Not a bad turnset this time. Highlights are:


Took Haithabu back and held it (finally!). In fact, a good portion of the Viking, Persian and Arabian armies were slaughtered in their attempt to take the city back. At least 12 Cyrus riflemen, 6 Viking riflemen, 10 camel archers and whole host of support troops were taken out.
Cyrus retreated his few remaining troops back Susa.
We are now marching on Viking city of Birka (southwest of Haithabu). The Vikings have 4 rifles in the city and another rifle on the iron 2 tiles from the city. Our stack consists of 2 muskets, 9 grens and 6 cannon.
That leaves our current Haithabu defense force of 1 elephant, 4 trebs (I have been upgrading these as fast as possible), 7 muskets, 4 cannon and 8 grens. Note that some of our forces are a little sore from battle and are healing.
Saladin now has rifles, but mostly they have been hitting me with camel archers, maces, horse archers and crossbowmen mixed with a couple of cats or trebs.
There was a slight lull in troop production as I built/whipped theatres in our largest cities. War weariness is really beginning to be a problem.
Right after steel I switched to 10% culture and 0% research to battle some war weariness yet still accumulated gold for upgrading trebs. I further switched it to 20% culture (still 0% tech) to keep us happy.
We spawned a great general. I merged him into the city of Nottingham.
We popped another copper in Athens (our War Epic city). That was nice! :goodjob:
I founded two additional cities on the two islands east of our starting continent. When I popped the goody hut near Birmingham, I received a warrior! :lol:


Overall things look pretty good. Keep the troops coming, use the frigate outside of Susa to lower its defense prior to the assult and let's try to break Cyrus's back while holding the line at Haitabu.

Cubbies, you're up!

I can jump back in and play tonight (12 hours or so) if cubbies can't get to it by then.

Go ahead and play Oz...I can play tomorrow then.

Actually, I've got some free time now so I'll go ahead and play.

This is my "I've got it."

Well...a lot more war was had, but I think we've turned the corner.

I captured Birka and have successfully defended against numerous attacks - I managed to lose all of the cannons in that stack though.

I also captured Roskilde and razed it - it would have been a struggle to defend and our culture will eventually cover these tiles anyways.

Things have just now settled down and I think we can actually start progressing forward: troops in Haithabu should be able to move north now and once more cannons arrive, troops in Birka should be able to move south.

The frigate next to Sousa continues to lower the city defense for when our troops get there.

There is a galleon with a settler, worker, and grenadier headed to the island to the south that has copper.

Right near the end of my turns I noticed that we have a Great Engineer in Athens, we should probably use him to rush the Ironworks somewhere.

Excellent. I'll play tonight. Ironworks in Athens itself would be good.

I spend a while reviewing the position. Seems OK.

The GE is used on Ironworks in Athens.

We go on the attack on the southern front taking Susa and Bantu, freeing up that front.

Saladin turns up with Cavalry which can be painful but I have a formation Grenny who is able to cope.

I have started moving forces westwards and we could consider moving a force northwards as well.

Our land is at 50%, so we''re getting closer. Both cities captured will be out of revolt in 4 turns.

The WW will be brutal until we can clear out a whole civ, Cyrus or Ragnar. I started a frigate in Birka to be whipped and allowing us access to the inner sea to complete scouting.

ngraner or Mighty is UP.

Sounds like good progress by both Cubbies and Oz.

Good luck to MD and NG on their turns.

Unless MD chimes in that he wants it, I will play this evening.

go ahead graner I'll take it after you.

Rearranged some tiles to improve the economy to -25 gpt at 30% culture.
Furious fighting south of Bjorkvin results in many casualties on both sides. I think we get the better of it.
1780: Our largest army reaches the outskirts of the Persian capital of Persepolis. They great us with an assault, but we do most of the killing.
The great city of Pasagardae with the Pyramids is spotted just beyond Persepolis.
We get a second Great Artist in Nidaros. Once we take the central Persian cities we can pop these guys for a big culture gain.
1786: We have the city of Persepolis.
1790: We have the city of Pasagardae. The Persian army is broken.

We have 52% of the land and 2 Great Artists to use. Hopefully Mighty Dwarf can bring this one home. Please remember to go to 100% culture when popping the Artists.

I would bomb Pasargardae. If we've captured Pyramids we should revolt to Police State asap. We could consider Caste System and employ artists in our border cities as well.

Sounds like a good plan. At this point new units may not make it to the front in time anyway.

I'll take it tonight, hopefully get to play more turns than last time!!

We are upto 58.28%

Captured Bkorgvin, Parthian, Gordium, Bactra and Jelling
Razed Tarsus, there is a settler who can settle slightly north of where Tarsus was to gain more squares than keeping Tarsus would have given us.

I bombed Pasargade and Jelling as this was mainly inland city

The last Viking city can be taken next turn I think we would be better off razing this as we would gain little tiles from keeping it.

Saladin has started harassing with cavs, he took Jelling turn after initially was gained but retook.

Revolted to Police State but Saladin revolted to emancipation so we are now suffering unhappiness from this too.

I have finished one settler only unit left to move and another is soon to finish. I have left to decide whether to settle open island or use to resettle razed cities.

Should be over in 10-15 turns. fingers crossed

I guess it's my turn to play again, I'll wait a couple of hours before playing, if anyone has any comments.

If we've got another Great Artist to bomb, you may be able to finish it off. Razing and re-settling may also be better (depends on how long it'd take to get a settler over there). Whip new cities down to size 1 if necessary to get more troops and settlers and theatres etc.

Good job MD.

It looks like we just need to stay on our current course and this one should be over.

Both GAs were bombed Jelling and Pasargadae. It maybe worth concentrating on clearing the cities that are holding back the borders from these cities once these reach there full potential we should be there or thereabouts with dom tiles

Ok, got it, and playing.

I can see that three more turns are needed to finish this one. Should I go ahead?

Go for it!

Looks like somebody finished this puppy? Congratulations :goodjob:

Go and read the rest of the threads :)

We won a Domination victory in 1823 AD. :king:

We won with 64,02%.

Ragnar was gone on the first turn, and Cambridge was founded.

On turn five I destroyed Arbela, and found Cyrus last city Ecbatana, it was blocking the expansion of Jelling and Pasargardae.
I start moving troops to take Ecbatana, and focus our production on wealth, to increase culture percentage.

I build another city on one of the islands, and generally locate locations where we can increase our cover, and set these up for culture focus.

Saladin gets Cavalry and start harassing our troop movements, I manage to raze a couple more cities, but it doesn't increase our landcover.

After ten turns we're at 63.44%, the rest of the troops needed to finish Cyrus is 3 turns from attacking.

On turn thirteen, as the troops are ready to deal with Cyrus, a couple of cities borders pop, and bring us to 64,02% that is only one tile over the line. :lol:

Good work everyone :D

Well done all and thanks Alan. Off to read the other teams threads to figure out how they finished so early.

McArine, good job closing it out and a good job to the team. :band:

It looks like we beat 4 teams for a middle of the pack finish.

Good job McArine!

As always, it was a pleasure and an honor to serve with the Chokonuts.

Good job team. This one went much better than I initially thought it would.

We did have the fastest domination win!

Sign ups for the next game are on, 3 of us so far have signed up (me, ngraner and terminator). Everyone else returning? It should be quite fun, Deity OCC!

I've had a look at the winning threads. Apart from masses of discussion, investigation of the XML code, analysis of test games, the thing that seperated the fast winning teams from the chaing pack was an insanely quick Astronomy bulb! I was assuming they found a galley route (which I couldn't see from the map unless you culture bombed the very twestern tip of the landmass).

We discussed lightbulbing Astronomy, but we did not fully work it out, or do the analysis early enough.

I looked at Murky Waters and there were a couple key points. They settled on the river giving maximum chance of bronze without Wheel. We had very little discussion on the starting location. We should fix that. They were very focussed on hitting an oponent early, where we played more of a builder game. They played a Conquest game whereas we played a Domination game. With AW Conquest may make more sense.

I think the fastest teams geared themselves from the start to get Astro asap and were also willing to risk more in effort to clean out starting continent which is good as long as it works.
I've signed up for new one, why not although have never won on Deity before, to be honest never even tried...

Our discussions about lbulbing Astro didnt really start until after we'd cleared first continent and thus had already strayed from fastest route. With next game being OCC then we will definitely need some pre start discussion as city placement will be vital.

OCC is another fun way to play. I've actually won OCC on Deity on Diplo (it makes the game 1-2 levels easier) but I'm not sure with all the AI in if Diplo will be possible. I'm going to play a couple of test games and WB a start similar to the screenshot and see what can be done.

Looks like everyone has signed up again :goodjob:

Is everyone happy at 6 on the team? Does anone think we need an extra person? I think we're OK at 6 but wouldn't be bothered if we had 7.

I'm fine with 6...but would also be fine with 7 - don't care much either way.

pholkhero has expressed an interest in playing the next SGOTM and I asked if he wanted to join us. He would be a good addition, he's OK at Civ IV but very entertaining :lol: (hope he reads this ;))

Oh, and the Realms Beyond team (who we have beaten by 1 place in the last two SGOTMs) have stated their goal for the next SGOTM is to beat us :lol:

I welcome pholkhero to the team.

We will kick Realms Beyond's buts into the stone age in the next game.