Round 0: In the Beginning (4000 B.C.)
Round 1: Land Grab! (4000-2600 B.C.)
Round 2: Too Slow? (2600-1120 B.C.)
Round 3: The Fall of Rome (1120-375 B.C.)
Round 4: Back to Normal (375 B.C.-400 A.D.)
Round 5: The Setting of the Sun King (400-920 A.D.)
Round 6: Adios, Isabella (920-1110 A.D.)
Round 7: Lightning War? (1110-1220 A.D.)
Round 8: Wars of Annihilation (1220-1540 A.D.)
Round 9: The First Elizabethan War (1540-1615 A.D.)
Round 10: On Safari (1615-1735 A.D.)
Round 11: Age of the Panther (1735-1806 A.D.)
Round 12: Afrika Korps (1806-1840 A.D.)

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0211.jpg

In this game, we will be playing as Frederick in the Earth 18 Civs scenario (which everyone should have access to, under "Play a Scenario"). Germany on this map traditionally takes on the role of buffer between the small but influential civilizations of Europe (France, England and Spain) and the west Asian superpowers (Persia, Russia, and we'll throw Egypt in here, too). Greece, Rome, Mali and Arabia also fall into Germany's sphere of influence, but on this map they tend to be peripheral characters at best.

History will teach us, of course, that being surrounded by powerful neighbors tends to suck. Just ask Poland. Therefore, we will not stand idly by as our neighbors pick us apart bit by bit over the course of centuries. Instead, we will reach out and take what is rightfully ours! By what right do we claim, well, everything? Let's see. Might makes right. That's a start. We'll make the rest up as we go along.

So, long story short, our goal is to play as Germany and seek a domination win.

Anyway, here's our starting position:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0212.jpg

Frederick's settler starts one tile from the coast, which is no good at all. We could move 1 N and grab those two pigs and a wheat, or move 1 NW and grab the same plus whatever's hidden in the fog (This is Europe, so it's bound to be worth grabbing). Moving west will put us closer to France, which is both a good thing (in terms of military proximity) and a bad thing (in terms of cultural pressure and eventual city overlap).

Then again, Germany never has been much of a naval power, so maybe we should move inland, to the south, both to put us closer to Rome and to give us more land tiles with which to get our wehrmacht started. We have a scout that needs our attention first. Move him onto that forested hill to see what we can see? Or check out the east?

Move scout E->SE or NE and settler W and post a screenie. ( Just to get a better picture. I wouldn't settle in place anyway ( I hate 1 offcoast starts )). My bet would be 1 S of your starting location

I did not check the first one, but shall follow this. Nice idea, as I am into Earth maps too;)

Scout 1S 1SW.
Settler 1S and found the city there.

Research: BW, Agriculture, AH.
Production: Worker first, then grow to happy cap while building Warriors, then start pumping out Settlers.

Long-term I'd try quick initial Settler spam. Germany should have some sweet land + we are Organized. Get yourself nice 6-8 cities (do you have that much reasonable spots?), then give your SE a go. No axe-rushing, wait for cats. By this time, we'll probably get a Holy City from Izzy and hopefully some wonders from Louis. :D

You don't want to move west -- you're already overlapping Paris where you are. Either 1N or 1S, with 1S giving better eventual dotmapping and final production, but 1N giving better initial terrain with tons of food.

We are allowed to know stuff about the map beforehand, right?

I did not check the first one, but shall follow this. Nice idea, as I am into Earth maps too;)

Scout 1S 1SW.
Settler 1S and found the city there.

Research: BW, Agriculture, AH.
Production: Worker first, then grow to happy cap while building Warriors, then start pumping out Settlers.

Long-term I'd try quick initial Settler spam. Germany should have some sweet land + we are Organized. Get yourself nice 6-8 cities (do you have that much reasonable spots?), then give your SE a go. No axe-rushing, wait for cats. By this time, we'll probably get a Holy City from Izzy and hopefully some wonders from Louis. :D

If we get more than two cities built before we're closed in, we'll be lucky. Remember that, on this map, Berlin's fat cross is about the size of Germany on a real map. Cathy is off to the east, and she tends to expand in our direction, and every other way to go has a capital or two within 6 squares.

Let the other fools build cities -- we build axes and get the cities thrown in for free!

I do agree on the tech path, though.

I agree that 1S is probably best. city 2 should net you copper, wherever it may be( i don't have any of the resources memorized), i'm thinking it might be se of start. then use a third city (if you have time) to place on the northern coast. Suggested tech path sounds good.

Germany is in an interesting position on this map, in online play the Germans and the mongols are both always eliminated quickly due to the fact they start with scouts. My advice

1. Build up axes, France is your first target because Louis's culture is really suffocating at times. Next is Rome, then Greece and Spain, then build up a bit of a navy to finish off Europe with England, by this time you should be emerging as a world power alongside Persia, Egypt, Russia, India and China with Arabia, Mali, Japan, Mongolia and the America civs as minor powers. Last time I played freddy I had this fully done about the time that muskets started showing up. You can do it faster if you keep pressing your advantage.

2. Hit Russia first, as they are the closest. Move from there to Persia, Arabia, then Egypt. From there, take out Mali and consolidate control of Africa and Europe/the middle east, fill in and power up. I was about done here when I got infantry

3. Rush through India and China and you are the master of the world with only a few insects left alive, crush em or work around them, your choice.

I'll second Quornix's question: we're allowed to know about the map beforehand, right? If not, don't read the rest of my post! :D

Move the scout NW to grab the hut in Belgium before Louis gets there, move the settler 1S and settle - it leaves room for a nice double-pig city to the NW (which Louis will probably build for you while you build axes), as well as a city NE which makes any cottage-spammer green with envy.

Grabbing the Belgium hut also gives you a chance at the hut SE of Berlin before Alex or Ceasar get to it - but only if the AI's random fog-clearing goes your way.

Germany starts with two *HUGE* advantages over the rest of western Europe - you get copper, and room to REX to a 2nd or 3rd city while you're whipping/chopping/building axemen.

I would leave England alone, only because you and Liz will probably both end up with whatever religion Isabella nabs, and financial Lizzie makes for a great trading partner. Sure, the cultural pressure will limit Paris a bit, but Paris is still a tasty production city without the NW part of the fat cross.

BTW, I only know any of this because I started a Freddie 18-civ earth map game last night. The King of the World series inspired me to try out the huge 18-civ earth map, which I had never considered doing before.

Oh, I know everything I need to know about what's where. The problem is, I'm conflicted as to whether we should "know" about the map in our discussions.

On the one hand, the map is the same every time we play it, so eventually, it's going to be impossible to plead ignorance. On the other, I'd like to use this series not only to play a game online and glean the advice of more experienced players, but also to raise awareness of what I think is a really cool map.

Part of the appeal, of course, is knowing what's coming and planning accordingly. Are you the Mongols? Don't worry, you'll have horses, but you'll have to fight for decent city sites. Are you France? You'll be dealing with Germany, Spain and England. Are you the Aztecs? You won't have iron, but your unique unit takes that into account. You get the picture.

What do you all think? Should we do away with omniscience-speak? Should we just say what we all know anyway? Should we put things like that in spoiler tags, like this:
The reason I brought up 1 NW is to snag some cows for the capitol, too. That would be an ungodly food city!
? Personally, I feel that since the map is pretty much open, we should say what we want, but if anyone has a problem with that, I'm willing to acquiesce.

The reason I brought up 1 NW is to snag some cows for the capitol, too. That would be an ungodly food city!
? Personally, I feel that since the map is pretty much open, we should say what we want, but if anyone has a problem with that, I'm willing to acquiesce.

Yeah, but you'll catch those cows if you go 1N, while if you go 1S, you can get them and build on the pigs. Anyway, you'd miss the copper in the fat cross at 1NW

No problem either way for me.

We moved the Settler 1W and the Scout E-NE and...

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0213.jpg

Cows! Two pigs, a cow, AND a wheat would put St. Louis (from KotW #1) to shame. But you all are right. Too many issues with having Louis right there. So... SE of the current location, then?

"There is no map problem that a few Axemen can't solve."

I'm playing a semi shadow game in Vanilla. Are Frederick's Traits the same in Warlords or different? I have Creative and Philosophical.

This is going to be interesting. Since Europe is going to be crowded quick expansion is going to be incredible important. Use all the knowledge of the map since it is going to be hard anyway. This will start to look as always war soon ;)

Ahem, on a map THAT crowded, an axeman rush probably should not be skipped.:blush:
I had a vague idea that Huge map should have larger Europe, but...nevermind.

Take out rome, followed by greece, then france and spain(spain will probably give you a religious holy city) finally look to the east. Always secure your flank first! I know some people want to just go marching to china right off the bat, but that's not going to work. The distance will cause logistical nightmares, not to mention that someone will be right under your nose to attack you at all times (rome and greece).

AThousandYoung: In Warlords, Creative gets swapped out for Organized. Which is better for the establishment of a pan-Eurasian empire, but it will make Louis' culture a problem in the short term, especially once he gets a few Wonders up. Of course, taking those wonders is the whole point of letting him live for a while, so I can't complain...

"There is no map problem that a few Axemen can't solve."

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Best. Point. EVAR.
Jet for Diplomatic victory.

Jet is loosely quoting Dr Eimer's statement that had been for a long time in the ALC man sig... but is not completely right: try to solve isolation with a axe rush.... :p :lol:

On topic: Second city and BW are top priorities. Europe is cramped and the one that gets axes first will have decisive advantage. I agree with finishing first the guys with early UU, especially the Romans ( greeks should be destroyed too )

1SE (since you took the free move to the west). Copper is in the small square there, so you can make Rome your second city. You start with mining, so go Worker/Worker/Axeman.

I just checked the map, and I think you'll need a road to use the copper, so tech Wheel/BW and road up your resources and battle path before picking up the copper. You will want to use the Mine command rather than chopping then mining the copper -- the chopped hammers can then go to an axe rather than something else.

Perhaps Worker/Worker/Barracks/Axeman for your build order.

1SE (since you took the free move to the west). Copper is in the small square there, so you can make Rome your second city. You start with mining, so go Worker/Worker/Axeman.

I just checked the map, and I think you'll need a road to use the copper, so tech Wheel/BW and road up your resources and battle path before picking up the copper. You will want to use the Mine command rather than chopping then mining the copper -- the chopped hammers can then go to an axe rather than something else.

Perhaps Worker/Worker/Barracks/Axeman for your build order.

What the heck!!! How do YOU know where copper is??????

Cheers.

What the heck!!! How do YOU know where copper is??????

Cheers.
I've played on Earth before? Knowledge of the map is one of the benefits of playing on the Earth map. Last game, we knew the Aztecs wouldn't have any access to metals, and that the Americans would likely only have Iron, (copper was up in New England/Canada) so we went with a fast Jaguar rush.

I'll go back and spoiler it, though. Neal didn't seem to care either way.

EDIT: Although you might want to do the same in your quote of me.

You guys are jerks :) Yeah, it's a little ridiculous pretending not to know what we saw clear as day in the previous game. If someone takes offense at seeing the EARTH map spoiled, they're kind of missing the point. So say what you will.

edit: Oh, I should be playing the first round tonight.

In this round, we took a bit of a short-term disadvantage for a long-term advantage.

First off, since we're no longer going to pretend that we don't know what the map looks like, I took back that scout move and sent him west. It's our only way to nab that hut in Denmark. My apologies to the purists out there.

We founded Berlin in the consensus site to the south:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0215.jpg

As you can see, we started on a warrior (to grow the city) and Bronze Working (for obvious reasons).

Our scout did indeed beat ol' Louis to the hut:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0218.jpg

As you can see, the French warrior is two spaces away (two spaces we wouldn't have had with the original scout move). We received a little bit of gold. Nothing special, but I'll take it. It's better than a map.

We then sent that scout rocketing into the icy north and, somehow, beat the Russkies to a hut in Sweden:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0219.jpg

As you can see from the screenshot, yes, we went Settler over Worker for the second build. Unfortunately, if you go Worker first, it's almost impossible not to get beaten to your second city site. I don't like it (it results in an awful lot of raw tiles being worked), but I don't see an easy alternative.

That hut was a gem:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0220.jpg

I'll take free Agriculture any day.

We then sent the scout east, to meet as many people as possible before being eaten by a bear (a pretty grim job description, I'll be the first to admit). He won a couple of fights against wolves, taking Combat I in the hopes of maybe seeing service as a medic. Then, improbably, he found this east of Moscow:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0222.jpg

Yowza! Getting three huts as a Eurasian civ is quite a coup on this map!

What was in that hut, you ask?

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0223.jpg

The newly christened Dr. Scout beelined back home. He was now far too valuable to risk in the dark woods of eastern Europe.

Berlin completed its settler and immediately started on the long-delayed worker. The settler immediately founded city #2:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0224.jpg

After a couple of turns, Berlin whipped its worker to completion. I want to get a barracks completed before starting on axes, and Berlin's back down to a single pop, so I started the worker on farming the wheat before mining the copper. Maybe a mistake, maybe not. Hamburg started on a Warrior, both for growth and to give it that all-important early protection (I trust Cathy about as far as I can throw her- even a single club guy is better than nothing).

So here's the map as far as we know it in 2600 B.C.:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0225.jpg

We're going to be a little late to the rush party, but not horribly so. Worse comes to worst, we can always crush Caesar's mine first if he's got his Iron hooked up. At this point, how many Axes do you all think we'll need? 5? 10?

Oh, and the save (I can post saves again! At least until they start getting huge):

5 axes to get it going while continuously pumping out more via chops and whips. quick striking is of the essence. I can't believe that not only does louis have masonry, but he's already managed to build 2 quarries in his spare time!! Oh, and chop the forest on that copper to rush the barracks (i'm sure you were going to anyway)

Well, this being Monarch, I do believe the AIs start with a worker. And you know how much Louis loves his wonders, so it makes sense that Masonry would be a priority for him.

Well, lookey there. You have copper :)

Sorry about that. I forgot this was an earth map.

Axe Rush all the way!

Cheers.

I'd say 6 or 7 axes and see if you cann't preposition to steal a worker quickly.

Started an 18 civ monty game yesterday after reading some of the post. Hadn't played vanilla in so long I'd forgotten about the map.

Who to hit first? France:)

King of the Castle Hayne :king:

I just replayed freddy on earth just to get some insight for this game. You want to axe rush ASAP, with your initial 5-6 axes you can take out france and spain easily, a few more and you have Rome and greece, and a few galleys and you've got England. BetterAI fixes this though, annoying as fast landgrabs early on are key to all of my tactics :(

After seeing that you built a settler, rather than going straight for the axe rush, I decided to play my own. I finished my first CR axe at ~2450 BC, and by ~2000 [EDIT: 1650, actually. I just exited the game to install BTS and wanted to double check], I had wiped out the Romans, and moved in on Greece. :p And my scout got a map (:rolleyes:) from the first hut, and eaten by something or other before reaching the second.

Definitely try to take out Caeser before he gets praets! He had slavery up before I'd finished BW myself (wheel-BW-AH, worker/barracks/axes), so you may not have much time. And you still need the wheel to connect the copper, for both cities. It's on the wrong river, I think. Do you need a road for adjacent resources? I always assumed so, but wasn't sure.

Don't chop the forest over the copper. Mine it directly, and any overflow from the barracks can go into a axe, since you'll have copper when the chop hits.

6 axes should be fine for Rome, but the second city he'll found on the hill on Italy's toe could be rough going if you lose a few taking it.

I actually think Louis is better to pound into dirt first so you can mitigate London's culture-push on Paris - then Isabella - then Rome. So what if he has Praet's at that point? Axes plus axes plus axes (and maybe some axes) being cranked out by three capital cities and two settled cities *better* be able to lay the slapdown on some praetorians.

Remember that pre-catapult, the best weapon against a praetorian is multiple axemen, especially if you plan your promotions for a few +25% vs. melee axemen when you tank Isabella.

Either way, though, you should end up with Paris, Madrid, and Rome all pre-construction if you play your cards right, so I don't suppose it really matters. :D

In my game I had a Scout get picked up by Louis' cultural borders and spit out the other side between Spain and Rome. It was funny.

I can see why Germany and Italy seem to team up a lot IRL. They don't have access to one another due to the Alps but are able to coordinate against a third party well.

You should've built on copper so u can slave/chop rush axe army incredibly fast before europe has archers, on my earth game i just finished same settings as yours for my german domination win, i took paris madrid and athens with axes and waited for sword and cats for rome and russia (just make sure u camp or kill rome asap so he doesnt get prae's). you are best off running a specialist economy as a domination victory requires constant conquering/colonizing of new land so i would prioritize pyramids after the rush.

For long term you want to prioritize military units with speed (knights cavalry and panzers) taking the world with macemen rifles cannons and infantry is just way to time consuming. In my domination victory i had all of europe and russia by knights and had all of egypt and mid east with cavalry. Asia and africa got to suffer a stack of 50+ panzers.

In this round, I think the faults in my early gambit are revealed.

In the early round, we learned two very important things:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0214.jpg

First, France has founded a Denmark city that we were going to want anyway. So that's a good thing.

Secondly, Caesar now possesses the secret of Bronze Working. That is not.

Nevertheless, the rush must go on. Julie doesn't have copper, so that just puts us on the clock for his research of Iron Working.

In 2360, we sent Dr. Scout down to peek across the borders, and...

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0226.jpg

Lovely. Two archers. Easy pickings, assuming we can get our axemen ready in time.

I think it took too long. Getting the copper hooked up, followed by 3 or so turns per axe, resulted in our forces finally being ready in 1120 B.C.:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0227.jpg

I declared war and.... surprise!

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0228.jpg

Rome has Iron hooked up. Thankfully, it looks like it was just hooked up. The problem is, Rome is now staffed with five CGI bowmen and a spear. Behind a wall. Our eight axemen might be enough to break that city with a litle luck, but probably not. Especially since Rome will probably start rushing units now that hostilities have been initiated.

Honestly, if this were an offline game, this is where I'd learn from my mistakes and start over. I think the second city was a mistake. And I think that for a true rush we should've settled on the copper. As you could see, had we been able to field a force 1000 years earlier, Rome would have been woefully unprepared. Now it's bristling with defenses. We could've used Rome as city #2.

But, this is an online game, and I have the benefit of the hive mind. Can any of you see a way out of this? Here's the save:

Exactly how many Archers does Caeser have fortified in Rome? Does he have any other Praetorians than the one fortified on the hill? What promotions do they all have?

I had a similar experience. I went for Rome with like 6 Axes vs his 2 Archers. Declare War, and all of the sudden Rome is garrisoned with massive numbers of troops. This is with Vanilla, Better AI, and the Medieval Weapons mod.

If that Preat is the only one, march straigth to Rome. I doubt that it will reinforce the city ( or even attack you across the river ). Now that Rome has 4+ archers ,things can get ugly, but you can't go back or it can be even worse to you ( I don't think that you want to be Preat rushed, do you? :p )

P.S Romans have any other city?

Five City Garrison Archers and a Spearman. I could push for that fortified Praetorian and deny Rome her Iron, but those CG Archers will take 2 or 3 Axemen apiece to dislodge.

Five City Garrison Archers and a Spearman. I could push for that fortified Praetorian and deny Rome her Iron, but those CG Archers will take 2 or 3 Axemen apiece to dislodge.
Nuts. You'll need at least a couple more Axes if you want to take Rome, then. You should either punt and start over again (Perhaps as a different leader) or go for the Praetorian and the Iron. Take that hill and hold it while you bring in some extra axes.

Is that Rome tile on a hill?

Either way, you could either pillage everything around Rome and block him from using any production tiles. Alternatively you could leave 1 or 2 Axes on the chokepoint forest hill and use the rest on France. You could even sort of do both, pillaging northern Italy on your way to France. In that case I wouldn't leave any axes on the chokepoint yet, just send them all through and defend the chokepoint with reinforcements.

Head east into Russia instead. It sucks to have a negative modifier with Cathy, but everything else nearby is capitals with culture bonuses and walls. I think that Moscow's far enough away that you should be able to pick up a few cities that aren't capitals, but make good chop -> commerce cities.. Head back to take out France, Spain, Rome, and Greece once you've got catapults and maybe swords.

At this point, you MUST expand. Europe is no longer a soft target, so fight where you'll win.

...go for the Praetorian and the Iron. Take that hill and hold it while you bring in some extra axes.

I agree with this, take the iron hill, and choke rome until you bring more axes. Also, is Rome on a hill or not? That could kinda make or break it...

Rome is not on a hill. Which is the only reason I still hold out hope.

I propose plan B: Leave rome alone for now. pillage every tile rome has without hesitation. Kill anything that leaves the city onto flat land. If you can't take rome yet, cripple them for later. Get construction asap while rome is trying to recover(Ideally beelining it while using your axes to pillage all tiles, and leave them in the roman borders throughout the time you are researching to prevent rome from re-hooking up their iron. You may have been too late to take the city at this stage, but you can keep him on ice until your ready.)then come back with about 8-10 cats. I think you made a mistake in building so many axes. with only 5 at start you could have done better. Remember, your cities will continue producing re-inforcements throughout the war, so speed was of the essence. that's over now, so this is the plan that i propose.

Fortify 2 axes on the wooden hill you are standing on already, use some others to pillage... ...hid your main army just outside his visible range... ....very likely he will send out some defenders to stop you, then strike for him

OR

leave Rome alone and try out Greece...

Greece never seems strong on the world map and so attack them .. Russia is too far IMO and will drive your maintenance up + Cathy is probablly strong.

I propose plan B: Leave rome alone for now. pillage every tile rome has without hesitation. Kill anything that leaves the city onto flat land. If you can't take rome yet, cripple them for later. Get construction asap while rome is trying to recover(Ideally beelining it while using your axes to pillage all tiles, and leave them in the roman borders throughout the time you are researching to prevent rome from re-hooking up their iron. You may have been too late to take the city at this stage, but you can keep him on ice until your ready.)then come back with about 8-10 cats. I think you made a mistake in building so many axes. with only 5 at start you could have done better. Remember, your cities will continue producing re-inforcements throughout the war, so speed was of the essence. that's over now, so this is the plan that i propose.
That could work, but it's risky - if you declare peace in the meantime, he'll just rebuild the iron and we're back to square one. If you don't, then you have to pay maintenance costs for those units outside of your territory, and you can't use them in your war against France.

If you're going to occupy Italia for any length of time, I would suggest moving at least a portion of your army out back into your territory to save maintenance costs. Leave at least one or two Axes down there, of course, to keep Caeser from hooking up the Iron.

At this point, if you want to go on, I think you really only have two options: Either build a lot more Axemen (You'll probably need three or four more, plus replacements for however many you lose taking out the Praetorian) or you can tech to catapults while keeping Rome down and keep Caeser from hooking up his iron. Your call Neal.

That could work, but it's risky - if you declare peace in the meantime, he'll just rebuild the iron and we're back to square one. If you don't, then you have to pay maintenance costs for those units outside of your territory, and you can't use them in your war against France.

If you're going to occupy Italia for any length of time, I would suggest moving at least a portion of your army out back into your territory to save maintenance costs. Leave at least one or two Axes down there, of course, to keep Caeser from hooking up the Iron.

At this point, if you want to go on, I think you really only have two options: Either build a lot more Axemen (You'll probably need three or four more, plus replacements for however many you lose taking out the Praetorian) or you can tech to catapults while keeping Rome down and keep Caeser from hooking up his iron. Your call Neal.

Good point. He wouldn't need his entire army of axes, to reduce unit costs, but the idea is basically the same. harass and hound him, keep the iron from getting hooked up, and leave his workers hostage inside the cities.

Good point. He wouldn't need his entire army of axes, to reduce unit costs, but the idea is basically the same. harass and hound him, keep the iron from getting hooked up, and leave his workers hostage inside the cities.
Yep. The key is to keep him from building more Praetorians, if he gets a couple of those fortified in Rome, we're sunk.

If Caeser keeps the level of 5 Archers the same, I'm thinking 15-16 axes should do it total. I don't know if that is doable, but it's worth a shot. If the attack fails miserably, there's always other leaders.

I think the biggest issue right now is that we've pretty much declined having an economy in favor of the rush on Rome. Rome has to fall, one way or another, or we've wasted so much in the way of time and resources that continuing would be an exercise in frustration.

Thankfully, while building up our axemen of doom, I set us on a beeline to Construction. We have Writing and Mathematics, and Construction is on the way. Hamburg is building a library, both for that all-important culture pop and so that we can run a scientist or two. Hopefully, that will make Construction happen sooner rather than later, and we can get our cats rolling.

So, does that sound like a plan? Trash Rome's infrastructure, deny her production, and try to get some Catapults in here? Or would that take too long? I'll probably end up playing the next round tonight or tomorrow, so I look forward to your input.

I think the biggest issue right now is that we've pretty much declined having an economy in favor of the rush on Rome. Rome has to fall, one way or another, or we've wasted so much in the way of time and resources that continuing would be an exercise in frustration.

Thankfully, while building up our axemen of doom, I set us on a beeline to Construction. We have Writing and Mathematics, and Construction is on the way. Hamburg is building a library, both for that all-important culture pop and so that we can run a scientist or two. Hopefully, that will make Construction happen sooner rather than later, and we can get our cats rolling.

So, does that sound like a plan? Trash Rome's infrastructure, deny her production, and try to get some Catapults in here? Or would that take too long? I'll probably end up playing the next round tonight or tomorrow, so I look forward to your input.

I still say you should go after Catherine. Her border is next to Hamburg, and she likes to expand early. You should be able to pick up three or four cities with the losses you can expect on Rome alone. While your axes are getting you an Eastern Empire, you can build some infrastructure, then start building the cats to focus on the capitals of Europe. Head to CoL while building the cats, and you should be able to handle the upkeep.

"Quinctili Vare, legiones redde!"
-Augustus Caesar

Before there was Germany, there was Germania. A bunch of grubby people with axes that hated Rome and all it stood for. Of course, in our history, they hated Rome largely because Rome was expanding its influence via its legions into Germania.

In this game, we hate Rome because it's not as soft a target as we'd like it to be. The foul-tempered Axe guy part is the same, though.

To begin, we got right down to the business of denying Rome her Iron:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0229.jpg

It was more difficult than it should have been because of that stupid river that chops Italy in half. Two units' worth of Axemen died dislodging those pesky Praetorians.

Once that was done, it was just a matter of keeping Caesar from building reinforcements while I worked feverishly on my own:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0231.jpg

Wooo! Axe party in Italy! We even pillaged a few gold that would help keep our economy afloat for a while longer.

We got our libraries up and running rather quickly, in order to finish Construction. This had a nice little side benefit:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0232.jpg

Ever since I installed Warlords, it seems like the "order" of Great People is jumbled. Ah, well. My plan was to build an Academy in Berlin, both for culture and to boost our capitol in the future (Once we have some more production cities, Berlin is going to be a scientist mecca). He could lightbulb Alphabet, though, which would be crucial to backfilling some techs (The Construction beeline would give us Mathematics, which the AI seems to usually wait on).

We went straight to the unusually pensive Alexander, who didn't even have Writing yet:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0234.jpg

And temporarily halted our trading there (nobody was being especially generous with their offers).

In 550 B.C., it was time. Say it's impatient on my part, Say it's a prudent gamble, say that the money was going to run out before Catapults came onto the scene, but we couldn't wait any longer:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0235.jpg

I won't lie to you: We were absurdly lucky in our attacks. We won at least three 16% battles. Rome was reduced to a handful of heavily injured defenders:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0237.jpg

We had about ten Axemen in all left, most of which were severely injured. All of them, though, qualified for promotion to CR2, which healed them enough to get right back into action.

Oh, lest I forget, our advanced tactics (Throw Axemen at Bad Guy) encouraged the finest military minds of our age to flock to Berlin's banner:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0236.jpg

I settled him in the capitol for the ability to pump out 2-promotion units.

As promised, the following turn:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0239.jpg

Rome is ours! About 1500 years too late, but it's ours. Julius Caesar retreated to his winter palace in the southern tip of Italy, and, after a few turns to heal, our Axemen would be in hot pursuit.

Shortly thereafter, Isabella came to me with an offer I found it difficult to refuse:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0241.jpg

Honestly, everyone's gonna have Writing pretty soon, anyway, so we may as well get what we can for it. Oh, and one more thing about our ravishing Spaniard: How in Sid Meier's name did she not snag a religion!? She's almost not even worth conquering without a shrine. And speaking of religion, our lack of one is wreaking havoc both on our happiness (I'm having to run our cities with skeleton crews) and our cultural borders. Won't someone spread your beliefs to us? Please?

Alexander came back and showed us just what that magic metal was that allowed Rome to build those armored brutes:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0242.jpg

As our workers got back to work rebuilding Rome's ravaged infrastructure, we sent our newly refreshed soldiers out to conquer the rest of the peninsula:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0243.jpg

Our CR2 and CR3 Axes against unpromoted Archers? Piece of cake. We just studied up on our Advanced Military Tactics (Throw Axemen at Bad Guy) and...

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0244.jpg

Oh. Unfortunately, our run of luck seems to have run out. We're pretty low on Axemen now, and we might be starting to look like a target for Louis or Catherine. So I negotiated a truce with Caesar (He wouldn't give us anything, but he wasn't being belligerent about things, either).

Here's Germany proper in 365 B.C.:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0245.jpg

And the Roman territory:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0246.jpg

I guess the plan is to stock up on Catapults and finish Caesar followed by a strike on Louis, whose culture is now becoming a major concern. We're still screwed, mind you, but I think we may be starting to scrape our way out of our early hole.

My biggest concern is that I don't think Antium is Rome's last city. If you look at the screenshots of the ill-fated attack on that particular fortress-city, you'll see that Rome's borders turn southward somewhere in North Africa. I think Caesar may have snuck a Settler across the Mediterranean.

Which isn't really that much of a big deal, except for the fact that Rome (and Antium, should we be able to take it) will still suffer from "Motherland" unhappiness. Assuming Caesar's or Louis' borders don't swallow Rome up first, anyway (hence the Drama research- Well, that and the ability to buy happiness).

Of course, there's also the fact that, honestly, I think the assault on Rome should have failed miserably. Please believe me when I tell you that I didn't reroll and load to get that result, but I still feel guilty that it worked.

So I'm kind of ambivalent about this game. On the one hand, we're in a bad spot, and we should by all rights be in an even worse one. On the other, though, I have nobody to blame for the sorry state of the game but myself, and I'd hate to abandon what could be a winnable scenario.

So, yeah. After all's said and done, Germany's much harder on this map than I gave it credit for. I thank you all for all the help and support you've given me so far. Without you guys I'd've started over long ago. Here's the save:

Take France?

I'm totally puzzled. Why on earth didn't you settle on the copper? Sure it's not a MP game, but this seems a bit strange. Furthermore, you didn't even settle on the coast...
Then you settled a second city.
Not too bad. But you knew rome was going for iron, and you knew where it was. I would have declared with 1 axe, moved and fortfied it on the iron hill with Dr Scout to help him live longer while building more of them...?
After that you rampaged through Italy without taking Antium? Why?

Silly question I guess.
Rome is no threat anymore, but you need to remove or capture Antium to remove the cultural problem. Or don't you? a theatre + a library in Rome could do the trick, but it would be slow.
I guess 4 catapults and 5 axes would be faster.

Isn't Louis wonder happy yet? France has to go and has to go quikcly. With some pults and swordsmen you should be able to take paris and Orleans pretty quickly. This is going to be intense.

Isn't Louis wonder happy yet? France has to go and has to go quikcly. With some pults and swordsmen you should be able to take paris and Orleans pretty quickly. This is going to be intense.
by the time antium is taken, there should be some wonders in Paris :)

Take Antium first (not taking it last time kinda puzzled me), and hope that Louis builds you a couple wonders in the meantime...

I didn't take Antium because, as you can see in the second screenshot, the RNG gods were not kind to me, and I was down to 2 axes in my offensive force. Without having killed a single Archer. I wasn't going to take it without building some reinforcements.

Maybe making peace wasn't the best play, but I figured I'd build some catapults and another axe or two and redeclare as soon as the 10 turns are up. I have absolutely zero sources of happiness in my cities, and War Weariness was starting to kick in.

All Julie can build right now is more Archers, anyway. And once some Cats are online, those are no longer a serious threat.

Good work so far. I agree to take care of Antium and Then take down Paris. With Paris, Rome, and Berlin, you will have a nice core to a growing empire in place. Siege Units will be vital in these conquests. I would keep a siege unit on the production line at all times. Go for Fuedalism quickly to make some vassals out of the smaller civs.

Definetly an uphill battle. Little choice now. Those cultural borders will choke you out without acting.

Hey, you forgot the Maxim relating to early war:

Without Cats, against a high culture defended city, always have 2 times the number of attackers in your force than the number of defenders.

No wonder Antiuum survived :)

Anyway. Cats can solve any problem. Get a force of Swordsmen/Cats and take over the world!

Cheers.

Good job on the attack on Rome, Neal! The Antium assault was a tough break, though. I think with Rome and Iron, though, you can still win if you do it right, and have just a bit of luck.

What's unfortunate is that your assault failed, and all those archers are now going to be promoted. There's no help for that, though. I agree with Brave Jay's course of action - take care of Antium (With some of your shiny new Catapults and Swordsmen - however many you think is enough, then add in two Swords and two Catapults! Another failed assault, and you're doing) After you take Antium, make peace with Rome if Caeser is still around, and then attack France when you have a large enough force. (That's probably for the round after next)

Catapults are a great relief to finally have, but the even more devastating weapon, the trebuchet, is just an engineering tech away.

Catapults are a great relief to finally have, but the even more devastating weapon, the trebuchet, is just an engineering tech away.

Actually its just a metal casting, machinery, engineering tech away afaik.

Actually its just a metal casting, machinery, engineering tech away afaik.

It seems there's always someone spoiling my vague generalizations with cold hard facts :p

In this round, things have started to look up. We established our borders, continued to build up our military, and got our specialist economy up and running.

In the beginning, we made a deal with the devil:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0000-1.jpg

Yeah, we're putting Catapults into the hands of someone who's just crazy enough to use'em. The way I see it, though, she was gonna research Construction sooner or later, anyway, and this way we a) get something for it, and b) maybe get on her good side a little bit.

Hinduism spread to Hamburg. Finally, a religion! We quickly adopted it and joined the Hindu bloc. Its founder, our new buddy Saladin (in most games, that's a contradiction in terms) offered to help us with the finer points of religious observance in exchange for advice on putting on a show:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0001-1.jpg

In 125 B.C., I felt that our forces were sufficient to take Antium (Well, that and the Peace Treaty finally ran out):

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0002-1.jpg

I'll admit, I thought I was reaching for Drama. It was kind of a knee-jerk reaction sort of play to get Theaters up to fight off the French borders, but Saladin gave us a nice selection of religious techs for it. Not only that, but we recieved another pleasant surprise as our war machine trundled toward Caesar's last foothold (get it? Because Italy looks like a.... never mind) on the continent. Our belligerent neighbor Catherine offered us this for it:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0003-1.jpg

Monarchy! Hereditary Rule! Finally, our happiness problems are over (or at least abated significantly)! We took the opportunity to adopt not only that, but Organized Religion as well.

By the birth of Christ, we had largely pummeled Antium into submission:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0005-1.jpg

I've gotta say, we got really lucky on those withdrawal rolls. Our throwaway suicide cats can now upgrade into useful veteran units.

Antium fell with only the loss of a catapult and a pair of Axemen:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0006-1.jpg

As you can see, we're researching Literature. Unfortunately, a couple of our colleagues already have it, so we're a little behind in the Great Library race. Once the tech was researched, all of my workers immediately booked it to the lands around Berlin for the deforestation effort.

Also, Rome does have some presence in north Africa. Lacking boats (and much interest in competing with Hatsepshut for marginal land), we let Julie throw in the towel:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg

We scored another miracle in 275 B.C.:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0011-1.jpg

The Great Library! We also got Hypatia, who looks a little more... mannish than she's usually depicted. She taught us the secrets of philosophy, despite the fact that Taoism was already on the map. Long-term, maybe I should have settled her, but Philosophy is one of the most expensive single-bulb techs out there, and it should be tradeable.

Indeed, Hatty stepped up to the plate with a nice little offer:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0012-1.jpg

And Alexander (already relegated to "little buddy" status on the map) gave us another crucial tech.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0013-1.jpg

Finally, we met Elizabeth, who we easily got up to Cautious with a little gift:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0014-1.jpg

I love Lizzy. She's so easily bought.

So, state of the world. Here's Germany with a focus on the Wehrmacht in Berlin:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0015-1.jpg

And Italy:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0016-1.jpg

I should be getting that tile back from Alexander pretty soon, so Italy will be whole once again.

(Why the Archers, you ask? Well, Louis is our next target, and he WILL couterattack. Nothing's better for fending off a counterattack than CG Archers)

Here's the Diplomatic Advisor:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0017-1.jpg

Our list of friends and enemies is starting to take shape. It's pretty much Judaism vs. Hinduism. We do have a lot of Christianity in our lands, and the holy city is in southern France, protected only by a pair of Longbows. But adopting Christianity at this point would make us an international pariah.

Finally, the power graph:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0018-1.jpg

Given the amount of hammers I've devoted to units, I'm surprised it's so low, though I will admit that a lot of those units died to take Rome.

So, anyway, I'm glad to say that I think we've weathered the storm. We have a little bit of breathing room, and we should have an army capable of taking France (and, by extension, Spain) pretty soon.

... Right?

The save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-0400.CivWarlordsSave

Do Louis already made some nice wonders for you ( like the sistine chapel or the mids)? Some scouting would be apropriate ( sigh, you didn't have OB with him. Oh well, that means that he probably spent most of the time building wonders...)

P.S Why you don't use the upload system of CFC for those big files ( single file limit is 10 MB )?

You're so smart. Thanks, Rolo!

Just take care of one thing: At 500/600 kb per save, the 30 MB will disappear as fast as candies in the hands of children.... :p

Oh, no. It's 500-600 KB a save now. Once we gwet into, say, the industrial era, you're talking a meg, meg and a half.

You spend most of your time building units yet even Louis the culture guy and most other civs are higher on the power graph. The AI does build a lot of defensive units though so they have much less potential to inflict damage as attackers than you. Add the fact that you know how to concentrate your forces and use siege properly and they stand no chance. :lol:

We may be a few thousand years late, but our original game plan is back.

The beginning of the round came with a sobering reminder:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0020-1.jpg

Wow. Caravels in 520. Looks like we're gonna be playing the good, old-fashioned continental power Germany. The Americas are gonna be full up by the time we get over there.

You can also see the announcement of a couple of wonders- The Church of the Nativity in woefully-underdefended Lyons (which is a good thing), and the construction of Chichen Itza (which I could frankly care less about).

We managed to trade happiness modifiers with our good buddy Qin:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0021-1.jpg

Admittedly, with our SoD in our biggest city, we don't really need it, but hey, it might come in handy on a rainy day.

Genghis Khan came by for a visit with hat in hand:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0022-1.jpg

Yeah, take it. There are Caravels wandering around the Mediterranean. I don't think Metal Casting is much of an advantage anymore. I'd rather not have to deal with a bunch of Keshiks running around burning my cottages, anyway.

Cyrus came by and offered another trade:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0023-1.jpg

Calendar probably ended up doing more harm than good (I have no Plantation resources and would end up... acquiring Stonehenge), but the rest is well worth it.

Our stack of doom was taking shape in Berlin (swords and catapults). I wasn't looking forward to the massive casualties I'd suffer against longbows. Mansa Musa, though, offered me the chance to kick things into high gear:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0024-1.jpg

Note my progress on Machinery up top. That sounds like it's worth 250 gold to me. Even as my enemy, Mansa ends up being more benefit than hindrance.

And Asoka completed the deal:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0025-1.jpg

The couple of turns off of Machinery was trivial (though certainly nice), but Theology and the gold was crucial.

I immediately changed civics and started pumping out Macemen:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0026-1.jpg

And upgrading some of my more experienced Swords.

Charlie Darwin was born in Berlin, babbling something about natural selection. I put him to work in the paper mills:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0027-1.jpg

And bought Cyrus' map with it. Being such a central power, and friendly, he was our best choice to expand our horizons beyond our pitiful borders:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0028-1.jpg

Here's what we learned. It turns out that Russia isn't quite as scary as I'd thought, after all:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0029-1.jpg

Cyrus did a great job of cutting Catherine off. Of course, a small nation tends to have an inordinately huge army, given that they have nothing better to put their hammers towards.

In 680, we were finally ready to roll on Paris:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0030-1.jpg

We made some final trades to build up a war chest (Paper to Cathy for Compass and 420 gold, Drama to Qin for 110) and let slip the dogs of war.

Louis sent a frankly pathetic offensive stack right into the teeth of our SoD:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0035-1.jpg

We ended up losing a catapult, but that's acceptable.

As we finally parked outside gay Paree, we received a nice little punch in the gut:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0037.jpg

What gives, Qin? We're in the same religious bloc and everything! Genghis jumped on the bandwagon, too.

Needless to say, my allies were not going to let this stand:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0038-1.jpg

That should keep them busy for a while. Ladies and gentlemen, I think this qualifies as World War I! :king:

In 840 A.D., the Germans took Paris. Scratch out the year, and that sentence has a sadly familiar ring to it:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0039-1.jpg

What was inside? Sadly, no Pyramids, but an interesting assortment of stuff nonetheless:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0040-1.jpg

Chichen Itza? No wonder there were more casualties than expected! Ah, well. I guess in a crazy map like this, that might actually end up helping out once or twice. And there's Stonehenge. Why did we accept Calendar, again?

To the south, I'd sent a Catapult and two or three Macemen against Lyons (The Christian Holy City), mostly as a stalemate maneuver. Try to freeze the forces that would otherwise reinforce Paris, and all that. Sadly, it didn't work. Fortunately, this meant that Louis left its defenses to a Longbow, a Spearman, and a Horse Archer. Um, okay:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0041-1.jpg

Not only did the Church survive, but we nabbed a granary to boot! I'll take it!

Around this time, we popped another GS, which we put towards Education. We might just be in the Liberalism race! And Catherine demanded 140 gold to stay off our backs. With all of our forces mired in France, it was worth keeping her happy.

In 920, Denmark fell:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0045-1.jpg

And we accepted Louis' surrender:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0046-1.jpg

(He's holed up in Norway, by the way)

So there we have it. France is ours. Spain is next, followed by either Russia or England.

Save and State of the World to follow.

Here's the icy north:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0047-1.jpg

Yeah, we could have taken France's last city, but we only have one Galley, and Louis is Cautious, so it's not like he'll be a total thorn.

Germania proper:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0048-1.jpg

We're now shaping up into a genuine world power. Thank Vishnu (We're Hindu, remember?) that attack on Rome worked.

Speaking of, here's Italia and Spain, who I think should be our next target:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0049-1.jpg

May as well put them out of their (and our) misery.

The diplomatic situation:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0050-1.jpg

Yeah, the war with the East is still going on, but aside from a Chinese Warrior and a Mongol Chariot and Scout, I haven't seen much of'em. Neither of them will talk to me, though. Should we postpone Spain and Russia and batten down the hatches in anticipation of an Asian Stack of Doom?

Finally, the Power Chart:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0053-1.jpg

I still don't understand how we're as low as we are. We've pretty much been pumping out units since 4000 B.C.!

Science-wise, Guilds, Music, and Astronomy are out there, which we don't have. We have Philosophy and Paper on an awful lot of people, but I don't know if that would be a good idea, given the Liberalism race.

The save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-0920.CivWarlordsSave

Very good job. I think it'd be ok to trade paper away, just not philosophy or education.

YEAY GO PERSIA :D

and btw good luck you you can do it :D

See if Cyrus will declare on Khan/Qin too, would make your job much easier. I wouldn't worry too much about an enemy attack because with India fighting China the Chinese will have better targets available. Izzy next deffinately, Madrid will be a tough nut to crack but its culture is going to cause problems in former France. IMO, go Spain, then England, then Russia, then Egypt in attacks, then you can turn on a few old allies for more land.

I still don't understand how we're as low as we are. We've pretty much been pumping out units since 4000 B.C.!

The population size has a big impact on the power score, and your cities are quite small compared to the AI cities.

Nice play so far....

Kietharr plan is good ( he took the words of my mouth ).

P.S Wierd, Isabella hasn't founded any religion.... :confused:

Edit: Why are you building a forge in Antium? Not for the prod bonus, most surely ( this is not BTS, you don't have Moai statues to give 1 :hammers: per water tile. By the way, this map's Europe will be a even bigger powerhouse in BTS because of that. Must try... )

All right, we're pretty much set on Spain being the next target. Should we build up a little bit more of a military first? We have plenty of Macemen, I think, but our catapults were largely decimated after being thrown at the walls of Paris. How many Cats/Trebs should we bring?

I think the next round will be a fairly in-depth blow-by-blow of the attack on Madrid (largely glossing over any buildup we decide is necessary). The battle over France involved much more back-and-forth than I was really able to include in what ended up being a fairly long round. What do you all think?

Oh, and one more thing: I think we're in the catbird seat regarding the Liberalism race. Should we end up winning it, what should we take as our freebie? Astronomy? Printing Press? Nationalism? Gunpowder? Guilds would be kind of a waste, but that's technically also an option.

Rolo: Good point, I suppose. Antium does have decent production (Plains/Hill/Mine, Plains/Hill/Grapes, and a pair of Plains/Sheep), but I guess it isn't really enough to justify the forge. I guess I'll just shift it to some trebs (or maybe some Hindu missionaries to bring Old France around to the One True Faith, since that's my monastery city).

I wouldn't neglect your forces to the east, just in case. With one city, spain might be loaded with troops. I wish you could use passive espionage to see what's inside there. I would have liked to have seen a great artist to have been used in paris for the culture bomb, and an immediate ending to resistance in a highly productive city. maybe u can pull that off on another city some time. good work so far, i'm enjoying this a lot.

You can use passive espionage in Spain. All you need is Open Borders.

The other option is to convert to Christianity and send in the missionaries.

I think your plan is good but am hesitant about Spain. I've seen her with some nasty stacks before. If you hit her blind I'd add some cats and try to get cyrus mixed in your Asian excursion.

what's to be gained from spain?

cabert: A few things. 1) Madrid is a decent production city, with the potential for a wonder or two. 2) Seeing as how we're Hindu and Isabella's Jewish, there's not a whole heck of a lot to be gained from leaving her on the map. 3) Spanish culture is squeezing the life out of our French territories.

In this round, we did what we set out to do and had a new challenge thrust upon us.

We started out by cutting Louis a deal and bringing him into the religious fold:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0055.jpg

But that's just diplomatic maintenance, not what you're here to see.

It was time to wipe Spain off the map. I checked Isabella's technological progress first, and liked what I saw:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0057-1.jpg

She doesn't even have Feudalism for Longbows. Nice.

Honestly, with a technological advantage like that, I didn't even think it was worth taking the time to replace my lost catapults. Those extra couple of collateral damagers wouldn't be worth the possibility of Spain upgrading her Archers.

I let the Paris stack finish healing up, and sent it headlong across the Pyrenees:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0058-1.jpg

Unfortunately, that stack was all that was standing between the former French capitol and utter anarchy. I rushed a theater and made a civics change to give some replacement troops to get there from Hamburg:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0059-1.jpg

We ended up losing one population from unrest-induced starvation (and two population points died setting up the stage), but that's the price of doing business.

The Spanish sent a frankly pathetic offensive force at us:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0060-1.jpg

I can kind of see Isabella's thinking here. She was making a push for Rome, which was defended by a lone Archer. Sadly for her, this meant passing by Lyons, staffed with three Macemen:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0061-1.jpg

We can also see the defenses of Madrid. Wow. Those Archers aren't even promoted.

I sent the Macemen out from Lyons to strike at Izzy's attack stack, leaving only a single Chariot:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0062-1.jpg

I then moved Rome's Archer to the Marble hill and upgraded him to protect the Workers (silly me for leaving the workers exposed like that, though, honestly, they don't have a heck of a lot to do anymore).

Our offensive force, meanwhile, was hit by a couple of Catapults. We killed one, but the other bum managed to withdraw. I upgraded a Maceman to an anti-Archer special forces guy and sent him after Spain's source of Iron:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0063-1.jpg

Somehow, he survived the turn and managed to eliminate Spain's only metals. She can rush Archers all day long, but I'd rather not see Axemen (Okay, so maybe she can't make anything that can really hurt me at this point. I'm just trying to foment good habits).

Our Macemen submitted themselves and their Catapult wounds to the tender ministrations of Dr. Scout while our own siege weapons focused on taking down Madrid's walls:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0066-1.jpg

You can see that we're researching Guilds rather than Liberalism. Yeah. Hatty beat us to that particular prize, and, with our targets starting to get farther afield, I figured it was time for Knights to become part of our arsenal.

Around this time, Berlin was getting ready to spit out another Great Person. I was (Saints preserve us) hoping for a Great Artist. Madrid was bound to have a long rebellion time:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0068.jpg

Sadly, it was not to be. I got a GS, which I settled in Berlin.

We built a Caravel in Rome and sent it out to find out what was going on in the Americas. England had a Caribbean city set up, and we sold the secrets of Monotheism and Drama to the Roosevelt and Monty for all the gold they had in the whole wide world (90 in all, I think). Talk about backwaters. Sadly, neither would part with their maps.

With Madrid's walls finally fallen (at least as far as I felt was necessary) after two turns of barrage, I made one final screenshot before the assault:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0070-1.jpg

After round one of combat proper, we had lost both catapults, but nothing else. Spain's forces did not fare so well:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0071.jpg

The next turn, we finally saw China's stack of Doom:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0072.jpg

Not much, but with most of my forces in Spain, the elephant, especially, was inconvenient. I accepted the loss of the Workers (again, not like there's much for them to do right now) and made peace with Qin (he wanted 180 gold, but took Philosophy instead- if I can get him to go Pacifist, so much the better). Once we were friends again, trade quickly resumed (Wine and Stone for Silk and Bananas).

Spain, obviously, fell early in 1090:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0074-1.jpg

With all my attention on Spain (and normalizing relations with the Chinese), I had forgotten about our shadow war with the Dread Khan. I sent a messenger asking for Mongolia's price for peace, fully expecting to get my messenger's head back in a basket.

I was sorely disappointed:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0079-1.jpg

Poor old Genghis. Like Spain and the Inca, Mongolia really is screwed on this map, unless a human player REXes or conquers aggressively early on. They joined in China's war, hoping for some easy territory, and were sorely outclassed.

So, anyway... Spain is no more. Rome has been relegated to Africa, and the Nordic French are Pleased to be our Vassal. Our next move is to set up a navy for the arduous war on Elizabeth and... oh:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0080-1.jpg

Okay, so it's not so bad. Catherine's assault consists of a single Trebuchet. This turn.

Here's the frozen north:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0082-1.jpg

And the lush Mediterranean:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0083.jpg

If it wasn't for Cathy's belligerence, I'd say it was time for the Third Roman War. That's an awful lot of Spanish land Caesar's claiming there.

The diplomacy screen:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0084-1.jpg

Yeah, this is the only conflict on the map. I can probably drag Cyrus and maybe Saladin into this.

And the Power Poll:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0085-1.jpg

Ouch. I hope I can drag Cyrus into this.

Hamburg is currently manned by an Axe (which can be upgraded) and a Mace. I'm gonna rush *something* as an emergency defender, but what? A Pike? A longbow?

Needless to say, it's time for my real army to reverse course posthaste. How many should I leave in Madrid to prevent a backstab by London or Caesar?

Here's the save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-1110.CivWarlordsSave

On your Berlin screenshot, you could be gaining 1 more commerce without a loss :D

Drag everyone into the Russian war and try to take some Russian territory.

Gak. You're right. I'm used to second-guessing the BtS advisor by now, but I didn't think the Warlords one would betray me, too.

Time for a WWI , methinks... Who can you bribe against Cathy? Cyrus + QSH or Hatty would be nice.... Just don't let her get Cossacks.

Rome can't declare war and back stab you, their vassals. England will have to sail accross, which she just might do. I would garrison a small force in-between paris and madrid to defend which ever city might be attacked. If the culture push gets too strong on them, you'll have to garrison them inside to prevent a revolt. great artists would help a lot. the next best thing would be to focus the cities on culture for a while, running artist specialists. catherine is going to be very tough. You will definately need an ally. send a unit into her territory to try to find out what kind of stack she is sending so you can know what defenders to use. You might need to buckle down and defend against some waves before going on the offensive against her.

Rome is no vassal. That war ended before Feudalism. France is my vassal.

And, yeah, I've been trying for a GA for a while, though. That Great Library keeps pumping out scientists, though.

If anyone is bored and looking for something to do, I would appreciate it if you could download the save and just tell me how screwed I am. I realize that I might have overcommitted to the Western push and that the Great Bear may completely overrun me. But, then, maybe this is one of those crazy not-wars like I had with the Chinese. After all, the initial "stack" is just a lone Trebuchet.

I'm obviously not looking for complete spoilers, just an idea of where I stand on the "nothing to worry about"-"thank you for playing, please try again" continuum.

I could probably also use a smack to the face regarding some city-management mishaps, as well (like that whole "I'll ignore the river farm and instead work the non-commerce farm right next to it" fiasco).

Neal,

Just before you declared war on Issy. Did you demand the 100 gold from here? I always try to fleece my targets just before going to war with them.

On another note, this thread has inspired me to try the same scenario. I play on Noble and am having a great time. I took out Louis first, instead of going for Italy, then Italy once I had Cats. I conquered Alexander and am now taking on Hatty.

I always play on Epic, and I can't believe how much fun regular speed is. Everything gets done so much quicker.

Anyway, thanks for the inspiration.

Cheers.

Neal,

Just before you declared war on Issy. Did you demand the 100 gold from here? I always try to fleece my targets just before going to war with them.


When your opponent gives in to your demand, you automatically sign a ten turn peace treaty with them. So demanding and then going to war doesn't work, as far as I know.

EDIT: Never mind, forgot that this isn't a BTS game. God, I am tired. :D

Manu: I could have, but I didn't. To me, that feels more like an exploit than a real strategy. Besides, this is likely my last non-BtS game, and I'd rather not abuse tactics that can't be used there.

I'm glad you like it, though. It's a favorite map of mine, and a big part of why I'm doing this is to give it a little bit of exposure. The closest to a standard Civ IV start is Russia; everyone else has unique challenges and benefits to their starting position (especially the Inca- I love their isolation).

I would leave a defender or 2 in the western cities but bring everything else to the east to defend from Cathy .. I find that she rarely declares war unless she has an army ready to strike which she often does. Even losing a single city can set you back very far since you took over all of this land and your empire is still small compared to Persia or China. On top of that, other civs with large armies may dogpile on you (like Hatty or Asoka).

I was going to play the save, but i haven't been able to use the earth map on warlords ever since i downloaded and installed the 2.13 patch.

Do you think the German AI suffers because he starts 1 square from the ocean too?

Gotta say I love this game, and this map. I loved the dramatic ending to the last round. Cathy, you wench! :lol:

Good luck fighting the bear :)

guess it's time to whip an emergency army to make sure you don't lose any ground in the east before cathy's REAL stack arrives.

Well, a game that goes according to plan is boring, anyway. I'll play and post the next round sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Well, a game that goes according to plan is boring, anyway. I'll play and post the next round sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Oh no! He learned the "T" word too!!!!!! :lol:

It's an awesome map. I tried it on BTS with England.

guess it's time to whip an emergency army to make sure you don't lose any ground in the east before cathy's REAL stack arrives.

Agreed fully. Cathy normally has a lot of HA/Knights. I believe that you'll meet them very soon....

And Neal, I'm glad that you finally controled the power of the T word, like Aelf and the S man :lol:

Cathy normally has a lot of HA/Knights.

I'm hearing that maybe I should get some Pikemen online...

^^Normally leaders with non-Chariot non-HA horse UU ( Russia, Spain )tend to amass Chariots and HA waiting for upgrading ( nice strat if you have the upgrade and prod bonus that Warlords AI have... )

I'm hearing that maybe I should get some Pikemen online...


Yes, that would be good if you can get them in time. axes/spears/pikes should be enough to hold her off. maybe a few shock promoted chariots as well. I can't help but believe that the ai timed this perfectly as you just ended your war with spain,mongolia. yeah, she needs to pay......:mad:

All right, a short round to describe what might be a short war.

First thing's first. I sent my Spanish army eastward post-haste, leaving two relatively inexperienced Macemen behind to watch the store, as it were.

I lied about a Maceman and an Axeman defending Hamburg. That was an Axeman and an Archer. No wonder Cathy took me for a soft target. But even an Axeman had a decent shot at taking out an exposed Trebuchet:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0086-1.jpg

It was a calculated gamble, attacking before the promotion. But it worked. I used the "blue spark" to heal up some battle damage in addition to grabbing Combat I. You can also see my whipped Pikeman in Hamburg. The lash was coming down throughout the empire, believe me.

The next turn, Catherine showed her hand:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0087-1.jpg

Bad, but not too bad. That Axeman was standing in prime invading stack territory, but there was no way he could hold everyone back. Instead of making him be a hero, he retreated into Hamburg and traded his Axe for a Mace. I fortified the city up with Pikes and Longbows and prepared for the inevitable siege.

It was time to get some friends on our side. Cyrus, Qin, and Asoka refused to pick a side. In fact, Russia was one of their bestest friends, despite the religious differences. Damn Catherine and her feminine wiles!

Genghis Khan, of course, is more interested in booty than, um, booty:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0088-1.jpg

He asked a lot for his help and probably won't contribute much, but, then, it's all old stuff that everyone else has, anyway, and, besides, I'm sure he values our "Shared Military Struggle."

Alexander, apparently fresh from having his pupils dilated, was also willing to throw in:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0089-1.jpg

Can't say that I blame him. Greece normally gets a second city built before being squeezed, but this game didn't even afford him that luxury. I think it's because Hamburg (the whole point of this war) was placed in or around Cathy's preferred second city site.

Our Western Army, full of tired veterans, finally arrived to open up a second front in the Balkans:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0093.jpg

The city fell in 1180, and held quite a bit in terms of prizes:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0094-1.jpg

Unfortunately, it's also completely engulfed in Greek culture. On the bright side, though, Cathy did lose a Warlord Knight in the fighting.

The following decade, I felt that the siege of Hamburg could finally be broken:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0096-1.jpg

It took some doing (Hamburg ended up with two Longbowmen and a near-dead Pikeman after all was said and done-we also lost a pair of Knights that swooped in from Berlin and Rome), but the people could walk in the streets without fear once again. We even got a Great General out of it, who promptly settled in Rome, which is quickly turning into our military production plant.

In 1220, Catherine was willing to accept emissaries again, and offered to throw in the towel:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0098-1.jpg

Now here's the crossroads. On the one hand, our armies are tired, our siege battery has been reduced to a single trebuchet, and our infrastructure is in shambles, especially after enslaving and killing half our population.

On the other, we have Catherine on the defensive:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0099-1.jpg

Though those forces are pretty much incapable of taking St. Petersburg, a couple more turns of whipping might be able to get the reinforcements we'd need in place. Then again, Cathy will be reinforcing as well.

Here's the sorry state of Novgorod:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0100-1.jpg

I'm tempted to gift this to Alex, since getting it online would take either a lot of hard work and whipping or a Great Artist (who don't seem to be forthcoming- I never thought I'd regret building the Great Library).

Here's the Diplomatic situation for Catherine:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0101.jpg

Why does everyone love her more than they love me?

And the power graph. As you can see, we still apparently suck, but we've put quite a dent in the Great Bear:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0102-1.jpg

So... Gift Novgorod to Alex or keep it? Make nice and rebuild or press the attack? I'm worried that trying to take St. Petersburg could result into one of those 300-year sieges that cripples us for the endgame.

Here's the save:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-1220.CivWarlordsSave

Isn't that Alex all lonely at the bottom of the power graph? And with the great lighthouse but only one city to use it?

Why not declare on Alex and wipe him out during a 10 turn peace treaty with catherine, thereby removing cultural pressure on your new city and allowing time to rebuild your siege weapons? After all, this is a conquest, not a greek love-fest. We are not to be trusted, and anyone who trusts us are fools! The Greeks are of little or no use to our vast empire. They've served their purpose by keeping athens warm and filled with population and buildings until we decide to take what is rightfully ours! I love conquests. It just brings out the dark side.

Yeah, I was afraid you guys would say that. I hate being a jerk.

Makes sense, though. Especially with Alex's (largely obsolete) army being decimated by the Russians.

So, wipe out Greece, then spend a couple of turns rebuilding? Our cities need to repopulate and get a couple of civilian builds going....

Yeah, I was afraid you guys would say that. I hate being a jerk.

Makes sense, though. Especially with Alex's (largely obsolete) army being decimated by the Russians.

So, wipe out Greece, then spend a couple of turns rebuilding? Our cities need to repopulate and get a couple of civilian builds going....

Good news is, that as your empire gets larger, you can spare a few cities at a time on building duties.

Make peace with the Ruskies ( cease fire is better ), resolve the Greek cultural Problem :lol: and resume war with the Ruskies.

I'd take the peace treaty. The money is good for you, and you will need the 10 turns to build an army you don't have now.

Peace with the Cat, then after a few turns declare and wipe the floor with mr. Alex. Remember that the 10-turn forced peace will prevent her from backstabbing you, too. Then sign the "I'm a lumberjack" song and chop that forest near Hamburg. Tactical value, and I'm sure you'll find a use for the hammers as well.

ROME as your designated unit-city should probably build nothing but units for a very very long time unless you really really really need something else there. Build Trebs there, and give them all CR I and CR II promotions. No barrage on trebs. Doing this you will lose zero or just one even against heavily fortified cities. Alex will probably hole up a lot of units in his city, but every treb except the first will face favourable odds. You might in fact end up stronger after his death because of Trebs with CRIII probotions.

A shrewd tactic against multi-city empires which can be used to destroy their fighting force is the "failed-city-attack" gambit. This is very effective with CR-promoted trebs. You could try this against St.Pete. You strip the defenses and then assault the city as usual, however leave the last lone defender alive. Next round your foe, thanking his lucky stars that your attack "failed", rushes defenses into the city. Mabye a raw longbow, but also critical units like catapults, knights (who do extremely poor as city defenders against trebs). This will also get you just a little more CR promotions for your trebs. I find that one CR3 treb will have over 96% chance to win against a fresh, unfortified unpromoted longbow, so you will mostly conserve your force. You have a medic in the stack, and can also heal by giving promotions. And pretty soon you can think about which promotion is best after the CR3 one. You should also let a few macemen go the CR route, in preparation for becoming CR3 grenadiers.

For your war against Russia, remember what happened to Napoleon and Hitler. You will take ST.Pete, but it will be engulfed in Moscowian culture, so you must have the force to push on. Remember to bring one or two CG longbows who can remian there while your offensives push on.

Remember also the words of Churchill, "Nothing succeds like excess". We'll look forward to see the Russian Bear crippled. Just don't sell it's hide before the bear has been shot.

I think Geece would be happy to join your empire;)

I really wouldn't continue against Cathy. Never fight a land war in Asia, remember? (especially with a small army) ;)

I say go for Greece then be a bit peaceful for a few turns. The only bad thing is, Cathy's friends will probably damn you with another "You declared war on our friend!" demerit. But then you're going to wipe them out anyway... :ar15:

The only thing that worries me about going after Greece is that I fear we're running out of time on a "pure" domination victory. We may have to backdoor it with the U.N. at this point.

Attacking Greece would only further divide our already-fractured Hindu bloc. In fact, concerning that, what do you all think about grabbing Liberalism and going Free Religion, anyway? Seems like even with the religious landscape, the English are better friends than the Chinese right now...

The only thing that worries me about going after Greece is that I fear we're running out of time on a "pure" domination victory. We may have to backdoor it with the U.N. at this point.

Attacking Greece would only further divide our already-fractured Hindu bloc. In fact, concerning that, what do you all think about grabbing Liberalism and going Free Religion, anyway? Seems like even with the religious landscape, the English are better friends than the Chinese right now...

:confused: what's the point of sticking with hinduism?
take what greece has to offer and get nearer to domination.

You can go "free religion" without grabbing liberalism too - just convert back to no state religion. You just lose out on 10% bonus (which is same as one measly monestary) and some happiness. That 10% bonus doesn't even matter much in your non-science cities, and your science-cities probably have enough +% to research anyway...

Since you are Germans and said you were gonna go for the Domination win, you should instead grab steel for cannon after chemistry. Grenadiers + cannon combo should last a long while, and give you time to do some non-military research. Keep heroic epic city pouring out the troops, and soon you can make yourself an ironworks - wonder building city too.

EDIT - By the way, if you can grab a backdoor Diplomatic win, that is of course okay and in the spirit of the game. But you don't need to research towards or build the U.N, since you will be large enough to be a contender anyway.

You can go "free religion" without grabbing liberalism too - just convert back to no state religion. You just lose out on 10% bonus (which is same as one measly monestary) and some happiness. That 10% bonus doesn't even matter much in your non-science cities, and your science-cities probably have enough +% to research anyway...

Since you are Germans and said you were gonna go for the Domination win, you should instead grab steel for cannon after chemistry. Grenadiers + cannon combo should last a long while, and give you time to do some non-military research. Keep heroic epic city pouring out the troops, and soon you can make yourself an ironworks - wonder building city too.
you also lose out on happiness, which is quite bitter

I'm halfway through the round. Alexander has been... taken care of. Who should be next? A naval build-up followed by an assault on London? A strike on Caesar's African stronghold? Or a resumption of our war with the Great Bear?

I would go on trimming Kathy, because:

1. Once she gets kossack, she REALLY can cause a problem
2. You are about 99% garantied to get backstabbed, as soon as your army is over in Britain

Better deal with England once Kathy is reduced a little

Russia's land is quite nice.... but play safe and finish the Brits and ceasar first

All three at once. :hammer:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
O.K., I'm just kidding. I would at least cripple Kathy before she gets cossacks.

I would do my best to instigate a war with the persian/chinese/russians against each other before taking britain. If this is not doable, then it seems more prudent to severly weaken cathy before moving forward with someone else.

While we're on the Cossack clock with Cathy, though, we're also on the Elizabeth Redcoat clock. Of course, Liz is probably a little less likely to attack us out of the blue...

While we're on the Cossack clock with Cathy, though, we're also on the Elizabeth Redcoat clock. Of course, Liz is probably a little less likely to attack us out of the blue...

I would do my best to instigate a war with the persian/chinese/russians against each other before taking britain. If this is not doable, then it seems more prudent to severly weaken cathy before moving forward with someone else.

I think that could be the answer. If you can get someone else to cripple (or delay) Cathy, you would then be free to attack Eli at the same time.

I think you can forget about Elizabeth, I doubt she'll just randomly declare war. It's the Russian you wanna watch.

If you can get anyone else at all into the war against Cathy, then do it. Heal your stacks quickly and just go for it.

You've taken all of Europe at this point, right? Ignore your navy, build up a horde of Knights or Cav and clear out continental Eurasia: Russia, Mongolia, China, India, Persia, and then into Arabia, Egypt, and then Mali. Don't go for Japan or England. Right there you might have enough for Domination, but if not you can take the island nations later with your insane production.

Cathy must die next, for a number of reasons:

1. Liz is a good tech trade partner, and can be "handled" at a later date.
2. Cathy *will* backstab you at some point (again).
3. She's in the way of your conquest of Asia and Africa.
4. Lots of cities makes Nationalism dramatically more powerful - she has cities.
5. Liz's cities are primarily not connected to the main landmass, making reason #5 logistically challenging.
6. She started it......

Destroy Cathy ASAP. I would go for a strike into Moscow, and only then go for her other cities. This would help a lot because then its much harder for her to organize a counterattack or research MT + Rifling.

I am once again convinced that the sky is falling.

It all started so well, too. We made peace with the Great Bear, and started to stack up our forces against Greece. At first, my biggest concern was the fact that Alexander had a second city tucked away east of Russia:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0103-1.jpg

It was going to be tough sneaking some units through hostile Russian territory to get that far (and I didn't plan on signing an Open Borders treaty with Catherine).

In this next screenshot you'll see the anti-Hellenic strike force:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0105-1.jpg

Okay, okay. That's a good chunk of our standing army. But if the plan is to use it against Cathy real soon now, we may as well take it all to ensure a rapid battle.

I hate doing this sort of thing, but the turning point had come. Alexander was now worth more to us dead than alive:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0106.jpg

Shortly after our declaration, Catherine did us a huge favor:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0107.jpg

At least now we don't have to worry about homeland penalties once Athens falls.

Speaking of Athens, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot defending her:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0109-1.jpg

Here we also see the darker side of Alexander continuing to be at war with Russia. Novgorod's resources are all in Greek territory, so Cathy's pillaging the heck out of it. Ah, well. That'll give our workers something to do.

Athens obviously fell quickly, signifying the end of the Greek empire:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0110.jpg

We then spent a few turns consolidating our forces, healing up, building trebuchets, and upgrading our CR3 Macemen to Grenadiers.

We also finally got our lucky roll on Great People:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0112-1.jpg

I can't believe that I'm rolling my eyes at Scientists and pining for Artists.

In 1400, it was time to reopen hostilities:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0113-1.jpg

Target number one was the fortress-city of St. Petersburg, that we had tried and failed to besiege in the First Russian War:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0115-1.jpg

Every single one of those Grenadiers is CR2, at least, with most of them being CR3. They tore through Russia's best and bravest like butter.

Around this time, China and India declared war on one another. Good to see two of my greater rivals going at it. Too bad I can't stir up any bad blood between the big dogs, Persia and Egypt. Also, we learned the secrets of Steel, which meant that we could phase fully into a gunpowder army (well, except for those Knights). Cannons would be most useful, though somewhat time-consuming to get to the front.

In 1430, St. Petersburg fell. Ludwig van Beethoven put on his best spangly suit, donned his shades, and put on an incredible show, exhibiting the boons of German culture to the downcast, conquered people:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0118-1.jpg

Here we jump-started our somewhat flagging research by trading Elizabeth Chemistry, Steel and our map for Nationalism, Printing Press, Constitution and 570 gold. We could finally switch to Representation and get the most out of our specialists. Oh, to those who would say that we should have taken the Pyramids: Sadly, they're stuck smack dab in the middle of Cyrus' empire. They're going to have to wait.

Apparently, St. Petersburg was set up to be hardpoint in Catherine's defenses. Moscow was barely defended:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0122-1.jpg

And fell in 1500. Nothing incredible inside- a few infrastructure buildings and a Military Academy, which was nice.

Around here we finished researching Liberalism (Are the A.I.s always this reticent to trade that stupid tech?) and made a civics change that should last us quite a while:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0124-1.jpg

Shortly after the fall of Moscow, our troops came upon Russia's second capitol:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0125-1.jpg

And razed it. It was at the junction of Russian, Persian, and Egyptian culture. Its borders would not hold.

Ten years later, Catherine lost her third capitol:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0127.jpg

Russia was on the ropes. Catherine's harrying assaults had stopped as everything was pulled behind her walls. City garrisons were getting more and more raw and ill-equipped. Only a few cities remained (except for one annoying island-fortress off the coast of Africa. Soon, Catherine would be... NOT AGAIN!

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0128-1.jpg

It seems that in that big tech trade, I gave Elizabeth a hammer, and I'm starting to look like a nail.

The British are coming. Thankfully, the invasion seems pretty minor so far, but our entire army is to the east. We are in no way prepared for a fresh, technologically advanced attack on our flank. We're especially unprepared for Redcoats.

The attack seems to be an overland strike from Norway:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0130-1.jpg

You can see the entire invasion force (one Redcoat) in that forest. Sadly, the worker that was chopping that forest down is no more.

Here's the productive parts of my empire:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0131-1.jpg

You'll see that it's all civilian builds. I was planning on taking a couple of turns of peace once Cathy was eliminated (or at least exiled to her island) to get our economy in order, but it doesn't look like that's happening.

Oh, and in case you were wondering whether the English Channel would slow down Liz's invasion fleet? No such luck:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0132-1.jpg

She's got naval units out the proverbial wazoo.

Silver linings? We've got two that I can see. First, we're running Nationalism and Slavery, so we can rush a respectable force of defenders fairly quickly (though not quickly enough, if the English decide to really commit to this war). We don't have Rifling, though, so we're looking at Grenadiers (Whipped) and Musketmen (Drafted).

Secondly, Catherine is willing to throw in the towel:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0129-1.jpg

Normally, I'd be loathe to accept this offer, but the English threat must, I think, be reckoned with. Heck, in this situation, I'm almost tempted to accept the Capitulation and gift back Yaroslavl' or even Moscow to get her up to War Thrall status (Louis is honestly just a too-much-trouble-to-conquer vassal, but Catherine could still be useful). And if she gets too big for her briches and breaks Vassalage later on, well, so much the better, no?

So there we have it. Once again, Germans must die to defend their homelands. And Paris. Possibly. What do you all think? There are enough settled GP in Paris and especially Berlin that if they fall, the game is effectively over. Does Liz indulge in "fake wars" or should we be ready for 20-something Redcoats and Cannons to land on our shores?

Here's the save. As usual, I would be most grateful to anyone willing to download and check it out:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-1540.CivWarlordsSave

I think Yekaterinburg is probably distant enough from Yaroslavl' and Moscow that the capitulation is not ideal, but OK. Double monasteries will help.

I think you just can't tell whether Liz is going to do a serious invasion or not. I'd guess probably not, since the AI likes sneak attacks, right? Still, I'd go generous with the defenders.

Definitely research Rifling until Asoka is willing to trade it for Steel. Whipped Grenadiers are good against Redcoats, but you need to pimp your draft. It's probably a good time to start pumping the culture slider, too. Just get Rifling, then you're OK for a while and can whip/draft way down if needed.

Any reason not to OB with Mansa? You could use a couple better trade routes.

I'd swap the fish to Athens. Even if it just supports two Artists, that'd be dandy.

Bright side, Liz has good land.

I don't know if you can get Domination now (I really think on any Huge size map you gotta play Marathon or at the very least Epic for that) but if not that I think you're in a good position for an exciting space race against the middle east.

:lol: I can only imagine the look on your face when the horns of war blared and Elizabeth popped up on your screen...

You could vassalize Catherine and bring her into the war with Elizabeth, personally I try to avoid vassals at all costs, and I doubt she'd be much help against the Virgin Queen, but you could just cease fire with her and hope she doesn't DoW on you again. That's probably pushing it, though.

You can bribe Monty into war with Elizabeth by giving him Guilds, maybe he can take Oxford if he's lucky.

Try to trade for Astronomy - can you force Catherine into giving it to you? so you can build some Frigates/upgrade some caravels to counter the English sea menace. At best, she'll just pillage your clams, at worst she'll send a stack of those redcoats for Paris and/or Orleans. I've seen her declare war on France on the Earth map before with many, many Transports, Infantries, Marines, Tanks, and Artillery in London but never sending them over. Do not underestimate the unintelligent behavior of the AI.

Research Rifling/Military Tradition ASAP, because if Elizabeth gets Cavalry soon, that would make life pretty miserable for you. I don't think invading the northern cities with your CR Grenadiers and some Cannons is that implausible of a scenario - how about sending an expeditionary force to see how many defenders Coventry's got? If there's a SoD, sit back and wait for the blow. If there's minimal defense, go for it!

Rushing/whipping some defenders in Paris and Orleans is a definite, but don't be surprised if the amphibious invasion never comes. Even so, prepare for the worst :please:

This is what cavalry's for. Just send the Knights back to France and you'll be all right.

Oops. Redcoats. Crap.

I'm following your topics with eager, neal. Just one thing to comment, you shouldnt pillage if you sure you can get the city (on madrid and novogrod, for example).

I warned you :p ... How many grens do you have in Paris? If you have 3/4 and the English drop their task force near paris ( most likely) maybe it will hold. I would not acept Cathy's offer now, because you'll need her land ( cease fire will do ).
I like the idea of bribing monty to the war ( when you need a war ally there's nothing like bribing Monty :p ), but it all depends where Liz is going to drop the troops ( if she is going to land them )

I HATE it when the AI does that!

Just yesterday, Toku put troops on a Caravel, made ground and took my city. All in one turn.

I feel for you Neal!

:lol: I can only imagine the look on your face when the horns of war blared and Elizabeth popped up on your screen...

Actually, the first thing I saw was that a Worker had been captured. My initial reaction was, "how in God's name did Catherine manage to sneak a unit all the way back to Germany?"

Keep the ideas rolling, guys. Though I question the use of having Monty take Oxford. I think an undeveloped American colony like that is more upkeep than it's worth, no? Though it is a fun idea.

TeraHammer: The only things I pillaged were the Iron sources in Madrid and Athens. Unfortunately in Athens, Russia was still at war with Greece and had a Knight running around willy-nilly burning stuff. That weren't me :)

Jet: Thanks for the micromanagement advice. I unfortunately tend to lose sight of the trees for the forest once I'm beyond three or four cities. And yeah, I would think that if there was going to be a genuine threat, she would've prepped it before the DoW and landed on Turn 1.

Oh, and yeah, I kinda figured that Domination was no longer a realistic goal a while ago. I see three options: We can a) Press on. We'll likely be in position for a Time victory after all is said and done if we conquer enough of the world. b) Press on while paying a little more attention to diplomacy and try to backdoor a Diplomatic victory with all our votes. c) Press on, but start putting more emphasis on research and civilian builds. We're gonna need to take this one to the stars.

(a) is the purist approach, and frankly sounds a bit tedious. I'm kind of eager to move on to a BtS game, but if it's what the world wants, I'm willing to serve. (c) is kind of a wimp-out, and it's already what we did with Monty. I like (b), myself. I just hope that our diplomacy (always a nemesis of mine) isn't far gone enough to close that particular door.

Perversely, should the English threat be just a threat, (b) is the only scenario in which it makes sense to vassalize Catherine. If all we need is her votes, there's no need to keep fighting, is there?

I think B would be a good choice, but you'd have to kick Lizzy's butt, AND take Britain for a reasonable number of votes. Of course, it all depends on who your opponent is. Maybe you can bribe some wars in the Middle East/Asia?

I would assume (though I'm often wrong) that AI + needing boats = lame stacks. Still - regardless of which strategy you would like to pursue at this point, it's time to whip/draft yourself a sizable force of defenders.

Personally, I would make peace with Cathy, whip/draft defenders to counter any possible English trying to pull a D-Day, and would send my promoted stack of city-sacking goodness north to take Scandanavia from England.

Of course, it all depends on who your opponent is.

I believe that there is a trick where you build (or maybe it's build to one turn away from completion) the U.N. in one of your cities and then gift that city to the AI you want to compete against in the election, thus allowing you to control who your opponent is.

I believe that there is a trick where you build (or maybe it's build to one turn away from completion) the U.N. in one of your cities and then gift that city to the AI you want to compete against in the election, thus allowing you to control who your opponent is.

Sounds good!

I guess it's not entirely flawless... you might not be able to build the UN before anyone else in a weak city. You don't exactly want to give away your big production city to the least liked civ in the game. :crazyeye:

Have a GE or two and just grow the city big (population greatly affects how many hammers the GE gives). I agree, don't give a good city, just a 10-12 pop backwater city. Just make sure the AI will take the city beforehand.

Usually I find that said city has to be on their doorstep for them to accept... so we can't use Lyons or Athens, for example.

That is an issue. The big question is always "is it worth it?". If it's gonna get you the victory, then yes it is, but if you feel you could get it anyway, then maybe not so much. It all depends on who the other candidate would be naturally and how advantageous a self-picked candidate would be.

Well I guess the opponent would be high in population and in-game score. Cyrus / Hatshepsut look like good contenders.

Maybe Lizzy as a hand-picked candidate? She's next door, and there may be some bad blood between her and Neal's buddies in the form of, "You declared war on our friend!"

Just a thought. :D

Neal: if you're thinking of going diplo, perhaps a diplomatic state of the world (including who has a big population) would be helpful (perhaps after surviving Liz).

Short Term I would say that you should capitulate Catherine, maybe even gift her one of those cities back, and then turn your stack towards Scandinavia to take out Lizzy's continental foothold. That would leave her with the British Isles and Oxford in America right? obviously brace for a SoD in your cities.

First, you got to defend vs liz.
Then you've got to attack her. You'll have a hard time breaking the waves of ships she has. You may have to sue for peace without actually entering her land.
I suggest only drafting a low number of muskets. They are no good vs redcoats. Grenadiers will have a hard time too.
What you need are canons.
Take that capitulation. It makes you look stronger, and that's exactly what you need right now.

I would accept that you've lost the navy battle. Thankfully, we are close enough that you can keep your navy harbored in Paris and in one turn, drop units next to London (move NW-W out of Paris and drop one W of London) and then retreat back to Paris. Obviously, we hope she's not smart enough to block this path, but if she's not, a navy isn't going to be an issue.

Between the unbelievable rolls we got in our attack on Rome and the ridiculous stupidity of the English A.I. in this war, I'm starting to feel coddled by the computer, here :dubious:

To begin, I discovered that "Way out there in the Russian front" isn't really that far away, after all:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0135-1.jpg

We were two, three turns away from Scandinavia, tops.

We accepted Catherine's capitulation, gifted her horses (they were mostly her horses, anyway) and made this trade with her:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0136-1.jpg

This left Catherine cautious and us up three techs.

We made some quick diplomatic moves, granting Monty Guilds for his "assistance" in the English war and trading him Sheep and Marble for Gold, Silver and a boatload of cash. We traded our map and Steel to the Indians (one of our last true friends) for Corporation and some cash. We also normalized relations with Mansa Musa, who really is a sweetheart. We sold him Pigs and made this little swap:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0140-1.jpg

What was Elizabeth doing this whole time, you ask? Not a whole hell of a lot. Running Frigates up and down the coast between Paris and Hamburg, making meanie faces and not even pillaging my fishing boats!

Despite my panicked rushing of Riflemen and Grenadiers, I knew deep down inside that it would be up to me to initiate real hostilities:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0141-1.jpg

Cyrus came by, hat in hand for Steel. We'll need him later on, so I swallowed my pride and consented.

In 1550, we were once again smiled upon by the RNG gods:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0144-1.jpg

Moscow was almost out of revolt, so we sent Raphael to Yaroslavl' to fill out our borders.

We arrived at the gates of Coventry and began tearing down its walls:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0146-1.jpg

It turns out that those fancy Redcoats die just like anyone else does when bombs are thrown in their faces:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0147-1.jpg

Coventry was captured, and that little one pop village burned.

We found a rather unpleasant surprise outside of Canterbury:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0150-1.jpg

I should've expected Machine Guns as soon as I saw Railroads crisscrossing Scandinavia.

It fell, but not without losses. And there was no shrine, but it had some decent infrastructure:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0152-1.jpg

Liz's final stronghold on the continent would be a tough nut to crack:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0153-1.jpg

As you can see, Infantry are in my near future as well, but that doesn't change the fact that my only units in English territory were now obsolete. Rather than risk facing more of those monsters, I threw everything I had at it (Remember our lessons on tactics from the assault on Rome?).

Many died, but Scandinavia was mine (well, except for that Indian settler watching the action intently). This was all Liz needed to see:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0154-1.jpg

The war was finally over.

Yeah, looking at that Diplomacy screen, Liz is a technological beast. Anyway, state of the world.

We'll start with the icy north:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0155-1.jpg

There's a couple of gaps in there where we could stick some cities, though I question the real usefulness of new cities this late in the game.

The heart of the Empire:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0156-1.jpg

And the shining south:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0157-1.jpg

As you can see, I'm starting to get some Assembly Plants up and running. It's time to kick our production into top gear and maybe snag a Great Engineer or two. I'm also building a few final Monasteries before Scientific Method convinces me that they're a lot of hooey.

A zoomed-out view of Eurasia:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0158-1.jpg

I gotta say, it's really cool how Caesar threw himself into forging an African Empire in Exile. I'm not thrilled about it from a Frederick standpoint, but as a lover of Alternate History, I can't help but smile and imagine what adaptations would have been made. We can also bear witness to Elizabeth's love of completely useless one-tile island colonies.

The Americas:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0159-1.jpg

Yes, Liz seems to have a town in Brazil, but maybe it would be worth actually sending out some colonists. Maybe to Australia, too. We are going for Domination, after all. Even if it is a pipe dream at this point.

The Domestic Advisor:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0160-1.jpg

And the spider web of a Foreign relations screen:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0161-1.jpg

As we can see, Monty will be Monty. A couple of times on this map, I've seen the computer Aztecs completely eliminate the Americans.

Finally, the Score and Power graphs:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0163-1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0164.jpg

So there we have it. At the moment, we are without foes. How long should we spend rebuilding? Our CR Grenadiers were pretty much eradicated in the assault on England's cities, but we no longer have any pre-gunpowder units left in our empire. Everything's been upgraded. Well, except for those stupid Knights.

Who should our next target be? Part of me really wants to mount an expedition into the heart of Africa to take out the Romans. Egypt will likely need to be reckoned with sooner or later. There's also the possibility of loading up a bunch of Galleons (Or Transports, which are only a tech or two away) and striking out at the savage Americas (though Monty's Stacks of Doom can be truly awe-inspiring).

Here's the save, if anyone's interested: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-1615.CivWarlordsSave

Maybe Persia? If you can take them down, you've got your strongest opponent knocked out.

are you really going for domination?
Doesn't seem likely.
If you don't, you should focus on space, which seems the only hope of victory for you.

Bit of a phony war that eh?
Would've thought she would have at least landed troops...

What's the technological situation?

Hi Neal, my hats off to you playing huge maps like this. Well done so far.

Just a few observations at your latest screen shots.

1. Assembly plant is very powerful, I would at this point switch all decent production cities to produce these plants + Coal plants, everything else can wait. Your hammer capacity is low for a large war. With the boost of production, you can fight your next war much much better. You are a few turns from Railroad, have some extra workers ready to rail all those mines, your production will soon double with Assembly plant+power+railroad which means you can build a strong army twice faster.

2. I would suggest you taking on the top AIs after you improve your productions. Check out who has better land to compete with you on a space race Persia or Egypt, then take their land. Sneak some spies to check out their military and builds.
Convert some of their cities to your religion(if you have one)

3. Look for opportunities to bribe the more powerful AIs to attack each other, or help you in your next war.

4. You will need artillary for next war, so try improve your research as much as you can, convert hammers to beakers if you must.

5. Space win is probably the easiest from here. Just grab more land, trim the top AIs and put a Forbidden Palace(if you dont have one) in a good spot.

I for one would vote against space race, solely on the fact that that's what we did last time. Unfortunately, we aren't in a position to do much else.

^^The only option to space now would be a Panzer rush to the whole world....Do it at your own risk

Hmph. As much as I'd like to wave my arms and scream that you all are wrong about the space race being our last resort, I'm starting to come around to your way of thinking. We bogged down way too much in the beginning, not even taking Rome until 525 B.C. We're now in the Infantry age and we only control 12% of the world's territory. Panzers will help, but not that much.

Diplomacy isn't of much use, either. We went with the Hindu bloc in the beginning, which ended up being a fragmented, bickering mob while the Jewish nations were a model of solidarity. Therefore, sucking up to one of our allies meant pissing off another. My opportunistic tech and resource trades likely only made things worse. Heck, my friendship with Asoka means that the Mongols and Chinese won't even speak to me. Right now, we've got Cyrus, India and our vassals among our circle of friends (and Roosevelt, but he's never been relevant, and I don't see him being around much longer). And Cyrus may well be our UN opponent, anyway.

Regarding culture, well, I don't really see that coming through, either. When the two cities you sent Great Artists to less than 150 years ago are two of your top three culture cities, you may as well cross that victory type off the list.

We are #2 in score, and I'm sure that one more good smashup might put us over the top, but I'd hate to pin all these hours playing and typing on a time victory.

No matter how we spin it, we're now in the 17th century. Time is running out. With our halfway decent research and our powerhouse production, I think we're down to Space and Time. Victory types, that is. So I leave it to the hive mind. Space race, obviously, involves turtling up and setting up protective garrisons. Time victory likely involves letting slip the dogs of war.

At the very least, this game has been one heck of a learning experience (and quite a wake-up call regarding my actual skill level at Civ IV). How would you like to see it end?

I think time victory should not be expected because by the end of the game, someone will reach space (Liz, Cyrus, Hatty?). You can probably manage space but you gotta start on it now since you're pretty far back in tech.. Build factories in at least 5 cities and make them into big productions centers. Meanwhile, beeline towards rocketry and then computers and make sure to build the Ironworks in one of the cities. Production is particularly important since no AI can match a human player in that as Obsolete demonstrated very well.

I vote "be a jerk" (to the other AIs).
Build units, invade, divide, conquer, fight. Destroy enemies, don't be shy about razing every other city, bribe AI to fight someone if you can. Gift obsolete units (if you have any left) to your vassals so they can upgrade them at discount.

Your goal will be how big % of land area you can get. And to learn/teach something about what may happen if you go all-out for military. (Mabye you can will as well - with a nice bomber force for siege and collateral panzers and infantry should be enough to kill anything.

Mass produce infantry now, keep teching towards panzers and bombers. And then unleash "ze german army".

I just had an ironic historical thought...

It seems to me that Africa is very important for a German World Domination victory. Germany is too far from Asia, with pesky Russia in the way, to go east, and there simply isn't enough land in Europe to satisy the victory gods. A transatlantic invasion is just a logistical nightmare, even if they are so backwards they are going foreward.

To real history, Russia was in the way (and their cold winters) of Germany 60 years ago, and if Rommel beats Monty (Montgomery) with his Afrika Korps we might not invade Italy, and definitely not Normandy until who konws when. And perhaps by that time Russia ran out of people to throw at the Wehrmacht and the Ural oil fields are all Hitler's. Interesting...

So perhaps you should build yourself an Afrika Korps and go get rid of Caesar and start taking over the 'dark continent' :groucho:

Course you are Frederick and not Adolf...

don't give up on domination. I say domination or time victory, space be damned! Your just now getting close to your ace in the hole, panzers and Assembly plants. Your gonna have to take down some big dogs, like persia and egypt, but once you do this, i think you will get a lot of capitulations from smaller civs. don't waste time on taking extra cities if they will capitulate, (it counts toward domination.) and you haven't even got rails online yet. wars will move faster, but don't give up right at the dawn of the industrial era, roll up your sleeves and give it your best!!

I am not a great player by any stretch; however, I also would at least give your ace a chance.

Just keep in mind that you should be prepared to enact plan B(space race).

A game without an industrial war as the Germans just wouldn't feel right to me, so give it a go I say.

I think a time victory is very achievable - if you go for domination.

Domination on this map is almost impossible if you aren't on marathon speed, but if you crush each space-competing opponent down to 4 cities and vassalize them (sooner rather than later), they shouldn't be able to make space.

Of course, you'll be instructing them to research non-space techs, right?

I don't think domination is winnable, but Time via conquest certainly is. It will be a nice showing of how to prevent an enemy from winning the space race - sabotage, resource deprivation, and conquest.

Give it a shot - could be fun!

Any plans made about where to go from here?

Sorry. I've been rather busy lately- able to check in here at work, but unable to play at home. I've squeezed in a couple of turns here and there, though. I finally traded for Scientific Method from Cathy... only to discover that Europe has no oil! It's gonna be kinda hard to build a tank corps without oil. However, the North African Republic of Rome has a nice little patch of it...

Long story short, expect the next (lengthy) round no later than Monday.

good, i'll be sure and check back then, ;)

I played the round earlier today, and should post it tonight or tomorrow. Fun round.

Fun round.

I like the sound of that.:hammer:

Sorry about the delay.

In this round, we underwent an Industrial Revolution, securing oil and building factories, as well as plucking an old thorn.

We started by cutting a deal with our Indian friends:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0165-1.jpg

Mostly for the cash. Our Grenadiers need to trade in their sabers for something a bit more modern.

Around 1630, I finally accepted that the Great Library was not going to last forever:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0167.jpg

Now, then... Oil, oil, oil. We have no oil! Louis has a patch, as does Catherine, but that's not of much use to us now. Should have killed them off when I had the chance. It took only a little bit of looking to find what we were looking for:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0168-1.jpg

Dee-lightful. I'd been looking for an excuse to wipe the purple scourge from the map, anyway. And as you can see from the selected units screen, I have just the force to take it with.

Around this time, Roosevelt and Monty launched into a full-fledged Total War, we spawned a Great Scientist in Berlin (he founded an Academy in Paris), and Asoka became a vassal of Cyrus. Why doesn't anyone ever peacably submit to my rule? I don't use the whip... often.

With two turns left on Railroads, we did a bit of tech brokering. May as well do it while we still can:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0171-1.jpg

This brought Mansa to Pleased, which made me happy.

With Railroads done, I had a difficult decision to make:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0172-1.jpg

I veered off the Industrialism beeline for a coupl of reasons: a) my happy cap was well above most of my populations, b) Health was beginning to be a problem (Starvation was fairly rampant), and c) I was running Representation. More food=more specialists.

With the massive German Navy (consisting of two Galleons and two Frigates) loaded down with troops, it was time to seize what was rightfully ours:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0174-1.jpg

We were only ferrying troops across a one-space gap, so the dearth of transports was a minor inconvenience rather than a deal-breaker.

We weren't exactly facing the state-of-the-art either:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0175-1.jpg

Around this time we agreed to "help" Roosevelt in his war against the Aztecs and were bullied into gifting Hatshepsut Military Tradition. The tech lifted Egypt from Annoyed to Cautious, so, with our hands already full, I think it was a good diplomatic investment.

While our foot soldiers (and bombarding Frigates) laid siege to the fortified capitol of Cumae, our Cavalry roamed the countryside, hitting targets of opportunity:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0178-1.jpg

Needless to say, Ravenna burned.

Neapolis we kept, largely because of its proximity to existing German culture. And because we'd need it to claim that oil tile. Which is sort of the whole point of this little war.

After a surprisingly long time, Cumae finally fell, and our objective was completed:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0180-1.jpg

... Or was it? Caesar was on the run, we had open borders with the Mali to use their roads, our military grossly outclassed Julie's, and our former Roman cities were complaining about their ancestral homeland. It was time for a safari!

Saladin (dear old grumpy Saladin) came to me with an intriguing offer, which I reluctantly accepted:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0181-1.jpg

The thing was, EVERYONE was at war with China, so a) China was gonna get carved up pretty quickly, and I'd better grab my piece while I had a chance, and b) Qin was going to be way too busy to send an army against piddly old us, anyway, so what could the harm be?

Our troops endured the harrowing march through the Sahara desert:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0182-1.jpg

Dr. Scout is really kind of superfluous at this point, what with Medic Cavalry and all, but he tagged along, anyway, doling out good advice on hydration and sunscreen. Pisae, being squeezed by both Egyptian and Malinese culture, was razed.

Oh, and it turns out we didn't lose any time by taking Biology, anyway:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0183-1.jpg

Thanks, Mansa Musa! You're my favorite friend. For now.

Now well into Central Africa, Caesar and I played a perverse game of Cowboys and Indians in the heart of the jungle:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0185-1.jpg

At this time, Johannes Brahms popped up in Berlin. I could have sent him into Africa to set up a colony in a captured Roman town, but instead I sent him to Paris:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0188-1.jpg

He won us the Wheat and the Clams from the thieving English. For a powerhouse city like the former French capitol, I'd say that's worth significantly more than an expansion of an African foothold.

What was the Royal German Navy doing all this time, you ask? Why, opening up another front on the coast, of course:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0191-1.jpg

My wounded cavalry officers reported seeing Elvis out in the bush:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0193-1.jpg

I was about to send him to be checked for Malaria when I found out that Cyrus had a South African colony that he apparently wanted to bolster. I've never seen African this... multicultural. At this point we have German, Roman, Malinese, Egyptian, AND Persian cities on the Dark Continent.

Monty came by and offered me 230 gold to stop "threatening" him. I guess he heard about what was happening to Caesar.

Then the strangest thing happened. Saladin renounced his vassalage to Cyrus. Okay, it happens. Especially on this map, the diplomatic board ends up getting redrawn every few turns. But then:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0195-1.jpg

Um... Sally, buddy, you're number 4 on the list of combatants in your particular skirmish. You just declared on numbers 1, 2, and 3 simultaneously. This can't end well for Arabia.

In 1725, our land and naval forces converged on Caesar's final fortress on the Cape of Good Hope (or thereabouts):

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0200-1.jpg

As a symbol of Caesar's final death (and because of Persia's culture bomb), the barbarian city-turned-Roman capitol burned, along with Julius Caesar's body.

But we weren't done! Remember that war with China? Well, once their Assembly plants were done, all of Germany began pumping out Infantry, Cannons, and the occasional Cavalry or two:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0202-1.jpg

Most of them are fairly raw recruits, but if they're just doing mop-up duty on the Chinese (and possibly Arabian) front, snaking cities from our "war allies," they don't need much.

I sent a small scouting force east to see what there was to see, and found a right royal mess:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0205-1.jpg

China's got a big old army. Emphasis on the "old." I think we could take'em.

State of the World to follow.

Let's start with the fruits of our expedition.

North Africa, the whole point of our war:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0203-1.jpg

And our two South African colonies:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0204-1.jpg

The Domestic Advisor:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0206-1.jpg

As you can see, plenty of troops. We're not going Space Race, and we'll kill anyone who does. (Note: I reserve the right to change my mind later :))

The foreign advisor:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0207-1.jpg

See what I mean about everyone being at war with China?

Score and power graphs:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0208-1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0209-1.jpg

And the save:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-1735.CivWarlordsSave

As always, thanks for your interest and advice!

If you want to have a chance on this without space, you must somehow put Hatty and Cyrus killing eachother. Their power skyrockets the graph and hatty is not spending troops anywhere. About China, well.... it may worth the shot ( do you still have FP avaliable? Can't remember... And who has the Versailles BTW ? ). Asoka is softening the chinese punch for everyone ( especially to Cyrus... Keep a eye on him ) and after that it will be a walk on the park for any modern army (how is Cyrus in military techs? I see Asoka with SAMs ( aka Rocketry aka Artilery prereq aka plenty of arties ) so Cyrus should have arties and SAMs as well.... Oops, this means Cyrus has Rocketry too, so he must be building Apollo...bad news :( ). You could use the Chinese territory as a Far eastern Base for your Panzer rush to the world ( bring planes too ;) ). But I repeat, you must stop both Cyrus and Hatty, even if you have to do it yourself :eek: .

In addition r_rolo1's advice, I would also recommend declaring war on Saladin. I expect it will only be a phony war (he has rather a lot on his hands right now;) ) and the relations boosts with the big techers are definitely worth a phony war.

I'm in agreement with Shoot the Moon here.

I take it Diplo Victory is out of the question now? :lol:

I take it Diplo Victory is out of the question now? :lol:

I'm not so sure about that. We have Asoka at friendly and Cyrus, Mansa, and Roosevelt at pleased. That's pretty much all the remaining powers (and Egypt too I guess) In addition, we can get some easy positive modifiers with most of them simply by declaring on Saladin (or perhaps waiting until one of them asks, although I would find that doubtful as they are surely winning the war). And we have a large population from running an SE.

Thats a good point.

My only thought is that Neal might not fancy bee-lining Mass Media for the UN. And if someone else builds it, I'm not sure whether he'd be on the list for Secretary General. But this is Civ, anything can happen :)

Plan your 'big' war with hatty and cyrus carefully, and you can take them out one at a time. Getting hatty to war with someone meaningful while you build up panzers. You have to remember to take away oil supplies from these guys, it will be a key factor in determining how easy/quickly you can take them down. You can do it though.

With all the warring we've been doing, in addition to running an SE, I'm sure we'd be the leader and pop and would be the other candidate in the U.N. elections. And we can choose our opponent if we so desire with the trick that I mentioned a couple of pages ago.

If and when you invade China you'll need the biggest stack you can get and as fast as you can (with Moscow speed might not be that much of a problem) get Industrialism as soon as possible but be sure to pick up Communism (State Property) for your empire and consider Operation Sealion to take out England because Lizzy is a tech monster but I agree on the taking out Persia and Egypt but why not beef up your panzers first eh? :groucho:

For information:
Saladin renouncing his vassalage & declaring war on cyrus-asoka-mansa is the same action, I belive. I guess Cyrus demanded some commodity from Saladin (Time for your tribute. Refusal means war!) and, well, I guess Saladin just said "B*gger it all, I need that. War it is. Declarations on Asoka and Mansa were automatic as they are Cyrus' vassals. Strangely, a bit later ASOKA got off the Cyrus hook, but it looks like he didn't have to fight for it. Mabye he fulfilled one of the obligations to be able to do it peacefully (mabye he lost land to China, or grew strong enough to be free)

Anyway that was very good news for you, since taking down Cyrus with his technologically advanced troops +3 lapdog vassals would have been very tough indeed. Now you stand a chance.

To break off the pack vassalage with Mansa + Cyrus, you can either attack Mansa (make him lose much land and he can break free because "master failed to protect ussss!") or you can attack and reduce Cyrus ("Our master is now weak, so we don't need him")

If I read diplomacy correctly then both Saladin and Chi-Ho-Minh-Whatever are at war with the Cyrus league. You probably are not ready for war yet but at least Cyrus is not stockpiling troops. Get tanks and bombers tech, and produce your army.

When the big bang goes down, you might consider being in nationhood. Draft infantry, build/whip tanks and bombers. Don't really think you need artillery, you can just use accuracy cannon to knock down city walls quickly and risklessly (is that a word?). Bombers for collateral (they are especially good in the open, one hit and then any ole infantry can kill whats left)

The AI sure loves to build SAM infantry - which are fodder for regular 25% against gunpowder infantry. Let em pay for that mistake.

I THINK I would shut down tech (except for a couple scientists where in oxford-city) after you have planes-tanks-artillery-infantry. Then you go to universal suffrage and use gold to buy more cannon fodder. Build only military (whip couthouses in any city which don't have on capture) and go for the win.

And later on, keep an eye on the win conditions. Getting the land is usually the problem, if not have a crowd of engineers/workers (they sure look like engineers in the modern era) farm everything and grow a while for the win.

There is a lot of land in Africa, innit? You just need to take out the Perso-Malinese bloc with the aid of egypt (try asking her AFTER you declare, she might like the idea better when she sees you are into it..).

Then you can betray and destroy Egypt with the help of Rommel, Hoth, Guderian and the Africa Panzer Corps.

Neal, is it possible next time to include the demographics screen in the "state of the world"? Thanks in advance.

re: The United Nations- Diplomatic Victory has long been accepted as a "backdoor" Domination Victory, so I'm not wholly averse to it. Building the U.N. in a border city and gifting it to a weaker Civ, though, I won't do. Sorry, but it's a little too underhanded for me. Feels like an exploit. Also, while Cyrus is my bestest buddy (next to Asoka), he's also the biggest civ on the map, so he'd likely be my opponent. So his friendliness isn't much help. And I can't think of a way to whittle him down without making him hate me.

re: The state of the world- It's interesting. While Cyrus certainly has the biggest army in the world, he doesn't have the most advanced. That distinction would belong to the English. Cyrus is actually a couple of techs behind me (though not really enough to give me much of an advantage). Hatty is the scariest solo opponent, honestly. Almost as advanced as Liz, almost as big as Cyrus.

re: Demographics- Certainly. In fact, I'll put it up when I get home from work (should be about 2 ET). If I forget, I'll put it up in the morning.

Go Desert Fox on Hatty. She's not that advanced: Artillery and that's it. She has one easily-dispatched oil well, some nice wonders, and 5 phat cities with high pop and next door to Cyrus.

Trade for Louis's Whales.

Half-research Democracy until you can get it from Mansa or Asoka.

Do you feel threatened right now? Maybe you can afford to flesh out some infrastructure if not: at least Assembly Plants, Coal Plants, and I highly recommend Banks for growing young Reichs. +50% anything is great.

Give Assembly Line to Saladin and Qin. Bog Cyrus down as much as possible.

Do you really need the Engineers in Berlin? You can't get one in time for The Pentagon. The Statue of Liberty is gone (and guess which Egyptian leader has it.) If you run Scientists you can save a turn on Electricity and get Panzers faster. Kind of unfortunate not to run science in your science city. Also, in general I'd suggest giving maximum tiles to your National Wonder cities if possible (at least where it stacks; Rome could give up some coast, for example.)

I think you have enough production to take out all your rivals. I could be wrong about Normal Speed being too slow for Domination.

Here's the victory conditions and demographics screens as of 1735:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0211-1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0212-1.jpg

Eep. I started the next round today (I won't be able to finish it today, but I figured I'd get a head start). Hatshepsut completed the Apollo Program in 1755. I know the AI will build that sort of thing long before they can hope to start building parts, but that's still awfully disconcerting. We're going to have Panzers online around 1800. And we have our target. :ar15: :egypt:

That 51% land area is looking a long way off. It'll take some serious warring to get up there before someone goes into space. Good luck!

He may need a "lightning" war to pull it off.:hmm: Time for a Real Blitzkrieg!!! :spear:

I played a little more today. Managed to hit Industrialism and build the Pentagon in 1785. Engaged in a little bit of a brushfire war with Saladin and Qin, just to keep the troops busy. But now we've got Panzers on the Assembly Lines. I think it's time to take on Egypt, before it's too late. Though England, too, is looking scary. Liz already has Plastics, for cryin' out loud.

Yeah, England is gonna be tough, but there's enough easy pickin's out there after egypt/persia/china to get you a long ways. after that, you'll be closer to the end of the tech tree, which will begin to cause tech parity with liz, and the main goal will be to keep her from launching. Your massive war machine will be able to take her out with sheer numbers and superior human war tactics.

I played a little more today. Managed to hit Industrialism and build the Pentagon in 1785. Engaged in a little bit of a brushfire war with Saladin and Qin, just to keep the troops busy. But now we've got Panzers on the Assembly Lines. I think it's time to take on Egypt, before it's too late. Though England, too, is looking scary. Liz already has Plastics, for cryin' out loud.

:bump: :)

Nuking Liz especially would be fun, but I don't like the global warming that happens afterwards. The one game that I used nuclear weapons, the global warming started only a few turns after launch and ruined land in my cities. I NUKED THE OTHER CONTINENT. Granted this was back in Vanilla, but that is the reason I havent used them since. I don't want to dominate a desert world. Though it does bring an interesting thought to mind about global warming... If it only takes one nuke to hurt the environment, perhaps real global warming has nothing to do with our cars, but everything to do with all that nuclear testing we did in the cold war out in the Pacific and in Siberia. Plus whatever countries are currently testing nuclear weapons and wherever they are doing it.

Perhaps nuking shold only be used to squash Liz back to the stone age, but every one else is taken the old fashioned way. Though you probably want to build the SDI first.

Played the round today. I'll post it tonight. Sorry I've been so spotty lately. I've been busy, and the game really bogs down in a warlike game on a map this big. I'll try to get this game finished in the next week or two.

All right. Back to business.

This round centers on our buildup to the war against Egypt, and the small brushfire wars along the way.

Our first task was to finally learn the secret of our unique unit:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0213-1.jpg

We sent our Roman War veterans to take down a minor Arabian outpost and...

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0214-1.jpg

... Oh. Dr. Scout is survived by his wife and three daughters. It was a good run while it lasted.

In 1755 we received sobering news, indeed:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0215-1.jpg

No, not Roosevelt getting an Engineer, you ninny. We're now officially on the Space Race clock with the Egyptians. The English might be a little more advanced technologically, but Hatshepsut actually has the production to pull this off. Egypt is going down.

I thought you all might enjoy a portrait of a dying empire:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0216-1.jpg

Saladin is SO screwed.

We quickly burned Baghdad and set our sights on the real prize: Mecca!

Our efforts in Paris paid off:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0219-1.jpg

Yes, we managed to score the Pentagon. I was afraid someone else was gonna snake it from us. With the HE, Pentagon, Barracks, and three Military Instructors in Rome, we were gonna be pumping out some wicked strong Panzers real soon now. :mwaha:

As you can see, I'm researching Communism. We've got an awfully big empire right now, and it's only going to get bigger. State Property will keep our maintenance nice and low.

Paris pumped out yet another Great Artist. Hey, I'm not complaining, though that outift doesn't suit Mr. Clemens very well. I sent him east to join the army just outside of Turkey:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0221-1.jpg

I made a frankly ill-advised tech trade, but I needed Universal Suffrage for the civic change, and this was the only way to get it:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0222-1.jpg

In 1790, the fortress town of Mecca finally fell. And we were lucky enough to strike the killing blow:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0223-1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0224-1.jpg

Hmph. No Shrine. And this late in the game, it'll be tough to get a Great Prophet out anytime soon. Ah, well.

With our techs in hand, I made the civic change:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0225-1.jpg

I was torn as to whether to go with Vassalage rather than Nationhood, but I figure that the ability to draft troops could save our bacon if Hattie manages to pull off an unforseen counterattack.

Finally, in 1806, I figured it was time to let poor Qin off the hook:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0226-1.jpg

I literally just had a Rifleman and an Infantry running around, razing plantations in China. And I didn't need any more unhappiness than absolutely necessary. Especially with a real war just around the corner.

So here we are. Here's the Blitz stack:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0227-1.jpg

And a look at the hemisphere:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0228-1.jpg

The domestic advisor:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0229-1.jpg

My diplomacy:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0230.jpg

And Hattie's:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0231-1.jpg

Victory conditions:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0232-1.jpg

And the graphs:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0233.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0234-1.jpg

And, finally, the save:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-1806.CivWarlordsSave

So, are we ready, or should we build a few more tanks? Egypt should be our target, right? Any other suggestions? As always, thanks for reading, and I hope to be a little more punctual in the future.

Ya. Down with Hathy. Try to get Cyrus to help you out or at least make sure he does not come on her side when you attack. BTW how ahead are they in tech? Anyone complete the Manhattan Project? :eek:

I say go for it now. Use both cannons to bombard and then on the same turn attack with the tanks. I wouldn't even bother suiciding any cannons. I would then press on to Heliopolis ASAP. It looks to me like Heliopolis has Versailles (or perhaps a forbidden palace, but I don't think Hatty has enough cities to build the FP). Watch out for those two Egyptian ships.

Well, you don't have a real choice now about Hatty... She dared to try to win , so it must be destroyed. Not much to say: troops , troops , troops and some more troops. And if you have extra time, some more troops. Don't trust too much on Cyrus: he must be finishing his Apollo too, so it must be crushed as well.
In resume: you decided to live by the sword.....You know the rest ;)

P:S : beware of Monty... He's furious with you and you know how hard is to bribe Monty to a War :lol:

Hatty's gotta go, Neal. Just pump out the Panzers and you'll be ok.

Sorry to hear about Dr. Scout :(

and congrats to r_rolo1 for nearly getting 1000 posts! :goodjob:

Coming out of hiding.... Great thread Neal. Loved Monty's thread too. Can't wait to see the world map in a hundred years :lol:

If there is a lot of war in your future, you need to run to Fascism for Police state and Mt. Rushmore (if still available). Get jails in cities soon, too.

Good luck

and congrats to r_rolo1 for nearly getting 1000 posts! :goodjob:
Like a well know forum member with a "hello Kitty" avatar ( I give you 3 shots to guess who :lol: ) would say, I ramble a lot but I still feel like a noob about the game ( well , atleast sometimes ;) ). Will try to post more and better things in the future :please: .....

Like a well know forum member with a "hello Kitty" avatar ( I give you 3 shots to guess who :lol: ) would say, I ramble a lot but I still feel like a noob about the game ( well , atleast sometimes ;) ). Will try to post more and better things in the future :please: .....

:lol:

You still talk more sense than me a lot of the time.

Let's see how fast you get to 2,000 eh?

How is the german navy compared w/hattys? It will be very easy i think for her to drop troops on your weakest coastal cities doorsteps. Other than that, I like the production que's of your cities. Plenty of Panzers online along with what's about to be rolling off the factory floors to do the job. I say go for it now. You should be able to use the 'real' blitzkrieg w/bombers and tanks on persia when your done w/her. This game is great to watch. Good work, Neal.

I've started the next round, and let me just say that Panzers are WAY too much fun. It's 1830 now, and Egypt has ceased to be a world power. I mean, sure, she's still on the map, but we're down to mop-up duty. I'm seriously thinking of just doing what needs to be done to vassalize her and then setting my sights on Cyrus. I just have one question....








Should I go nuclear?

I have just one answer:
YES!!!! :nuke:
:mwaha: :ar15:

Might as well let the nukes fly .. I'm pretty sure the AI's will build nukes themselves too and may use them. Domination will be tough but certainly fun to try. Make sure Roosevelt and Monty are backwards because if they starts the spaceship, it's tougher to stop.

Neal, nukes are fun..... but Global warming is not. Be sure that you have almost all you need before the desert tiles start to pop up. Besides that, good nuking ( I'm finishing a game where I won with a nuclear doomsday between me and ZY while my SS was cruising to Alpha centauri ( BTS, of course ;) ... the guy was preparing to invade me so I obliterated his naval task force with some tactical nukes before it landed :devil: ) ). And remember to post ALL those nice screenshots with that pretty mushroom cloud :lol:

Played Round 12. Sadly, the United Nations had some objections to our "going nuclear." I'll write it up in the morning. For now, I'm going to sleep.

Played Round 12. Sadly, the United Nations had some objections to our "going nuclear." I'll write it up in the morning. For now, I'm going to sleep.

I was going to post something about the UN when I first replied, buy I thought it shouldn't be a problem. Now I see I'm wrong.

Nevertheless... Easy to say. Probably hard to do. But...
Raze it! :mischief:

Time to get our hands dirty.

One thing I have to say about Egypt: It's nicely linear for us. Start with Turkey, go down through the Holy Land, and into Africa.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0235-1.jpg

Asyut burned. I'd rather capture mature cities.

In 1810, we got some bad news:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0237-1.jpg

No big deal. It's not exactly like we needed that city, anyway. Let Hatty deal with the Malinese cultural pressure.

Heliopolis, though (the city in central Turkey) was a much different story:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0238.jpg

Check out this bounty:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0239-1.jpg

Happiness and free specialists in every city? And Versailles? Yes, please! Mark Twain settled the unrest. It ended up getting the western half of its BFC (Cyrus dominated its east, even after the culture bomb) and settling down around 8 population.

I sent a suicide cavalry to scout the defenses of Thebes:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0240.jpg

Not terrible, but all those Artillery should have set off a bit more of a red flag than they did.

I sent in my stack, and...

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0241-1.jpg

Lost six or seven Panzers. Not crippling (I was producing two or three a turn at this point), but annoying, especially considering that I should have seen it coming from a mile away.

This did, though, expose the Artillery. Our next stack took the hill (for good this time) and prepared take the Egyptian capitol:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0243-1.jpg

You can see a couple of interesting things in this shot. First, you can see Cathy laying siege to Avaris, to the south (she's welcome to it) and a couple of transports offloading Tanks on the north coast. There was quite a series of battles for the Mediterranean. We had to rebuild more than a few seafood resources, and suffered starvation from Athens to Madrid. Our Drydocks cities (Athens and Antium) started pumping Destroyers and Battleships, though, and we finally managed to establish Mare Nostrum.

We found another fist full of wonders in Thebes:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0244-1.jpg

Most of them obsolete, but it's nice to have the free health to go with the free happiness.

Sinan was born around this time and quickly went to sleep in Berlin. I'm thinkin' Eiffel Tower with him.

Observe: The one time I actually got to make use of the Panzer as a Panzer:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0246-1.jpg

This was literally the only time in the entire war that we had armor-on-armor action. The rest of the conflict, the unique units may as well have been basic tanks. Ah, well.

The following screenshot is more funny than helpful. Here's the stack I'd used in the battle against Arabia, finally showing up to the party. Oh, I forgot to mention: Early in the round, Saladin gave up and recapitulated to Persia.

In 1822, we took Elephantine, Hattie's last stronghold on the shore of the Mediterranean:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0248.jpg

No wonders, but decent infrastructure. I'll take it.

In the next screenshot, you'll see the end of the Egyptian navy:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0250.jpg

Hattie did sneak out a destroyer to wreak some havoc on the North Sea, but that was strictly mop-up duty.

In fact, almost everything at this point was mop-up duty:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0251.jpg

I now had the ability to teach my horsemen how to fly (effectively making horses useless- they should become a happiness resource or something after you have flight and rocketry) and started on the secrets of Nuclear Weapons!

Hattie sent her last ditch stack to try to do some damage:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0253.jpg

Needless to say, it didn't do a whole heck of a lot.

Suddenly, this pops up:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0254.jpg

Oh, lord. So Elizabeth went and built it, huh? Why, exactly? She had no shot at winning the election. I even voted for her, trying to play spoiler (she could be controlled a little more easily than Cyrus with his harem of vassals). To no avail, though. Cyrus took control.

Memphis was the next to die:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0255.jpg

And, yes, my stack of tanks is getting a little excessive. I have another 10 or so in Moscow, waiting for the strike on Persia.

Memphis held two Temples: Solomon and Artemis. The latter I could care less about, but the former gave me 46 gold per turn, so I'll take it.

I continued marching south through Africa, taking cities, constantly checking for capitulation. I was starting to get nervous that Hattie might bow to Cyrus and force a peace.

Speaking of forced peace, in 1838, the world (that being EVERYBODY but me- including my freakin' vassals) voted to ban the use of nuclear weapons. With the Madrid Project halfway to completion. Sigh.

I took Hattie's last African stronghold (Yes, I even retook Arretium):

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0261.jpg

I experienced fairly heavy losses, there. Dug in Marines can do some damage to a tank! But I couldn't wait for my cannons (yeah, I still don't have Artillery). I can't have her attaching herself to Cyrus.

Something strange popped up in the middle of the Sahara:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0263.jpg

I'm wondering whether I should take it or just leave it be. I should probably just take it. It's cool, though.

In 1840, with war weariness cresting (Up to +11 in some cities), Hattie finally gave in:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0265.jpg

Unfortunately, Hieraconpolis ended up being one of those one-square island cities in the middle of the South Pacific. It's mine now, though.

State of the world to follow.

We'll start with a look at the newly expanded German Empire:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0266.jpg

You can also see Persia and England in that shot. I can't figure out which one to eat first. Cyrus needs to go, but the U.N. is the real threat, and that's in England.

Here's the Domestic Advisor:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0268.jpg

Lots and lots and lots of tanks.

Victory Conditions:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0269.jpg

I hate to say it, but we still might just pull this off. Maybe.

Foreign relations as pertain to us and Cyrus:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0271.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0272.jpg

And the graphs:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0273.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0274.jpg

We're now a solid second in power, but jeez. Cyrus is almost bigger than the rest of the world combined!

So... Persia or England? England is an island, both diplomatically and geographically. If we take on Persia, we're taking on the world. I feel like we're in the middle of 300, here. If we can take on the numberless hordes and win, though, the game is won, one way or another.

What do you all think?

Here's the save:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-1840.CivWarlordsSave

I know that The U.N. is in England, but Cyrus is the President. By taking out Cyrus you can force new elections for President between you and Liz, because, let's face it, with Cyrus gone you will by far be the largest empire on the planet. Also, Cyrus is most likely almost done with the Apollo Project which taking the time to invade England could allow him to A) complete it quickly and B) start building parts. His empire is WAAAAAY to big to allow him to even start pumping out SS Casings. Yeah Liz may be an easy target, but she doesn't have enough votes to matter in an election wheras Cyrus does. And keeping control of the election opponent is crucial right now. Go all Spartan on Xerxes the God-King. I mean Cyrus, President of the United Nations.

Cyrus first, and then you can take on Lizzy, Mansa, Asoka or Qin.
Backdoor diplo might be the way to go.

You have a good share of Europe.... And some Africa.. And you still have only 12% of the land. Cyrus and his vassals have 23%. Combining your efforts, it should be around 35%. You'd still have another 30% to grab in about 200 years, assuming no one launches. :eek:
You can turn the world population to dust with nukes, but you cannot gain 30% of the land this way....
It should be really nice see a domination win from this scenario, but a backdoor might be the way to go.

Good luck, Neal!

I would try a backdoor diplo win. Take cyrus and his legion of vassals ( It will be a titan clash ) and vote yourself the winner. Not pretty, but is the best way to grab a win out of this. For a pure dom I would go to the Americas ( cleaning up those backward guys ), but I doubt that you'll have time for that.

You could also turn down research and bump up the culture slider to grab more land with the cities you already have and what you capture during the war. Just one border pop with each new city doubles it's size. Two pops, i think, more than triples it from the original (provided no other culture to interfere). Last Dom win I got I was in the middle of the war with 20% culture for War Weariness and then all of a sudden I had won. Watched the replay and figured out that it was because 2 cities I had just taken popped their borders and pushed me over the edge. If you feel you still need the research go for the Diplo, but without being able to use nukes right now, does it matter? Just push for flight, radio, and modern armor and all should be well.

Most people don't agree but I say take on Liz first because at this point, you're not ready to take on Cyrus and England is the furthest ahead in tech. Plus, controlling the UN will allow you to use nukes. Either way, what is Cyrus' and Liz's tech status and can you post your military advisor?

Most certainly.

Liz:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0275.jpg

Cyrus:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0276.jpg

And the Military Advisor. I thought I had more tanks than that:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x68/NealTS/Civ4ScreenShot0277.jpg

Cyrus is a monster, but it doesn't matter because you'll have bombers. Just play defensively first and rip his stacks to shreds. Then start your offensive.

Mali could be a problem, though. How can a empire that covers half of Africa be a vassal? :crazyeye: Ah well. Just stick enough panzers in former Egypt and you should be fine.

And keep teching. If you're the first to modern armor, jet fighters and stealth bombers, fun will ensue.

For once, I'm glad that I vassalized Catherine, since she'll be the one taking the brunt of Cyrus' assault. The preliminary plan I had was to use the 15 or 20tanks I have in Africa to make quick work of Mali (and Cyrus' one little city in South Africa), while weathering the storm from Cyrus (along with poor, poor Russia). Knock off that annoying Arab fortress, too. This would secure our last "flank." Once that's done, we'd have a simple, one-front war and we'd be able to go on the offensive.

... So I should switch some of my production to Bombers? With the AI's obsession with SAM Infantry, I was thinking that tanks, tanks and more tanks would be the way to go...

Bombers do collateral damage to artilery ( they are the only thing that can do it ) and you know how AI love to spam arties... About the SAMs: send your fighers first: A SAM can only shot one plane per turn... it is better to be a cheap fighter than a more expensive bomber.

You know: you're German , then Blitzkrieg ( Bombers + Tanks ) :devil:

P.S Give outdated units to Cathy. Let her upgrade them and have a decent army.

Definetly take out Mali, it's a lot of "free" land.

Keep cranking out tanks, get some airforce in the works (you don't even need a lot), declare war, wipe Mansa off the map while fighting defensively in Europe (help Cathy out by bombing inbound stacks and sending whatever tank support you're continuing to crank out).

Beeline modern armour, and once you've crushed the incoming stacks from Persia, Mansa should be no more, and then you hand Cyrus his ass on a platter.

This is, of course, assuming that the production graph looks like what I assume it does. What does it look like? =)

Your battle plan is sound. Too bad for Catherine. But with a little help she will hold out. Mabye. If not, there is a little more land for you to recapture in the name of the reich. (Having a few panzers there in Russia will let you make strategic counterattacks to help reduce the Persians' stacks)

Mali should fall, and Hatty should help a little bit with that, too.

For production, mostly tank, but you need a few bombers too. Just don't go crazy with them, Air Power never won a war... If you have cities without barracks they could build your Luftwaffe.

Can't open the file, but have you gone over your land and made sure it is optimized for production? Some cities might not need to grow anymore and can turn a farm or two into workshops. And watermills where you can build 'em.

I did a turn's worth of scouting, and it looks like Mali's gonna be a tougher nut to crack than I'd first though. He now has Fighters and Choppers looping around his cities, which doesn't look good for our force of tanks and more tanks. Yeah, it looks like our Armored Romp was a one-time deal.

Good call on optimising production. I tend to micromanage my core cities, but recent conquests tend to receive the "as you were" treatment.

I second the gifting of obsolete units to Catherine.

Also, how many cities does Hatty have and how good are they? We're in trouble if Hatty still has some good cities, because if your vassal launches, you still lose (go figure). So if she is too good, she still has a shot at winning. If that is the case, I would recommend directing her research away from space ship parts.

Hatty is down to one city somewhere in southeast Asia. She is no longer a threat. The problem is, I no longer have obsolete units. Panzers, Gunships, and Infantry's pretty much all I got at this point.

Have you gifted your vassals up in techs? I would assume so, but just checking just in case. If I have some spare time, I will open up the save to look at the micromanagement stuff.

I did check through the safe. What I noticed:


Warwick running two Artists seems pointless, the tundra forest is better.
Why build temples in Moscow and Neapolis? The culture won't help much and you have enough happy faces.
Arretium shouldn't be working a windmill over a fully mature cottage.
Antium and Athens shouldn't be running artists over scientists.
There is an unused grassland farm in Canterbury that should be switched over to Coventry's BFC instead.
There is coast being worked in Canterbury that should be switched to a grassland farm.
I disagree with building theaters in captured cities that have wonders as they will get enough culture from the wonders.
I would raze the barb city for the easy experience and the gold.

I did check through the safe. What I noticed:


I disagree with building theaters in captured cities that have wonders as they will get enough culture from the wonders.


I always thought that captured wonders don't give culture at all?

Wasn't that a change in BtS (or was it Warlords)? I am pretty sure that in Vanilla they do but it was changed somewhere along the line. Not sure exactly where though. So possibly they don't. If they don't, I would continue the theater build.

I did a turn's worth of scouting, and it looks like Mali's gonna be a tougher nut to crack than I'd first though. He now has Fighters and Choppers looping around his cities, which doesn't look good for our force of tanks and more tanks. Yeah, it looks like our Armored Romp was a one-time deal.

Good call on optimising production. I tend to micromanage my core cities, but recent conquests tend to receive the "as you were" treatment.

Any news?

The year is 1858. The world is at war. The good people of Heliopolis live under constant bombardment as Persian Cavalry and German Tanks duel just outside the city walls. Central African farms and villages are razed with impunity by Malinese fighters. Starvation runs rampant throughout Europe as the embargoes on Indian foodstuffs and medicines allow disease to spread unchecked in the larger cities.

It is a static war as good German people huddle in their homes against the numberless armies of Persia and their snarling battle-thralls. Government officials promise that soon, the attacks will lose their momentum and then the glorious Wehrmacht will go on the offensive, gaining land and glory for Germania. But there is no abatement in sight. The German people have nothing to show for their troubles but hardship, suffering, and a few scraps of insignificant land.

Deep within his palace, far away from the hungry masses of greater Berlin, Frederick stares pensively at a map. The Persian homeland is enticingly close, defended by but a few battalions of troops, but to send the army out now would be to invite disaster. Heliopolis must not fall. The Statue of Liberty there is nothing more than a symbol, true, but it is a symbol of all that the German Empire stands for. Time is not on Frederick's side, though, as it is only a matter of time until the once-friendly Indians and the inscrutable Chinese bring their war machines to bear.

The Suez airbase is a constant bustle of activity. It's not much of a town, just a canal and a landing strip in the middle of the desert, a few support personnel and a theater to entertain the troops. Fresh planes come in every year from all over the empire, from as far away as Madrid. They are immediately sent out to help break the near-continuous sieges that plague Heliopolis and Mecca. The airmen fight the good fight. Not a single plane has been lost in the war.

But the garrisons of the besieged cities grow thinner and more tired. Air support can only do so much. And Suez itself is woefully unprepared for attack, should Cyrus seek to wipe it off the map. Optimism is in short supply this close to the front lines, and more and more pilots have taken to drink.

The Age of the Panzer is over. The Arabian outpost of Najran may have been their last unassisted conquest, and that came at a heavy cost. Of the eight battalions sent to take the city, only three survived to see it fall. Newly trained troops are wise to the limitations of the lumbering armor, and are no longer subject to the shock and awe of the Tank Charge. Helicopters have the power to attack Panzers from angles that the old machines cannot hope to even see. More and more factories once dedicated to Panzer production now build Bombers and the sophisticated weaponry of Marines. Scientists work feverishly on technologies that they hope will bring Armor into a new, Modern age, but progress is slow.

Protests spring up across the Empire as idealistic students band together with starving workers and the parents of the fallen to call for the end of the war. Before long, Jails will be needed across Germania.

A bit wobbly from having denied himself a proper meal for days and a good night's sleep for weeks, Frederick boards a private train bound for Rome. As the Alps speed by, his thin fingers clutch at the thin folder of all of the intelligence available to him. He mentally berates himself for bringing it; any maps or charts he had available to him would be available in triplicate in the War College. This war was getting beyond him. It was time to seek the advice of the numerous generals stationed in Rome.

"Well," Frederick says thinly, standing before the Hall of Generals. "As you know, our situation is dire. What do you recommend?"

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-1858.CivWarlordsSave

(Not a proper Round, I know, but this seemed a fun way to ask for advice halfway through a very taxing war. And if we can't have fun with it, what's the point?)

Not much to say, isn't it? You said it: the Panzer era is over, long live the age of planes, gunships and SAMs ( you know, that infantry unit that has a bonus against gunships.... )
You need to break your enemies prod, I assume... this means bombers, alot of bombers and raid Persia and Mali without mercy ( india is too far away ). If necessary do a sortie an raze how many enemy cites you can ( maps and graphs would help here... ). If you still have cash reserves spy sabotage mines and farms ( especially resources ) were you can't reach with your army...
To your people, two WWII sentences ( they are German, they will understand ... ) :
-Totaler Krieg - Kurzerster Krieg!
-Nichts fur uns, alles fur Deutschland

In other words, Police state, rushmore and jails ( $rush them before changing to PS ) and lock all your empire into production mode (watermill and workshop cottages if possible ). Smash Mali with numbers while containing Persia in the middle east, and if possible do a behind the lines berserk attack to India ( attack with marines, raze, rinse and repeat ) to get them out of Cyrus vassalage ( 1 less foe would help you ).

Two questions:
-nukes are UN allowed or not ATM?
- Can you open another front ( like in the far east or a american civ landind in Africa ( just to release pressure from you ) ?

I agree with rolo. Perhaps you could even designate one city producing Marines as your attack stack city. Promote all units produced by it for attacking cities (maybe even ambush for tanks) and, when large enough, go out and start razing some cities from either India, or perhaps even Persia. If you sit too long on the defensive, the sheer weight of your opponents will crush Germania under them. Keep up as strong of a defense as you can while prepping for an offensive. Would you be able to bring her Royal Highness Elizabeth into the war on your side? It would have the added bonus of slowing her teching as well.

Great 100th post.

I too second rolo's ideas, and would also recommend pillaging the heck out of Cyrus. Remember, bombers can do pillaging runs, and if you can constantly destroy his resources you could gain the upper hand.

This is the reason that a 2 front war is so difficult to wage. One thing I might add: Do your best to bomb Persia and Mali's tile improvements. Focus mainly on food and mines. if you take away their industrial capacity, you take away their ability to quickly replace units you've destroyed. Also, look for thier HE city and prioritize it in your attacks. Good luck. This is getting better and better....

Hate to see my baby fall to the second page like that... I'll try to post the next round tomorrow.

Hate to see my baby fall to the second page like that... I'll try to post the next round tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to it. This game is definitely "challenging"

Sorry, still no complete round. We're rapidly approaching 10-15 minutes per turn. I've taken Pasagardae, but my bomber fleet in Suez was razed by a sudden strike by 15-20 Persian Gunships. I stuck my neck out, and got hit for it. I'm considering suing for peace, but there's no way Pasagardae will stand against Persian cultural pressure. Here's the save:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118138/Frederick_AD-1868.CivWarlordsSave

Any advice?

You had pushed in the wrong direction , Neal. In this case, the british doctrine is better: hold them in a strong point (in your situation it would be the suez city and Heliopolis ) and strike the enemy flanks ( mansa and asoka ) with naval strikes.

Why did you skipped Fascism? You need Police state for modern wars, otherwise the WW will kill you ( like it is doing now ). And remember that Police state gives a 50 % bonus to the military production ( your army would apreciate that )... The only reason why Cyrus is holding is because he is in Police state and you aren't... And you can research Fascism in 2 turns by now ( and skip the temples.... )

Neal, another question: where are the airports? You lost a lost of army-turns transporting units by land ( faster army means more strength is the key spots ).... and having airports would mean that you could airlift reinforcements in situations like this one from the industrial core.

Is this game salvagable? IMHO, if you make peace, the game is lost. Cyrus and Co. have more prod and they can launch a heavy attack to you if you try space... I don't think that you have other option than war until the bitter end.... Stop the research after Plastics, $rush airports and some troops , research Fascism, revolt to Police state and strike Mansa. If you can't hold suez, you must retreat the air fleet and strike back the gunships badly ( make a hold in the hill next to the suez city if necessary (remember that gunships can't take cities....)

I would retreat from Pasagardae as well. You should had razed the city when you captured it, heal and push somewhere else. Modern war agaisnt a equal foe is about denying production to the enemy, so you must raze some cities before the final push to break production....

But IMHO, the best you can do would be pick the last round save and prepare better the war....

P.S Genghis is with his hands full. He's going to dogpile you....

Yeah I agree with r rolo.

Intense game. Keep it up.

All right, guys. We've kind of reached a crossroads. The way I see it, we have two choices. We can a) push on to the bitter end, and probably lose, or b) I can treat the last two not-rounds as an alternate history, go back to the last true round save, and, with the benefit of experience, win this war.

It feels a little bit cheaty, but I kind of favor option b. It's getting increasingly difficult for me to go back to that game, only to get kicked in the teeth over the agonizing course of 10 minute turns. This was the first modern war I've ever really played in this game. I've certainly learned a lot from failure, and I'd like to get a chance to make it right. And besides, with the crazy luck we had taking Rome and not getting crushed by England, it's not like I feel like this is a totally legit game, anyway.

Then again, there is already the leadup to the fall of the empire, which is always fun. And there is something to be said for making an example of how not to fight a modern war. And accepting my defeat gracefully is the honorable thing to do.

So I leave it up to you guys. Heck, if you want the best of both worlds, I can write up a full alternate history round of the failed war and then go back. I do have the screenshots, after all. What do you think?

I'd prefer option A. Because I think that playing it to the end would be the honourable thing to do! :king:

But if you're up for option B then go for it. It's your game after all.

I already gave my opinion..... but I believe that your current situation is still salvagable.