Parameters:
Patch: 1.22 C3C
Level: Emperor
Variant: Always War (No initial trading)
Civilization: Random [Edit: We got India]
Map Type: 250x250 Completely Random
Barbarians: Random
Rivals: 30
AI Aggression: Normal
Victory Condition: Any
Culturally linked starts: OFF
Re-spawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On

We must immediately declare war (no trading first) upon contact, but can see if we are ahead or behind, look at graphs, etc.

Edit: Updated the image to match the game:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR_BC3000.jpg

Looks like it may be a challenging game. I was thinking of settling on the non-bg grassland.

Players will again get 5 days to play especially in the latter part of the game. Pls post an "I got it" in 24 so we know someone is playing (or if you are up next you can mention when you next can play and are ready).

Roster - check in and verify you want to play. I rearranged the order in a somewhat random manner.

Greebley
NP
M60A3TTS
vmxa
ThERat
markh

Remember that Barbarians may be on. At leas this time there won't be wide open areas filled with huts.

We should discuss start position - where do we move the worker?

For tech my vote is to try to get our UU first - its early to get a GA, but we want the UU's abilities.

Checking in to see another huge game.

Good luck all! Hope your computers don't slow down as much this time! ;)

Hope it's not an endless marsh of... um... marsh

Checking in and ready to go. Settle in place and start working the BGs. BW first and then we'll check terrain in the meantime. May want to go IW depending on what we find. Not in a hurry to start our GA.

Reserving my spot in the Lurker's Suite. Good luck!

well, our UU will be the life saver giving us plenty of slaves in the first part of the game. A JW army will be nice to do that.

But the starting land looks terrible...are you guys sure, we don't want to settle on the coast? I mean settling in place wastes quite a number of sea tiles... I would actually move NW to settle, maybe we can shift the worker north on the BG to work that and if the north looks better, then settle NW?

Joining the rest of the lurkers and bringing popcorn for everyone. http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-5/180352/popcorn2.gif

Checking in. I would move the worker either 1N or 1S and then decide where to settle.

Checking in. :rockon:

I'd integrate Mark's idea and Rat's, first moving the worker S, then sending the settler NW unless we've seen something to make us change our minds. I don't think we can accept a capital with both a lot of marsh and bad sea tiles, as we'd be doing by settling in place.

There are only 3 tiles that would be affected and we wouldn't need to worry about that until the IA. The swamps may also provide more BGs as they're cleared. The problem I have with the start isn't that it isn't on the coast, but rather that it isn't on a river so we'll need an aqueduct.

That is one ugly start. No river, no lake and lots of swamp. At least we are industrial so the workers will have a better go at clearing.

The coast is good and bad. First we will have a crap capitol location with one whole side devoid of towns. Then the lack of shields you get from being on a coast will slow down production.

It probably hindges on what the rest of the land turns out to be and how soon we run into someone. I hope we have barbs as we need the slaves.

If we can get swords and do not have lots of contacts early we can try to hold back on fights with the UU and only use it on barbs.

I think I like NP's suggestion. NW seems to have the most votes for the settler, and the S move does move outside the closest 9, but does give us the best chance of spotting more deer. I will play it that way unless there is a consensus against it. There is a 1/3 chance of archipelago in which case a coastal capital is important - thus coastal.

For tech, the research will definitely be minimum. We won't be able to get it in less with no rivers. That means we won't get our UU in less than 50 turns. I would like to get the slave capturing ability earlier rather than later, so I think that will be my first research goal. With def and attack of 2 they are a strong unit. IIRC they are under warrior code. I doubt we will want to build spears.

4000 BC: The worker south was a good call by NP we find some wheat.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR_BC4000_Move.jpg

3450 BC: We are likely on a small island.

I am going to stop here. Its decision time. I believe we are on a small island (see picture below). I think we should immediately switch to Alphabet (I already switched worker to settler for 2 cow town). What do the rest of you think?

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR_BC3450.jpg

I have one word for you, just one word:

RESTART

The switch to Alphabet sounds right to me.

Wow. 30 Civs, AWE. That's huge. Wow.

Would be great to lurk and watch :D

M60ATTS, I don't think we should just give up so easily. This is a different challenge, but of course, if we are on a tiny Island while th rest shares huge land, we should restart...

M60ATTS, I don't think we should just give up so easily. This is a different challenge, but of course, if we are on a tiny Island while th rest shares huge land, we should restart...

Define tiny.

Let me put it another way. In the interest of time, if I had happened to look ahead...which I'm not saying I did... Then I would be obligated to ask to be skipped from the roster until such time as all of the territory of said hypothetical island were to be uncovered.

If this is an island, it willbe a very boring game, even if it is bit bigger than it looks. Especially if it is a long way to then next island.

Of course defending it will be easy.

Its a bit of a gamble: The early game would likely be a bit dull, but the ending could be intensely interesting especially if we are attacking superiior tech and forces. OTOH if a single AI dominates, it could be a boring culture win for the AI.

It is also possible there could be other islands we can reach. This is almost likely if it is archipellago.

We would need to rush straight for Lit and Map Making - if we lose the GLib we are likely doomed.

I would be inclined to continue it, but if ppl won't enjoy the game then that is a problem.

An alternative would be to start another start as Gr17 but keep this game to play in the background for those interested - I personally would like to see how it plays out. This is if vmxa and M60 really don't like this one and someone other than me is willing to try this start.

There would probably be a full week+ to play this one if we go with 2 games It would be a leisurely paced game.

So vote:
1) I want a new start.
2) I am willing to play this or another start but cannot play 2 games.
3) I can play 2 games.

If noone votes 1 we play this game only.
If someone votes 1 and most othes vote 2 we abandon this one.
If someone votes 1 and 3+ players vote 3 we play both this game and another start with this game having a smaller team.

Edit: I vote 3 for myself.

My bad, I failed to notice this was a random terrain start. :sad:

You can drop me from the roster if you want to continue this game. I'd prefer to play a pangea or continents map at 250x250. I'm already doing an archi map in TLM-01, and I'm not crazy about archi maps to begin with.

If the team wants to continue this one, I'm fine with lurking. (I guess that's option 1a. ;) )

I am with M60ATTS after thinking about it. We both play that archipelago sort of AW game already.
In fact we are short of players there and maybe you could join there, Greebley. Thus, I vote for 1 as well

I am good with how ever you want to go.

I vote for case 2. I sympathize with the arguments for continuing and for restarting, but I can't play two games on this scale.

markh hasn't voted, but it appears Greebley is the only one choosing to vote for 3. I think that's pretty much a call for a restart.

If that is an island I would say RESTART

Ok, we can go with a restart.

I will roll up a start and probably play it until we meet someone to prove it isn't an archipelago (or if it is there is at least 1 or more civs on our island).

This was my 3rd attempt. The first attempt was Greece. We didn't find anyone in 50 turns so I checked. We would have been on a smaller continent ( of 3) with 2 other civs that would have fallen easily.

The second game was Russia. We lost a warrior vs warrior battle with our warrior in the hills fortified doing no damage. We then lost to a Warrior vs our spear fortified in a city doing no damage the second battle. Not suprisingly we lost that one quickly.

We are playing the 3rd game. We are India.

Building: Warrior, Warrior, Worker, Warrior, Warrior, Barracks(Just starting).

3700 BC: Another nearby wheat.

3500 BC: Spot Byzantine Warrior (2).

3100 BC: We lose a Warrior vs Warrior battle ( we have 2 left). The other one doesn't attack.

3050 BC: Byz Warrior attacks and loses. Injured Byz warrior retreats. We follow him with our 2 Warriors on our turn (has 1 hp).

3000 BC: Go to Vet with our warrior killing the 1 hp Byz Warrior. Spot a Barbarian. Spot a Byzantine Border.

Notes:
We have killed the Byz attack of 2 Warrior and no other Byz units have been spotted. We lost 1 warrior.
There are Barbarians. Remember they are random so could be heavy.

A strong food start despite the lack of fresh water. I did finally find a river on our side but it is 6 or so squares away. Our biggest danger is being surrounded by enemies.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/GR_BC3000.jpg

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

well, we need to go for maths I'd say so we can build SoZ. We need masonry for a prebuild and then alpha -> maths -> writing -> lit for the GL?

Or is that the wrong assumption?

I've got it.

2550 BC, end of turn (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR16-2550BC.SAV)

Our biggest danger is being surrounded by enemies.

Good call. :lol:


3000 (0): We're the second-wealthiest nation on earth, after only the Vikings.


2900 (2): An American scout appears from the southeast. We declare war and destroy the scout.


2850 (3): Three American warriors appear, along with a Roman force of an archer and two warriors, so we have our third enemy. This may be another abortive game.

We're one irritating shield short of being able to pop-rush Delhi's barracks.

The Roman archer attacks one of our warriors on a mountain, and dies (1-0).


2800 (4): We're obliged to declare war on yet a fourth opponent, the Persians. Like the Americans and the Romans, they appear in the SE.

We pop-rush Delhi's barracks.

Our warrior south of the capital lures a Roman warrior into attacking by moving onto a hill, and wins (2-0).


2750 (5): Our warrior defending the forest next to our capital defeats one American warrior and depletes another, but falls (3-1).


2710 (6): The two remaining American warriors don't attack Delhi, though in terms of HP they have a 50-50 chance of taking it.

Delhi warrior --> warrior.


2630 (8): Delhi warrior --> warrior.


2590 (9): We get some decent RNG luck and strike down three warriors attacking Delhi--two American and one Persian (6-1). Our veteran warrior promotes to elite.


2550 (10): Not much. We never saw a Byzantine unit this round.

With four warriors in Delhi, and a fifth about to appear, we've staved off immediate elimination. Obviously there isn't much hope when we've encountered so many enemies so early, though we might get a short break if we've been facing initial units so far. We do have an elite warrior, and so the distant prospect of a mighty warrior army to restore our fortunes. ;)

The dogpile:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/33960/GR16-2550BC.JPG

OK, I got it.

Looks like we exciting times ahead!

Four civs, nasty indeed. It would be so cool to get to AC's and WE's. Both with an extra HP, what bunch of armies they would make. I have not played India n so long.

If they go for pilliage, life will get very harsh.

Its nice that they are from the south, it gives us a chance to grab the lands to the north when we can. I would keep our city larger though so we have a lot of shields for unit building - settle when size 5 or 6.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43630/GR16_2150_BC.SAV

IBT of 2510BC- Reg American warrior dies against elite warrior. It was close, the first four hp losses were ours, until the AI went on a 0-3 run and died.

2430BC- Start a temple as I have to up the lux. Warrior runs into the Arabs 4 north of the capital. Sure, join the crowd.

IBT- Rome loses a reg warrior and pillages a road.

2390BC- Move one more tile and find an Aztec warrior. WTF? Greebley, is this 30 civs on a 250x250 map or 25x25? :crazyeye:

Completed temple and started a settler.

2150BC- Aztecs have 2 vet warriors now next to Delhi. Settler in 1 and done.

Post turn: What we need is our island back! Yes, I should have stayed closer to home, but give the need to find some water, it seemed worth the risk. Guess not.

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

I think the only chance we have here is to get 4 cities out, grab SoZ and get an ACav army. Anything else is futile...

From my perspective it looks like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The save is here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42522/GR16_1750BC.SAV

PRE:
I do not know what the 2 workers are doing out in the forest. Is it intended that we road to some site out there on the hill? If we could mine the BG next to the cow we could get to 10 shields.

Probably does not matter as we are going to be hard pressed to defend another town with all of these civs bearing down and Rome already sending archers. All we need is to met Bismark.

IBT:
Aztec warrior dies attacking, roman archer dies attacking and American warrior kills our warrior. Better than it could have been (2-1).
Some one starts on Oracle.

2110BC:
Settler done, start warrior.
Byz send a spear our way.

IBT:
Wounded warrior from the archer attack is killed (0-1) [2-2]
Spear heads back?
6 civs at war and only 3 of them have ancient UU's and Legions and Immortals, nice.

2070BC:
5/5 kills Az warrior (1-0).
[3-2]

IBT:
3 American warriors attack and die and one more elite now (3-0).
[6-2]

2030BC:
found Bombay and start a rax.
Ugh I see Ottoaman have town in sight, no units though so no war.

IBT:
zip

1990BC:
nothing

IBT:
zip

1950BC:
Kill a warrior (1-0)
[7-2]

IBT:
3 Roman warriors arrive.

1910BC:
Kill 2 of those warriors (2-0).
[9-2]

IBT:
The 3rd warrior 3/3 kills an elite (0-1)
[9-3]

1870BC:
New byz town in sight.
We kill the warrior (1-0)
With no cats and only warriors all fights are just a coin flip.
[10-3]

IBT:
zip

1830BC:
zip

IBT:
Byz archer threatens worker and I cover with 2 warrirors as we cannot afford to lose him.

1790BC:
I attack archer and lose and then kill it (1-1).
Kill warrior with 4/5 and it is now 2/5 (2-1).
This leaves only 1 warrior in town, but there were 3 units next to it anyway.
[12-4]

IBT:
Goes well for a change. The warrior attacks 2/5 and dies (1-0).
Archer attacks and dies (2-0).
[14-4]

1750BC:
Say hello to the Vikes with 2 units near Bombay and now we have 7 foes.
At least we start on an archer now.
I set lux down and running research at 50% gets to 43 turns, not sure if that is worth it or not. Oh started Bronze.

It doesn't sound like this game is going to survive, though I think it still worth the try I guess. I think we need to go for math soon though - maybe after BW? I was thinking about going straight for it, but I don't think we can survive without spear.

I think we are in the middle of a huge landmass, right smack in the middle...

I think, if we play on, we should play longer sets for now in order to be able to get a faster idea whether we survive. i would take the set and actually play it out until we acquire bronze, so we have an idea whether to continue

sounds like a good idea. Go for it if you want.

Yes we need cats, but spears are a must. The big problem is we will have fallen so far back on tech that we probably have no shot at the GL.

Of course with all our friends nearby we could capture it. We will soon have the Ottoman empire for our 8th civs with hardly any exposed land.

The good news could be they will not be able to find ground to plant too many towns.

The 3/3 legions are going to be a tough nut without AC's and we really will have a hard time getting any pre for it. We need all the troops we can produce.

We can often get Cats first and still get the GL with a good prebuild. Tech is slow for everyone in these big games.

very short turnlog as there is nothing but hoping we don't lose a few units too many and go down in history

what did actually happen?

save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/GR16_1225BC.SAV)

played the game until we got spears
met Mongols + Hittites + Portugal not even Ottoman's yet, that's a dozen enemies
got us another settler and found Madras in a squeeze corner, at least it's on a hill
later got us another settler as Delhi is a real nice settler farm, if only we could expand, we could found the city next turn


kill ratio :12-2 on defense situations,
7-0 on potential warrior pillagers, but there is the first sword lurking in the east

situation with the first spear I squeezed out in the IT
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/53368/gr161225.jpg


I'd say, let's re-roll a nicer game...this isn't fun really

12 civs in such close proximity, that has to be some kind of record. Not only close, but they found us already. Strange about the Ottoman not having anyone scouting by now.

I agree with ThERat - what about a re-roll? I think I have played AW enough to know we cannot win against 12 enemies at AWE. It may take a while (or not) to be over-run, but it will happen. We cannot really go on the offensive with that many enemies so they will all grow until they can overcome us. This game is lost.

Anyone not willing to re-roll?

Go ahead. We would be in big bind as we cannot even get started on a pre for the SoZ and we would need to now and need it bad. Likely ivory is not far from us as they tend not pop up by themsleves, so we would face AC's.

Yes, by all means re-roll.

Fine with me.

Re-roll is fine with me, too.

I will have this up today or tomorrow (Fri or Sat). I will start a new GR17 game since this is a loss as opposed to re-rolling a position.

I will play several turns to make sure it a game we can play - probably to 1750 BC - usually you can determine a dud game by then.

I started the new game - standard start. Here is the new thread:

Gr17 - AWE vs 30 Civs (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=212359)