally took 1 more turn)
ZZZ

Continued the war against Genghis adding 2 good cities to the empire. Genghis didnot have the will to attack except for one lone Longbowman. He is no longer a threat. Made peace for tech and money. The next war should be his last.

Defended Birka against a vicious elephant assault from Gandhi. We got lucky.

We should probably abandon Nidaros at this point to reduce distance maintenance.

Machinery is currently in 12. Probably Civil Service or Optics next.

1085AD Gandhi attacks Birka with 3 elephants and a Swordsman. We hit them first with a Catapult which weakens one of the elephants. They attack, 2 elephants die, one injured elephant wanders off and the Swordsman is hurt. Our Spearman then upgrades and takes out the Swordsman.

1100AD The injured elephant decides to attack Birka, defended by only a catapult, and moves into position, but the nearby Spearman kills it. Our attack force reaches Olmec.

1006AD Olmec is ours at the cost of 1 catapult and unfortunately 1 triple city raider Axeman at 70%.

1118AD Tiflis is captured at high losses. City defender Longbowman on a hill are tough. Lost 1 catapult and 2 axeman, but we have a new gold supply. We make peace with Genghis for Alphabet, Mysticism, and 90gp

Good work. I'll have a look at the save tonight and hopefully will play then.

When we do go to finish off Genghis, make sure he hasn't vassaled himself to someone. In this weakened state, he is now more likely to do it.

When I was playing my turnset, I noticed we've got enough workers, maybe we could finally let Gandhi "capture" some...

Well we have the iron which is good.

Not much of note happened. Tried to improve the finances.

Gandhi shows up with a crossbow, which is trouble as we have no effective counter until we have crossbows of our own.

Gandhi lands a stack including maces and catapults near Birka. I whip an axe and sacrifice a catapult (it withdraws) but we're dead here, no culture, no decent defenders.

Machinery comes in last turn, I select Archery to allow crossbows (1 turn). Can be changed.

The crossbow is now in range of Nidaros, I sacrifice a chariot to try and wound it to pick it off with another defender but it dies without scratching the crossbow. I've left a combat II cover axe next to it for whoever takes this next to try and decide whether we sacrifice another troop.

I think we've got no hope here sadly. We are miles behind in tech and I fear we won't last long if Gandhi really decides to come at us.

In retrospect, I think our tactics were wrong. We should have tried to hold Gandhi from a position of strength and used the late game to nuke/spy his opponents out of the game while staying strong ourselves.

McArine, I think you're up!

Yeah, I am going to pick it up in a couple of hours.

Ten rather uninteresting turns, I kept Gandhi at bay. And cranked out some more military units.

I choose Engineering as next research, to get the extra movement so we can get faster around and defend our country.

We met Hannibal and Brennus, and got some resource trades in.

Preturn: Nothing.

Turn 1: Archery -> Engineering. Birka Axeman -> Axeman. Cleared the area near Birka.

Turn 2: Zzz

Turn 3: Karakorum Catapult -> Catapult. Took out the crossbowman, cost us two units.

We meet Brennus, He got a higher score than Gandhi.

Turn 4: Zzz

We meet Hannibal.

Turn 5: Nidaros Granary -> Axeman. Birka Axeman -> Catapult.

Turn 6: New Sarai Whips courthouse.

Turn 7: Nidaros Axeman -> Catapult. New Sarai Courthouse -> Axeman. Did some resource trading with Brennos.

Turn 8: New Sarai Axeman -> Catapult. Old Sarai Catapult -> Catapult. Karakorum Catapult -> Axeman.

Turn 9: Zzz

Turn 10:

Postturn: Engineering is in 21 turns.

Now server is back up will grab save have a peek and look to play early weekend.

When I read we had Iron I assumed it meant hooked up ready to rock.
With current settings we are at least 30 turns away from hooking it up, i.e building culture building, accumulating culture, wrker turns.
We can prob get this down to about 20 by either:

A) changing to monument whipping pretty much straight away.
or
B) moving 2 people from the grassland tiles to the plains tiles to get 3spt and whipping once we have 45/135 shields req for the library. This will lose us some trade from the grassland tiles though.
or
c) crossing our fingers really, really tightly and hope some religion spreads there soon.

I'm not sure Engineering is our best tech option at the moment?? Is quite expensive for what is likely to bring us.

In 10 turns we could get to at least 4-5 turns from Monarchy which will lead us to Feudalism then Guilds.
If we can muster up a GM we could also lightbulb majority of CS, only plausible site for this at moment is probably Niadoros but this would mean cutting back on production there, but will help our gold/science rate issues at the moment. If we use 2 merchants 6 gpppt GM in 25 turns.

Please post your thoughts on this and hopefully we can survive a little longer.

I would whip the library any way possible. We need that iron.

Research wise, we should be aiming at a tech that the AI doesn't have (if there is such a thing) otherwise CS is probably best

I agree on rushing the Library. We can chop a forest or two just outside the borders to help.

Research wise CS, or continue the push to Astronomy. My preference is CS for Berserkers and Bureaucracy. Engineering does not give us much.

Oz, don't lose hope. If we can get to a rock out in the Ocean we can survive. Terminator is preparing a speech to rally our morale.

So is it??

A) Change to compass=>optics and use GM for CS.

B) Change to CS and go for GS for Compass/Optics

C) Head to Feud and use either GS or GM for compass,optics/CS

I prefer using GM for CS but what to change to depends on balancing need to be able to stay alive with need to find a corner and hide.

Oz, I think hopes of finding someone as backwards as we find ourselves are slim.

I haven't looked at the save, was just hoping that there was a tech we could research the AI didn't have.

I would go fo Compass/Optics and use the GM for CS (if it won't fully bulb complete CS first). After CS it might be worth seeing if the AI has Paper and if not go for it and trade it around.

Thankfully a very boring set of 10

Here is c/p'd turn log

Turn 265, 1250 AD: Genghis Khan adopts Theocracy!

Turn 266, 1256 AD: Ibn Battuta (Great Merchant) has been born in a far away land!

Turn 267, 1262 AD: Zhang Heng (Great Engineer) has been born in a far away land!

Turn 268, 1268 AD: Angkor Wat has been built in a far away land!

Turn 269, 1274 AD: Brennus adopts Mercantilism!

Turn 271, 1286 AD: The enemy has been spotted near Birka!
Turn 271, 1286 AD: You have constructed a Granary in Old Sarai. Work has now begun on a Catapult.
Turn 271, 1286 AD: Hypatia (Great Scientist) has been born in a far away land!

Turn 272, 1292 AD: The enemy has been spotted near Birka!
Turn 272, 1292 AD: Hannibal's Golden Age has begun!!!
Turn 272, 1292 AD: Notre Dame has been built in a far away land!

Turn 273, 1298 AD: The enemy has been spotted near Tabriz!
Turn 273, 1298 AD: The enemy has been spotted near Birka!
Turn 273, 1298 AD: You have discovered Compass!

Turn 274, 1304 AD: The enemy has been spotted near Tabriz!
Turn 274, 1304 AD: The enemy has been spotted near Birka!
Turn 274, 1304 AD: Deal Canceled: Corn, Gold to Brennus for Incense, Silk
Turn 274, 1304 AD: Clearing a Forest has created 24 ? for Olmec.
Turn 274, 1304 AD: Clearing a Forest has created 29 ? for Tiflis.

Turn 275, 1310 AD: The enemy has been spotted near Tabriz!
Turn 275, 1310 AD: The enemy has been spotted near Birka!

Thankfully due to the quiet nature of the turns we have progressed well in all current goals.

Project Iron is 5 turns from border pop there are 4 workers in the area to mine iron when needed.
Project Optics is 9 turns away (although the sci rate will prob need to be pegged back one notch when the gap between the two is only 1 turn.
Project CS - we are currently 9 turns from GP, I added a GS to Niadoros to help along, should probably change this to GE in a few turns to increase likelyhood of getting GM as required.

After Optics we should finish off CS as required then probably Calendar, I think the likelyhood of being able to trade paper for something is slim although it will let us trade maps which maybe handy.

Gandhi watch - He only moved a couple of units near to Niadoros, wasn't able to take them out but they moved back when confronted by our axes.
A galley showed near Birka but disappeared without dropping any units that I could see.

Next turn Karakorum will be 2 pop rush away from c'house think this should be rushed, if not move back workforce to max out gold.

Also, point for future, we were trading to Brennus for incense rather than silver, this seemed non sensical as incense requires cathedrals to double up whereas silver requires Forges, so I rectified this when possible. When trading for resources need to pick one that is going to give max benefit, i.e. usually grain resources are twice as good than meat ones, and therfore trading your last pig for corn is a good trade. Also, I think it is better to trade resources one at a time, thus if you lose acces to that resource then only that trade is affected, whereas we had a 2 resource trade set up.

Guys, is anynody out there.

Have pm'd Termi to remind him hes up, if no response in couple of days I suggest next person (cubbies??) takes over.

How about a roster to remind us all the order.

cubbiesin08 - on deck
ngraner42
Ozbenno
McArine
Mighty Dwaarf - just played
terminator3k - UP now

Apologies all and thanks for the message Mighty Dwaarf. I have the game and will play tomorrow.

Pretty boring turns sets. The highlights are:


Met Mehmed
Iron is now hooked up
Completed research of Optics
Got Great Merchant and used to lightbulb Civil Service in 1 turn


Right when I went to save the game on turn 285 I did a completely stupid move and somehow hit the turn button. :hide:
My apologies to Cubbies. I have not altered anything since hitting the button except to choose Calendar as our next tech.

Watch out for the Indian war elephant/trebuchet combo that just popped up 2 tiles northwest of Birka. There currently are no spearmen in this city.

My thoughts are to go with the Calendar/Astronomy push after changing civics to Bureaucracy.

Details in the spoiler thread.

Picked game up at Turn 275 (1310 AD)

Turn 276
Samarqand whip library -> granary goes into revolt

Turn 277
New Sarai barracks -> axeman

Turn 278
Nidaros axeman -> cat
Tabriz library ->courthouse

Turn 279
Gandhi sent a war elephant into our territory on the edge of the Nidaros cultural border, killing our surprised axeman.

Turn 280
Turfan whipped forge -> market
Olmec cultural borders expand, iron hooked up

Turn 281
Indian war elephant punks another axe, but our great general finishes off the pesky invader.

Turn 282
Meet Mehmed. He is buddies with Brennus at +20! Trade our corn for 6 gold per turn.

Turn 283
New Sarai axe -> crossbow

Turn 284
Optics completed. Next is calendar.
Karakorum courthouse -> barracks
Nidaros spearman -> crossbowman
Barbarian longbowman pops up on copper mine outside of Nidaros.

Turn 285
Samarqand goes into revolt again.
Barb longbow attacks our axe on a hill. Our axe is victorious.
A Great Merchant is produced in Nidaros.
Switch research to Civil Service
Combination of using GM and temporarily increasing our tech rate from 40% to 60% will give us civil service in 1 turn.

Turn 286
I somehow hit the turn button after saving the game. My mistake.
Civil Service is completed and Calendar is chosen next.
No units were moved and no civics shifted. I will leave this to Cubbies as it should be.

Good skills Termi, bet you were glad of a straight forward set after the last one!! ;)

I agree with the pursuit of Astro, will most likely have to be self researched as we will need both Paper and Print press before we could lightbulb it with a GS. I don't beleive we have seen any Galleons yet??? so maybe, just maybe, we could have a trade tech if we reach it quickly enough.
As Gandhi is now using elephants we need to build a few more spears to cover our bases, and once Calendar comes in (I think I remember we could get it in 8 during my last turns) we should concentrate on hooking up all the plantation goodies we have. Also we should try and rush out a couple of caravels for exploration.

Good job Terminator. Is that a potential haven SW of Ning Hsia. We should finish off Genghis and push to Astronomy if needed. The idea of destroying Genghis is to give Gandhi the entire continent. We then just need to move to our rock and click the turn button. Will this strategy work; I don't know, but lets hope so.

I will play tomorrow night - just got back from being gone a few days.

Before we depart to a rock in the ocean we would need to have some sort of counter to marines, which is probably infantry (Assembly Line).

We should grab our rock asap though.

got it and will report shortly

We can now support 50% research and will have astronomy in 31 turns.

I've assembled a nice little stack near Genghis - should be enough to take his capital and relieve the revolting of Samarqand (it went into revolt 2 more times). We will also have 2 more berserkers in 2 more turns.

There is a crossbow near Birka - but shouldn't be a problem for 4 axes.

Here are the details:

Turn 286
Revolt to Bureaucracy

Turn 287
Upgrade GG's to Berserkers
Kill WE and treb. near Birka losing only 1 cat
Karakorum barracks -> berserker

Turn 290
New Sarai crossbow -> berserker
Birka granary -> spear

Turn 291
Calendar in, Astronomy next

Turn 292
Trade spices for cow from Mehmed

Turn 293
Tabriz whip courthouse -> caravel (we have to explore somehow)
Olmec whip granary -> courthouse

Turn 294
Nidaros cat -> berserker

It might be worth moving our capital somewhere less exposed in the short term as well.

Phase 1 of our plan is nearly complete. Genghis is hopefully down to his last city. Astronomy is possible 10, but quickly loosing trade value. Note that Gandhi has a couple Musketman wandering around Birka. I am not concerned about pillaging, but we may end up making another heroic defense of Birka.

T0. Rearranged some tiles to get Astronomy down to 23 turns at 60%. That can only be supported for a few turns, but Genghis money should help. The war horns sound, using Cubbies08 stack we head for Beshabalik.

T1. Genghis moves out two double city defender Longbowman and a catapult. We loose one unit to a bad die foll and destroy his mini stack.

T2. We arrive at Beshbalik.

T3. We reduce Beshbalik's defenses to 20%. Gandhi sends a lone Musketman toward Nidaros. :eek:

T4. Beshbalik defense reduced to zero. I deside to kill the Musketman trading the loss of a Berserker. He was threatening to pillage too much.

T5. After 2 suicide Cats, the Great Generals break the defense of Beshbalik. The city is ours and we get 255gp. :)

T6. Our first Caravel comes on line and runs away from Gandhi's. Religion finally spreads to Tiflis.

T7. Brennus is first to Liberalism. :eek: We attack Ottar, but take heavy losses. We did get any breaks on the roll. I hate Longbowman on hills. We get a new Great General, I save him for discussion.

T8. We raze Ottar to the ground for 155gp.

T9. We trade spice to Brennus for Incense. We move into position near Ning-Hsia, which we hop is his last city.

T10. Two catapults attach and our Great General barely survives.

I'm up!

Will be able to play in the next couple of days.

I trade our World Map around for some cash.

We meet Isabella as well. She is closest to us in score but has all our techs.

The two muskets threatening Birka are gone with the loss of one axe. One at Nidaros is disposed for the same cost.

The battle of Ning-hsia starts with three withdrawing catapults :goodjob:, one then dies but Genghis is farewelled from this game. The potential haven SW of here ngraner mentioned looks like another island and is already colonised by Gandhi.

I let the army heal and then send them to Birka.

I then meet Washington. He's middle of the pack and knows everything.

Astronomy is in and as predicted, everyone know it by know. I select Engineering as our next tech as we should probably head towards Steel.

Our finances are much improved as we're now -2gpt at 60% and we're 5/7 in GNP.

Engineering --> Chemistry --> Steel might be a good research path.

I've got two caravels out patrolling the poles for an icy rock city.

cubbiesin08
ngraner42
Ozbenno - Just played
McArine - Up now
Mighty Dwaarf - On deck
terminator3k

McArine hasn't posted on the site for a few weeks now, I'll PM him but if we don't hear anything in the next day or so, its all yours Mighty Dwaarf.

I got it, I've been following the game, just didn't have anything to add :)

10 rather uneventful turns.

Engineering and Paper came in, we are currently researching Education, which is 5 turns away.

Small improvement in economy 11gpt at 60%.

I didn't find any unoccupied lumbs of rock.

We lost a caravel, but took one with us. And one Berserker to a now dead musketman.

Preturn: Nothing

Turn 1: Tabriz Market -> Galleon. Ning-hsia Courthouse -> Library.

Turn 2: Birka Beserker -> Library.

Turn 3: Engineering -> Paper.

Turn 4: Turfan Crossbowman -> Trebuchet.

Turn 5: Zzz.

Turn 6: Paper -> Education. New Sarai Crossbowman -> Observatory. Tiflis Library -> Courthouse.

Turn 7: Zzz.

Turn 8: Nidaros Observatory -> Beserker.

Turn 9: Birka Library -> Forge.

Turn 10: Zzz.

Postturn: Education in 5 at 60% 11 gpt.

I should be able to play tomorrow night, to busy tonight. Haven't looked at save but I assume is just a matter of seeing out ten turns, try to find a rock, Gunpowder after Education and look for potential trade if poss.

I am going to be out of pocket for the next 4 days. Once Mighty Dwaarf has a chance to finish his turns I would recommend that Cubbies go in my place (and maybe NGraner for that matter) and I will insert myself back into the line up when I get back.

We now have Education and Gunpowder and are 9ish turns from Chemistry.

We can trade Education with one other civ :D
Unfortunately its Gandhi :cry:
Only Wash currently has chem so maybe we can trade this around after we have it.
We popped another copper nr Niadoros, nice, traded to Izzy for Dye + 9 gpt.
Also now trade sheep to Hanni for 9 gpt.
WE popped grt merchant in Niadoros which is in Galleon, on its way to other continent, we could use it for this or to help with Printpress, personally I think a trade mission so we can up the sci slider for a number of turns.
Other than this nothing of note happenend. Switched builds to sci related improvements when/where possible, only Gandhi action was a couple of cats which promptly retreated once threatened.
Izzy made a couple of demands one to stop trading with someone (refused) another next turn (typical woman pestering every five minutes about something or other) for few gold (accepted), hopefully she will leave us alone for a while.


Future turns.
Are we expecting another GP from Niadoros?? will take 75 turns at current 6 points per turn, if we do or don't the specialist nd reorganising to reflect this, they are currently on two mrchants still (through me forgetting till now).

We also need to decide where to go tech wise after Chem, as mentioned earlier we maybe able to trade this for poss PP and Sci meth + some missed early techs. For any decent later military we will need Rifling which will mean researching some missed techs. In this respect I think we should make a list of missed techs that we do or don't need so that we don't waste time on ones we don't need.
We are trading for a lot of resources from Brennus?? (I think its him). I think we should check that we still need the actual resource from him and if not should trade for gpt instead. (Only just thought about this)

got it - will report shortly

As for research, I think defensive units, Rifling should be our next goal, then Assembly Line, etc. We should also consider spies as a priority to sabotague AI production.

We actually aren't doing too bad - it's Gandhi who needs to kick it into gear. We will have Steel in 7 at 80% (losing 45 gpt). I think we can either settle the island to the southwest or kick Gandhi out of his city.

Here are the details:

Turn 335
Brennus - cancelled spice for incense trade
Brennus - trade spice for 16 gpt

Turn 336
Samarqand granary -> courthouse

Turn 338
Cashed Great Merchant in Barcelona for 2250 gold

Turn 339
Brennus trade sugar for incense
Ning-hsia library -> granary

Turn 341
Nidaros university -> settler
Olmec courthouse -> university

Turn 343
Chemistry -> Steel
Trade Chemistry to Mehmed for Printing Press, Meditation, 120 gold

Turn 344
Birka forge -> trading post

Turn 345
Turfan observatory -> grenadier
Old Sarai observatory -> granary
Trade Chemistry to Isabella for Poly, Priesthood, Drama, Philosophy, Horseback Riding, 160 gold

Without looking at the save, it seems things are picking up. Are we in a position to try taking out another AI? Should we abandon a couple of northern cities to give Gandhi a boost?

Worked on improving our tech situation. Abandoned Nidaros but Gandhi will not take the city. Moved troops south to move off continent, while building some Frigates for Naval cover.

At this point we are doing so well we may consider attacking the tech leader Hannibal before giving away all our cities. We should however try to hand over at least some of them.

T2. The abandonment of Nidaros begins.
T6 . We trade Steel to Brennus for Scientific Method, Monarchy, and Monotheism. We trade Steel to Izzy for Nationalism, Music, and Literature.
T7. Traded Izzy Scientific Method for Constitution.

we should probably give Gandhi some workers now that we don't need them all

I see an alternative here, (if we're back on a stable footing) to retreating into our shell.

We can try (with spies, declaring etc) to mess with the other AIs. They won't build their space ship parts as quickly if we're sabotauging production or pillaging their cities.

I see this way as giving us more control over the outcome of the game. If we turtle up, we can only hope that Gandhi wins.

Either way I think we give up the capital and Birka.

I am in agreement with Ozbenno's change of plan, the way its apnned out it seems Gandhi is falling behind tech wise so if we just sit back and hope he will be beaten by one of the other civs.
Either way whos turn is it?? Ozbennos??

I am going to be away for a week beginning 19/05/07, am going camping so am going to be void of anything more technical than a can opener :sad: so am hoping we can sort it out so I can get my turn in before then, otherwise someone should just jump in and take mine.

We should probably go after Hannibal first since he is close by - and he's the current tech leader.

Terminator should be back in pocket, so he is up, followed by me. We should be able to get to Mighty Dwaarf before the 19th.

As for going after Hannibal. I think our main priority should be pillaging the capital and big cities and razing his smaller ones. Rinse and repeat with the other civs and leave Gandhi alone. We also could consider taking over Hannibal and vacating our lands but that may require greater military resources than we have. :confused:

So our next turns should concentrate on getting galleys, frigates, knights/cavalry, cannons and grennies out in mass. The whip should be liberally applied. :lol:

I'm back and have the game. I will play in the next 24 hours.

SGOTM 4 Turn Summary

Pretty boring turns sets. The highlights are:


I took the Barbarian city of Circassian and promptly left it open for the Indians
I did some more exploring and didn't find any good islands.
Even with Nidaros abandoned the Indians just don't want it. They also are doing a poor job improving their tiles. What's going on?
Banking and Liberalism completed. Communism is 1 turn away.

Next tech? Options are Democracy, Physics, Biology, Economics, or Replaceable Parts. There is some yearning for Emancipation and we should probably do a civic switch to Free Religion soon.


Details in the spoiler thread.

Picked game up at Turn 355 (1655 AD)

Turn 356
Banking completed. Liberalism next.

Turn 357
Whip trading post in Beshbalik.

Turn 359
Liberalism completed. Communism next.

Turn 362
Take barbarian city of Circassian north of Nidaros. Vacate city next turn.

Communism is 1 turn away.

Replaceable Parts or Democracy (if the unhappies are affecting us).

Mighty Dwaarf, you take it next as I won't be able to play until Saturday.

As there seemed to be no objections to me jumping in before Oz I did,

We now have Communism and Democracy, also traded comm to Hanni for R parts and Theo+Map and few gold.
We are also now running State property and Free Religion and have approx 800 sci per turn at 80%, +20ish gpt. We are second in GNP so we are doing well. However Gandhi is struggling techwise, he doesnt have any techs he could poss trade and doesn't look like getting any either (much like ourselves a while back), one problem is he doesn't like many people as they are all trading with us. He doesn't want any of the cities we have vacated for him also, which is also a bit of an arse. :(
One thing of note Hanni already has Rocketry as he has SAM infantry in his cities, we should look to getr some spies out as soon as we can.

Anyway next turn, Democracy came in on last turn, we are currently set for Rifling in 5, or another possibility is Bio in 8 as we may be able to trade this to Hanni, but then I'm not sure he needs any help techwise, but whoever is next can decide on that. We can now also change civics to Emancipation, Uni Suff, Free Speech/Nationalism, but will leave that upto following players. (If we do change we should probably look to changing all three at once to save anarchy turns, currently is costing 2 turns for 1 change, 3 turns for 2 and 3 changes).

Anyway will see you guys in about 10 days, Good Luck. ;)

Who's up? Oz or McArine?

That would be me. Hopefully can play today.

Sorry about the delay :blush:

Looking at the save, we're still behind but not all that hugely. Gandhi is struggling though. We may actually be ahead of him. Everyone hates him except Izzy, who is second worst.

I'm thinking SGOTM2 here. We should just start bulldozing the AI, one by one. Overwhelming numbers beats overwhelming force in this game. IIRC, we were up against Bizzy and Hatty's tanks and Panzers with Infantry and Artillery and won. Like SGOTM2, the other AI are lined up in a single continent. The added bonus is that the AI attitude to Gandhi will improve with a shared military struggle and they may trade him some tech.

In this vein, it looks like Hannibal is the closest and should go first. We should maybe think about taking Hannibal's cities and then razing the rest. We can then abandon our mainland cities to Gandhi when we want.

Also, we should stop trading with the AI. It has helped us catch up but it has hindered Gandhi. We should be able to stand on our own without trading from here.

As such, all production is switched to galleons, frigates and cannons and grennies. As we've abandoned Nidaros, I'm going to whip this down pretty bad. Actually, I'm going to whip everywhere pretty bad ;)

Ning-Hsia is the designated drop-off point. I'm upgrading troops as well as we're on a slight budget surplus at 80% :goodjob:

Rifling comes in and I select Economics as we need to get to Assembly Line. Economics is followed by Corporation.

I send a couple of workers to Gandhi as he has two gems that need mining. This seems to stir him to life as he sends a rifle to capture the worker and it keeps advancing on Birka and he also finally takes the never defended Circassian.

Here's the troop and navy situation.

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/3826/civ4screenshot0002gh3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/2874/civ4screenshot0003bg3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I think we should be close to being able to move out (there are more of both on the way). We should get a frigate out to scout Hannibal. Just remember the power of the whip :lol:

I got it and will play now

Ok, I believe we are ready for war. I've moved an attack force towards Hannibal, and war can be declared in turn 0.

Corporation and Steam Power came in, we're going for Assembly Line. Our only source of coal is north of Nidaros :(

I certainly :whipped: and we are climbing the power graph.

I also abandoned Birka, but Gandhi seems as uninterested as ever.

Preturn: Nothing.

Turn 1: Nidaros Cannon -> Cannon.

Turn 2: Corporation -> Steam Power. Turfan Grenadier -> Cannon. A round of whipping, and I abandoned Birka.

Turn 3: Nidaros, New Sarai, Birka Cannon -> Grenadier. Karakorum, Tabriz Cannon -> Rifleman. Samarqand Galleon -> Galleon.

Turn 4: Prepared the invation fleet.

Turn 5: Zzz.

Turn 6: Nidaros Grenadier -> Frigate.

Turn 7: Zzz.

Turn 8: Another round of whipping.

Turn 9: Steam Power -> Assembly line. Nidaros Frigate -> Frigate. Turfan, Old Sarai Cannon -> Rifleman. Samarqand Galleon -> Galleon. Olmec Galleon -> Grenadier. Tiflis Cannon -> Grenadier. Sadly our only source of coal is at Nidaros.

Turn 10: Birka Grenadier -> Rifleman.

Postturn: Assembly line is in 11 at 80% with +7gpt. We continue to climb the power ladder. The attack fleet is ready and can reach Hadrumetum or Hippo this turn. So the war can begin as turn 0.

Are we back to Terminator for war?

Yep Terminator is up.

Does Hannibal have Assembly Line? We need Artillery after this I think.

I'll grab the game and hopefully play my turns tonight.

Okay, so I fell asleep last night around 11:00 and didn't get a chance to play. Tonight there shall be war!

We stepped in it this time! Hippo was the chosen invasion site and did not appear to be well defended. Troops were landed outside the city and the turn button pushed.

Turn 1
Hannibal unleashed 7-8 artillery from his various cities on our hapless stack. We lost about half our troops including 2 of our 3 great generals. It only cost him 1 artillery. He also reinforced Hippo with a total of 4 SAM infantry, 1 rifleman and 1 infantry (plus the 6 artillery that previous attacked). He also moved up 2 more fresh artillery and a SAM infantry just outside of the city. :cry:

Turn 2
The rest of our invading troops were massacred. Thaenae was captured on our continent, but at a ridiculous price (let’s just say very, very bad die rolls). To add to the fun, Hannibal received a great general out of the conflicts! :aargh:

Turn 3
Hannibal sent an invasion fleet toward Ning-Hsia. There were 3 Frigates and 4 Galleons in his fleet. Since the Galleons were most likely full of artillery and infantry I used our fleet to sink every one of his ships. Of course we lost most of our Frigates and a few Galleons in the process.

Turn 4
Hannibal sent a few reinforcement Frigates toward Ning-Hsia. I used an axeman to pop the goody hut by the Indian horses for 44 gold.

Turn 5
Hannibal separates his 5 Frigate fleet into 2 groups of 2 and a single. The single was wounded from a previous battle and was sunk by one of our only healthy naval units.

Turn 6
With emancipation and war weariness pressure stifling the empire, it is time to throw off the shackles of slavery. For 3 turns of anarchy the switch to emancipation, free speech and universal suffrage is taken.

Turn 7 & 8
:sleep:

Turn 9
Anarchy is over. Hannibal will talk, but so far there isn’t anything that he wants for peace.

Turn 10
Izzy had been asking for Liberalism for a while so I traded her Liberalism for the rest of Assembly line. Next up is Physics on the way to Artillery.

The Indians FINALLY take Birka. How long do you have to leave a city completely open to get a CIV to take it from you?

Hannibal still just has the 2 groups of 2 Frigates roaming around the southern coast.


Summary

We got massacred.
The civic shifts should help us some but at the cost of losing access to slavery.
We need to make peace with Hannibal before a real invasion fleet shows up. We may need to give Thaenae back to him.
We need to decide the next few techs. I picked physics/artillery for now but I could see electricity/industrialism as well.

I would ask that everyone take a good look at the save and provide thoughts before we proceed much further.

After discussing with ngraner, we went ahead with taking Karachi and vacating the continent - the only hope we have is that Gandhi takes our cities and starts to catch up. Therefore, I took Karachi from Gandhi and started vacating the northen cities. Here are my turns:

Turn 405
Made peace with Hannibal for Thaenae, 221 gold, and 47 gpt

Turn 406
New Sarai grenadier -> infantry

Turn 408
Nidaros cannon -> infantry

Turn 410
Take Karachi losing only 1 cannon

Turn 412
Tabriz infantry -> infantry
Ning-hsia univ -> forge

Turn 414
Physics in, start electricity to get to Industrialism for tanks and battleships
Turfan cannon -> infantry
Karachi cannon -> infantry

Played my turnset. Gandhi collected sevraral of our cities. We should probably switch to Hereditary Rule to stop the starvation in Karachi.

We should probably station a unit on each of the tiles north of Karachi so an enemy can't land on the island - they'll have to attack off the boat.

So how did you guys finally get Gandhi to take the cities? Looks like Nidaros, Old Sarai, New Sarai, Ning-Hsia and Beshbalik are now Indian. I like the idea of putting a couple of troops on each tile of the Karachi island to ward off landing parties. It might not be a bad idea to hurry the trading post in Karachi as well.

I think Gandhi was not happy that we took Karachi and decided to get even.

So who's up now is it Oz or McArine???

If we are still on schedule:

Ngraner42 - just played
Ozbenno - UP now
McArine - on deck
Mighty Dwaarf
Terminator3k
Cubbiesin08

If McArine or Mighty want a swap please go ahead, I won't be able to play for a couple of days.

McArine - if you're available looks like your up!!

Got it, played, posting...

We have three cities left on the mainland.
Gandhi has been hitting our fleet pretty hard, and we're down to two frigates and a galleon. The galleon is carrying some units from the mainland.
I started Scotland Yard in Karachi.
After Industrialism I would choose Radio, to get subs. Or start going for some air defense.

Preturn: It looks like we ought to try to get as many units off the mainland as possible. And we need a Scotland Yard on our island. No moves.

Turn 1: Tiflis Grenadier -> Grenadier.

Turn 2: Our small force on the mainland was destroyed.

Turn 3: Karakorum Infantry -> Infantry. Samarqand Galleon -> Frigate.

Turn 4: We lost two Galleons. Gandhi got Samarqand. Took two of Gandhis frigates.

Turn 5: Tabriz Infantry -> Cannon. Karachi Trading Post -> Scotland Yard. Gandhi took Kharakorum. At this point our homeland is up for grasps.

Turn 6: A fishing boat was Pillaged.

Turn 7: Zzz

Turn 8: Washington wants communism, well why not.

Turn 9: We lost Turfan.

Turn 10: Hannibal wants open borders, ok.

Postturn: I think we should go for Radio after Industrialism, to get our hands on some subs to transport our spies. Industrialism is in 23.

I wanted to give the team a heads-up that I will be out of pocket June 8th through June 17th for a family trip. This shouldn't be an issue for this round of play, but I may miss the rest of the game if we get to the point of just clicking the red button.

Oz are you available to take your turn or are you still otherwise engaged???

Sorry, I'm pretty ill at the moment and not really up for it! Just skip me this time round.

Oz: I hope you feel better soon.

MightyDwaarf: Can you play in the next 24 hours? If not, I am going to play my 10 prior to being out of pocket for the next week and a half.