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The Game

Gyathaar is playing this one close to his chest. Here's all the intelligence I've been able to wring out of him:


Prince difficulty
Epic speed
You play as the Charismatic, Protective Churchill of the English Empire.
You start with Fishing and Mining.
Your unique unit is the Redcoat, replacing the Rifleman.
Your Unique building is the Stock Exchange, replacing the Bank.
The map is a highly modified Cylindrical Big And Small map, using the BtS map script. It is Standard, Temperate, Medium sea level.
Always war. All VCs are enabled. I think the barbs are at default setting.

Here's the start - click the picture for one a bit bigger.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/SGOTM06small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/SGOTM06.jpg)

Versions
This game will be played in Warlords Version 2.13, on Windows only, with the DLLs as installed with BtS.

It will be played using the current version of the HoF Mod. This is version 2.13.002 for Windows. You will need to ensure that you can run the Asset Checker v2 before you attempt to load this game. Typlically, players who have upgraded to Beyond the Sword will have the right assets. Alternatively, you should be able to make your installation compliant by installing the new .DLLs released for WOTM 15 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=251044). If you have a Steam installation then you will need to look at this post by ArcadicGamer for inspiration.

If later versions of Warlords or the HoF Mod are released they cannot be used for this game, and you will need to maintain a copy of your installed software at these versions to complete the game.

Timetable
The game will start on December 14th. I recommend you plan for a 4 month deadline for completion.

You will be able to download your start save from the SGOTM Progress and Results Page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) on December 14th, at midnight local server time.

Notes

Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439) to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.

Warlords v.2.13 is supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with the same version throughout the game.

Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher. The number of awards may be reduced, depending on the number of teams who sign up.

Awards will be given to teams who win in the least turns.

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


Enjoy your mystery tour of the World of Warlords.

Checking in.

I've played quite a few AW games (most of them in Warlords) so can put down some thoughts. I recommend everyone playing one until 1AD (time permitting of course) just to get a feel for how they go (they're a lot of fun as well :goodjob:). Most games I have played in have three distinct phases to them.

Phase 1 - This is the most crucial phase and can be how the game is won or lost. You've got to get out early as possible and cripple your neighbours. Pillage, raze, capture whatever you can to stop them expanding. Mini-stacks (chariot, axe, spear) are best for this. Adding an AI capital or 2 to the empire early can be a crucial advantage. Build a ring of defensive cities (on hills with walls if possible) to protect your core because...

Phase 2 - The distant AI (and any close ones you haven't crippled) are going to come calling with endless streams of huge stacks. Those walled cities on hills on the front line should have many longbows and crossbows to absorb this. On continent type maps, this may not play out as badly if we cripple those on our island but things can look pretty bleak at some stages but...

Phase 3 - If you can get through Phase 2, the AIs will at some stage just run out of gas and the incoming stacks will decrease. You've got to get out and finish the game now. Conquest and then Domination are the easiest victories (although space, culture and diplomatic are all possible).

Things to note about AW games.


AW=Always warrior. Whoever goes first, has to build a warrior first as a AI warrior wandering past can finish the game very quickly.
We have to research every tech ourselves (hut popping excepted). This means that some techs you never research in SP games are really important, Archery, Feudalsim, Horseback Riding are priority techs.
The way AW works is that we auto-declare when we meet an AI, if we don't meet them, they don't know we're at war, so sometimes it is better to avoid meeting the neighbours.
We will be somewhat health and happiness limited because we can't trade
Most of the time most of your cities will be producing military, so our economy is going to suck. We'll probably be at 20%-30% for most of the middle part of the game. That's not bad so don't get too stressed about it.
Clear all forests from around all your cities, don't give the enemy something to hide in.


Anyway, AW is a really fun way to play the game. Its really hard as well and there will some scary moments along the way but hopefully we can see it through.

Checking in
Nice thoughts Ozbenno.
I'll try to get an AW game played soon.

Oz, thanks for the information. I will start a couple practice games this weekend.

Checking in

Have only played a few AW games so far and have failed in these due to being unprepared for the mass onslaught from the AI. So echoing what Oz has suggested about getting prepared for this i.e. crippling nearby AI, pillage resources and steal workers so sprinting to AH could be first goal. Also that initial scouting should be confined to nearby circle of capital. Also don't be fooled by Prince difficulty this will probably be more like Monarch/Emp.

I think some of how this is to be played depends if we are on the big or small continent and what is meant by "higly modified"??

I think some of how this is to be played depends if we are on the big or small continent and what is meant by "higly modified"??

This will be crucial to how the game goes actually. For reference, if you can't get time to play an AW game, here are a few AW SGs if you want to browse. None of the them are on the type of map we have but should give you an idea of what to expect and successful tactics.

BtS (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=243127)

Warlords (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=214158)

Vanilla (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165110)

Checking in.

I really like the idea of not scouting much early - let them find us.

Also, is it better to just use farms and specialists for the economy since it will be hard to maintain the tech slider and cottages with all this war?

Also, is it better to just use farms and specialists for the economy since it will be hard to maintain the tech slider and cottages with all this war?

We'll need cottages for the cash to support early expansion. Employing scientists where we can (and getting the Great Scientists) is also good. Usually you end up with 1-2 cottage cities and 1-2 farmed cities (for either production or specialists) and the rest hybrids.

What our opinions on settling the capital...are we founding in place or moving?

I think settling in place is probably the best option. Could move the warrior 1SW to see if there are any more resources to pick up.

I assume we'll use the same method of roster determination as before, ie whoever can get to it first time through determines the roster. Whoever can grab it first may want to do a warrior move and re-post before continuing.

The beginning moves will be really important, so we should avoid quick turn arounds, in order to get consensus of builds, research etc.

Animal Husbandry might be the best starting tech as we have cows and horses are a great pickup in the early game. Bronze Working and Archery will also be good early techs.

Warrior, warrior then worker might be the best builds in the capital, then maybe settler if we need another city to pick up horses/copper. If we have copper in BFC we should forego settler and build 5-6 axes and take an enemy capital as our 2nd city (if there is one closeby).

Looking forward to this

I played the first 15 turns to get us going...

- Moved warrior SW and uncovered another banana in the BFC so I settled in place
- Started with warrior...he has 3 turns left
- Started with Hunting and then Animal Husbandry (hunting let us do AH faster and we need it for archery)
- Met Mansa and Hannibal

I'm including a screen shot of what we can see so far.

I'd say get a worker started after warrior, as we can mine gold and pasture cows. Then warrior again then settler.

I'd also research Bronze Working so we know where resources are to plant second city.

Checking in ...

Nice screen shot Cubbies!

I agree with Oz's note above for the build order and the research order.

Oz seems right on. I agree with AH to get those Cows online and reveal Horses and have a worker available to hook them up. I will play until AH comes in and post a screen shot.

Note that we were 9 food past size 2. We need to be very careful with early turns. We could have worked more hammers and got the warrior out quicker, this started the worker quicker. Each worker turn delay, we lose the production of the improved cows. I starved the city for 1 turn to get the warrior out and started the worker.

No horses in the immediate vicinity. Stone to the east. It looks like they have been kind to us and given us mountains to set up choke points.

It seems like we can put one city in 4W, 1S. Too bad we did not settle farther east to put more cities in behind the capitals culture. Teams that moved east to get more hills will be able to fit 3 cities in behind their capital.

No horsies is a big blow. Early chariots would be a bonus. Never mind. We should be looking at Bronze Working next.

If no-one else does beforehand, I'll grab it in about 10 hours (found my Warlords disk after 2 days of looking, in my Civ III case).

A quick review of the position shows all is well. We're already started on Bronze Working and building a worker.

I'm tempted to claim the first victim of the campaign but unless the odds are well and truly in our favour (>90%) or we're desperate it's not worth it.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/2876/civ4screenshot0000ok5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Worker completes and I start another warrior.

Played 15 to bring us up to 2800BC. Warrior completes in 1, I'd queue another or a barracks for a couple of turns and then switch to a settler once London hits size 3 (in 3 turns). Bronze Working is in 6 so we'll now if we need to send the settler to a copper site.

Cows are pastured and I've moved onto the gold. The research boost once it is mined should be great.

The warrior should scout out south of the city better, so we can identify potential choke points and try to find the location of the nearest AI.

If we have copper in our BFC, then the question of where to park a settler becomes trickier. We can play safe and plant a city west of London or, if we know where one of the AI is, a city on a hill towards the nearest. If there is a choke point, then we probably should plant a city on it as the bonus from city defense will be greater.

I was able to scout out the north a bit. Didn't find any AI homelands. Plenty of decent city sites but it will be along time before we're going to be wanting to plant cities up there. Our warrior has earned a promotion but I didn't promote. If that scout puts himself in harms way again consider combat I promotion and scout eradication :mischief:

Whoever is up next should play until the settler completes, so we can discuss city placement.

As for research after Bronze Working. If there's no copper close by we have to go Archery, if there is we need to go The Wheel to connect it. After that I think Pottery would be good to get a tech lead.

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3700/civ4screenshot0001uu6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Oz, I agree with your thinking. As for City 2, I would like to suggest getting the second gold mine hooked up. I also like the idea of getting the Stone hooked up for a possible Wonder (though this may not be good thinking for always war). I have attached a screen shot with the idea. There is a fair amount of overlap with the capital, but I don't think that is bad for a city 2, since frequently resource sharing works well. If we pick up Agriculture, which should be quick with the Gold hooked up, we can farm the Bananas for a 4 food tile and hook up the Rice. This will give us strong food for city 2 and the Bananas can be shared with the capital. Being right next to the gold means we do not have to research Mysticism and wait for the border pop.

One minor suggestion, switching to the Bananas for 2 turns will get growth in 2 and the warrior still comes out in 1.

I'd like to see how close the AI is down south and where the copper is before we decide final city locations but the two locations suggested are probably going to be the cities at some stage.

Well one of terminator, McArine and Mighty Dwaarf needs to pick this up. We can't let this slide too much at the beginning because it will be a long ride. If you're going to be unavailable over the holidays just post letting us know when you'll be able to pick it back up.

Im going to be tied up with christmas until the new year so doont wait around for me on this one. I'll pick it up in the new year.

I won't be able to play before the 27th/28th.

Looks like it will fall to terminator or back to cubbies to get us a settler. Remember whoever it is to stop when the settler finishes.

Not sure of terminator's status, so I've got the save and will report shortly...

Ok, I played 13 turns - up until wheel finished:

- Finished BW...we have copper in our BFC!
- Researched wheel, just selected pottery but can easily be changed based on what we think should be next
- Finished warrior and started settler at size 3 (5 turns left)
- Adopted Slavery...I'm assuming we will be using this..a lot
- Found Mansa's location to the east and can be seen in the second screenshot
- Ran into a scout belonging to Alex

Here are 2 screenshots of what we currently see. Given that the settler comes out in 5, we can decide now where to put city 2.

I would vote for putting the settler in ngraner's city #3 spot. It's on the way towards Mansu and is on a plains hill for the extra production and will pick up horses with one pop. With a warrior escort it should be safe.

We now want to whip a barracks and 6 or so axes (a couple of spears would be nice) in the capital. The first axe and spear should go and scout the terrain and pillage whatever we can while waiting for the re-inforcements to arrive.

Once we connect the copper to the capital, we should connect up city#2 so we can output axes from here too.

terminator or ngraner is up!

I agree with Ozbennos suggestions.

I am still liking my city site number 2, with the adjustment of moving it one tile north, with the plan of putting the Horse city one tile east of the horses.

The number 3 spot will require a border expansion in order to work the Horses, which will mean picking up Mysticism, making the Obelisk and waiting 10 turns. The site 2S of the Horses is also food poor. We could settle the tile 1E of the Horses for immediate access to the horses, and eventual access to the Stone and Rice.

The advantage to site 1E of the banana is that the gold will give us 3 hammer and 7 gold as well as 4 food from the Banana, with no border expansion. We will have the ability to work 2 hills in addition to the gold right away. The extra gold income will give us iron working for Swordsmen and to clear the jungle as well as adding a strong tile (assuming Iron is nearby). Horses will be nice for their long range capability, but with Copper I don't think they are as big a priority.

Please hold off playing until we reach a consensus on this very critical decision, and certainly critique my analysis since it is easy to overlook key factors and I have minimal AW experience.

The critical thing at the moment is to get many axes out as quickly as possible. Food poor cities with production that shield the capital aren't necessarily bad city sites in AW.

Your site 2A will have health issues in growing until Iron Working but can probably work gold and banana in the mean time. I'm a bit unsure but my feeling is that it is probably all right for our next city. With moving the sites of both 2 and 3 north we will need to consider a barrier city south of the capital as well.

In any case, we should concentrate on axes and eliminating Mansu.

Oz, I am currently speaking with T3K, who is planning to go next, so if you stick around we can figure this out.

I will take a look at the unhealthiness issue you bring up.

It looks like one sick face until border pop (0.25 sick face/jungle) then two sick faces after pop. We get +2 health from difficulty level and will get +1 from cow and eventually +1 from Rice. So it looks like we start at -1 health until the cows are hooked up.

No worries. My concern is the amount of jungle and not being on fresh water. But as I said, in AW games you're not necessarily looking at long term prosperity, just short-term gain (ie more axes).

Crosspost, well we won't get a border pop for ages as it will be building military so can probably work gold and banana, occasionally whipping back to size 1.

What do you think about 1E of the Gold rather than 1E of the Bannana. This picks up the southern rice. The reason I shifted 1 more north was simply efficient space filling after thinking about moving the Horse city north and picking up the Dye. But picking up the Dye may be an insignificant point.

T3K just mentioned the fact that 1E of the Banana is a hill, which is probably the deciding factor.

If we go 1E of the gold, we lose the hill, but still have defensible positions to the East with jungle hills/forest hills using the mountains as cover. My vote is to settle to work the rice, gold and eventually bananas (farm them first).

Would much prefer the city to be on a hill, so agree it could be the deciding factor.

Crosspost again.

The jungle actually shouldn't be considered a defensive position as it gives attackers somewhere to hide. We will need to clear forests/jungles from around all our cities (another health limiter).

My preference is 1E of banana, will still pick up rice eventually.

EDIT: Just to make the above post clearer. Its better to defend from your city than rely on terrain the enemy can move around or even hide in. Forts can be good but need to be carefully placed.

Thanks for the post Oz. Based on this then, I will settle 1E of the banana. I am going to plan on playing turns later tonight.

York is founded on the hill east of the bananas. Here's a screenshot.

166349

Our warrior scouting to the north killed a Hannibal scout and found the northernmost tip of that particular piece of the starting continent.

Our warrior scouting to the south has found two of Alexander's cities. We need to be careful with this warrior because there is a bear lurking nearby. I had to "outrun" it a couple of times.

What's our next move? We have a barracks underway in London. Should we start a barracks in York as well? Also, should we let the worker connect York by road before we improve a tile? If we go with tile improvement, do we first put a farm on the bananas or put a mine on the gold? For research, we have agriculture in 1 turn. Is Iron Working next or do we want something else?

The game is posted for review. :)

Loaded the game for comments...

Barracks in London is right. Until the copper is connected to York, I think barracks is right here too. Once copper is connected I'd switch to a spear, whip it at size 2 and join with an axe from London to scout Mansu out. I just realised he's going to have skirmishers, so we may be unable to take him out which would annoying. Pillaging might have to suffice for now.

Research wise I think both Pottery and Archery and even Writing before Iron Working.

Once the road to York completes, we should get the gold mined and then mine all the forested hills and some cottages.

We are periously short of defense, so an axe or two has to stay home.

We probably need another worker and getting a city out to claim the horses would also be good. The familiar frantic feeling of AW is already here. ;)

What do you think about having the worker start mining the gold while York builds a Barracks. We work the banana until the mine is on line and then work the gold until the banana is farmed. In the meantime we whip the barracks in London and then get it busy producing units, starting with an axe and a spear as you suggest. i just really like the idea of getting the production up.

Why do you recommend the research techs ahead of Iron Working. It seems like swordsmen would be sufficiently useful and we of course can't trade for it. Are you concerned about unit support. With two gold mines, I would not think that cash is a priority either.

Iron Working will take a while and we have no guarantee of iron being accessible (especially with copper in BFC). Not worried about unit support as I suggest we build tonnes of axes. If we do research Iron Working, it's not necessarily a bad choice, its just a bit of a gamble.

I'm also a bit concerned about London being at size 3 for whipping. It's another gamble situation, do we risk production being down to grow London to max size and then use the whip, or do we maximise production and forgo the whip. I don't really know whats best, what do you guys think?

London is working a lot of good tiles. The worker is currently sitting on a forest. What if we let the worker chop out the barracks before moving onto the gold. In the mean time York will still be growing by working the Banana.

I think chopping is better than whipping at London at the moment.

Posting an I have it. I will hold off to check with T3K before playing.

Were you able to play at all?

I just got Internet access back, but will not be able to play until I am back in Indy Sunday.

Chopped the Barracks in London, then built a Spearman, and an Archer with a second Archer underway. I would suggest an Axeman next and then go harass one of our neighbors, per Oz's plan.

Hooked up the Gold in York and recommend farming the Banana next. Another farm for London would also be helpful.

We have a warrior eying Alex's gold hill so that he does not mine it. We have another warrior to the NE, which killed a Barbarian. It has 1 star, 1 Woodsman promotions. I would have preferred to go double Woodsman, but we were about to be attacked by a Barbarian in the open. We are at 5 of 8 experience for the next promotion. There is a scout nearby that we may get a chance to kill.

Researched Agriculture, Archery and Mysticism (for an Obelisk in York). I have set research to Iron Working, but we can discuss.

Nice progress ngraner!

I would leave the warrior outside Athens as suggested.

An axe after Archer in London and then get the axe/spear of to Mansu to do some pillaging.

I can see two paths after this we could take.

Firstly, get two more axe/spear combos and pillage Alex and Hannibal as well, plant a city to get horses and go conquering after catatpults. If we do this I would suggest teching Pottery then Writing and then towards Construction.

Second, whip out an army of doom for Mansu. The scouting spear/axe will show us what we need but plenty of swords and axes will be required. If we do this, Iron Working is good (although I'm not hopeful of having easy access to iron with copper so close and an extra city may be problematic) but then Pottery and Writing.

I'll wait for some comments before playing.

No comments on the plan, so let's forge ahead :mischief:

I switch research from Iron Working to Pottery.

Axe replaces archer in capital.

York hooked up to capital.

Masonry replaces Pottery, we will need walls.

Here's a look at Mansu's area. Skirmishers on a hill may be too much without catapults. Warrior killed IBT. :mad:

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/42/civ4screenshot0000dr9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

May have been smoke to put the warrior in harms way but I really wanted to see what we are going to be up against to see where we should go. If Timbuktu wasn't on a hill I think we'd be all right but not now.

Writing replaces Masonry. Barracks whipped in York.

I played a bit more than 10. I want some feedback on where to go next. I put up a cottage in London as I want to grow London to size 4 and then get another settler going to grab the horses. I think we're going to be playing a somewhat defensive game for the next while and we need a couple more cites to have enough production to do so.

I think we whip York every time it gets to size 2, should whip a granary now we have Pottery.

I have an axe/spear combo heading for Mansu to pillage him, and an axe and spear in production.

Is everyone happy to plant another city to grab horses now? If not, stop working the cottage and go back to the mine.

I really feel we have delayed the early offensive too long, we should concentrate on pillaging and defending. Walls would also be good.

Things are going to get fun soon.

We also need another worker somehow :lol:

I finally pulled myself together and are doing the necessary upgrades.

I will be able to play sunday.

I'm planning to follow Ozbennos suggestions, if you have comments please post them.

Here are my observations:

We should get the worker over to farm the Banana tile. It is a waste to be working unimproved tiles. We can mine the hill to the NE of York and use the chop for the Granary.

Working the Copper in London increases the growth time by 3 turns, but shaves 4 turns off the Spearman. As in the case with York I think we need to be more focused on getting units out to follow through with the idea of harassing our neighbors. Once we have that accomplished then work on getting another Settler out. The site on the plains hill will give the horses right away and eventually the Stone and Rice.

With only the one worker and units and Settler ahead of a second worker in priority, I would not be worrying about growing the cities too much at this point, but instead focus on working the best tiles.

Hey guys,
I'm sorry I didn't get to playing today, my sunday turned out a bit different than I had imagined (not bad-different, fortunately)

I'll play tomorrow instead, if noone beats me to it.

The second Axe/Spear is heading south. First Axe/Spear has discovered Djenne on a hill, south of Timbuktu, defended by 2 warriors :hammer:
I went for Mathematics, I figured we needed catapults more than iron atm.
I build a library in London to improve research. Mathematics is 11 turns away.

If we've found a city defended by 2 warriors, we should raze or capture it. Free XP for our axe. I'll try and load the save later today for comments.

I think it would be Mighty or terminator up.

I'm very worried about the (lack of) size of our empire. 2 cities, one size 2 and 1 stagnated on size 1 will be easy picking to the first AI stack that comes along. We need larger cities and more of them, in my opinion. Grow what we've got first and then expand.

As for Mansu's city with the two warriors, we should raze it but we should have pillaged all the squares around his capital. The main function of the axe/spear pairings is to destroy the tiles of the AI, not take over cities (plus it gives us cash). There are 5 squares that need to be pillaged around Timbucktu, so when we've dealt with Djenne, we should mop up here and scout his empire out more for resources.

Could we please have discussion before someone plays a set of turns with a whole new strategy. There was no discussion of going for Mathematics, the pillaging plan was skipped, and it appears whipping out a Library was a huge shift in strategy as Oz was recommending growth of the capital and I emphasized the importance of working the several very good tiles in the capital.

Before we play any further turns lets get some agreement on where we are going. We have shown we can always make up time and get quick turn around in the later game where their are far fewer strategic decisions.

Could we please have discussion before someone plays a set of turns with a whole new strategy.
I couldn't agree more, but I don't think I made a whole new strategy.

There was no discussion of going for Mathematics.
No, there wasn't, but, as I read the posts, there wasn't a definite "go for Iron working". And Ozbenno pointed out that we might need catapults for Mansu.


the pillaging plan was skipped
Not at all, the stack used one turn to gain xp, then I chose to approach Timbuktu from the south, saw that there was a city to the south, and chose to use two turns to check it out. I wouldn't say it was a bad decision if we can destroy it.


and it appears whipping out a Library was a huge shift in strategy as Oz was recommending growth of the capital and I emphasized the importance of working the several very good tiles in the capital.
Ok, I missed that, it was wrong, and I'm sorry.

Should we try to reestablish some kind of voting system, as we had it in our first games? If we need to decide upon things.
Or should we (me included) get more active, and say more of, I like/don't like doing it this way or that way?
Maybe try to make a concensus before everybody plays, so all know, what the three next research goals are, what each city should be doing, and where each unit stack is going.

Example:
Research: Iron Working, Mathematics, Construction.
Cities:
London: Work best tiles, a bit growth, production and gold, no whipping, only units (spear and axe) atm.
York: Whip at 2, a bit growth and production, only units (spear and axe) atm.
Units:
Local units: Keep defending key resources and cities.
Mansu unit: Destroy 2 warrior city. Go Timbuktu pillaging.
Southern unit: Go south pillaging.

Probably a better plan is for each player to outline their strategy before they play, ie I plan to research x, raze y, build z etc. The group can then say go for it or what about abc? Also, if you play 10 and we've 1 or 2 turns left on an important build or research (or even 1 or 2 less), play the extra turns and show the research or build queue, nominate what you would build/research and get some discussion going.

Haven't heard from Mighty or terminator, maybe we're back to cubbies?

Actually I am fine with the idea of pushing to Construction for a guaranteed useful unit and Mathematics will be good for forest chopping. I was mainly disappointed with the low productive output from the capital.

I like the idea of posting our planned approach before playing our turn set to give people a chance to comment. I want the feedback on my plans as much as I want to give feedback.

I like the idea of posting our planned approach before playing our turn set to give people a chance to comment. I want the feedback on my plans as much as I want to give feedback.

I agree, but I also think, that we should get some consensus of our long goals, like research, and the progress of a city.

Checking back in (finally). Based on a quick review of the previous posts I like the idea of stating up front what we intend to do on our respective turnsets. I also like the idea of discussing long term strategies. I am going to download the game tonight and try to make comments tomorrow.

Okay, so it was a liitle longer than a day to respond ....

Suggestions for short term goals:


Work the farmed bananas in York so that it will grow to size 2 in 2 turns then work the gold.
Use the axeman to kill both warriors in Djenne and raze the city.
Use this same axeman/spearman combo pillage the heck out of Timbuktu. If the city defenses are abnormally light (say warriors only), try to capture it.
With the next axeman/spearman combo, go after the second Greek city (the city east of Athens). Same tasks as Djenne, but given that city has been around a bit, maybe think about keeping it depending on resources.
We desperately need another settler out but we will need to escort him with an axeman.
We need another worker as well.
For research, I am okay with mathematics followed by construction. With cats and axes we should be able to take on the capital cities prior to them getting longbows.


For the longer term:


Continue to pilliage our neighboors and make their expanision a living hell.
Find Hannibal so we can give him some of what we are going to be giving Mansa and Alex.
Expand cautiously including getting access to the horses above York and maybe the elephants below (with Construction and Horseback riding this would be sweet).
Try to find some worker stealing opportunities (horses would be really nice here).
In general, chop before we pop rush units and buildings.


The next quesiton is who is up?

I agree with T3K. Here are my additional comments. I think we should bite the bullet and accept the fact that the capital will grow slowly. Work the Gold until we grow, then work the Copper until we grow, then pick up a food or cottage tile. In the meantime it will crank out a bunch of units.

York could use an Obelisk to get the Rice. Once that is done it could then produce Settlers and Workers.

Why would we work the gold in the capital? I don't think shaving 3 turns of math is as important as working the copper or bananas for now, but maybe I'm wrong. I would like to see us get these 2 tiles going first before going to the gold tile.

I think we are on Mighty and Terminator in the turnset.

I'd suggest Terminator play next as we haven't heard from Mighty for a while.

Using his short termgoals as the basis for the next turn, I think they are spot on. Timbucktu had skirmishers as defenders so will be a no go. If the axe earns a promotion from beating the 2 warriors, it should be combat, shock or cover, as we will be pillaging not razing (except where warrior defend). Our pillaging should concentrate on resources (iron and copper and horses in particular) but don't be too fussy, destroy everything (farms will halt their growth, cottages slow their research)

One thing we may consider is working the bananas in London to get it to grow in 5 turns and then switch the bananas to York and work the gold and copper in London once it is size 3. We could use the axe being built as a settler escort for the horse site.

As for the long term plans, expand cautiously and send more pillagers out, hopefully adding chariots or Horse Archers to the existing pairs. Research wise, after Maths we could consider Iron Working, Construction, Metal Casing, Sailing (for Calendar) and Horseback Riding (if we get horses). We need to try and get a full map of this island.

Here is the Math for total production until we can work both the gold and the copper.

Gold - growth in 15
Research = 21.25 * 15 = 318.75
Hammers = 15 * 6 = 90

Copper (15 turns total)
Research = 13.75 * 10 + 21.25 * 5 = 243.75
Hammers = 8 * 10 + 11 * 5 = 135.
Extra Food = 5

Banana (15 turns total)
Research = 12.5 * 6 + 21.25 * 9 = 269.25
Hammers = 3 * 6 + 11 * 9 = 117
Extra food = 9

Cottage (15 turns total)
Research = 15 * 8 + 21.25 * 7 = 268.75
Hammers = 3 * 8 + 11 * 7 = 101
Extra food = 7 and the cottage grows to the next size.

We need to drop to 90% research for the final two turns, but the impact should be minimal.

I think the Gold or Copper is preferable. The question is would we rather have 70 beakers or 45 hammers. I leaned toward the gold just from the standpoint of getting something out of the rushing of the Library, which is quicker research to Catapults.

P.S. I used the 3 food Banana in the calculations, assuming York needed the other Banana to get us moving toward getting out a worker or a Settler.

Edited to correct hammer count.

Your calcs are wrong because the production in London now includes and overflow from the whip of 9, so base production in 6 not 15

Calcualtions if we use the 4 food banana for 5 turns in London and then switch the bananas to York and work the cows, copper and gold in London.

Gold - growth in 15
Research = 13.75*5 + 22.5*10 = 293.75 (compared to 318.75 on gold alone)
Hammers = 3*5 + 11*10 + =125 (compared to 90 on gold alone)

So for giving up 15 beakers we get 35 hammers, that's more than half an axe. So I think we should do that.

Good catch Oz, though it does not impact the differences in hammers. I updated my post for the correction.

I am good with your idea to leave York stagnant for 5 turns in order to get the capital up and running.

Very nice discussion and I like using math to determine where to go.

I agree with the approach being suggested, both by T3k and the additions by Ozbenno and ngraner42.

Sorry guys for my none appearance so far, I have been totally snowed under at work and with DIY at home :mad: , this should ease after this week so I will be more active then but until then please skip me.

No worries Mighty!

Let's have the roster like this then

Terminator3k - UP
cubbiesin 08 - On Deck
ngraner42
Ozbenno
McArine
Mighty Dwaarf

This is my official "I got the game" post. I will be playing in a few minutes and will follow the strategies as laid out (watching the food closely). If I hit any problems during my turnset I will stop and post the issue for discussion.

I picked up the game on turn 94 (1180 BC). There is a lot of detail that follows but I thought it good to do a play-by-play for this turnset.

Turn 96 – Djenne is razed by our northern raiding party and we get 36 gold. :scan:

Turn 99 – Barbs put a city very near the Djenne city ruins.

Turn 102 – The northern raiding party pillaged 11 gold from a Mansa cottage. :gold:

Timbuktu has two skirmishers defending the hill-city.

The Greeks send a small force of 2 archers and 1 warrior toward our cities.

A lone Greek archer is spotted in the open and taken out by our southern raiding party.

Turn 104 – Pillaged 3 gold from Mansa farm. :gold:

Turn 105 – The small Greek force won’t attack our hilltop positions outside our cities, but they send in on lone warrior that is quickly dispatched by one of our axes.

Our southern raiding party finds Sparta at size 2 defended by 2 archers. The city is not working any promoted tiles so there is nothing to pillage.

Turn 106 - Math completed. Construction in 19 turns.

Pillaged 8 gold from Mansa cottage. :gold:

Carthaginian culture is spotted north and east of Sparta. The southern raiding party moves to investigate it.

Turn 107 – Pillaged 4 gold from Mansa farm. :gold:

Turn 108 – I find Hannibal’s city of Utica. It is defended by an axe, archer and chariot. Time to find Hannibal’s horses and copper.

Turn 109 – Pillaged 2 gold from Mansa rice farm. :gold:

I spot a Hannibal copper mine to the southeast and head towards it.

Turn 110 (850 BC) – The small Greek force is eliminated at the cost of one axe. :scan:

The southern raiding party is moved onto a Hannibal copper mine. Carthage is spotted along with Hannibal’s horses. Note that Carthage is defended by just one archer at the moment.

Immediate next steps:


We have a wounded axe and spear in the woods just to the south of our cities. They will need some healing time.
I moved the archer out of London to help fortify our defense group. He is on his way back to London in one more turn.
London will produce a settler in 1 turn and York will produce an axe in 3 turns. The settler will definitely need an escort toward the horses.
Based on what I could see, it looks like Mansa is down to just two cottages for tile improvements. These should be pillaged in short order, but remember to keep the axe and spear together. Timbuktu currently has two skirmishers, 3 workers and a settler.
Our lone worker is in the woods between our cities on the way to build a mine on the hill northwest of York. This of course could be altered as necessary.


I have attached screen shots of each of the cities so that the team see their respective current states.

167608 167609 167610 167611 167612

The next steps I think are:


Get that settler out under escort and make sure that we are all in still in agreement for the specific city site proposed a while back.
Pillage the copper and horses from Carthage quickly.
Finish pillaging Timbuktu.
Continue to build axe and spear in London and York.
Try to get another worker out as soon as possible.

Nice turns and nice report Terminator :goodjob:

Obviously, pillaging Hannibal's horses and copper are the main priority. I'd also leave that warrior fortified on the copper near Athens.

It appears Mansu is down on his luck and left with one city, 5 axes would do it but he'll probably get a skirmisher or two, so should wait for catapults but if we leave our axe/spear in the area, he won't be able to get another city out.

Once we can found the horsie city, we should look at adding a chariot to our pillaging stacks.

cubbiesin08 is UP. If we can stick to posting a plan for comment before playing, I think we'll be a lot better off.

I will wait to play until we are in agreement on city 3 and other key moves. Here is a screenshot of the area around the horses - where do we want to put city 3?

I think 1E of the horsies is the best.

I think 1E of the horsies is the best.

I agree with Oz. Besides, building the city on a hill is an added bonus for defense.

Based on what I experienced on my turn set, it would be good to chop the forest in all tiles next to the city so that the bad guys can't hide out there.

Good point about the trees. We shouldn't leave trees next to any city. Now we have Maths, chopping is even better.

Agree with 1E. Since we are getting our neighbors under control, the Stone may become useful in its time.

I am thinking we have met everyone on our continent, so we may get to look beyond survival.

I am thinking we have met everyone on our continent, so we may get to look beyond survival.

I agree. I think peaceful expansion north, where we have less to worry about from attacking AI and violent expansion east might be on the cards. Getting the full picture of our continent would be a good idea.

I agree with 1E, but we might consider adding another defender, because the city will most likely be the first target of Mansu, if he decides to attack.

If we keep the pressure on Mansu, he won't be able to send any attackers out of his one city.

I will put the city 1E of the horses and proceed with construction.

My only other confirmation before I start is what should I start building in our new city...an obelisk, library, or something else?

I would say an obelisk, that we whip at size 2.

I would say an obelisk, that we whip at size 2.

Sounds good to me.

Got the save and will report shortly...

10 more turns done:

Turn 112 - settler finished in London, start axe
pillage Hannibal's copper for 10 gold

Turn 113 - our warrior successfully defends himself killing Alex's archer!
pillage Mansa's hamlet for 12 gold
pillage Mansa's cottage for 4 gold

Turn 114 - York finishes axe, starts spear
pillage Hannibal's horses for 3 gold

Turn 116 - pillage Mansa's cottage for 16 gold

Turn 117 - London finshes axe, starts axe
pillage Hannibal's farm for 5 gold

Turn 118 - London finishes axe, starts axe

Turn 119 - found 3rd city of Nottingham 1E of horses, start monument

Turn 120 - pillage Hannibal's farm for 4 gold

Notes:
York just turned size 3 so we could whip now - especially since it is unhealthy
Our worker is working on the horses, and I have an axe defending the tile since..
There is a barbarian city to our north - touching Nottingham (can be seen in the first screenshot)
In the 4th screenshot, I just noticed that Alex has a square of culture very near to us.
The 2nd and 3rd screenshots just show Mansa and Hannibal's current areas.

Well done cubbies. We should be looking at York as a whipping post as it moves from pop 2-3 at the moment.

Think we should raze whatever city Alex has sprung on the back step. Construction in 4, get some catapults and take down Timbucktu, probably keeping it.

The barb city can be used as experience for our axes on the way to Mansu maybe or just leave it for now. Not sure whether to keep it or not.

What about tech after Construction? Iron Working probably next as we can probably afford to put down another city to get iron and as we're likely to go on the offensive now swords are good. Then Calendar and Code of Laws seem good destinations.

Good job cubbies. I will post my plans tomorrow with the intention of playing on Friday.

My quick observations are:

Obelisk in York.
Agree on taking and holding Timbuktu.
IW - Sailing - Calendar (really need this, but it will take a while)
I would prefer to take and hold an Ivory city.
The barbs to the north have founded a city that would be nice to keep.
We need to aggressively settle new cities and get workers out; I would balance that with enough military to keep our neighbors weak.

With catapults on line, we can send razing parties off south. Kill off Alex and Hannibal and settle into their lands at our leisure. Hannibal seems ripe as his cities we can see aren't on hills. The cash from razing the cities should help our finances as well. Balancing this with settling cities north will be the trick.

Here is my plan:

London - Continue unit production
York - Rush a Monument, finish the Spearman and start a Worker
Nottingham - Rush the Monument and then produce a unit.

Send a couple units down to keep an eye on Athens. Send excess units to capture Ivory city. Elephants and Cats will be unstoppable.

Elephants and Cats will be unstoppable.

Good point. Had completely slipped my mind about Elephants and Construction. Will be awesome.

Until Nottingham is connected to the other cities, we should (after monument), concentrate on chariots.

I like your plan.

You're right, we need a axe/spear unit more in the south.
When that is out, I think we need to start making catapults.

Turn 122: The Greeks found a new city just to the South. This one looks like a keeper.

Turn 124: Construction complete, Iron Working underway.

Turn 125: A barbarian Axeman commits suicide attacking Nottingham.

Turn 127: Discovered that Hannibal slipped out another city in Greek land. Barbarian warriors converge on Athens. Will our copper guarding warrior survive?

Turn 128: Yes. The barbs ignore us, but one is killed by a now severely weakened Greek Archer. 1 barb still there, its us or the Archer.

Turn 129: Looks like Alex took out the warrior and saved his Archer. Hardrumetum is easy pickings at size 2 and 1 Archer and a Gold mine, but I would leave it alone for now so that our raiding party can reach At hems.

It looks like we are all set for expansion by conquest in the next turn set.

OK, here's my plan for the next turns.

DESTRUCTION!

I want to raze Hadremetum and capture Corinth with the troops we have already there (have over 60% odds). Hadremetum has a worker that I will send to Corinth to hook up the elephants.

Want to train up an army of catapults (at least 4) to use to take down Timbucktu (won't get that far in my turns but thta's where we're heading).

Research wise, head for Calendar so we can get the bananas online to grow.

I want to use our first chariot to explore east of Mansu to make sure there are no nasty surprises there. The 2nd will be sent south to join up with a pillaging party.

Thoughts?

That sounds good to me.

I'm going to hold off playing for a couple more thoughts from the bleachers!

I like the catapult plan.
And I agree, we need to start using all those nice units to do some serious damage.

One quick thought. I am not sure about Timbuktu. We may be better off going after Alex's capital. I will look at the save and post more later tonight.

Reasoning behind Timbucktu is that it is the closest of the AI capitals, so maintenance isn't that bad and will eliminate Mansu.

I'm in favor of eliminating opponents while the opportunity is there.

At Corinth, on Axeman has a 61% chance, but the other only has a 29% chance. We should probably wait for the reinforcements 2 turns away.

I am fine with razing Hadrumetum. The boost of cash will help.

Here is an argument for Athens over Timbuktu:

Athens is 15 tiles vs. 13 tiles for Timbuktu, but Athens has Gold to pay for its support.
Athens is the superior city with abundant food, a metal resource and instantly hooked up Stone.
We should capture and hold Thebes when it reaches size 2, since it has two gold mines and food, so Athens will fit nicely into an expansion south down the coast.
We do not know for sure that Mansa only has the one city. His score would indicate otherwise.

I am not absolutely convinced of this plan, but right now it sounds better to me than sending our first real army to a location that won't shine until Calendar resources can be hooked up.

I'm going to play my turns now. I won't move the catapults built out of our territory and we can figure out where to send them. As I said in my summary one fo the things I want to establish is what is to the east of Mansu, that may decide our plans for the army.

OK we're off again. as ngraner pointed out, I should wait for the reinforcements at Corinth before capturing.

A new age is English warmaking is upon us.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3636/civ4screenshot0000ov3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Stonehenge is still available. Worth a shot?

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2128/civ4screenshot0001vm4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We really need to slip in a granary here sometime but not now, another catapult is ordered.

At Hadrumetum, our axe is killed but the spear is victorious and the city is razed with a free worker.

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/9753/civ4screenshot0002pa9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Alex has another archer that will get to Corinth before we can do anything about it. :mad: I'm not sure we can win with 3 axes and 1 spear against 3 archers.

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/3200/civ4screenshot0003zf8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

He is obviously on drugs. :lol:

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2342/civ4screenshot0004wm0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Our first axe loses at 61% but the second wins at 25% :crazyeye:, third cleans up at high odds.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/7748/civ4screenshot0006cb4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Alex has a stack headed our way.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/9929/civ4screenshot0005nj2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Iron Working comes in and Sailing selected, then Calendar.

As suspected, we have no immediate source of iron but whether by good luck or good management, Thebes and Utica are founded directly on iron.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/7195/civ4screenshot0007kg2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Alex arrives.

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/3660/civ4screenshot0008ng5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

He doesn't attack the city but moves onto the elephants. I attack with axes at 95% and kill 2 archers. This generates our first GG. What to do with him?

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/4084/civ4screenshot0009ye0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I clean out the archers next turn and that is 10.

So where are we?

To me, highest priority is ridding the AI of iron.

We have two combat 1 city raider 1 cover axes at Corinth (will need healing). Thebes is now size 2 but has 3 archers. We can send these two axes over here when healed with the two catapults sitting outside York. If we do this it makes sense to keep heading down towards Utica to either capture or raze the other source of iron around, then Athens.

Our first chariot is about to hit Timbucktu. I would suggest keep heading east and seeing what's out there.

As for the GG. I have two suggestions. An axe is currently 2 turns away in London. We could merge him with this axe and either create a super raider (CR3 cover) or a super medic (medic III). I tend to think a super raider is more useful at the moment. We could also merge for the +2xp but I favour the super-whatever.

The bad news. Well our economy is break-even at 50%, which leaves 28 turns on Calendar. The elephant camp at Corinth will help a bit but we need more commerce (ie growth).

London: I would suggest swapping the copper to the cottage at London. The axe is still 2 turns but growth is in 4 rather that 7 (I've actually done this, so if we decide otherwise need to change back). We need to consider a granary here soon as once we hit Calendar, we will want to grow quickly.

York: Worker completes next turn. I'd get the rice going here (with an escort). Our original worker has connected York to Nottingham, so we have the option of building a chariot but maybe consider an archer to send down to Thebes for defense.

Nottingham: Chariot next turn to send down south, maybe to Carthage pillagers. We don't have a barracks here, so consider that next.

Corinth: The new jewel in the English crown. We have two captured workers here. We need both to connect the jumbos to Corinth but I'd then use one to connect Corinth back to York and the other to connect more jumbos, consider a war elephant or two here after archer (whip one or the other) and then a barracks then monument. This is probably where the AI heat will hit, so we need to be prepared. I'd make sure we have at least 4 defenders where possible.

I also realised that Alex has access to horses, we should send a spear/axe/chariot to stop this silliness.

All in all I think we're going well at this stage. We're probably OK for workers now (another couple wouldn't harm though), could do with more military (esp axes and then phants). We should look at another city site close to London (maybe on the coast) to generate some cash.

McArine is UP!

I don't have much to add to Ozbennos suggestions:

The GG, I like Ozbennos idea of taking the new axe from London and merging, making a super raider. Then send him, the two catapults, and the axes from Corinth, on a grab Thebes mission. And if I make it, I'll send them along towards Utica.

I'll be focusing our production on more military units. I don't see a need for other things right now. But we will need to get our cities to expand, so we need libraries soon.

I won't be able to play tomorrow, but I'll make the time for it thursday.

Forgot to mention, a skirmisher slipped out of Timbucktu, my odds of killing it were only 60ish so I left him. He is now camped outside of Nottingham. We're in no danger but we'll need a war elephant probably to root him out.

What is that I hear? Is it the melodic trumpet of elephants?

Excellent turns and write-up Oz. I think you are on the right path on all of your suggestions.

But we will need to get our cities to expand, so we need libraries soon.


I'd say granaries before libraries. Most cities we have won't have the beakers to make libraries worth it until they grow, for that we need granaries.

Good job and nice write up by our own "Blizzard of" Oz.

Did I see that we are first in score? I think we are actually doing ok so far - we just have to make sure we stick to playing smart.

Turn 1: York Worker -> Archer. Nottingham Chariot -> Barracks. Mansu leaves a worker unguarded, I don't think we gave him permission to have those, so I grab it.

Turn 2: London Axeman -> Spear. Joined the GG with our new Axe, and promoted to Raider3. Destroyed a Mansu Explorer.

Ibt: Stonehenge build by unknown.

Turn 3: Moves the new worker back to our strongholds.

Destroys barb archer at Timbuktu.

Turn 4: London grows to 4.

Turn 5: Rice is hooked up, so I rearrange the rice and the banana, so London can work the banana.

Our warrior at Athens is attacked, beats the first archer, but looses to the second.

Turn 6: Elephants are hooked up.

Turn 7: Corinth Archer -> Archer. I upgrade the Raider with Leadership and combat 1, and attack Thebes, destroying 1 archer.

Turn 8: London Spear -> Elephant. We loose a catapult taking Thebes.

Our southbound chariot ran into a archer, and was destroyed at these odds: :mad:
Alexander's Archer (3.30) vs Churchill's Chariot (4.00)
Turn 148, 280 BC: Combat Odds: 32.2%

Turn 9: Zzz

Turn 10: York Archer -> Catapult.

Postturn: We're halfways to calender. Still break even at 50%.

We have Thebes, well done.

Roster:

cubbiesin08
ngraner42
Ozbenno
McArine
Terminator3k - UP
Mighty Dwaarf - On Deck

The empire is looking great.

A couple more workers may be good, we have five, but there is a lot of work to be done. Nottingham needs resources hooked up. We have Gold mines to mine and Elephants to hunt.

What about getting the Stone hooked up in Nottingham and try to chop out the Pyramids with all the forest up there.

Corinth could use a Monument and Thebes a Library.

With all the Gold on this map, I would suggest we keep capturing and keeping cities.

What about getting the Stone hooked up in Nottingham and try to chop out the Pyramids with all the forest up there.


Even if we don't get the Pyramids, the cash could be used to up the research. Nice idea.

I agree that we can afford more cities. Utica and Athens are probably on our next hit list, Athens is a keeper, what about Utica (even just to keep the iron away from the AI might be worthwhile)? Did we explore east of Timbucktu to see if Mansu has any more cities? If he has only the one, I think we should get rid of him.

We have Thebes, well done.

Roster:

cubbiesin08
ngraner42
Ozbenno
McArine
Terminator3k - UP
Mighty Dwaarf - On Deck

Is it time that we moved on to Mighty Dwaarf?

I will give T3K a kick in the rear.

I will give T3K a kick in the rear.

please do I've got to ride the cossack train to dominationville in DMVII first

Graner and I briefly discussed CIV at lunch today. I thought Cubbies was up but Graner corrected me. He also said that he had told the team that he would give me a "kick in the rear". :confused:

Since I'm almost a foot taller than him, my first thought was "I wonder if he could reach?" :lol:

Anyway, I've got the game but will have to play tomorrow. That should give MD a chance to ride that cossack train! :dance:

As long as that cossack train pulls into the station before the others I'm a happy man.

Looks like its yours Terminator the tall (or is it nganer the short) :mischief: :lol:

Based on the discussions above and after adding a few tweaks of my own, I plan to:


Use the chariot east of Timbuktu to scout further eastward.
Try to get another worker out.
Use the existing worker near London to hook up stone outside of Nottingham.
Use same worker to chop forest for pyramid attempt.
Get a monument in Corinth ASAP. After the 2 workers complete their farm, I will chop a forest to move this along.
Use the worker on the way to Thebes to hook up the gold.
Instead of a library first, try to get a monument, then a fishing boat, then a library for Thebes. We need culture expansion to work the cows and the fish.
Focus on building up troops to take out Timbuktu. This will mean sending our cat to take down Timbuktu's defenses and sending our great general to lead the impending attack (of course after I fortify Thebes with other troops).
I will keep researching calendar.


Anything else?

I think our offensive focus should be on ridding the AI of resources. This means the iron of Utica (need to raze or capture) and the horses of Sparta (pillage party). This can be done with the troops that took Thebes with a couple of additions maybe. Then we should move onto Timbucktu.

Where do we want to head after Calendar. Code of Laws as courthouses will help us expand and is on the way to Civil Service and maces.

Good plans Terminator3K, but I agree with Ozbenno, we need to go for the AI resources first.

Just remember, we need to have those monuments build before we finish Calendar.

During my 10 turns I didn’t get a chance to make as much headway toward our goals as I would have liked. :( This was mostly due to pesky AI unit interference. :gripe: I killed 3 Mansa skirmishers, 2 Hannibal archers and 2 Alex archers but we still have 2 Alex archers due south of Corinth and 1 Alex archer due north of Corinth (see screenshot).
168470

The barbarians didn't help either with an archer wandering north of Nottingham (a skirmisher took him out then I took the skirmisher out) and a barbarian warrior is still wandering between Nottingham and Corinth.

Because of all of this troop activity, work on the stone quarry was delayed a few turns and the gold is not hooked up in Thebes. The worker near Thebes will complete his chop of the forest on the hill in 2 turns and can hopefully resume the building of the gold mine. Note that Calendar is still 6 turns away.

In good news we have our first war elephant with the next one just 3 turns away. :banana: Our elephant buddy has already seen action and is currently on the Corinth farm tile. London is now size 5, the Nottingham stone quarry is two turns from completion, the monument is completed in Corinth and the monument will be completed in 2-3 turns in Thebes when the chop is completed.

Details of the turns follow in the spoiler thread.

I picked up the game on turn 150 (250 BC)

Turn 152 – Kill Carthage archer outside of Corinth.

Turn 153 – Kill a Mansa skirmisher outside of Nottingham. Kill another Carthage archer outside of Corinth. Two Malinese skirmishers appear near Corinth looking for targets of opportunity.

Turn 156 – Mansa Skirmishers move onto our new farm and our axemen take them out. However, Alexander sends a group of 3 archers toward Thebes and a group of 2 archers toward Corinth.

Turn 157 & 158 – Alex’s three archer group marches toward Corinth. The two archer group digs in just south of the city.

Turn 159 – An axeman escapes from Carthage heading northwest.

Turn 160 – After 10 turns of searching, the war chariot spots another city belonging to Hannibal.

Of Alex’s three archer group, two are killed. This mark’s the first time our war elephant is used in anger! That leaves Alex with one archer due north of Corinth and his two archer group due south of Corinth. I didn’t pursue the attack any further because the odds were getting down to 67% if the spearman in the city is used.

Right at the end of my turn set the chariot discovered another Hannibal city south east of the patch of dye tiles. It also looks like Mansa has another city just south of Timbuktu.
168471

Next steps should probably include:

• Finish hooking up the stone in Nottingham and start chopping forests with the two workers.
• Finish the chop in Thebes and move to the gold hill to complete the mine.
• Take out the Greek archers by Corinth so that our troops are free to move toward Utica.
• Maybe take the axe and spear outside of Thebes and move toward Athens to harass. I would do this as long as an axe is sent to Thebes to bolster the defense.
• Reinforce Nottingham with at least one more unit. We will need something on the stone as well as the horses.
• Try to get another worker out when possible.
• Continue to explore with the chariot.

In the near future we should probably consider taking out the barbarian city north of Nottingham for an extra city. I would agree with Oz’s previous post that Code of Laws should be our next tech for courthouses and as a stepping stone to macemen.

Nice report and progress. Our newly minted jumbos will be very effective in rooting out wodded archers and attacking cities as well so let's get some on the front lines.

Roster:
cubbiesin08 - On Deck
ngraner42
Ozbenno
McArine
Terminator3k
Mighty Dwaarf - Cossack train has dominated and is now UP

Ok got it I'll take a long look and post some ideas before playing

After checking out the save it seems termi has summed up the plan for next turnset pretty well

• Finish hooking up the stone in Nottingham and start chopping forests with the two workers.
• Finish the chop in Thebes and move to the gold hill to complete the mine.
• Take out the Greek archers by Corinth so that our troops are free to move toward Utica.
• Maybe take the axe and spear outside of Thebes and move toward Athens to harass. I would do this as long as an axe is sent to Thebes to bolster the defense.
• Reinforce Nottingham with at least one more unit. We will need something on the stone as well as the horses.
• Try to get another worker out when possible.
• Continue to explore with the chariot.

In the near future we should probably consider taking out the barbarian city north of Nottingham for an extra city. I would agree with Oz’s previous post that Code of Laws should be our next tech for courthouses and as a stepping stone to macemen.

Added to that it seems Mansa has second city to east of crinth maybe worthwhile to scout this out, and maybe looking at getting the rice farmed near Notts, it is shielded from the barb city by the mountains and would take barb unit three turns to reach it, so should be safe.

I think that is the plan then.

Sounds good to me. Once we have Calendar, we should look at some quick growth.

Turns didnt get off to a good start, after promoting our Jumbo its odds against the archer north of corinth was 95.2% unfortunatley the 4.8% won and our Jumbo was no more. :mad: Luckily that was our only casualty during the turns and yes we did fight more battles. rakcing up the following scalps

Archers : 8
Skirmishers : 2
Axes : 1
Warrior : 1
Scout : 1
Even managed to intercept a Greek settler expedition gaining a worker.

I razed Utica, I decided not to keep it as we were already struggling to afford the cities we have already and as we already have Iron we did not need the source from here. I have a small stack in the vicinity of Uticas ruins. Once these are healed I think we should move on Carthage, then move north and finish off his other city. Then we can decide on whether to take out Mansa or Alex next. I think we should concentrate on finishing off civs now we have cats we can bombard capitals.
There is a new Greek city SW of Corinth defended by 2 archers, we have an axe and spear nearby and another ax on its way after that Greece should be down to capital and horses city.
Calendar finished, and I chose meditation as the fastest route to COL, I think for the time being we have enough troops in the field to cover us to be able to start focussing more on city improvement builds rather than all out military, just build troops as and when needed to cover losses.

Later tonight I'll look at the save and post my thoughts for my turnset.

I wouldn't mind nabbing the barb city if we can, maintenance won't be too bad and its away from the front lines. Still think we need more military. We should be looking to destroy these 3 as soon as we can.

I'll continue the push towards CoL.
I'll build up military units as we should try to eliminate some of our opponents, but what should we do with our small army...attack Argos, head towards Hannibal, head towards Timbuktu now that we have calendar? Does anyone have a preference?

I would head towards cities that have strategic resources (horses, copper etc). Make it a larger army first, one that can withstand some losses and still be a viable razing force.

I like Oz's suggestion for the next turn set.

Played 10 more turns...not a lot happened.

- Finished Meditation and Priesthood, CoL is going to take a while
- Captured Argos because it had iron...lost no units
- I've managed to get our army to Alex's capital...we should probably be able to take it with the other few units on their way...this will essentially eliminate Alex
- I've got a few troops up north by the barb city of Zhou..someone else can decide to take it or not
- I started this, but make sure we hook up all the calendar resources by London

Looks good, we should concentrate on eliminating Alex I think and then move onto Hannibal or Mansu before any of them can get Feudalism.

With the calendar resources coming on line we should make sure we have most of our cities at their happy limit asap.

I agree on eliminating Alex including keeping Athens and ideally Sparta also. I understand that the economy is hurting, but we have a lot of gold mines that are not on line yet.

I like dropping the tech slider to 0 for a while to accumulate a cushion while we finish hooking up the gold. We can always pop it up to 100% later.

The Stone has a road on its tile, but there is no connecting road. It may be too late, but I think we should still take a shot at the Pyramids.

I agree with ngraner42s ideas.
I think if we focus 2-3 workers on chopping at Nottingham, we can get pyramids.

I like NG's plan. Our break-even tech rate is somewhere around 10% so whether we set the slider at 10% or 0% isn't going to make a huge difference right now. I would check tile management, continue to hook up resources, and maybe get another worker or two. If there are any spare units, try to send a twosome down to Sparta to make sure the Greeks don't hook up their horses.

I believe this is the current roster:

cubbiesin08
ngraner42 - up
Ozbenno - on deck
McArine
Terminator3k
Mighty Dwaarf

Turn2: Our Workboat finishes at Thebes, but Alex has a Trireme nearby. We hold back the fishing fleets and start a Trireme. We attempt to capture Zhou, but loose 2 attacks at 70%+ :cry: . Hannibal sends a raiding party toward Corinth.

Turn3: The Pyramids are build in a far away land :cry: .

Turn4: Hannibal's raiding party kill an Archer guarding our Elephant patch. We discover that Sparta has Horses hooked up.

Turn5 Hannibal's raiding party attacks Coring and looses a unit. We take no losses and the Elephants are not pillaged. We capture Athens with the loss of 2 Catapults and a Spearman :) . We get a new Great General, I save him in the capital for discussion.

Turn6: A couple more Hannibal Archers approach Corinth.

Turn9: Disposed of the last of the Carthaginian trouble makers.

Loaded up the save to see what the plan might be....

The economy looks in need of some TLC. We have 1 cottage, which isn't great. I want to concentrate on hooking up and working cottages and gold in this set. The capital is woefully underdeveloped (has dyes and banana unimproved so will start here (has 3 on the happy limit with dyes to add one as well).

We definately can't afford any more cities, so will raze Sparta (hopefully seeing of Alex) and the barb city. Not entirely sure about razing the barb city as the maintenance won't be that excessive and it will increase our troop limit and actually lower troops expenses. Thoughts?

Want to do whatever possible to get Code of Laws in asap for courthouses and then more expansion, so might run off our deficit (supplemented by razing income). I think Currency is going to be needed after this as well.

After seeing off Alex, it seems that Hannibal is the next victim and then onto Mansu. We then need to settle the island, research Astronomy and win this game. Easy!

Actually, things are going very well.

I don't think we should keep the barb city, mainly because it won't improve our economy right now.

I'm planning to play this tomorrow night (about 24 hours from now), so if anyone has any thoughts post them before then.

I'll raze the barb city at this stage.

I would second razing the barb city as is too close to Nottingham. We should also look to get that fishing boat hooked up. Alexs trireme is 4/5 turns away and will dissappear once we take his last city.

I would agree.

OK, I got to this a bit earlier than I thought :)

As discussed, I jump up the science slider to try and get CoL as quick as possible.

I build a granary in London as we want to grow quickly here.

A GG is sitting in London. I think we should merge him here but will leave for discussion.

Also as discussed...

http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/9818/civ4screenshot0004gr6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

William the Conquerer is an absolute beast and eats Alex for breakfast.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4162/civ4screenshot0005ma2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

bye bye

The forces move onto Hannibal's lands.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/2474/civ4screenshot0007gq4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We have a Mansu eradication force set up as well.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/7093/civ4screenshot0008uc9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I played 11 turns to get Code of Laws in, so we can discuss where we are going.

Bizarely, we found confusedness.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/8932/civ4screenshot0011ry9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I didn't convert but we may as well as we're not worries about negative religion modifiers. I sent the missionary to London. We could consider a temple here and employing a priest to try and get a shrine for more cash.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/8177/civ4screenshot0014et7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I think Metal Casing would be a good next tech (Currency would also be good). I shut down research to 0% until we can whip out some courthouses (set them up in all remote cities).

We may be at full troop limits for the moment as well so infrastructure building is the way to go.

Actually, heading for (need Poly first) Monotheism might be good as we could switch to Organised Religion for the infrastructure that we're going to be building for a while.

The Carthage forces are 4 turns away and there is another catapult due to arrive at Mali in a few turns.

Hopefully in 15 turns or so, we can rid the continent of the AI. We should look at capturing cities again and immediately whipping courthouses and libraries, we should also look at employing scientists to get some research done.

We have to start looking at the bigger picture here as well. That is, making contact with the other continent and actually winning the game. Conquest or domination would be the easiest ways of doing this. If any one gets the fancy, they could do a rough tile count of our continent to see how close it would be to the domination limit. This will determine whether we have to have a foot-hold on the other continent.

What to do with the GG? I vote merge in London.

What to research? Polytheism then Monotheism gets my vote.

I won't be able to play until sunday or monday, so if Terminator3K can play before then, just go ahead.

I'll take the next turn but it will probably be tomorrow before I can play. Any additional comments?

I was sick yesterday but am going to play my turns in just a bit. My plans are:

- Build infrastructure as best as possible with focus on commerce-generating tile improvments such as cottages, gold mines, etc.

- Merge the great general into London

- Switch research to polytheism for later monotheism/organized religion push

- Lay siege to Carthage and Kumbi Saleh.

- Take out the barbarian city of Tartar (maybe they will share the secret of their sauce? :lol: )

Highlights of my turns are:


I merged the GG into London.

Tartar is sacked. We get 114 gold, but they didn't share the secret to their sauce. :(
169627

Polytheism completed. Monotheism is in 1 turn.

In the attack against Carthage, we lose one of our best axeman (triple city raider) on a 95.2% chance against a spearman. :mad: Costly as this is, it is our only loss and we capture the city. The 226 gold and two workers we receive is a welcome boost to our treasury.
169628

Kumbi Saleh is captured with no losses. We get 114 gold and three workers in the process.
169629

We are currently defecit spending (an American tradition), but once monotheism is in next turn we can scale back the tech slider. We will still have about 300 gold in the treasury and our break-even tech rate would be about 20%.

The Parthenon and Great Library were built by other Civs.


Thoughts about the next turn set are:


The troops need to heal in Carthage and Kumbi, but once they are fit I would think that Carib would be our next target followed by Timbuktu.

Currency would be a good tech to research next.

Time to get some religion and adopt Confucianism followed by a civic switch to Organized Religion.

Keep building the infrastructure.

Watch out for barb activity soutwest of Athens.


[Edited by T3K] Screen shots now posted.

I loaded up the save to take a peek...

In all likelyhood, both Mansu and Hannibal have only one city each left. :goodjob:

The troops in Carthage should be enough to handle Carib and if we add the sword and catapult (which are just south) to Kumbi, we should be right to handle Mansu as well.

I don't think we need any more military and should focus on building our empire. This means spreading the confusedness to help with organised religion (which convieniently means we don't need monasteries) ;). The troops should be sent fog busting and exploring as there are still one or two blank areas.

We should prioritize courthouses (whip these when we can), libraries and monasteries (in cities with decent beakers). We can keep a low research rate and employ scientists (academies will be great as well). A temple and employed priest would give us a shrine at some stage hopefully (London or York seem best).

London is actually looking great now we have grown it. :goodjob: It might be an idea to keep Nottingham on continual missionary builds to spread the confused word.

The trireme near Thebes could be sent exploring (and another built after the Courthouse).

I reckon as we hit +ve at 30% we should look at more settlers (as long as we have scientists empoyed - Pyramids was a bad miss now unfortunately :cry:). there are spots close to London we can put low cost cities down (4W of London gets spices, cows and fish as well / 4N of London gets rice).

As for research, Currency seems best at the moment to help with the finances. Metal Casing, Monarchy, Compass and Civil Service also would be good choices. Optics (which is 4 techs away) is a long term goal as we need caravels to see where the opposition is and how they are doing (once we get Alphabet we can se what techs the AI has that we don't). They will have been at peace for the entire game, so they will be ahead of us but hopefully we will have the massive empire to out-produce them and win the game (like SGOTM2).

I had a look at the tile count. we currently have 131 (I think) and need 780 to win by domination (again I think). Logic tells me that there isn't 6 times our current land to be had on this island so we'll have to steal some from others ;)

Good summary Oz. Here are few additional comments. Without the Pyramids, I would go with cottages rather than farms and Scientists. We have lots of nice river tiles to cottage.

I agree that new cities should get a Courthouse and a Library. I don't think Monasteries are that useful. We may want to put in some Granaries to help the new cities grow.

T3K and I made the same observation that there cannot be 6x as much land on our continent. The key at this point will be getting to Astronomy quickly, so we should consider a push through to Liberalism to grab free Astronomy. Since we have not generated any great people yet, it should be fairly easy to get a couple quick great scientists.

Actually I did mean to mention cottages, very important. The point about scientists I (not very clearly) was trying to make is that while our research rate is so low (20-30) we can employ scientists around the place (wasn't advocating farms over cottages) in high food cities (forgoing a bit of production but gaining some research).

Screen shots are now posted from my turnset.

I think we are on the right path as discussed above. Adding some well placed forest chops will help hasten the courthouse push. The 5 extra workers from Kumbi Saleh and Carthage should help.

I assume at this point we will want to keep Carib and Timbuktu for empire expansion. At the end of my turnset Mansa sent out a settler to the east so he will most likely have another city soon. I really appreciate it when the opponent Civs do the work for us! :)

McArine, are you able to play?

Yes I am, I was without internet access yesterday, and I'm home late today.
I'll post my thoughts for the next turns when I get home, if I have anything to add.
And then I'll play tomorrow.

I played 8 turns, then I figured we have a decision to make: To take Chinook or not take Chinook.

During my turns Taoism and Christianity was founded in distant lands.

I took Carib without losses and added it to our empire.

All production was switched to buildings, a couple was whipped, and Thebes is ready to whip, allthough I'd wait until it only costs one population.

I totally forgot about chop rushing some of our buildings, and will encourage the next player to start doing this.

Athens is building a work boat, it was intended for its last water resource. I later found that the continent goes down to the ice. :rolleyes:

Turn log:
Preturn: Zzz

Turn 1: Changes civic to organized religion. And starts on Currency.

Turn 2: Zzz

Turn 3: London War Elephant -> Monestary. Nottingham Library -> Missionary. Whip Granary in York.

Turn 4: York Granary -> Courthouse. Corinth Catapult -> Courthouse.

Turn 5: Athens Courthouse -> Work Boat. Whips Courthouse in Argos.

Christianity founded.

Turn 6: Argos Courthouse -> Library. I'm delaying the taking of a barb city to the north.

Taoism founded.

Turn 7: Whips courthouse in Carthage. Carib is taken and kept.

Turn 8: London Confusian Monestary -> Temple. Nottingham Missionary -> Missionary. Carthage Courthouse -> Library.

Postturn: The barbarians has built Chinook to the north, I send a couple of units to investigate, nice location.
Thebes can whip a Courthouse now, but I think I would wait until it only takes one population.
I forgot to consider chop rushing some of the buildings we need, so that is up to the next player.
The taking of Timbuktu and perhaps Chinook should bring us home on Currency.

Edit: Added roster:

cubbiesin08 - on deck
ngraner42
Ozbenno
McArine
Terminator3k
Mighty Dwaarf - up

Would it not autoraze at size 1??

If we're running at negative at 0% we shouldn't add cities to the empire as we will need the cash more. I say burn it down now. We should whip courthouses as soon as we can until we have some stability in the economy.

I also don't like the fact that the city is on a horse resource. We should dot map where we want cities up there.

It is time to agressively build cottages and work those tiles. We can then fill in additional cities as the economy builds.

One strategy we could do is keep growing during this cottage phase and push to Astronomy, then whip an Army out to finish getting the remaining land needed for domination. Score does not matter, so we can really shrink the cities at the end. I don't play that way in fun games or GOTM, but this is a competition.

Plan

Burn the barb city for a bit of cash, take out Mansa. Do we keep Timbuktu or burn that??

Whip wherever possible chouses, Libraries arent much use unless needed for culture for border pop.
Once london completes temple hire a priest for shrine cash.
Hopefully barbs should settle some nice city sites for us to take later.
If there are no objections Ill play 12 turns to take us back to round number.
If by chance Currency finishes where do we go next??

After Currency, I think we need to head straight for Optics.

I think at this stage we burn all the remaining cities until we've got some sort of economy going.

I agree with Ozbenno.
Get the economy going, and find our other enemies, is the way ahead.

As mentioned played 12 to even it up.

We are now alone on our little Island spare a few barbs. Both Timbuktu and Gao were raized to save money along with 2 barb cities.

We were running OR but we didnt have religion set so none of our confused cities were benefitting from production bonus, which was rectified.
Most cities now have courthouses and others can be completed shortly. I whipped Library in Carthage as it had 2-3 resources within one border pop which occured on last turn so these can now be worked.
Carthage is building work boat which I was thinking can be used to explore the island to the east, if this turns up nothing then there is a sea resource on Athens East coast that a boat from Athens cannot reach.
London is working a priest in order to gain a GP for shrine income still some turns off however.
Currency is in and we are now onto MC, it is needed for Optics and Forges will boost happiness and production. I have started a few mkts.
We now need to organize our barb defense. I think we should pull back forces into our borders spreading them out to be able to cope with the barb units that approach us. This will help cut supply costs and hopefully spawn a few barb cities we can take later.

Now that Currency is in, we can look at putting cities on building wealth as well to improve the economy. Once it picks up we should look at good commerce and production sites for new cities.

For the next 10 turns, I'll just focus on building the economy. Unless I hear anything different, I'll play tomorrow night.

Instead of pushing to Optics, I would push to Civil Service and Education first. We don't really want to meet the other civs. We will need Optics eventually for an Astronomy slingshot, but we could save it until after the other prerequisites are set up.

Civil Service would be good actually first. The problem with waiting to meet the other AI is that they don't know they are at war with us. Until we meet them they will be teching like crazy. I would seriously doubt we are a chance at Liberalism. I think we should be looking to bulb Astronomy from a GS, rather than from Liberalism.

I would agree with CS push first, MC has only 1-2 turns invested so would not be end of world to change now. As regards meeting the others do we feel it is better to go and find them and move them from a peace to a war mindset or let them find us?? For all we know it could be Monty out there who has been warring all along??

Since I always push to Education fairly quickly, I forgot the fact that it is not needed for Astronomy.

Paper and Philosophy have precedence ahead of Astronomy for GS, so we have to get Philosophy either way. The Liberalism route requires CS, Paper, Education, and Liberalism. The direct route requires only Astronomy (I am not couting techs required for either route). This analysis puts me in the Oz camp, but we should skip CS to apply GS to the needed techs. We should get a city busy running GS and think about a flip to Pacificm once we get needed buildings up.

These are quick thoughts; definitely we should discuss more before continuing.

I think our first GP needs to be the Great Prophet and then we can work on getting a Scientist - this would make our GS quite a ways off.

Here's my thought, but it could be completely wrong...
I think we should focus on our economy and teching...we'll eventually find the other civs. If we find the other civs and then don't actually attack them for quite a while, won't they just build up monster militaries? If we leave them without knowing us, we might be able to attack them closer to finding them. Also, we wouldn't want to distract them from attacking each other.

There's no real right or wrong answer about contact with the other civs. If its Monty, Alex and Genghis over there, we want to leave them as long as possible to fight amongst themselves, if its Mansu, Gandhi and Elizabeth, we'll have lost the game by the time they discover us. We'll only know what the right thing to do is after we know who they are, when its too late.

A GP would be good, as would a GS. Maybe employ both in London and leave it to Lady Luck. Pacifism would probably kill our fragile economy, unless we deleted alot of troops. We should be able to get 2-3 Great People relatively quickly.

If we do skip CS, a GS will bulb Compass, Optics and Astronomy.

I am fine with getting the GP first to help fix the economy and then switching to GS to help push to Astronomy. It is tough to give up CS, but it seems like that will get us to Astronomy faster.

One note on the AI tech rate. Since this is only Prince level and we were first to Confucianism, I am not so worried. I noticed that the Colossus has not been built.

Went ahead and played 10 more turns just focusing on building the economy:

- I whipped multiple times and there are probably a few more opportunities to whip.
- Spread Confusionism to a couple cities and we need to keep doing this.
- Pulled some of the military units back to cultural borders to save money.
- Have units stationed outside Apache (east) and Cuman (north) because I wasn't sure if we would want to keep these or raze them.
- Workboat heading east has found a few small islands, but now has located a potentially larger island.
- Our breakeven tech is essentially 30% and we'll have metal casting in 7
- I intended to only run a GP in the capital, but a scientist was accidentally run for a few turns.
- We're probably getting close to being able to actually found some new cities.

Continued the plan.
Captured and razed Apache for the cash; it was pretty far away from the capital.
Metal Casting and Compass complete, Machinery underway.
We can build Forges, but right now I have the capital running cash.
Started GS points in Athens.
New Settler underway in Carthage.
Economy is up to about 50%.

OK this is a got it, will have a look and post any thoughts.

Carib might be a good city for the Forbidden Palace. When it expands in 3 turns it will have several forests that can be chopped as well as several hills to work.

I think we can afford to merge Cuman to our empire. it has wine, horses, fish and cow so should be affordable.

I'd like to stick another two cheap cities west and north of London as well. Wine and fur are the only two happiness resources we can hook up.

I'd be tem