I don't mind splitting our forces, we should have enough to keep up the drive on two fronts at once at least for a quick war on either side. But I think Alex is the main target at this point, and we should make very sure that we don't send too few units that way. My recipe would be focus troops towards Alex, but start sending units west to gather for a strike at Isabelle in a not too distant future. Hmm, maybe we should found our next town on Arintcivcidia's east coast, to keep Supply costs down with the units we're sending there?

Calendar sounds yummy - I suppose we should cut any research we're doing into that subject... But of course take Medina before peace.

Once we get Calendar, perhaps the 'mids are less essential. And I think Izzy has better lands than Alex. A fast victory probably requires an attack on the main land sooner rather than later.

My contibution to this discussion is probably limited so the one thing that I am curious about is if the addition of the pyramids will boost us so much it is of more value than a foothold on the big continent? If that is the opinion among our more skilled players then I think that should be the choice we pursue.

I suppose our immediate intention with the Pyramids is to get HR, in order to increase the happiness limit of our towns. But it's also possible that we may want to go for PS, that might do the same trick by reducing WW, with the nice benefit of increasing our unit production. And there's also the option of choosing US, that would also increase our production with the town hammers, and would work well if we opt for shutting off research and just gathering money. But I'm starting to doubt how well the last option will work in practice - Feudalism isn't far off, so maybe Swords isn't our end-point after all... I would probably opt for the PS route.

If we can fight a fast war and gain Silver and the Pyramids for it, I'd consider that very beneficial. But if we expect a long and hard siege for Athens, then it's probably better to wait.

Note that Alex is also on the main continent, only our units will not be in as good a position for war. His closest neighbor is Cyrus whom we may want to spare for a while, and it's quite a trekk from Athens to India or Spain. There's always China though...

We'll have dyes, wines and sugar soon, so I think happiness will be less of a problem. Police state might be nice, I never used it TBH.

Izzy's easternmost town is rather bad, but the southern string of towns towards Madrid looks rather useful: lots of grass, forests, rivers and resources. And Izzy doesn't have IW yet!

Alex of course has the useful Pyramids, but we'll have to slog through some rather useless tundra towns before we get there. (I'm wondering what that Chinese settler is doing there, btw).

Alex of course has the useful Pyramids, but we'll have to slog through some rather useless tundra towns before we get there. (I'm wondering what that Chinese settler is doing there, btw).

Tundra Dim-Sum probably :lol:
Anyway DaviddesJ, :goodjob: so far. Getting our hands on:
- religion
- great Lighthouse
is soooooo nice.

We may have to digg on PS. Never used it either, so cannot really say. HR seems ok, but not that useful in our case. Rep not too much, unless we go CS (merchants ?) to have money to fuel our war without shutting down research... US requires too much money from my perspective.

We'll only get Wines as a resource if we trade for Monarchy. Since we're close to Calendar on our own, I am going to try to get some other useful tech from Saladin instead of Calendar---that might be Monarchy, or Code of Laws, or even Metal Casting. If we get Monarchy, that is effectively +2 happiness everywhere (+1 for Wines, and at least +1 for garrison if we switch to HR). That might reduce our incentive to go for the Pyramids?

Partial research of Calendar reduces the value that is placed on it in trade, therefore putting additional beakers into it increases the chance that Saladin will give us the rest of it plus something else. On the other hand, it might be that we don't get any more, but we don't have to settle for peace if all we are getting is a sliver of Calendar---we can just research it ourselves while we finish wiping him out.

Another advantage of Representation (via Pyramids) would be that Cyrus will like us better and so there's a good chance he'll trade us some useful techs.

I don't think that Athens is on the main continent, although Alexander does have some other cities there.

Hearing no complaints, I will probably send some galleys in both directions. I'm wondering if I should start building a settler to found a city on "Bridge Island". Among other benefits, this could serve as a staging area for units headed east (without maintenance cost), while it also may be easier to hook up Sugar quickly there than in the east.

I concur that I'm not so interested in US except maybe in the very endgame when we need to just crank out settlers in order to achieve domination limit.

Here is the 620 AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm5/Smurkz_SG005_AD0620_01.Civ4SavedGame).

For better or worse, I took Medina and then gave peace with Saladin for Calendar, Monotheism, 90 gold. He wouldn't give Monarchy, Code of Laws, Currency, or Metal Casting. :( The comment that I should have stopped researching Calendar was probably correct. I don't think I wasted a huge amount of gold, though.

I set research to Code of Laws, at 0%. I'm still running the 2 scientists in SR and we are a dozen turns or so from a 2nd Great Scientist. We are getting pretty close to being able to run science at 90% for a half dozen turns and finish COL, if we want. I am not sure it's a high priority though, it might make more sense to just be sure we maintain a healthy gold reserve. If we settle the 2nd GS, or we build an academy in Karakorum, that should make it easy to run to COL from there.

Both Mecca and Medina will come out of resistance next turn. I have them both set to Theater currently, but we should consider the options before ending this turn. Mecca I think will want to rush the Theater next turn, for 2 pop. Hopefully that will put it at positive happiness, plus some culture for expansion. Medina doesn't need culture (it gets 5 culture/turn for Confucian holy city), and it's smaller so it may not need happiness either. Perhaps it should build granary. Or barracks?

I left 5 units on Saladin's continent. I'm not sure that's really enough to prevent him from attacking us. I think he only has a half-dozen units, but he can build more, of course. Last I saw (before peace) he had an axe and an archer in his new capital, and one more axe wandering in the hinterlands. I've never seen his last city.

I sent one galley east toward SR. I'm thinking that it should pass through the isthmus at SR, pick up two workers, and take them to the sugar island to clear jungle and hook up our sugar. Then it can head south and meet our other newly built galleys to ferry troops to attack Alexander. Meanwhile, we have three galleys in the west, plus one more in production, to head east against Isabella.

Turn 198, 470 AD: Open borders with Cyrus
Turn 198, 470 AD: Two scientists in SR
Turn 198, 470 AD: Calendar in 27
Turn 198, 470 AD: Load 2 units on galley near PS
Turn 198, 470 AD: Promote axe near Mecca to woodsman 2

Turn 199, 485 AD: Temujin's Swordsman has defeated Saladin's Archer!
Turn 199, 485 AD: WW drops, culture to 0%
Turn 199, 485 AD: Cyrus's worst enemy is Alexander
Turn 199, 485 AD: Qin Shi's enemy is Cyrus

Turn 200, 500 AD: WW back up, culture to 10%
Turn 200, 500 AD: You have trained a Catapult in Karakorum. Work has now begun on a Swordsman.
Turn 200, 500 AD: Saladin adopts Organized Religion!
Turn 200, 500 AD: Harkuf has been born in Mecca!

Turn 201, 515 AD: Saladin sends reinforcements toward Mecca (axe, archer, 2 chariot)
Turn 201, 515 AD: Temujin's Axeman has defeated Saladin's Axeman!
Turn 201, 515 AD: Temujin's Swordsman has defeated Saladin's Chariot!
Turn 201, 515 AD: Temujin's Swordsman has defeated Saladin's Archer!
Turn 201, 515 AD: WW down, culture to 0%
Turn 201, 515 AD: Polytheism to Tokugawa for 80g
Turn 201, 515 AD: Rice to Tokugawa for 4gpt
Turn 201, 515 AD: Two scientists in SR
Turn 201, 515 AD: You have trained a Catapult in Cu Smurkz. Work has now begun on a Swordsman.
Turn 201, 515 AD: Saladin's Chariot has defeated Temujin's Swordsman!

Turn 202, 530 AD: Temujin's Swordsman has defeated Saladin's Chariot!
Turn 202, 530 AD: Temujin's Swordsman has defeated Saladin's Archer!
Turn 202, 530 AD: Temujin's Axeman has defeated Saladin's Catapult!
Turn 202, 530 AD: Research to 90% (Calendar in 5)
Turn 202, 530 AD: Plato has been born in a far away land!

Turn 203, 545 AD: Temujin's Swordsman has defeated Saladin's Archer!
Turn 203, 545 AD: Temujin's Axeman has defeated Saladin's Spearman!
Turn 203, 545 AD: Temujin's Axeman has defeated Saladin's Spearman!
Turn 203, 545 AD: You have captured Mecca!!!
Turn 203, 545 AD: Taoism has been founded in Tianjin!
Turn 203, 545 AD: Delhi has been captured by the Persian Empire!!!
Turn 203, 545 AD: The Indian Civilization has been destroyed!!!
Turn 203, 545 AD: Euclid has been born in a far away land!

Turn 204, 560 AD: Temujin's Swordsman has defeated Saladin's Archer!
Turn 204, 560 AD: Temujin's Axeman has defeated Saladin's Spearman!
Turn 204, 560 AD: You have captured Medina!!!
Turn 204, 560 AD: You have made peace with Saladin!
Turn 204, 560 AD: You have discovered Monotheism!
Turn 204, 560 AD: You have discovered Calendar!
Turn 204, 560 AD: Peace with Saladin for Calendar, Monotheism, 90g
Turn 204, 560 AD: Code of Laws next, research at 0%
Turn 204, 560 AD: Confucianism has spread in Fort Smurx.
Turn 204, 560 AD: Tokugawa adopts Organized Religion!
Turn 204, 560 AD: Alexander's Golden Age has begun!!!

Turn 205, 575 AD: Dyes connected, WW down, culture to 0%
Turn 205, 575 AD: Isabella converts to Hinduism!

Turn 206, 590 AD: You have constructed a Theatre in Cu Smurkz. Work has now begun on a Swordsman.

Turn 208, 620 AD: Culture to 10%

Tiles to be improved:

Dye plantation near CS (in progress) (and road)
Dye plantation near K (in progress) (and road)
Sugar plantations on east island (and roads)
Banana plantation near K (and road)
Farm on river near CS (which has a lot of tiles it can work if it grows faster)
Farm or cottage on river near FS (growth here not so useful)
Chop forests (several)
Road to connect Rice near PS
Road across Bridge Island to move troops westward?

Woohoo, look at that score graph go! We may not win this game, but we should definitely be up there. Go team! :D And well played DJ, you've handled all our objectives perfectly.

Roster:
DaviddesJ - Just Played
zyxy - UP!
Kulko - On Deck!
unkle - Warming Up
Niklas
Wotan
Methos - Lurking
Marc Aurel - Lost

By Kulko's request he is moved down one notch, so go zyxy! :)

Looking at the save, one thing strikes me as odd - why can't we see Damascus? We hold the holy city for Confucianism, and Damascus is Confused, why don't we get the visibility there?

I think the time has come for a town on the island north of K. That town will be very rich very quickly and even more so if we can get its borders to expand. Plus it gives us a shorter route to China when it's time to go there. Qin may well be our toughest opponent towards winning this game.

Also, a town 4W-1S of PS would be nice, that's also a very productive site.

Heh, I had another look at the score graph, looks like the heavily recruiting Murky Waters team is in for some serious trouble...

Looking at the save, one thing strikes me as odd - why can't we see Damascus? We hold the holy city for Confucianism, and Damascus is Confused, why don't we get the visibility there?

I think that you only get the visibility if you also adopt the religion as your state religion.

I think the time has come for a town on the island north of K. That town will be very rich very quickly and even more so if we can get its borders to expand. Plus it gives us a shorter route to China when it's time to go there. Qin may well be our toughest opponent towards winning this game.

We don't really need more money at this point. We need to attack as many of our opponents as possible before they get longbows. Investing 250 hammers (settler, fishing boats), to get +10 gpt or so, is no longer so appealing to me. I'd rather build more swords and catapults and capture some productive cities instead.

And I generally think the opposite about fighting China. I suspect the easiest way to win the game will be to avoid fighting China at all.

The city on "Bridge Island" is more appealing, because it also facilitates troop movement, a bit. But it still may not be worthwhile.

Heh, I had another look at the score graph, looks like the heavily recruiting Murky Waters team is in for some serious trouble...

I think that's a bug in the graphing.

I think that you only get the visibility if you also adopt the religion as your state religion.

I agree. Adopting might have some interest in terms of hapiness control and civics, but we would need missionaries.... And I like monasteries :)


We don't really need more money at this point. We need to attack as many of our opponents as possible before they get longbows. Investing 250 hammers (settler, fishing boats), to get +10 gpt or so, is no longer so appealing to me. I'd rather build more swords and catapults and capture some productive cities instead.

Ok. But I'd like a fairly good estimation in zyxy's turn of how much maintenance we'll face. In fact pyramids (not required of course but better) and a SE with scientists/merchants might be a good option to avoid crash of our economy. Yet I think we have a small time frame when we have an edge, so we should use it now, for sure.

I think that you only get the visibility if you also adopt the religion as your state religion.
Ah, that would explain it. Strange that it doesn't say so in the 'pedia.

We don't really need more money at this point. We need to attack as many of our opponents as possible before they get longbows. Investing 250 hammers (settler, fishing boats), to get +10 gpt or so, is no longer so appealing to me. I'd rather build more swords and catapults and capture some productive cities instead.

The city on "Bridge Island" is more appealing, because it also facilitates troop movement, a bit. But it still may not be worthwhile.
Hmm, you're right. The more towns we can hit before the AI get longbows, the better. We will probably want to settle that island later though, but it can wait a while. Similarly with Bridge Island, the only good that town would do for our drive is to reduce supply costs if we keep the units inside our borders. But we can get the same effect by capturing (Salamanca/Santiago), the east coast spanish town. And a town on the main land is a much better staging camp.

And I generally think the opposite about fighting China. I suspect the easiest way to win the game will be to avoid fighting China at all.That's not really the opposite of what I said ;). I said China would be the toughest opponent, which definitely means that if we can win this game without ever fighting Qin, all the better. Will the large continent be enough for domination?

I think that's a bug in the graphing.
No, I'm not talking about One Short Straw whose graph hit the bottom, that's definitely a bug. I'm talking about the team with the brown graph that has been steadily declining for the past 30 turns. Doesn't look very promising that.

I agree. Adopting might have some interest in terms of hapiness control and civics, but we would need missionaries.... And I like monasteries :)
The Kong Miao will spread the religion, but we might want some missionaries as well. I don't think we want to adopt Confusion for a while yet, so no point switching to OR. That means we need monasteries if we want to spread it. FS is already Confused, but we probably want to keep building units there. Mecca might be the best place for a monastery.

Ok. But I'd like a fairly good estimation in zyxy's turn of how much maintenance we'll face. In fact pyramids (not required of course but better) and a SE with scientists/merchants might be a good option to avoid crash of our economy. Yet I think we have a small time frame when we have an edge, so we should use it now, for sure.
We have a very healthy stash of gold now, so we should definitely be set for a long while to come. But a good estimation can never be wrong. :)

Well done, David!

Got it.

I agree with Theatre in Mecca and Granary in Medina.

I'm a bit puzzled by the disposition of our forces. Almost all catapults are in the east, but most of the swords and galleys are in the west.

If we want to ferry workers to Najran first, then a war on Alex cannot really start until the end of my turnset, because that's how long it will take to get two boatloads of units on Alex's island. I could declare a little sooner (somewhere halfway my set) to scout his defences. If we don't ferry workers then the war can start a few turns sooner. I think workers first is better.

Alex's towns on tundra island seem to be NW of stone, N of iron, and S of silver. Do we want to keep or raze? The stone town seems ok-ish once it expands over the fish. The iron town is weak IMO. The silver town will gain two happy resources and hence is appealing. Anyway, this decision will probably not be relevant for my set.

Izzy has IW now, but no iron yet. A war on Izzy could start towards the end of my set. It seems possible to land about 3-4 boatloads by that time. However, this will include only 2 cats.

I'm a bit concerned about the financial situation, but we'll see what happens when Mecca and Medina come out of resistance. The dyes will help a bit.

GS will not be born before the end of my set. I suggest we keep research off at least until we have him. We might need the gold buffer.

Our towns have little to build but troops, so that's what they will do. We could train missionaries from FS (after building monastery), is this worth it? It basically gains 1 gpt per missionary, plus some military benefits after we obtain Theology.

I agree with David's worker activities. I would add changing a farm at K to cottage.

About missionnaries:
1gpt unless we get our holy city into money city (even if markets+grocer we may get, banks are unlikely....) with some merchants on top.
Main use for me is:
- culture
- OR/Theo
but for these we need to switch to state religion right ?

Since we will not run a high science level, monasteries are less appealing in a way but they are cheaper than lib if culture is required.... Which could be our case if we get enough luxuries...

From my perspective the diplo aspect of switching should be taken into account. We want Cyrus (at least for now) to be our friend, switch will make things tougher. On the other hand, not switching decrease the value of the religious civics (not to say annihilate them...). If we switch, we need missionaries. If we don't then we don't :lol:

1. We might even build Archer in Medina. It's not going to have much of a food surplus, so Granary isn't worth a whole lot. If we build native defenders there, we can pull out more units. Saladin isn't a big threat because he has no strategic resources, but we shouldn't totally ignore him, either. We'll get some natural spread of Confucianism to our own cities.

2. The catapult shortage in the west is mostly because there are two still in Arabia, which we don't really need there. Probably makes sense to pull them out, perhaps replacing them with some more of our weaker combat troops, e.g., the 0xp axeman in PS. Also, we can build some more as follow-on units. I figure it's no good to land catapults before swords and axes (although the order is pretty much irrelevant if we are going to mass some of each before we attack). If we mass our units in barbarian territory, do we avoid paying support for them?

3. I'm strongly against switching to Confucianism, I see almost no benefit and lots of cost. If Cyrus breaks our gems trade, there goes our +1 happiness right there. If we lose the trade routes with him, that's a big cost, too. We don't even have access to Theocracy, which would be the main benefit of a religion. Without a state religion, it's not worth building missionaries, either. We'll get some natural spread of Confucianism to our own cities (it's already shown up in one), without doing anything.

4. I don't think we have any economic concerns, as long as we don't build troops that we aren't actually using (troops that we use in offensive campaigns will pay for themselves through pillaging) and we don't launch any intensive research. If we have to get to Macemen to win, then economic issues become a big concern. But let's worry about that when the time comes. I still think it's not unreasonable that we could win with just swords.

5. I would personally keep all of Alexander's towns; the northern ones can build some units, and the southern one gets us access to silver (whales are irrelevant as we'll never research Optics). If they turn out to be really small in population then I might reconsider. But, let me ask a different question. Should we bypass "Silvertundria", and just move directly against his capital first?

6. We're probably going to want to stage units to Spanish territory by using one galley to shuttle them to Bridge Island, having them walk across the island, and then using a second galley to shuttle them to the mainland. That's why I suggested founding a city there and/or building a road across. But it would probably take too long to make a big difference.

Should we bypass "Silvertundria", and just move directly against his capital first?
I'd say it depends on what units the tundra towns have defending them. Most likely they will only have one or two archers, and little to no cultural defense bonus, so we might be able to take them while waiting for more troops to come. But if those towns seem defended, we can take them after Athens. Also note that Alex and Qin both have galleys out that could be a threat to our shipping, so the shortest path is the safest.

I agree with all else you said.

On religion switch:
even if I agree on no gain right now, I'd rather not rule it out completly.

Alex silvertundria:
I'd rather use them as experience gaining grounds if that seems doable. On the other hand, getting directly to main land lowers down the need for better ships.

Saladin:
Even if not a threat currently, he may declare again. Which would trigger WW, which could become again an issue when we fight Alex... Having local cities (Medina) building troops seems best way to handle defense there, btw.

We should be aiming to win, or have effectively won (just need to mop up and put down more cities) in 50 turns or so. Any kind of long-term investment in cities, religions, research, etc., isn't going to help us do that. Even building cottages is dominated, in my view, by chopping forests to get more swords and catapults.

50 turns basically means one turnset per player...
If I tend to see how we could get Isabella and probably Alex by that time, does it means we'll kick out Cyrus too, and finish Saladin by that time ? Usually pop limit is not such a big issue, but land limit is.... I am not even sure we'll get to the limit if we fully have the main continent and our island and Saladin's island....

Anyway I agree we should aim to win the GOTM, and not the game itself. So I am up for planning 50 turns win (or almost). I cannot open the save right now, but I'll check tonight how much land we need and what does it looks like on the map (it's only land, not sea right ? Does ice caps count ???).

Wow, if we win the game in 50 turns then we will have beaten the crap out of all the opposition. :D

50 turns sounds rather optimistic to me. It will take us about 30 turns just to ship a small army over to Spain and walk it to the other side of the Spanish empire, let alone fight. And then there's Toku and Cyrus.

I agree not to switch to Confucianism at this point.

Medina has a +4 fpt tile, so a granary does seem useful to me, for future whipping if nothing else. I agree that some homegrown defenders will be useful here, so both Medina and Mecca can start some archers after the initial whip. I will ship out the cats, but probably in the second wave to save time - well, we don't really need them for the first Spanish town anyway.

Walking across Bridge Island takes 6 turns without a road, that's really long. A road across Bridge Island seems helpful but will probably not be finished before we have enough shipping to handle our reinforcements, so this is really a low priority IMO. A town there doesn't seem worthwhile either - too few resources, too much jungle. For domination, we will want to settle this area (and other empty spots) sometime, of course. Perhaps just on the final turn before victory.

I can add the sword from Najran to the stack that will attack Alex. It is a bit risky to leave Najran undefended, although the only attack path seems to go past Iron Smurkz, so we'll have some pre-warning, and I would take the gamble. I would take the tundra island before Athens, because (a) it's safer, and (b) we don't have enough troops in the area to take Athens yet.

I am not so optimistic about our economy. It is barely floating now, and we are planning for domination. How do we keep maintenance in check?

Certainly, if we want to keep conquered towns (which is easier than rebuilding them all, in order to achieve domination), then rushing courthouses in them will help our economy, and that's one reason I continued to invest two scientists/turn in researching COL. And, when we get the GS, then we can either settle it or build an academy in Karakorum, unless we think that lightbulbing Philosophy is useful (i.e., only if it has trade value).

Medina will only ever have a maximum of +3 food (assuming it's working the cows and the tundra copper). Or +2, if it works the horses also (I seem to recall they are on plains, although I don't have the game open). Since it does have the potential to generate lots of hammers at a relatively small size, and it also doesn't gain much from growing bigger (since it doesn't have other good tiles to work, especially if we don't have a worker on the island), that's why I thought a barracks might make sense. Another idea would be to put 1 turn of production into theater just in case it does get unhappy and need to rush it in the future. But I would hope to avoid rushing here at all, since it's going to be quite slow to regrow any population loss.

It seems to me that a town will grow twice as fast with a granary, independent of the actual food surplus (as long as it's > 0), but maybe Medina will not grow fast enough to profit much before the game ends. Anyway, rax followed by troops sounds ok to me as well. We may need to rush to prevent starvation, we'll see.

There's little discussion, so I intend to play this evening, unless I see objections.

It seems to me that a town will grow twice as fast with a granary, independent of the actual food surplus (as long as it's > 0), but maybe Medina will not grow fast enough to profit much before the game ends. Anyway, rax followed by troops sounds ok to me as well. We may need to rush to prevent starvation, we'll see.

If Medina is unhappy, then rushing a barracks won't really help, because it only costs 1 pop and generates -1 happiness.

But I think at size 3 it shouldn't have a happiness problem. Besides, it will be too small to rush anything more costly.

As you say, the granary (almost) doubles the growth rate, but that's worth more the higher that rate is. It's also more important if the city has several additional valuable tiles to work, which Medina really doesn't.

If we build a barracks and some indigenous troops, we could finish conquering Saladin without having to transport additional units from the mainland, perhaps even in time to then pull our units out and use them elsewhere. Medina could build a barracks and build swordsmen, while Mecca could eventually build some catapults, which don't really need promotions.

Turn 208, 620AD: switch Medina to rax.

Turn 209, 635AD: CS sword -> spear. PS galley -> cat. Whip theatre in Mecca for 2 pop. Medina lost 1 pop due to starvation.

Turn 210, 650AD: FS galley -> sword. Mecca theatre -> cat. SR is confucianized.

Turn 211, 665AD: K sword -> sword. We do get the advantage of wines. Culture slider can go down to 0%.

Turn 212, 680AD: K grows and gets extra WW. Culture has to go back to 10%.

Turn 213, 695AD: CS spear -> sword. I have one galley in place near tundra island that can quickly ferry some troops over, so:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz4_5_AD0695_Alex_status.jpg
Land a sword and axe outside Sparta. It is defended just by one archer!
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz4_5_AD0695_Sparta.jpg

Turn 214, 710AD: Our DoW leads to a lot of barbarian activity on the main island. Unfortunately their attacks are uncoordinated and hence probably pointless...
Lose a sword at Sparta (73% win chance), but our axe kills the archer and we capture Sparta. Odd, I didn't get a choice to keep or raze. :hmm:

Turn 215, 725AD: A Greek Chariot attacks our axe at Sparta, but we kill it :D. PS cat -> sword. CS sword -> axe. Medina rax -> sword.
The interface is seriously bugged now, I also don't get to see what's been built, I don't get unit cycling, and I don;t get end-of turn messages. I'm saving and reloading, in the hope that that helps.
Odd, now that I've loaded again I do get the message to keep or raze Sparta (I keep of course, and get 87 gold). Apparently the "message thread" was waiting for some event to happen? Problem may have been that I hit "print screen" when the DoW dialog box was open?? Apart from that everything seems normal, and I don't think anything bad happened, so I'll continue.

Turn 216, 740AD: Qin built the Chapel. Our troops (well, 1 cat and 1 sword :) ) march on Silvertown. Our other troops approach Spain - what a coincidence. :D

Turn 217, 755AD: Someone provides a casus belli with impeccable timing:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz4_5_AD0755_CasusBelli.jpg
(we refuse of course.)
FS sword -> sword.

Time for the next victim:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz4_5_AD0755_Izzy.jpg
DoW, and land 6 units next to Toledo, and 2 more coming 1 turn later. WW has gone up quite a bit in K, we have 1 unhappy, but increasing culture to 20% loses too much cash IMO. We'll just have to wait for sugar and hope it doesn't get worse, or whip a colosseum (which seems horribly expensive).

Turn 218, 770AD: our deals with Toku and Cyrus are cancelled because we're no longer connected. Ouch. Fortunately, the main effect seems to be that K can no longer work some farms, and hence is stagnating. Not too bad.
Kill archer and spear at Toledo and
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz4_5_AD0770_Toledo.jpg

I'll leave it to the next player to decide what to do with the worker at Toledo and the attack group at Delphi (I would wait one more turn for the axe to join).
We need a worker on tundra island to connect the silver, and we could use a worker on Arab island to chop a bit. There are some workers on the main island that could be used for this.
I didn't check for trades or MM this last turn.
We were making 10 - 20 gpt in the middle of the set, then it dropped to -10 gpt. Probably additional maintenance (Sparta) and unit upkeep and away cost.

The save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm5/Smurkz_SG005_AD0770_01.Civ4SavedGame).

First thoughts :eek: :eek: :eek: :goodjob: never thought we'd be here right now...

Some remarks:
- I'd pillage the iron Alex has on Sparta's island, since I think the other we know of has been taken care by our barbie friends OR (better option probably) take the 3rd town that works it.
- Spain is cutting our trades with Cyrus, so getting them back would help tremendously... Clearing the coast between Toledo and our Hittites brthers would do the trick. Of course whipping out Alex would do the same....
- Building a city on bridge island is not a priority for sure, but we would pop up a hut, which could be great (gold/tech).
- We'll get a GS in 2 turns. What is the plan for the guy ? Bulbing would grant Compass or Philo ?
- Getting 2 GS up in Karak get us CL in 11 turns (4 turns earlier), but at a cost of 6gpt. Could be worth it anyway... We need courthouses. And trade routes...

These are first thoughts. Maybe more later.

Kulko, I guess you are up !

Sadly, I wrote a whole lot of comments and then my system crashed. I don't have the energy to type them all in again, so I will have to be more brief.

Karakorum can rush a new swordsman for 2 pop in 2 turns (we would have to tell the worker to stall the chop temporarily) to get back to happiness. Or maybe rush a settler next turn for 3 pop (after the chop goes into it).

FS can work the river cottage when it's done, and give the existing hamlet to SR.

SR will run 2 scientists this turn, 1 next turn, then cut out the specialists. Great Scientist should go settle in Karakorum (even though accelerating COL is not so important, and I don't see much other useful research on the horizon, the alternative of lightbulbing Philosophy seems even less useful).

The farm for CS doesn't seem as useful any more, since our happiness is limited and it will probably get worse. Maybe we should have built cottage instead (my bad).

PS can stabilize at size 6, by shifting from farm to coast. Maybe it can grow to size 7 when we connect sugar, but WW seems to increase rapidly, so perhaps it's prudent to just leave it at size 6.

Medina Najran can rush the granary now, with overflow in archer. (At 1 hammer/turn it's never going to build much else, except by rushing.)

Mecca can work the winery currently assigned to Medina, and Medina can work the copper we're currently not using at all!

I'm not sure Sparta was worth keeping, but now we have it, it might as well build catapults.

In Toledo, I would set to build catapult, and rush when it comes out of resistance. Then rush another catapult when possible. Theater doesn't seem worthwhile, the city is never going to amount to much either way; we might as well get the troops we need.

On silver island, we're about to capture two workers (one from Alex and one from Qin Shi), so no need to ship any more there. If it were me, I'd go ahead and attack with the sword this turn---probably it will win; if not, then probably the catapult can win and still defend the city against Qin Shi's archer, which probably won't attack anyway as it's defending the settler. Otherwise we have to wait two turns, one for the axe to move up and a second for it to be available to attack. Meanwhile, all of our ships should be setting up a chain to Alex's main islands. I still think the silver island is a distraction.

In the west, I think I'd send the two catapults that we have southwest, and use galleys to ferry the new catapults northwest. I'm not sure what the galley near PS is currently doing; we have units it could be ferrying to bridge island.

Comments on your comments:

I didn't realize the Spanish war would cut the trade before it was too late. Well, we needed to do this sometime anyway. I don't think it pays off to clear the coast to Hittites. It is much more helpful IMO to send our Spanish Expeditionary Force towards the Spanish heartland.

To cut the iron on Tundra Island I would simply conquer the town. We have plenty of troops there. Of course you are right about the workers on this island. :)

Whipping sword in K sounds ok. You are counting on losing 1 WW point?

I would settle the GS in K. As for research after CoL, we could always do a slow burn towards Guilds.

The galley near PS is meant to ferry a worker to Arab Island. Tile assignment of Mecca and Medina is based on maxing gold output and growth in Medina. Not sure what you mean by rushing granary in Medina.

Nice going zyxy, two towns captured was beyond expectations! :goodjob:

Roster:
DaviddesJ
zyxy - Just Played
Kulko - UP!
unkle - On Deck!
Niklas - Warming Up
Wotan
Methos - Lurking
Marc Aurel - Lost

Kulko, ready to roll on your holiday? :cool:

I haven't looked at the save yet, will try to do that some time tomorrow for comments.

I edited my comment about Najran above (had written Medina by mistake).

If we aren't going to attack Delphi this turn, then I suggest moving our swordsman south, so we have the option to attack Qin's archer in the clear next turn. Killing Qin's unit is good, as it makes him more likely to accept peace with us (plus we can use the worker). (But I would still just attack Delphi now.)

Toledo worker could clear jungle from sugar, or could take a free trip on an empty galley back to Bridge Island, to build roads there. I don't have a strong preference---I would probably just go ahead and work on the sugar, even though Toledo is never going to produce very much. You could move the worker NW (along the road) first, just to see if there are any enemy units about.

I didn't propose sending some units NW against Sakae, and others SW against Seville, primarily to clear a trade route, but simply because it's faster to advance on two fronts. And two (or three) catapults per city is about the right number, to bombard them down in a reasonable time. But capturing Sakae may give us a trade route to Cyrus, which would also be significant (I'm not sure if we need to take just that city, or the one to the north as well, in order to create a trade route along the river).

Sending a worker to Arabia seems a low priority. We could chop the two forests there to get troops to use against Saladin, getting our other troops into battle seems much more important.

We have about 140 land tiles (108 us + 32 barbarians) for 13.04% control. That means the total land area is about 1080. We need 64% of 1080 = 690, or an increase of about +550.

I didn't do an exact count, but it looks to me that the big continent is about 600 tiles. If we control it all then we will certainly reach domination.

It is conceivable that we could reach domination without defeating either Tokugawa or Qin Shi (who look like the strongest opponents). They are currently both under 16% (which is what Cyrus has). However, we would have to control almost everything else on the map. If Tokugawa gets Feudalism before we reach him, then that may be easier than fighting him with just swords.

I think I remember reading that Peaks and Ice spaces don't count for the domination limit. However I could be wrong. It's probably better for us if Ice doesn't count, as getting control of the large ice region north of China will be difficult if we want to avoid fighting Qin Shi.

If we only have to defeat Alexander, Isabella, and Cyrus, then this doesn't look too hard at all. None of them have made much technological progress, and I don't think they will get to Feudalism soon.

In the endgame, our cities can expand their borders quite quickly with Caste System and Artists. Achieving two expansions for most of our cities should be feasible. After two expansions, a city control 37 tiles, so in principle we can control the whole of the large continent with only about 15 cities.

I usually think expansion is easier if you can get merchants (few places) and culture rate (everywhere), but that's just me... Of course this will depend on number of cities that requires expansion. And also availability of Caste (ie one turn switching). This is one more reason to consider switching to Caste somewhere in time.

Seems to me that if you're using culture rate just to expand your borders then you're wasting a lot of commerce in your core cities that don't need expansion. But, with artists, you can expand exactly where needed, by exactly as much as needed.

Anyway, this is a long time off. Being able to get first expansion quickly in newly captured cities is one of the advantages of Caste System, but it's probably not as useful as being able to rush buildings in newly captured cities with citizens who are just unhappy anyway.

Artists are precise for sure, as you said we are still far from that. As I said, I find it easier. I may very well be lazy on it. Sometines, I need expansion in non-growing cities. Getting culture through commerce is better in that case... Unless starving is an option. Things is that usually you do not have plenty of food tiles available...

As you said, slavery is probably better right now for us. By the way getting Guilds, why not. For Knights ok, for grocer also. Getting money+merchants is still a reall ygood option to get our economy somewhere. Trading for currency would also be tremendous by the way...

By the way getting Guilds, why not. For Knights ok, for grocer also. Getting money+merchants is still a reall ygood option to get our economy somewhere.

It seems rather unrealistic. Researching to Guilds at our present rate will take about 500 turns. Or we could spend about 8000 gold that we don't have. If we did have the money, I'd rather just keep the 8000 gold and use that to run our economy.

Trading for currency would also be tremendous by the way...

Sure, but it doesn't seem likely. None of the people with Currency will trade with us any time soon. It could make sense to research Currency after COL---even if we don't learn it ourselves, by partially researching it we reduce the trade value, therefore if Alexander or Isabella discovers it, it becomes more likely that they will give us Currency for peace. It seems probably more realistic than researching Metal Casting, Monarchy, Feudalism, Machinery, Guilds.

It seems probably more realistic than researching Metal Casting, Monarchy, Feudalism, Machinery, Guilds.

Ouch... Did not open the game so thought we were closer... This makes currency our probable next target then. For the extra money and specialist. We may get some extra hapiness is we steal Isabella's silk (with market) but that seems so far when I see our research rate... New GS settled will not do much if we get the two scientists out too. We'll see how much courthouses will help us in getting back some money. But big question is if we think we can avoid Qin, do we really need much pointier sticks than we have ? Maces would be cool, sure. But we'll never have them in time...

Maybe after getting the Pyramids, we'll have new options to try to increase our research rate IF we want to.

Got it. will post plans tomorrow

nvmind, x-post

A few more miscellaneous comments.

Disembarking units in Sparta cost us a turn, they could have unloaded directly next to Alexander's iron city next turn.

In moving toward Seville, don't overlook that the fastest route from Toledo to Seville actually goes NE along the road.

I'm not quite sure how we ended up with so many unpromoted swordsmen. These are really a lot worse than 4xp swordsmen. Any city that built an unpromoted swordsman should either have built a barracks, or have built galleys/catapults instead. Nothing to be done about it now, except sacrifice them freely in initial attacks (although battle losses are a problem, as they increase WW). But please everyone be careful not to build any more unpromoted ground units (except catapults)!

I still think Medina should work copper instead of wines, to produce swordsmen faster. Growth in 3 turns vs 4 isn't a big difference. Getting some swords out will let us go finish off Saladin. Maybe we can even take his capital and then get Currency in exchange for letting him live in one city for a while longer.

Here's a proposed initial plan for the west (obviously, this may need adjustment as enemy units are sighted):

Turn 219
Catapults on bridge island move NW.
Galley 1 (empty) moves N,NE.
Galley 2 (2 swords) moves W,W.
Galley 3 (chariot+axe) moves W,NW.
Chariot+axe unload to space NE of Toledo.
Sword promotes to CR3, sword+2 catapults move to Toledo.
2 swords+axe move NW,SW from Toledo.

Turn 220
Catapults on bridge island move W.
Galley 1 (empty) moves E,E.
Galley 2 (2 swords) moves SW,W.
2 swords unload in Toledo and move NW,NW.
Galley 3 (now empty) moves NE,NW.
Axe moves to Toledo.
Chariot moves Toledo,NW,NW.
2 swords+axe move SW (next to Seville).
Sword+2 catapults move NW,SW.

Turn 221
Catapults on bridge island load onto Galley 1.
Galley 1 moves NW,NW.
Catapults transfer to Galley 3.
Galley 3 moves W,W.
2 swords, chariot move NW (SW of Sakae).
Sword+2 catapults move SW (next to Seville).

Turn 222
Galley 3 moves NW,W.
2 catapults unload adjacent to Sakae.
Bombard Seville.

Turns 223-224
Bombard Sakae and Seville.

Turn 225
Bombard Sakae and Seville.
Capture Seville.

Turn 226
Bombard Sakae.
Capture Sakae.

Ok here are my plans:

Long Term:
Win by Domination

Medium Term:
Conquer Greece and Spain

Short Term:
Conquer Damascus, Athens and Sevilla

Military:
Arabia:
I too would prefer a fast capture of Saladin to a few more gp to reduce our WW. Therefore I will speed up production as fast as possible and attack Damaskus. Try to make peace for Currency and otherwise just take out bagdad.

Greece
We have almost Conquered Delhi and we need the Iron City for a continous landbridge after we capture Athens. Therefore I will finish that attacks with maximum concenctration before shipping over to Athens.

Spain
I like Davides' plan. From Sevilla and sakae onwards I will see, what the spanish resistance is, and how many troops we have been able to carry over.

Tech
Create GS as described and sent to Kara. Continue researching CoL.

Production:
I understand we mainly build Swords and catapults at this point. I would slip in a Settler at Kara to build a city on bridge Island (South of the Horses).


Other:
I will stop should I capture athens to let us discuss Civics.
I do not see how we can gain a trade route to cyrus to soon, but if we should, I will try to get OB and trades again.

I too would prefer a fast capture of Saladin to a few more gp to reduce our WW.

To be clear, we have no WW with Saladin now because we're at peace. When we (re)declare war on Saladin, our previous WW will reappear (reduced somewhat by the passage of time), then it goes away again if we conquer him or we make peace again. We do have some unhappiness in former Arabian cities caused by citizens of foreign nationality, that is separate from WW though. But it will go away if we do conquer Saladin completely.

To me, the advantages of conquering Saladin are that we don't need a large garrison on that island any more, we can pull out our units and use them elsewhere, and also it would be nice to conquer Saladin before any of our opponents make contact with him so they can't trade techs or otherwise be diplomatically influenced by him.

I understand we mainly build Swords and catapults at this point. I would slip in a Settler at Kara to build a city on bridge Island (South of the Horses).

If we want to build a settler, then now is the perfect time because we have excess population at Karakorum that we want to poprush with, anyway. So I would set the production queue to settler after the current swordsman, then the chop finishing next turn will go into the settler, then you can immediately rush it for 3 pop.

I don't think we're ready to take on Saladin yet. We need a few cats and some swords for that.

I don't think a settler is a good idea. We are losing cash already, and each town will lose more.

I suggest we should attack Saladin when we have 2 catapults and a few promoted swordsmen. This will take a little while but not extremely long.

I do not disagree that we probably don't need a settler. In the long run (50+ turns) it would be a net benefit to our economy, but we should be focused on maximizing our results in the short/medium term, for which it's a net drag (not to mention we could have 2.5 more swordsmen instead).

If we don't want to build settler, then the sequence in Karakorum to rush for 2 pop is a little more complicated.

I would build the settler now, because it fits quite well, and we need to complete control of bridge Island anyway for the Domination.

Anyway the whole dicussion shows me, that I am unsure, what to do with the conquered cities. Do we want to keept them for further maintenance costs or do we rather start a huge settling effort hen the game is almost finished?

I don't think we should be building settlers now just in order to control territory for domination. We can do that at the endgame. There will be a time (perhaps only about 10 turns in the future) when we want to mostly stop building military units, just because they will take too long to get to the front and the cost of maintaining them will be too high. At that time we can easily start building settlers. Even if we raze some captured cities, we won't need all that many.

We also don't know how much territory we will need to control until we see how far our military campaign gets before stalling. The more of our opponents we wipe out, the less we'll need to cover every inch of territory with cities.

Personally, I would be inclined to raze small cities unless they have some significant resource. Large cities and/or those that can generate significant income (e.g., Seville) should be kept. Plus, if we have a significant number of wounded units, then keeping the city is usually a good idea so that our units can quickly heal there.

Ok I have a question here to the team:

Qin is offering peace for 380 gp and Drama. Are we interested?

WAr Weariness has continued to rise so I am very tempted to take that offer.

The offer is getting better then, in my turnset he wanted Drama + more money + gpt.

Giving up Drama is no pb to me. The cash is different, can we give something else instead?

Qin is offering peace for 380 gp and Drama. Are we interested?

No. We need the cash. And very little of our WW is coming from Qin---we haven't been engaged with him for a long time, and all of the early WW from barbarian units fighting with him has decayed by now. Our WW is up (and will continue to go up) because we're in active conflict with Isabella and Alexander.

Have you read the threads on how WW works?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181512

If we kill his archer and settler on the silver island, without taking any losses ourselves, then it's likely that he will offer peace on better terms. I would be ok with giving him Drama for peace (even though that does probably reduce our ability to trade later with Cyrus, if we ever go to Representation). There's some chance that if we can make peace with him then he'll be willing to trade some resources with us, which would be nice.

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm5/Smurkz_SG005_AD0905_01.Civ4SavedGame)

770AD:

I decide to attack delphi immediately.
SM dies to Archer
Cata Conquers Delphi (I Keep it for the Silver)

IBT:
Ouch Cyrus cancels Open Borders and we gain war weariness in PS, SR

785AD:
Move troops

800AD:
Raise Culture to 20%
Capture Corinth

815AD
I lose the toledo worker to a chariot and have to recapture. I move the Spear over to the worker.

830AD:
Bombard Sevilla

845AD
Take Sevilla (only defended by one Axeman)

860AD
Continue to bombard Sakae its strongly defended, so I wait one more turn for a 4th melee Fighter to appear.

875AD
2 Attacks on Sakae fail despite superior odds, I wait for reinforcements.

IBT:
Alex offers CoL 1 turn before we research it ourselves. Since I am 2 mmoves away from ferrying troops to athens I decline.

890AD:
Conquer Sakae to an additional loss of an cata.
We now have a trade route open to Cyrus again. I trade gems for copper.

905AD:
CoL researched

I set Research to MC and all finished builds to courthouses.

I have not moved any unit yet.

Conclusio
I have conquered Delphi, Corinth, Sakae and Sevilla.

I made the mistake of keeping Corinth, as I fopund the secure bridge to athens one turn later. I felt we need culture in Corinth to cross over.

We have a trade route to cyrus once more and I traded immediately. Hopefully he will reconsider OB too.

We are shortly before the capture of Barcelona.

We can start ferrying troops to athens next turn (Sorry for the delay, I got harrased by chinese ships)

We have 2 catas and almost 3 Swords ready for saladin.

We can start building Courthouses.


Turn 218/660 (770 AD) [28-Sep-2007 14:33:53]
While attacking in Greek territory at Delphi, Swordsman loses to: Greek Archer (0.24/3) (Prob Victory: 73.6%)
While attacking in Greek territory at Delphi, Catapult defeats (5.00/5): Greek Archer (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
Captured Delphi (Alexander)
Toledo begins: Catapult (60 turns)
Karakorum finishes: Swordsman
Cu Smurkz finishes: Axeman
Iron Smurkz finishes: Galley
Najran finishes: Granary

IBT:
Attitude Change: Tokugawa(Japan) towards Qin Shi Huang(China), from 'Pleased' to 'Cautious'
Attitude Change: Saladin(Arabia) towards Isabella(Spain), from 'Pleased' to 'Cautious'
Attitude Change: Cyrus(Persia) towards Temujin(Mongolia), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Qin Shi Huang(China), from 'Friendly' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Isabella(Spain), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'

Turn 219/660 (785 AD) [28-Sep-2007 15:06:49]
Karakorum begins: Swordsman (15 turns)
Cu Smurkz begins: Swordsman (5 turns)
Iron Smurkz begins: Galley (13 turns)
Najran begins: Archer (37 turns)
Swordsman promoted: City Raider III
Smurkz Rockz finishes: Galley
Ptolemy (Great Scientist) born in Smurkz Rockz
Mecca finishes: Catapult

IBT:
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Qin Shi Huang(China), from 'Pleased' to 'Friendly'

Turn 220/660 (800 AD) [28-Sep-2007 15:30:08]
Smurkz Rockz begins: Galley (15 turns)
Mecca begins: Catapult (8 turns)
Swordsman promoted: City Raider I
While attacking in Greek territory at Corinth, Swordsman defeats (2.94/6): Greek Phalanx (Prob Victory: 75.3%)
Swordsman promoted: City Raider I
While attacking in Greek territory at Corinth, Swordsman defeats (6.00/6): Greek Archer (Prob Victory: 87.8%)
Captured Corinth (Alexander)
Karakorum finishes: Swordsman
Ponte Smurkzo finishes: Swordsman
Confucianism has spread: Ponte Smurkzo

IBT:
While defending in Spanish territory at Toledo, Worker loses to: Spanish Chariot (4.00/4) (Prob Victory: 12.2%)

Turn 221/660 (815 AD) [28-Sep-2007 15:43:41]
Karakorum begins: Swordsman (9 turns)
Ponte Smurkzo begins: Theatre (8 turns)
Delphi begins: Catapult (30 turns)
While attacking in Mongolian territory at Delphi, Axeman defeats (4.25/5): Chinese Archer (Prob Victory: 94.1%)
While attacking in the wild at Toledo, Spearman defeats (3.48/4): Spanish Chariot (Prob Victory: 99.3%)
While attacking in Spanish territory near Toledo, Swordsman defeats (6.00/6): Spanish Worker (Prob Victory: 99.3%)

New Log Entries
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Turn 218/660 (770 AD) [28-Sep-2007 17:10:42]
Medina grows: 4
Medina finishes: Swordsman

IBT:
While defending in Mongolian territory at Sparta, Galley defeats (1.20/2): Chinese Galley (Prob Victory: 50.0%)

Turn 222/660 (830 AD) [28-Sep-2007 17:18:28]
Medina begins: Swordsman (6 turns)
Galley promoted: Combat I
Karakorum grows: 8
Karakorum finishes: Swordsman
Smurkz Rockz's borders expand
Cu Smurkz finishes: Swordsman
Ponte Smurkzo grows: 5
Ponte Smurkzo finishes: Theatre

IBT:
Attitude Change: Tokugawa(Japan) towards Qin Shi Huang(China), from 'Pleased' to 'Cautious'
Attitude Change: Saladin(Arabia) towards Isabella(Spain), from 'Pleased' to 'Cautious'
Attitude Change: Cyrus(Persia) towards Temujin(Mongolia), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Isabella(Spain), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'

Turn 223/660 (845 AD) [29-Sep-2007 12:04:35]
Karakorum begins: Swordsman (8 turns)
Cu Smurkz begins: Swordsman (5 turns)
Ponte Smurkzo begins: Spearman (8 turns)
Corinth begins: Galley (38 turns)
While attacking in Spanish territory at Seville, Axeman defeats (2.00/5): Spanish Axeman (Prob Victory: 50.0%)
Buddhism has spread: Seville
Captured Seville (Isabella)
Seville begins: Catapult (60 turns)
While attacking in Mongolian territory at Sparta, Galley loses to: Chinese Galley (1.62/2) (Prob Victory: 32.2%)

IBT:

Turn 224/660 (860 AD) [29-Sep-2007 12:25:13]
While attacking in Mongolian territory at Sparta, Galley defeats (0.48/2): Chinese Galley (Prob Victory: 83.9%)
Axeman promoted: City Raider II
Karakorum finishes: Swordsman
Najran finishes: Archer

IBT:

Turn 225/660 (875 AD) [29-Sep-2007 12:32:14]
Karakorum begins: Axeman (7 turns)
Najran begins: Galley (75 turns)
While attacking in Spanish territory at Sakae, Axeman loses to: Spanish Archer (1.11/3) (Prob Victory: 67.8%)
While attacking in Spanish territory at Sakae, Swordsman loses to: Spanish Archer (2.34/3) (Prob Victory: 72.9%)
While attacking in Spanish territory at Sakae, Swordsman defeats (5.22/6): Spanish Spearman (Prob Victory: 99.7%)
Galley promoted: Combat II
Smurkz Rockz grows: 6
Ponte Smurkzo finishes: Spearman
Mecca grows: 6

IBT:
Confucianism has spread: Baghdad (Arabian Empire)

Turn 226/660 (890 AD) [29-Sep-2007 12:38:57]
Ponte Smurkzo begins: Galley (11 turns)
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
While attacking in Spanish territory at Sakae, Catapult loses to: Spanish Archer (0.27/3) (Prob Victory: 23.7%)
While attacking in Spanish territory at Sakae, Swordsman defeats (5.22/6): Spanish Archer (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While attacking in Spanish territory at Sakae, Axeman defeats (5.00/5): Spanish Archer (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
Buddhism has spread: Sakae
Captured Sakae (Isabella)
Razed Sakae
Buddhism has spread: Sakae
Sakae lost
Tech learned: Code of Laws
Cu Smurkz finishes: Swordsman
Najran grows: 2
Mecca finishes: Catapult

IBT:
Attitude Change: Saladin(Arabia) towards Isabella(Spain), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Isabella(Spain), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 227/660 (905 AD) [29-Sep-2007 12:53:55]
Research begun: Currency (30 Turns)
Research begun: Metal Casting (45 Turns)
Cu Smurkz begins: Courthouse (13 turns)
Mecca begins: Courthouse (20 turns)

Without having looked at the save, I can still say we're looking good indeed. Some bad luck with the attacks it seems, but you seem to have recovered very nicely. :goodjob:

Roster:
DaviddesJ
zyxy
Kulko - Just Played
unkle - UP!
Niklas - On Deck!
Wotan - Warming Up
Methos - Lurking
Marc Aurel - Lost

@unkle: Go go go! :run:

It would have been good to keep Sakae (rather than razing it), for access to Spices.

Cyrus is offering Open Borders again, we should definitely take that for trade value. He will also give us Silk (which we need), and Corn (which we don't really need, but we might as well take).

When building sugar plantations on jungle, it's better to clear the jungle first, and then build the plantation second, rather than building the plantation directly over the jungle. It is more flexible, plus you get to work the sugar tile without jungle for 3f, even before the plantation is finished.

A lot of cities are not working the right tiles. FS is not working the gold mine! SR is running a scientist. CS should work the river cottage, instead of a mine. Mecca is running an artist (!), and working plains forest instead of grassland village and hamlet. Delphi is not working the silver mine.

With trades and optimizing our cities, I got to -27 gpt (from -61 gpt).

Tokugawa will give us 90g for Drama. I might go ahead and take it. Or it might be a bad idea if it causes him to research Feudalism more quickly.

I think I would build granary in Seville. Not sure it matters much, it has so few hammers it will take a very long time to build anything. If it is still unhappy when it comes out of resistance, we can rush granary for 1 pop and that will probably help because it will reduce WW.

Nicely done, Kulko!

It looks like we'll be able to take Barcelona next turn. :)

We definitely have to optimize our citizen allocation to stop the bleeding of our treasury.

I would start courts in

Medina (after the sword)
Mecca (maybe work the two cottages instead of artist and plain forest, then whip it in about 5 turns)
Sparta (after the cat, and chop forests to support it)
Toledo (build time will become better once culture expands)
Delphi (maybe; with two chops build time will be ok-ish I think; in any case, Delphi should work the mine)
Corinth (again use chops)
Seville (maybe chop it),
but cancel the one in CS (as it doesn't save much).

We could establish a (partial) ship chain between our island and Spain. And it might be good to send some workers over, they are not needed much more on our main land.

We are nearly ready to attack Arabia again, I think.

Got it. Will probably play tomorrow, posting plan today.

@Kulko: :goodjob:

first check comments:
- Japan already has Long Bows.
- trading with cyrus for ressources (silk vs rice) + reallocating citizens should help our economy + some courthouses (in arabia at first)
- we can trade drama for money to Cyrus too (250 g) or Toku
- toku has 2 gpt available... a health ressource maybe ? (clam)
- we should be able to kick Saladin in my turnset or almost, which make courthouse+infra here more valuable even...
- next stop in athens ?

plan later

If Tokugawa has longbows, then I think we should go after Cyrus next. I would switch to Representation when we get the Pyramids, hoping that will get Cyrus to trade with us. Hold off on trading him any techs until then. Get what we can from him (starting with Currency, but Horseback Riding might also be useful). Once we've gotten what we can from him, another civic switch to Police State may be justified, but that will be beyond the next turnset.

While we're conquering Cyrus, we can be doing infill to establish cultural control over all the territory we can reach. To end the game, we will probably need to attack some of Tokugawa's cities, using massed firepower and catapults to overcome his longbows. Or we might decide that it's easier to fight Qin Shi and stay at peace with Tokugawa---this is a decision that is still a few turnsets off.

At least we know that even if we had blitzed faster we still wouldn't have taken out Tokugawa before Feudalism.

P.S. Another idea is that we could convert to Judaism, now that it has spread to Hun. That would probably also get Cyrus to trade with us. However, it would have less benefit to us than Representation (including stopping free cultural expansion in several of our cities), and it would also displease Tokugawa who might attack us (I don't think that would be a huge problem, but it's definitely not a plus).

It would have been good to keep Sakae (rather than razing it), for access to Spices.

Cyrus is offering Open Borders again, we should definitely take that for trade value. He will also give us Silk (which we need), and Corn (which we don't really need, but we might as well take).

Cyrus only opened up the turn before and he didn't give OB then. I traded one ressource last turn and waited if he would make OB avaiulable now.


When building sugar plantations on jungle, it's better to clear the jungle first, and then build the plantation second, rather than building the plantation directly over the jungle. It is more flexible, plus you get to work the sugar tile without jungle for 3f, even before the plantation is finished.

Noted, Thanks for the advice.


A lot of cities are not working the right tiles. FS is not working the gold mine! SR is running a scientist. CS should work the river cottage, instead of a mine. Mecca is running an artist (!), and working plains forest instead of grassland village and hamlet. Delphi is not working the silver mine.

With trades and optimizing our cities, I got to -27 gpt (from -61 gpt).
I absolutely hate that stupid way in which the programmed the City Management in Civ4. In my turnset I was playing around a bit with culture 0 to 20% and thats what I got to show for it.
Sorry For missing that, I should know by now.

One thing that helps is to check all of "Emphasize Food", "Emphasize Production", and "Emphasize Commerce", in every city. If you do that, at least you'll avoid the governor allocating any specialists for you.

To show that I'm an equal-opportunity critic, I'll mention that my suggestion to build a catapult in Toledo was quite dumb. Somehow I missed that Toledo has access to a developed fish tile (after cultural expansion) as well as cows. We should have built granary, this could be quite a nice city.

Does it still make sense to try to get Cyrus to like us enough for tech trading? I think not, and would not switch civics or religion simply for that purpose. What do we need from him, really?

Representation or Police state might be useful for their own reasons, of course. Which one is best? Probably PS, considering the 6 WW faces in K. Extra military production is another big boon (and a good reason to build infra now, btw).

Religion doesn't seem helpful to me.

I would rather trade CoL to Cyrus than Drama, because Drama is still a monopoly.

Btw, why are we researching MC? I though we agreed on Currency?

We are not yet researching anything.

I quit the turn we researched CoL, so we can switch to anything we want.

Does it still make sense to try to get Cyrus to like us enough for tech trading? I think not, and would not switch civics or religion simply for that purpose. What do we need from him, really?

Currency, like I said. And Horseback Riding would be useful so we could have some decent fast units. The cost of going into anarchy is almost nil---we're trying to build courthouses so we can break even economically, but we can also break even economically by just going into anarchy. Eventually we may even reach the point where we are deliberately spending as much time as possible in anarchy.

Representation or Police state might be useful for their own reasons, of course. Which one is best? Probably PS, considering the 6 WW faces in K. Extra military production is another big boon (and a good reason to build infra now, btw).

I would agree with switching to Police State in due course (as I said), but extra military production is not worth much, we have almost all of the units we need. Soon, units being built in our home cities won't be reaching the front until the game is essentially over. (This would be somewhat less true if we could build Keshiks.) In addition to courthouses (in distant cities) and markets (in core cities), we will want to build a bunch of settlers, and maybe some workers.

Also don't forget that in due course we will make peace with (or eliminate) Alexander and Isabella, our WW will go down. But it will go up before it goes down.

If we were doing any significant amount of self-research, then going to Representation for the extra specialist beakers would make sense, but if we go into Representation then I think we can trade for techs we want so we don't need those extra beakers then. :rolleyes:

Btw, why are we researching MC? I though we agreed on Currency?

I don't think we have put any beakers into Metal Casting, it's just a random choice since we just finished COL. I agree with researching Currency next.

Turn 219/660 (785 AD) [28-Sep-2007 15:06:49]
Ptolemy (Great Scientist) born in Smurkz Rockz
What did you do with the GS? I didn't see it mentioned.

What did you do with the GS? I didn't see it mentioned.

It's settled in Karakorum (8 beakers/turn + 1 hammer/turn).

First question before plan:
Eventually we may even reach the point where we are deliberately spending as much time as possible in anarchy.

I thought this wasconsidered an exploit (see here)... I guess there is a margin between pertpetual anarchy and reasonnable anarchy :mischief: :p

Anyway the promised plan:

Long Term:
Win by Domination

Medium Term:
Conquer Greece and Spain, and wipe out Saladin.

Short Term:
Conquer Damascus and probably Baghdad, unless peace brings some immediate (tech) rewards. Keep both (I am wondering if keeping Baghdad is a smart move.... Bad city for sure, but could expand and control....)
Conquer Athens, and keep :lol:
Conquers Barcelona and probably Salamanca. Both kept.


Military:

Arabia:
Send the Medina axe to kill Sal Catapult and upgrade to heal (9/10 XP), then move with 2 swords, an axe, 2 cats. Medina on Axe or Archer (whipped) to allow moving third sword in time.
Try peace after Damascus, and kill if needed.


Greece
We will get a forth galley in 5 turns (24+6*5+44 chopped=98>75, overflow 23) from Corinth if needed. We'll have 10 units to move then.
Option 1 (preferred):
move 6 units right now (3 swords and 3 cats) hoping we will not have axes to fight against... btw, I plan yo upgrade cat at 5 exp to combat/heal in case (they do only bombard most of the time anyway). Then refill with 2 (third could scout or go back to main land). I would then switch Galley in Corinth to an axe, chopped, overflow in Archer or Galley.
In the mean time bombarding can start.
Option 2:
Wait 5 turns... Well there is no real option 2 I guess :lol:

Spain
Regroup our 5 in front of Barcelona, bombard (2 times ?), capture. Should be done in 4 turns (2 turn move, 2 turn bomb+attack) if I am correct on bombardement (-15% ??).
Regroup our other 5 in front of Salamanca. Requires 4 turns before attack. Could be completed in 5/6 turns, again if I remember my bombing...

Troop move/ferry:
6 units are in PS waiting with one galley available... 5 turns for ferrying + 4 turns on Bridge island... waiting for the highway here. Then even with some galley chain it will take at least 3 turns to move them (unless galley chain does not work as expected, I probably need advice here...) that's a whopping 12 turns before reinforcement in Spainland.
On mainland most troops should go towards Greece to provide another front to be opened next on mainland vs Alex then Cyrus (or Toku).


Tech
Currency for market, tech vs gold, ressource vs gold, and wealth.

Production:

Karak:
I am in doubt on this. Probably switch to sword and whip for 2 pop, but I am unclear on amount of hammer provided by pop rushing. I guess it is 45, which should then be ok. Should I wait a turn before doing it to maximise overflow ? That's my guess.
FS:
Finish sword then sword or spear in preparation for Cyrus.
SR:
Could whip a galley or finish it, then market if available, or troops.
CuS:
Courthouse seems not useful as mentionned, so switch to sword. Research might also be soon an option.
PS:
Galley could be whipped for 2, then Cat. Or vice-versa.
IS:
Galley then Axe probably.
Najran:
Pfou.... Worker maybe ? Galley seems useless to us at this pace (even after minig the hill). Market could be of some use, but not that much either.
Mecca:
Courthouse, whipped asap (for 3 in 4 turns if I am right) then market or troop or worker.
Medina:
Sword then Courthouse. I could spend one turn on an axe to be able to whip for it immedialty.
Sparta/Delphi/Corinth:
Finish production then courthouse. Delphi might switch asap.
Toledo:
Granary, whipped asap. Tehn courthouse. I am buying the argument that it will be a nice city.
Seville:
Courthouse, whipped.


Some city worker assignment

Karak switchforest to shore
IS work gold from plain forest
SR scientist to shore
CuS mine to 2f2c cottage
Mecca artist/forest to 2f3c/2f2c cottage
Delphi shore to silver
going back to -40 gpt (do not know how to go lower without too much sacrifice)

Worker
I'll let the workers finish the cottages in our mainland even if they will not be useful to us I think 5finished in 1&2 so). After chopping in IS, another chop. We then have 3 workers to move. I'll send them to Spainland, where Isabella has neglegted (I think° infra. They could also help roading the place. For Greeceland (Elvis anyone ?) we have 2 in silvertundria (chops for now) plus two from Najran if we get time to catch them here.

Trade
Toku Clam for 2gpt
Cyrus Silk for Pig. I doubt we need corn (or does it gives more friendly modifiers ?)
I would trade Drama to Cyrus for 250 gp, and Toku for 90. Even if it is monopoly. We could go COL and Construction, but construction...

Will play tomorrow night, feel free to improve.

Looks good to me, though I didn't check the specifics. However, this
Regroup our 5 in front of Barcelona, bombard (2 times ?), capture. Should be done in 4 turns (2 turn move, 2 turn bomb+attack) if I am correct on bombardement (-15% ??).
Regroup our other 5 in front of Salamanca. Requires 4 turns before attack. Could be completed in 5/6 turns, again if I remember my bombing...
... is wrong. A cat bombards 15% of the defenses, so if the city defenses are at 40% one bombard will take them down to 34% etc. Two cats will always need 4 turns to take down the defenses of a town (unless it has improvements that lower bombardment damage), since 7*15 = 105. So on the fourth turn, we could if we want suicide the second cat for collateral damage, then attack with the swords.

going back to -40 gpt (do not know how to go lower without too much sacrifice)

Is that before or after getting OB with Cyrus and trading for silk? With both of those, your economy should be significantly better than that.

I can't think of any reason for keeping Baghdad. Not sure why you even mention the possibility.

Please don't build ground units (except catapults) in cities without barracks. We have lots of units, and they cost money to support. There's no reason to build crappy ones.

Promoting a 5/2 catapult with Medic is acceptable if you desperately need a healing unit, but it's far from ideal. You can give it Barrage 1 & 2 and use it for collateral damage, or you can give it Barrage 1 + Accuracy and take down city defenses faster. Probably the second is best in our current situation, where we simply want to grab as many cities as possible as fast as we can.

(Usually I don't end up with 5/2 catapults because if I'm going to attack something with my catapult I will give it Combat 1 or City Raider 1 first, to increase my chance of winning. But since we do have it we should use it.)

I am skeptical of most of the plans you have for poprushing. E.g., PS is only size 5, why would we want to burn even more population and work fewer tiles? In places where we could rush courthouses, we have to weigh the benefit of getting the courthouse sooner vs the ability to work more tiles and generate more income that way. For the most part, I would suggest that we only do poprushing in cities that we can't make happy (at 10% culture). And those cities should consider rushing theaters which give them +2 happy so then they can grow more in the future.

It's also bad to poprush in cities that have a residual happiness penalty from past rushing (like Karakorum and PS). In cities that have no happiness penalty, you can grow them aggressively and then poprush when they reach the happiness limit. Karakorum might have to give up working a high-food tile since it can't usefully grow further at the moment.

As a matter of game mechanics, if you want to rush a swordsman for 2 pop then you want it to be between 1/60 and 14/60. Sometimes you can do this by building it for one turn, but sometimes with overflow from the previous build you will "overshoot".

In the endgame, when we don't need any more units and all we want to do is claim territory, we might do a bunch of rushing. But it's too early for that now.

I am tempted to suggest producing a settler somewhere, to rebuild the city of Sakae that we unfortunately razed (or perhaps 1E of the Sakae ruins). Primarily to get the spices. It might take too long to be worthwhile, though. I'm not sure.

Is that before or after getting OB with Cyrus and trading for silk? With both of those, your economy should be significantly better than that.

Before. Now I see the light :)


I can't think of any reason for keeping Baghdad. Not sure why you even mention the possibility.


I said I was pretty sure *not* to keep it, except for tile control.... Plan is to raze it, but somehow we'll need some incredible culture to control Sal's continent with 3 city only. Of course we can always resettle elsewhere.


Please don't build ground units (except catapults) in cities without barracks. We have lots of units, and they cost money to support. There's no reason to build crappy ones.


I did not check, thought we'd have barracks almost everywhere. Crappy units are bad, but if we do not have at least an archer or an axe to defend new cities, we'll prevent some good ones to be on the front... I'll retool the plan tonight based on that though, even I still think we will need all our shock troops on the war front, not defending cities.


Promoting a 5/2 catapult with Medic is acceptable if you desperately need a healing unit, but it's far from ideal. You can give it Barrage 1 & 2 and use it for collateral damage, or you can give it Barrage 1 + Accuracy and take down city defenses faster. Probably the second is best in our current situation, where we simply want to grab as many cities as possible as fast as we can.


I love healing cats. You usually spend a lot of turns sitting with them waiting for defense to be tear down. Which make them for me attractive healers. We have units who need or will be needing heal. I hate having to delay combat for that reason. Of course faster bombing is cool, but getting it done one turn faster if you cannot attack because of wounded units, then it is no cool. I always go to war with a doctor :)


I am skeptical of most of the plans you have for poprushing. E.g., PS is only size 5, why would we want to burn even more population and work fewer tiles? In places where we could rush courthouses, we have to weigh the benefit of getting the courthouse sooner vs the ability to work more tiles and generate more income that way. For the most part, I would suggest that we only do poprushing in cities that we can't make happy (at 10% culture). And those cities should consider rushing theaters which give them +2 happy so then they can grow more in the future.

In those cities, +2 happy is what, 4 commerce at best (2 sea tiles, or river cottage). Which translates to +4 gp best case. If courthouse reduces maintenance by less, then theater, else courthouse. Plus we should get WW reduction soon by killing our ennemies, I think. Which makes courthouse more appealing to me. I'll wait for more input, and will also give a more detailled plan later.


I am tempted to suggest producing a settler somewhere, to rebuild the city of Sakae that we unfortunately razed (or perhaps 1E of the Sakae ruins). Primarily to get the spices. It might take too long to be worthwhile, though. I'm not sure.

Thought of that but else that doing it in spainland it will take a really long time (Karak could probably after sword, though).

Ok, I'll retool the plan. I think I need to provide:
- better pop rushing options
- better military production vs barracks
- tentative plan to rebuild Sakae
- clear picture of the forces availability on the 2/3 fronts to see what is missing.

Feel free to comment on the healer's issue. I can, as always, be very wrong. But based on Niklas's comment on how bombarding works, I doubt upgrade on it can be useful....

I said I was pretty sure *not* to keep it, except for tile control.... Plan is to raze it, but somehow we'll need some incredible culture to control Sal's continent with 3 city only. Of course we can always resettle elsewhere.

We'll have to build some settlers late in the game. This won't be hard to do, we will have cities with not much else to do (too late to build units and get them to the front lines and have them make a difference). Also we can poprush them if necessary.

I love healing cats. You usually spend a lot of turns sitting with them waiting for defense to be tear down. Which make them for me attractive healers. We have units who need or will be needing heal. I hate having to delay combat for that reason.

If you put the damaged unit in your newly conquered city, then it heals 15 HP/turn without a Medic. That's just as fast as it would heal if you put it in enemy territory with your Medic catapult. The best healing is with a medic and also in your own territory, but you don't want to leave your catapults sitting in your cities for several turns healing your other units, you want them to be marching toward the next city. It's ok if some of your damaged units need to stay behind for a few turns to heal, and then catch up with the catapults around the time the bombardment is done.

I promoted a catapult this game with Medic, but that's because it already had Combat 1 and I couldn't give it a more useful promotion. Accuracy is much better, trust me.

In those cities, +2 happy is what, 4 commerce at best (2 sea tiles, or river cottage). Which translates to +4 gp best case. If courthouse reduces maintenance by less, then theater, else courthouse.

Sure, courthouse is usually better than theater, but it also costs 2.4 times as much. If you reduce your population by 3 for many turns after building the courthouse, then you're probably losing more in potential commerce than the courthouse is gaining. Of course it depends how much of a food surplus you have. In cities with a very large food surplus then it's good to rush expensive buildings. But we don't really have a whole lot of those.

Feel free to comment on the healer's issue. I can, as always, be very wrong. But based on Niklas's comment on how bombarding works, I doubt upgrade on it can be useful....

The Accuracy promotion turns your 15% catapult into a 25% catapult. If you have two standard catapults, you need 4 turns to reduce a city's defenses: 4*(15%+15%) = 120%. If you have a standard catapult and an Accuracy catapult, you only need 3 turns: 3*(15%+25%) = 120%. So you can take that city a turn faster. And then move on to the next city a turn sooner and take it a turn faster, so you're two turns ahead. And so on.

Building more catapults works too, but the Accuracy promotion is almost the equivalent of having an extra catapult.

First, thanks, I am learning a lot :cool:.

I got your healing vs accuracy argument now. Makes things *much* clearer to me, even if healing in a newly conauered city should be 25 HPpt then :) (ok ok ok, got it, will not ask again).

I am then confused on the courthouse issue... Apart from spain cities (Toledo and Salamanca) we probably won't be rushing much courthouse then. But slow growing cities like Sal's could build then "by hand" in that case... Not much more commerce to expect there, not much growth either. Alex cities are somehow similqr in fact. I need to open the game to check this.

In all case better plan in regards to these inputs to come later.

Sorry I'm not contributing more to the discussion right now, I still haven't had the chance to look at the save. :(
(Usually I don't end up with 5/2 catapults because if I'm going to attack something with my catapult I will give it Combat 1 or City Raider 1 first, to increase my chance of winning. But since we do have it we should use it.)
Just to point out that to get access to the Accuracy promotion (which I always give my cats if possible), you need Barrage I or City Raider I. So I always give my cats CR I as their first promotion if I think they have a chance of winning an attack, Barrage I if they are like to lose and the only hope of survival is a retreat, and never ever Combat I.

I always give my cats CR I as their first promotion if I think they have a chance of winning an attack, Barrage I if they are like to lose and the only hope of survival is a retreat, and never ever Combat I.

In this game I was attacking Saladin's axe in the open. CR1 or Barrage wouldn't have helped, while Combat 1 increased by chance of winning a lot. A live catapult with the "wrong" promotion is better than a dead catapult. :lol:

healing in a newly conauered city should be 25 HPpt then :)

Sure. Giving Medic 1 to one of your injured axes or swords often makes sense. But your catapults aren't going to sit in a newly conquered city for several turns in order to heal your other units---they need to be pressing on to the next city---so Medic 1 on them isn't usually very useful.

I am then confused on the courthouse issue... Apart from spain cities (Toledo and Salamanca) we probably won't be rushing much courthouse then. But slow growing cities like Sal's could build then "by hand" in that case... Not much more commerce to expect there, not much growth either. Alex cities are somehow similqr in fact. I need to open the game to check this.

Yes, it's going to take a long time to build courthouses. This is why I said all along that COL isn't really very important or helpful. However it does make sense to start building them in some places because the game could still drag on quite a while (conquest definitely isn't going as fast as I hoped) and we do need to whittle away at our deficit. If we start building some courthouses by hand, then we can rush them if we get into economic trouble or WW gets even worse or the cities just organically grow enough to be unhappy. All I'm saying is I don't generally think it makes sense to rush them right away for 3-4 pop in cities that are not now unhappy. And please avoid rushing in cities that already have rush unhappiness (maybe a granary in Toledo is an exception).

@team:
sorry for delay, just out of a buisness metting *now* :( (god I hate those time zone issues....)
which means no plan update before tomorrow... I will post it in the morning, to be able to play during my night. Basically it will not change much from started discussions with DaviddesJ and Niklas, but feel free to jump in :)

Plan, v2 (mdifications in green)

Long Term:
Win by Domination

Medium Term:
Conquer Greece and Spain, and wipe out Saladin.

Short Term:
Conquer Damascus and probably Baghdad, unless peace brings some immediate (tech) rewards. Keep Damascus, raze Baghdad.
Conquer Athens, and keep :lol:
Conquers Barcelona and probably Salamanca. Both kept.


Military:

Arabia:
Send the Medina axe to kill Sal Catapult and upgrade to heal (9/10 XP), then move with 2 swords, an axe, 2 cats. Medina on Axe or Archer (whipped) to allow moving third sword in time.
Try peace after Damascus, and kill if needed.

Greece
We will get a forth galley in 5 turns (24+6*5+44 chopped=98>75, overflow 23) from Corinth if needed. We'll have 10 units to move then.
Option 1 (preferred):
move 6 units right now (3 swords and 3 cats) hoping we will not have axes to fight against... btw, I plan yo upgrade cat at 5 exp to combat/heal in case (they do only bombard most of the time anyway). Then refill with 2 (third could scout or go back to main land). I would then switch Galley in Corinth to an axe, chopped, overflow in Archer or Galley.
In the mean time bombarding can start.
Option 2:
Wait 5 turns... Well there is no real option 2 I guess :lol:

Spain
Regroup our 5 in front of Barcelona, bombard (2 times ?), capture. Should be done in 6 turns (2 turn move, 4 turn bomb+attack) since I was wrong on bombardement (thanks Niklas)
Regroup our other 5 in front of Salamanca. Requires 4 turns before attack. Could be completed in 8 turns.

Troop move/ferry:
6 units are in PS waiting with one galley available... 5 turns for ferrying + 4 turns on Bridge island... waiting for the highway here. Then even with some galley chain it will take at least 3 turns to move them (unless galley chain does not work as expected, I probably need advice here...) that's a whopping 12 turns before reinforcement in Spainland.
On mainland most troops should go towards Greece to provide another front to be opened next on mainland vs Alex then Cyrus (or Toku).


Tech
Currency for market, tech vs gold, ressource vs gold, and wealth.

Production:

Karak:
I am in doubt on this (still). So avoid rushing, and avoid growth. Finish axe, switch from Pig to Forest. Then (4 turns) Sword probably.

FS:
Finish sword then sword or spear in preparation for Cyrus.
SR:
Could whip a galley or finish it, then market if available, and no troops. Which means theater probably in 8 turns.
CuS:
Courthouse seems not useful as mentionned, so switch to sword. Research might also be soon an option (or not :))
PS:
Galley should finish, then Cat.
IS:
Galley then Axe probably.
Najran:
Pfou.... Worker maybe ? Galley seems useless to us at this pace (even after minig the hill). Market could be of some use, but not that much either. NEED ADVICE HERE... Lighthouse ??
Mecca:
Courthouse by hand then market or worker.
Medina:
Sword then Courthouse. I will spend one turn on an axe to be able to whip for it immedialty.
Sparta/Delphi/Corinth:
Finish production then courthouse. Delphi might switch asap. I think theaters are not an option here due to limited growth, but Sparta could use a Granary if we think it will culturally expand...
Toledo:
Granary, whipped asap. Then courthouse. I am buying the argument that it will be a nice city.
Seville:
Courthouse, whipped or not depending on growth/hapiness (dyes are too good to miss I think)


Some city worker assignment

Karak switchforest to shore
IS work gold from plain forest
SR scientist to shore
CuS mine to 2f2c cottage
Mecca artist/forest to 2f3c/2f2c cottage
Delphi shore to silver
going back to -40 gpt (do not know how to go lower without too much sacrifice) (open borders with Cyrus :) )

Worker
I'll let the workers finish the cottages in our mainland even if they will not be useful to us I think 5finished in 1&2 so). After chopping in IS, another chop. We then have 3 workers to move. I'll send them to Spainland, where Isabella has neglegted (I think° infra. They could also help roading the place. For Greeceland (Elvis anyone ?) we have 2 in silvertundria (chops for now) plus two from Najran if we get time to catch them here.

Trade
Toku Clam for 2gpt
Cyrus Silk for Pig. I doubt we need corn (or does it gives more friendly modifiers ?)
I would trade Drama to Cyrus for 250 gp, and Toku for 90. Even if it is monopoly. We could go COL and Construction, but construction...

Will play later today/tommorow morning, again feel free to comment.

No comments so playing now.

Turn 1 (227/660) 905AD

Lots of reassignements in cities as planned, OB with Cyrus, trade
ressources to Cyrus/Toku.
Deficit back to -26gpt (I did NOT trade drama since there is no strong
concensus on that....).
Switch production in Cus, lighthouse in Najran, based on the impression
that it should grow size 12 fast with its granary. Switch Toledo to granary
for early whipping.
Start chopping in Silver tundria.
Move troops in Spain towards our 2 targets.
Regroup *before* ferrying towards Athens. First to heal our best Galley,
then to allow everyone to move in 1 turn to the Greek coast.
Prepare ferry around Bridge Island, move sword/worker from PS.
Arabia war is started !! Kill catapult with sword ,then move every unit
from Medina since I spot an Axeman fooling around with sheeps (thought Saladin no longer had metal...).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/99729/arabian_war_1.jpg


Deficit up to 31gpt dut to troops moves...

Turn 2 (228/660) 920AD
Deficit up to -35gpt (Seville is out of resistance....). Toku suddenly has 3
more gpt to spend, so I trade rice (doubt health ressources are really
helpful for him, but that's his money...).

The kinf of things that makes me nervous:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/99729/relations.jpg

Back to buisness:

Regroup in front of Barcelona. 3 units there (2 chariots, 1 spear).
Regroup for Salamanca.
Lots of agitation around Bridge Island.
Ferrying to Athens, and hourra !! City is right here, defended by 1
Phalanx, 3 archers and a great artist :lol:.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/99729/athens.jpg
Do not really know what happend for our cat in Arabia, but it was
teleported to Medina.... Decide to skip the axeman for now, he is fortified
which do not provide a good fight. Damascus is protected by an Axe and an
archer.



Turn 3 (229/660) 935AD

Bombing in Athens.
The teleporting catapult has moved again :eek: !! I would guess it is
somehow on automove, but does not look so...
Bombing in Damascus (with only one cat....). Saladin has a catapult now.
Forgot to switch Seville to Courthouse. Do it now, whipped asap.
Bombing in Barcelona.
Troops moving toward spain.


IBT:
One chariot from Isabella vs Axe in Seville.
Catapult vs Sword in Damascus (as expected...).
Both fight won.

Turn 4 (230/660) 950AD

Situation on Damascus front is not brilliant... We are facing collateral
damage, and Saladin has (probably whipped) a new catapult.
Athens is down to 0%. I'll start attacking next turn, probably sacrificing
one cat (not sure).
Barcelona bombed, down to 24%.
Sneack attack on Seville has left us with a very wounded axe, and a
chariot who is not really helpful here (50% after upgrade to C1). I attack
anyway, I can whip a spear if I loose. That's a win !!!

IBT:
Attack on our stack in front of Damascus. Won again, but healing could
help :mischief:

Turn 5 (231/660) 965AD
Upgrade the winning chariot to Heal... And back to Seville.
Bombing Barcelona (+6%). Attack the lone Spear here, and win. ~160 gold
(can't remember exactly).
Attack on Salamanca. Both sword and Axe win. 90gp and the city is
ours. Bad news, deficit is now at -61gpt... (btw, noe real peace offer
from Isabella....).
Whip granary in Toledo. Start courthouse. (oddly deficit back to -60).
Attack on Athens. Tough because Alex has an axe... Decide to attack with
at least 2 cats and see (one is due in 2 turns, reimforcements (2 Swords) in 5
turns). First cat loose, second win (25/13%)!!! Then Sword vs Axe (won
90%), Sword vs
Archer (won 99%) twice, Sword vs Phalanx (won 98%). Last archer killed with a
cat (won 83%) and Athens is ours :) (deficit -69gpt). Two workers also (sent
back for chopping on Silvertundria since Athens will be out for 7 turns....).


Alex would give monarchy for peace.
I stop here for advice on the deal. I'll finish turnset tonight, but 4
questions are opened (for me):
- upgrading a sword to heal or not at Damascus ? Probably not, but in that
case, I'd upgrade them to CR1 I think.
- Peace with Alex or not ? Monarchy could allow for some more growth (ie
commerce) in core cities.
- Spain situation: we are waiting for troops, but getting them will take some
time... We need a local production for sure, but how/where ?
- Finance... We can spend ~12 turns at that rate, that's all.

The save

Monarchy doesn't help us at all since we have Pyramids now so can switch to any government civic we want (and we already have Wines). I don't see any reason to make peace with anyone at this time.

The first obvious move is to switch to Representation (Cyrus's favorite civic) and see if he'll trade techs with us then (Currency, at least). Plus, that immediately gives us +7 beakers/turn from our 2 super specialists, and some extra happiness so we can try going to 0% commerce. Whether he will trade Currency or not, we should trade something to Cyrus (Construction or COL) for his spare cash. But we can wait until after the Representation switch. [And, if Representation doesn't make him like us enough, we could consider switching to Judaism, next. Especially since anarchy is looking attractive!]

Should we switch to Caste System at the same time (in order to start working on a Great Merchant somewhere)? Mecca could support 3 merchant specialists, which with the Great Lighthouse and Parthenon gives us a GM in 24 turns. Admittedly, that interferes with other useful things it could build (like courthouse). But if a trade mission gets us 1000 gold, that's a pretty good payoff. It may be too far in the future though.

We certainly don't want to build even more troops in Spain! Sorry, but this is insane. We are way overbuilding troops, as it is---almost every city that's building units should be building courthouses instead (although, at this point, some of them would prefer markets, if we can get Currency immediately). We have plenty of units to conquer Spain and Greece and Arabia. And at this point fixing our economy may be more important than the wars anyway (since wars are going fine and economy isn't). Tokugawa is perhaps a bigger problem, but a couple of extra axes built now isn't going to make a whit of difference in dealing with him 30+ turns from now.

You could be more careful about trying to keep our units within our cultural borders where possible, to cut down on supply costs. Disbanding is not out of the question, either (which really illustrates why we shouldn't be building more!). It also seems like your galleys are sitting around not doing much (especially around Toledo), while our units traipse slowly.

One reason to get courthouses built is to build the Forbidden Palace somewhere. Madrid looks like a good possibility (lots of forests for chopping). Founding a new city near the ruins south of Hittite (lots of forests there too) is also a possibility. We could be planning ahead now to generally move our workers in that direction. The road on Bridge Island is really not worth much, our days of transporting units that way are nearly over. I would send these workers to the new world asap.

I would definitely give Medic to one of your swords outside Damascus, this is very clear.

A few more micro comments:

FS could work one more coast (instead of forest).
SR could work one more coast (instead of cottage---not a big difference).
IS is building an axe despite repeated requests not to build troops in cities without barracks (plus we already have too many units).
Najran should work the 2nd sugar.
Probably was better to raze Salamanca, but too late now.
I would probably use sword from Barcelona to kill Isabella chariot SW of Seville this turn.

Some comments on comments, without any bad feelings ;) :
* :blush: :blush: :blush: sorry I forgot we now have the Pyramids... Which makes Monarchy a bad choice, but triggers question on switch to REPR/PS a hotter one.
* courthouse: I thought we did not want them...
* we need troops any way, even bad ones, just to protect our newly conquered cities... Keeping a CR2 sword in Barcelona is just insane, period. I am willing to disband some if required, but I think getting the conquest going, which is our better cash provider btw, requires new troops like axe/spears. Not too much, but some still. And since most our newly conquered cities are on infra, when not in disorder, we still need some.
* where do I have troops outside our cultural borders apart from those who are in Saladin's land ? I am trying there.... but could not find too much.
* I mostly agree on bridge island road, but we should be building a city here. With 2 clams a a horse, it could be self-sustaining pretty fast (plus produce some money/troops).
* we already talked about caste, I like it>. would also allow some artistic expansion in few places (sparta, seville) that could help.

The way I see it, you build troops like mad until you have enough of a surge to overpower your intended enemies. Then you backfill your economy. We have passed the first stage and we need to move quickly into the second stage. And we can't afford to support even more units, so it makes no difference if we would like to have more, we simply can't afford it.

Cost of all the troops slowly walking across bridge island is significant. War in Arabia is costly too, but hopefully over soon (I don't understand the whole thing about the missing catapult, it seems to me you must have accidentally clicked to give it a move order out of Saladin's territory as I can't really think of another explanation). Costs are going to get even worse when our newly conquered cities come out of resistance. But a big part of our budget is not going for cities, it's paying for our army.

There's a real likelihood that our economy is going to crash, for a variety of reasons. We have to take this seriously. Founding new cities, or building any more units, before we get our house in order, is just out of the question. (Although I would still take the spice city back if we could get it, it probably would have been better to raze the two newer cities from Isabella, or at least Salamanca. And it would probably be prudent to raze Damascus, which isn't going to pay for itself, although it would be more convenient to be able to keep it and move into it.)

We should really try extra-hard to get units within our cultural borders, even at the cost of delaying conquest. I am not sure if units in Persia count for supply---if not, then moving units through Persia to prepare for attack on Isabella would be smart.

We should only be building stuff that helps with our economy. Mostly, that means courthouses first---even if we get Currency, Karakorum is our only city that gets significantly more benefit from market than from courthouse. Cities building courthouses could emphasize growth even into unhappiness, so that they can use the extra population for pop rushing, but that assumes we're going to stay in Slavery rather than Caste System (or switch back).

We should be using workers almost exclusively for things that help our economy, including chops for buildings and developing commerce tiles. But this is mostly too slow to make a big difference.

As I said before, I think we have to go to Representation to try to get Currency. If we want to reduce WW, maybe we should make temporary peace with Alexander (for Monarchy?). We aren't immediately ready to attack him further, and we don't have a lot to gain by doing so. Taking the rest of his cities will be easy when we are prepared.

We could make peace with Isabella, too, using the next 10 turns to prepare for a coordinated thrust at her remaining cities.

Where are Argos (Greece) and Nara (Spain)? We'll want to locate these last cities so we can wipe these opponents out completely.

Argos is probably just west of Pharsalos.

You are probably right on razing Salamanca, this city will be mostly no developping... Food and to few production.

Do we want to switch to Repr/Caste or stick with slavery ? Caste would allow merchants/scientists/artists everywhere. Najran can sustain 3 spec, Karak could do the same. Toledo should soon too. Getting merchants could be better under Repr.

Peace with Alex and Isabella is ok for me if we think it helps. I would have gone up to Madrid though, but it is not clear that we have enough troops in time for that, so ok. I'd finish Saladin though, razing everything.

The switch to courthouse is ok, but do we want to build them in mainland too ? We can, for sure. Thought theater was the way :D

On the micro comment, I can delay the axe in IS, but to build what ? Courthouse ? Barracks ? I'd build research here probably. Or a lighthouse, but that should have been done before I guess. A size 1 city should go for troops, not having a barrack here is weird. Anyway.

Do we want to switch to Repr/Caste or stick with slavery ? Caste would allow merchants/scientists/artists everywhere. Najran can sustain 3 spec, Karak could do the same. Toledo should soon too. Getting merchants could be better under Repr.

The extra beakers from specialists under Representation are not worth much, I think. Research isn't that useful to us. Metal Casting would make sense if we can build Colossus, but I think China or Japan will beat us to it. [If Saladin ever offers Metal Casting for peace, I would take it, but I'm not holding my breath!] If we get Monarchy from Alex, then we could go for Feudalism for Vasselage (and longbowmen so that as we expand we can also defend ourselves), but that is a long ways off. I think I would research Compass next (after Currency); the harbors are cheap for us and will generate some extra money.

The main question is do we want the GPP (and, specifically, Great Merchant for trade mission). It's going to be quite a while before Toledo or Najran grows big enough for 3 specialists (and then even longer to produce a GM in any of them), so I don't think that really plays into our current thinking about Caste System. Karakorum could run as many as 4 merchants, but at the cost of working many good commerce tiles.

But Mecca could run 4 merchants right now (with no growth), which would give it 21 GPP/turn, so actually it could pop a Great Merchant in 20 turns. I'm not sure what a trade mission will be worth on this map, but it should be several hundred gold, at least. A problem is that implies we have to defer attacking Cyrus for long enough to complete a trade mission, which we may not want to do---he's looking like a pretty soft target.

Slavery will definitely help us build some courthouses faster, especially in the distant cities like Spain's. So my inclination would be to stay in Slavery rather than switch to Caste System, but I could see it either way. We could go back and forth, but then the Great Merchant will take even longer, maybe too long to be useful.

The switch to courthouse is ok, but do we want to build them in mainland too ? We can, for sure. Thought theater was the way :D

I'm worried that you aren't taking the economic crash seriously enough. We need to improve our cash flow now or watch our troops disappear. It may already be too late.

On the micro comment, I can delay the axe in IS, but to build what ? Courthouse ? Barracks ? I'd build research here probably. Or a lighthouse, but that should have been done before I guess. A size 1 city should go for troops, not having a barrack here is weird. Anyway.

We might as well finish it, we can lea