Welcome to your C_IV Warlords SGOTM 6 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

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.

Remconius reporting for duty!

Index to turnset reports:

1: Remconius (move warrior on turn 0) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6253670&postcount=30)
2: Remconius (turns 0-40) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6260901&postcount=52)

chopster reporting for duty!

A little background - I'm 31, married with no kids (yet). I live in Australia, so I'm probably in a different time zone to most (GMT + 9:30, although it's daylight savings here at the moment so it's +10:30 - just before 6:30pm here now).

I joined this SG in order to force myself to participate in more strategic thinking and planning of my civ games, in order to improve my play. And for fun of course.

I have both expansions, so I'd love to play with you guys in anyother SGs as well if we all mesh well.

Also, I'm unlikely (possible maybe but unlikely) to have internet or CIV access from 22nd December until probably 29th but possibly as late as 2nd January.

Game thoughts

Some randoms at the moment:
Always war - minimal exploration until we have solid defence/attack plan?
AW may also influence our early research paths.
Protective archers may come in real handy.

Initial settling location - current spot will allow us to work all hills in fat cross with some surplus food (post Calendar) at size 7. Irrigated Bananas will allow this before Calendar but no surplus food. Do we want to consider moving?

First warrior move? 1W? 1SW?

Cabert reporting for duty.

AW isn't my strong point.
A few things I learned in the few games I played :
- 1 defender in a city is never enough. Even a very good one.
- no trades = very slow tech pace. It's not easy to win by space in this setting. Easiest victory condition is conquest.
- Initial exploration is double edged. The AIs go into war mode as soon as they see us. This is not good if we don't want to fight, but it avoids the AIs teching too fast for us (building units doesn't help teching).
- we don't need alphabet early, nor currency.

patagonia checking in.

To update you on my computer situation - my PC's working again, but I haven't been able to track down my Warlords disc yet. I'll have another look and hope it turns up soon so that I can join the roster properly.

Some initial thoughts:

AW - agree with Cabert's points above. Being pro/chr is a real boost, mainly from the point of view of defending resources (like the gold) early in the game. First build in the capital should be a warrior to avoid any unpleasant surprises at the hands of AI scouting units. Conquest is likely to be the quickest route to victory, but we'll probably have to tech to astronomy with the big and small script being used.

We may see the odd archer stack coming at us early on depending on which loons are near us (if any). From HBR onwards, the AI tends to go very cav-happy so pikes/longbows are a big boost.

With this being prince level and us being charismatic, we'll have a high happy cap to work with, so HR isn't quite the priority it might be. Is it worth building ourselves a henge? Monuments don't obsolete until astronomy so we'd get a boost to culture and happy everywhere for quite some time.

It's Warlords, not BtS, which means settling in place is marginally better than settling on the river (no levees), and there are also no slave revolts so we can go whip-happy!

In terms of a gambit, is it worth pursuing the Oracle > Feudalism sling? That'll allow us to expand with impunity and with gold at the start location we've definitely got the beakers to do it in time.

I made a better pic of the starting position:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/sgotm-6-start.jpg

what I see are three places to settle:
1. In place - fastest and a good solid spot
2. Southwest - plains hill for an extra hammer, Bananas from the start and more rivers to cottage. I think that does make a difference as we'll be teching ourselves.
3. Unknown, but based on what the warrior reveals. there seems to be ocean in the SE which could make an interesting capital location especially with sea resources.

My plan would be to move the warrior SW and post a screenie.

Also I have not played many AW games, so I will play a few test games to get a feel. I think others who are unfamiliar with this should try some as well.

what I see are three places to settle:
1. In place - fastest and a good solid spot Agreed, it's solid.
2. Southwesteast - plains hill for an extra hammer, Bananas from the start and more rivers to cottage. I think that does make a difference as we'll be teching ourselves. We can do some further analysis to determine exactly what we'll be giving up, and what we'll be gaining. Also this is a grass hill, so no extra hammer.
3. Unknown, but based on what the warrior reveals. there seems to be ocean in the SE which could make an interesting capital location especially with sea resources. I had thought of the possibility of settling 1 SW. Can do so on the first turn still, so no time wasted. This loses the bananas, but might have access to another food resource to make up for it. Again, proper analysis of this is required, and can't fully be done until after we move the warrior.

My plan would be to move the warrior SW and post a screenie. Agreed here, I think that move reveals the most tiles that have any bearing on the decision of where to settle "Trashville".

Also I have not played many AW games, so I will play a few test games to get a feel. I think others who are unfamiliar with this should try some as well. I've not played much, although when I first saw that the game was AW, I did play a test. This led me to believe that minimal exploration, save for scouting city locations, was the best route - until we're ready to fight. Also, settler escorts are required, and defending resources and workers is important.

See comments above.

Also, 1N, 1NE of the settler is a grass hill, not a plains hill (1 food), 1E of settler is forest grass (no hill), 1SE is a grass hill forest (not plains hill forest).

In terms of a gambit...

Speaking of gambits, how about rushing a nearby neighbour?
Axes or chariots?
Stealing workers?

Checking in and ready to prod some buttocks.

Agree on moving warrior 1SW and posting a pic. I'm in favor of settling 1SE but let's see what's still out there. A seafood resource in SW would be sweet.

AW puts some extra considerations in city placement. Especially frontline cities should be placed for optimal defence. The ideal frontline city is placed on a hill with clear flatland all around, allowing us to lure AI units to it and destroy them in the open. If the enemy gets onto high ground or into a forest, prying them out will be costly. And we have to maintain a good kill ratio if we wish to win. 1:x, where x is the number of enemy civs, or higher is required to out-produce the AIs. Also, we must identify hill/forest chains running through our territory and cut them off with forts or whatever to force AI pillagers to flatland.

That's it for now. I'll come up with some more later.

Speaking of gambits, how about rushing a nearby neighbour?
Axes or chariots?
Stealing workers?
it's AW, worker kidnapping is not happening (except if we manage a woodsman 2 sneak attack)

it's AW, worker kidnapping is not happening (except if we manage a woodsman 2 sneak attack)
To follow on from that, we need to be very careful in attempting an early rush assuming there's anyone close enough to make this practical.

The AI will go on a "war" setting as soon as we make contact, which means we lose the element of surprise that we'd have in a traditional game. Rushing stacks therefore need to be bigger and ideally head straight for the capital, bypassing any satellite cities.

An early rush is great if we successfully take one opponent down, but a failed rush could well cost us the game. Based on my experience of AW, the most important first step is to secure our own borders and production base, then to target one opponent after another aiming to eliminate them.

Am I correct in assuming AW means no capitulation?

Unfortunately the thread from strategy & tips about this that a few other users and I had contributed to has been pruned so here's a potted summary:

In essence, early game strategy revolves around teching to Writing and Monarchy before building the Oracle and then taking Feudalism as the free tech. The point of this is to gain the ability to build longbows at or pre-1000BC giving you uber defensive units that the AI can't counter until it starts to build cats in large numbers.

To do this, we need to pick up quite a few techs (not necessarily in this order):
Hunting, agriculture, AH, the wheel, (pottery), writing, mysticism, med/poly, priesthood, monarchy. We'll want to slot bronze working and archery in there too if we can.

It's beakers that limit this gambit, rather than production. Based on settling in place (since that's what we can see), the capital can work cows + gold from size 2 onwards which easily takes care of the beaker side of things. We should be able to pick up the second gold with city 2 or 3, which will further boost our economy.

If the rest of the team like this opening strategy, I'd favour growing the capital whilst building stonehenge and then spitting out a settler party or two while we tech towards monarchy in time to build the oracle. Having both of those wonders in London will give us lots of GPP, and settled great prophets will be a big boost to our economy and production capabilities, plus we'll open up vassalage very early on (extra EXP and free upkeep on several units).

It seems counter-intuitive to invest hammers in early wonders in an AW game, but there's a decent payoff here if we're willing to gamble.

Hello trash people.

Having decided to have another go at Civ I'm having some computer problems: not currently on internet at home and my old graphics card blew up and my new graphics card remains unhappy. But these should be fixable.

Regarding early game I think archery early on is essential and I also think we should be doing some local exploration and aim to settle a couple more cities asap. The big headache is going to be keeping up in tech so having a research city early on is important and we'll also need at least one unit pump.

Feudalism beeline sounds good. probably shouldn't get too wrapped up in long term strategy until we know what we're dealing with.

agreed on early archery.
Local exploration should not lead to an empty capital, though.

Definitely agreed on that!

ALso, I like the Feudalism strat - Vassalage + Charismatic + Barracks + Protective = Super Longbows!

As mentioned, the sooner we can get the two gold we can see on line, we can really crank the research pace.

This is prince, so an archer rush should be possible, given the right circumstances. We could even try stifling with some well-placed archers.

The feudalism slingshot is great, I once tried it with Churchill in a noble AW game and it was serious kickass. As long as the enemy has nothing better than classical units, massed longbows can easily take cities. they allow you to totally cripple the AIs and keep your core safe, focusing on research and then steamrolling the AIs with superior units.

All strategies are somewhat map-dependant, however, so let's focus on a solid start. Early archery sounds good to avoid a warrior dogpile or something else as ridiculous.

We are still waiting for Cam, but I can already post a roster proposal:

(in order of appearance)
-Remconius (30 turns)
-chopster (25 turns)
-cabert (20 turns)
-patagonia (15 turns)
-stuge (15 turns)
-pigswill (15 turns)
-Cam_H (15 turns)

Not sure if we should go down to 10 turns sooner.

I'd also suggest that even in the middle of a turnset, any crucial decision point should be saved and discussed.

Being always war, the turn time might be longer for each turn, with lots of units to move etc and therefore shorter sets might be a good idea.

We can always adjust on the fly.

Downloaded the save and here is a normal pic of the start: (notice the ocean on the west)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/7127e960.jpg


I dont think we should rush into this game, but the strategy will be somewhat dependent on what happens in the first turns.

Proposal:
-Move warrior SW and post a screenie.
-Then we can decide whether we use the settler for some turn 0 exploration before deciding where to settle. This is prince so I am not worried about settling in turn 1 or 2.
-In deciding we should compare sites tile-by-tile.

I'm worried about settling at turn 1 or 2.
This is always war, we don't want our settler to meet an AI unit, do we? I think it's safe to assume they are far enough away to move for 2 turns, but then it means that the warrior has to follow the settler, which makes the whole wandering settler rather moot.
settle in place is my opinion: we have fresh water, we have gold and cow and farmable bananas in the fat cross. It's not going to get any better.
edit : settling on the dye is indeed better than in place, but there is jungle down there.

I would prefer to settle 1SE, given what we know so far. As it is AW settling on a hill can sure be great help if our capital turns out to be a border city.

I still think the best choice of where to settle will come after moving the warrior 1 SW to the jungle hill.

Is there anyone who disagrees with the first warrior move?

From there, as you say we can do a tile by tile analysis of all proposed settling locations.

Fog gazing
Is 2SW a hill, or water? I'm not much good at this, anyone else?

The biggest problem I see with settling on the dye is that we have to wait until border expansion to work any 3f tiles.

What are our thoughts on economy?
In the beginning, we'll be using gold mines to boost our research, but being AW are vulnerable cottages a good idea? Is a SE a better approach?

Fog gazing
Is 2SW a hill, or water? I'm not much good at this, anyone else?

The biggest problem I see with settling on the dye is that we have to wait until border expansion to work and 3f tiles.
To fog gaze further, we need to "move the camera". 45° rotation could help, or even better, flying camera to get a better angle.

About working 3F tiles, I'm not sure this is a priority. Are we agreed on a warrior first, or not?

I am pretty sure settling on dye will give the capital extra gold, so that is a nice boost.

Settling on dyes does give us an extra gold in the capital, but brings jungle into the start location and will leave us one tile away from the coast.

I don't think having the capital settled on a hill is that important, since it shouldn't be a frontline city unless the game's going very badly. Based on what I can see without opening the save, we appear to have ocean to both west and southwest which gives the impression of the capital being on a peninsula. There'll either be a narrow chokepoint to the SW or enemies will only be able to attack us from N and E. By the time we've got 3 cities, the capital should be secure.

========

I've found my Warlords disk and I'm downloading the 2.13 patch (slowly) at the moment. I'll do some proper fog-gazing from the save if it arrives before I need to go out.

EDIT: It would have saved a lot of time if I'd realised BtS 3.13 had automatically updated my Warlords installation. D'oh!

Based on what I can make out with the flying camera:
3N1E of the settler looks like a plains hill.
1N3E of the warrior looks like a jungle grassland hill.
1S2E of the warrior is an empty grassland tile - could it hold a resource? Iron/horses could be likely depending on map modification.
2S1W of the warrior is grassland forest.
2S of the warrior is jungle.
The jungle grassland hill 1SW of the warrior is almost certainly getting its fresh-water bonus on the diagonal from the river. Although that river could be running into an inland lake, I think that's much more likely to be coast down there.1SW as an opening warrior move will likely still reveal the most useful information as far as settling the capital is concerned.

I just played what could loosely be termed a test game (prince, AW, with the start location modified in WB to give the tiles clearly visible in the screenshot), but on normal speed rather than epic.

Feudalism sling is definitely doable, probably by about 1200BC depending on how focused we are (we've probably got until about 900BC, give or take 100 years). The main issues are whether it's worth settling a third city in that window or not, and whether to build stonehenge or not. I'd be inclined to get archery very early (possibly tech hunting, agri, ah, archery) and then spam 3-4 archers while preparing for a second city (and possibly stonehenge). Based on protective archers and prince level, we'll not need any other units in the pre-longbow era. I faced two stacks of 3 warriors which were easily dealt with by those archers without any pillaging.

By 575BC when I stopped playing (I carried on to check that guerrilla 3 was available in warlords), most of the AI had expanded to 3/4 cities, none of which were terribly well defended.

It's too early to try and number crunch yet, but my gut feeling is if we're going to mount an early active defense (assuming we've got any neighbours to worry about), we should aim for either two cities plus stonehenge, or three cities founded by the time we complete monarchy and the oracle.

Good stuff, patagonia, except for the slow download :P

I'll move the warrior and post a screenie, while waiting for responses I will also try a test game.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/7cba6912.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/ed83ffe3.jpg

More bananas...

Time for analysis!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/bdf9d988.jpg

The dye is the best spot, but has 2 useless coastal tiles.

Settling in place misses river access, which could cause our health to stop us growing. It's not a bad spot though...

Personally I like 1SE, as it allows more river cottages. And it has the hill defense bonus. Gyathaar might have placed all AI close to us.

in place gives access to fresh water (from the lake)

If we go for a feudalism beeline and there's no trading with the enemy then its going to be a long time before we discover calendar making some of the available resources largely irrelevant.

Prince, epic, always war is probably too straightforward for sgotm, especially with a 'highly modified' map. Good chance of having no metals easily available, if at all. Maybe we'll find the nearest metal is under an AI capital. Or else we could have an isolated start on a small island with a whole bunch of AIs happily trading between themselves across the ocean. Or share a small continent with a couple of the more belligerent AIs such as Monte and Alex.

I'd research hunting, archery, BW to start. Build warrior, archer, worker (whip once BW is in) then archer/settler. By that time we should have the neighborhood better explored and then we'll be able to have a serious strategy debate.

I'd start by settling on the spot.

Well, the bananas do offer one extra food and the dye one gold...

About not exploring, I have a test game and 4 AI walked upto my borders before I had city 2. Let's explore carefully when we have defense up.

I'm happy with settling on the dye or in place.
1 SW isn't too bad either, it opens up a second city with bananas and gold.

I would still settle in place (high probablily of having metals or horses in the BFC)

1 SW is a good city spot, but do we want 5 coastal squares in out capital? It's not that many as far as a coastal capital goes. Workboats could also provide exploration with minimal danger in the early game, until the AI gets sailing.
What do you think the chances of seafood on the coast are there? If there was fish, that would be a pretty big boost.

The second bananas aren't too enticing to me, as they're not farmable, so they're only a 3,0,0 tile until Calendar.

I'm liking 1SW as a city location, the real question is if it should be our capital. Although if we don't settle our capital there it will be lost forever as a city spot.

Should we risk doing a bit of a settler walk? I've never been one for it, but near the coast it should be pretty safe, and potentially reveal a big boost if it pays off.

EDIT: the blue cirle on the western gold makes me smell seafood in it's radius. If we settled 1 SE, then we could place a second city on the gold or the tile 1 SW of the gold, depending on the seafood location. That would be a nice second city for research.

I'm happy with settling on the dye or in place.
1 SW isn't too bad either, it opens up a second city with bananas and gold.

I would still settle in place (high probablily of having metals or horses in the BFC)I'll jump in with the settle in place camp.

If we do that we can still give the eastern bananas to a city working the other gold mine as the capital can get the food it needs elsewhere.

In the absence of visible seafood, moving to the coast strikes me as a waste of time and effort, although my main reservation with 1SW is that we'll have fewer hills to work in the capital pre-IW, which will be a way off if we do decide to beeline Feudalism.

EDIT: if we do have an AI close by, a settler walk could result in the end of the game by turn 5/6. I'd be inclined to take what's on offer (gold and cows now, with bananas and dyes to follow when calendar arrives) rather than taking an unneccessary gamble.

I'm throwing ideas around.
I sure wouldn't be disappointed if we settled in place, it's a fine city.

My only concern is with a custom map, we may be sacrificing two good cities for one very good one.

(a.) Hi ... checking in. :)

(b.) Hi particularly to Chopster! "Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi" and all that. (I'm in Adelaide).

(c.) Happy to go with the group verdict on settling, although I'd be inclined to go 'easterly' after the riverside Gold and Bananas for +1:commerce: each :undecide:.

(d.) Inclined towards Worker over a Warrior for the 'asap' Gold mine, but I'm easily swayed.

(d.) Inclined towards Worker over a Warrior for the 'asap' Gold mine, but I'm easily swayed.Hey Cam,

All I'll say to this is that I went first in one of the DMAW SGs here a while back, set the capital to build a worker first and didn't survive to hand over to the next player (didn't survive to build the worker in fact).

I'd hate for that to happen in an SGOTM.

If we're going to send our starting warrior exploring (which we probably should from a hut point of view), I think the best move is to build a second warrior whilst working one of the forested grassland hills, before building a worker while working the riverside bananas (assuming we settle in place). This gets us a slightly slower opening than we might otherwise like, but protects us from any unwanted mishaps from the get go.

EDIT: the blue cirle on the western gold makes me smell seafood in it's radius. If we settled 1 SE, then we could place a second city on the gold or the tile 1 SW of the gold, depending on the seafood location. That would be a nice second city for research.Throwing ideas out is always appreciated at a time like this chopster.

Based on what we can see, settling in place would still allow us to place a city 3W of the settler's current location to work any seafood accessible from the gold out that way. Not ideal, but possibly useful from a cottage-growing GP farming perspective. The only caveat is that this would ultimately give us a niche city over there, rather than two stronger cities.

My preference is to settle on the dyes, then we'd get extra commerce from the start. The two coastal squares are irrelevant. If this game lasts so long that we have to work them, we're doing something wrong. And it nets the capital extra food eventually, with calendar or CS.

1SW is good too. It'll make us very unlikely to get wiped out by some exploring AI warrior. (Happened to me in one test game.) Anyhow, we'll have to bag the eastern gold with the captital, because any other city working it would probably be buried in jungle. Also, the gold could get overgrown while we haven't got IW. And that would waste lots of early, probably critical, commerce.

I checked out people's positions in the previous posts on settling spot. With people allowed multiple votes this is the outcome:

In place: 4 votes
Dye: 4 votes
1 SE: 3 votes
1 SW: 2 votes

Given this outcome I propose we settle on the Dye, as it gives +1 commerce, brings the river gold mine in reach and can still be done in turn 0.

I'll allow some more time to counter this proposal while we formulate the rest of the plan for my turns.

I am worried that there is a better spot. The only way to find out is wander the settler (1NW, 1S) and the next turn move the warrior 1 SE or 1 SW. Or settling 1 SE which leaves more room to the West for another city.

Rest of the plan for turnset 1:
Build: Warrior (protection) > Worker > warrior > warrior
Science: Hunting > Archery > BW
Exploration: As safe as possible. small circle around the capital.

So please vote:
-Settle on Dye
-Wander settler for 1 turn and post screenie
-Settle 1 SE to leave room to west for gold/banana/seafood? city
-None of the above (state reasons and alternative plan)

I'm happy to settle on the dyes.

My only worry is with the initial research path identified, we'll be growing very slowly. Being prince and with a gold mine on line very early, we'll have a reasonably high happy cap in the capital, so I'd think maybe Agri or AH in the first three techs. This will also give the worker things to do, as we don't want idle worker turns.

I'm unfamiliar with timings on epic speed, as I've only ever played Normal with the exception of GOTMs etc.

We could do agriculture/AH early, but I think archers are needed soon to be safe.

I certainly don't disagree with that.

I guess we can beeline archery, and if the worker appears run out of things to do, then slide Agri in before Bronze?

I also think we should be looking to get at least agriculture researched before bronze working, otherwise we'll have idle worker turns and a capital growing too slowly to work any of the mines that we build.

Assuming we settle on the dyes as outlined above, we'll want to get those riverside bananas farmed quickly before they get overgrown by jungle. That leaves us with one farm and two mines (on the gold and the hill 1S that could also fall victim to the jungle) to build while we get AH online for the cows.

Ordinarily I'd push for AH early since the cows are the strongest tile for us to work in the early game (the only 6 production one available to us), but if we're looking to chop/whip a settler to bag the other gold early on, they can wait a while.

The proposed build order for the first turnset sounds fine - warrior > worker should take about as long as hunting > archery so we'll be able to get going on our first archer as soon as the worker's done.

i'm convinced with th dye

I'm ok with dye

Then the tech path is:

Hunting > Archery > Agriculture > BW > AH

I'll probably play tonight.

Big picture
I know it's early days, but have we given any thought to a victory condition?

I'm guessing domination or conquest are the easiest paths, given the always war setting, and surely the earliest achievable.

How many big and small maps have you guys played? I know it's very few for me. Are we likely to require Astronomy in order to achieve aour goals? If so, how do we plan for it? Self research, or a combination of research and lightbulbing? IF lightbulbing, what techs do we have to avoid researching in order to have the path open?

Exploration
What direction should we explore?
Should we take the warrior clockwise to the western gold hill, or anticlockwise (SE, NE, NE etc) to reveal more land and potentially more threats?

Summary:
-Founded London, built warrior and worker.
-Farmed Banana
-Met 3 opponents with nasty early unique units, who all have BW before us :(
-Drew first blood, killed one scout :p

Turn 0/660 (4000 BC)
Found London on Dye, start warrior working 1F/2H tile, no risks :)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/57f447ac.jpg

Turn 1/660 (3970 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:17:30]
Cows and Fish to the south

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/9dcb84d3.jpg

Turn 2/660 (3940 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:17:58]

Turn 3/660 (3910 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:18:04]

Turn 4/660 (3880 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:18:08]

Turn 5/660 (3850 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:18:13]

Turn 6/660 (3820 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:18:19]

Turn 7/660 (3790 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:18:24]
Tech learned: Hunting
London's borders expand
London finishes: Warrior

Turn 8/660 (3760 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:18:41]
Research begun: Archery (11 Turns)
London begins: Worker (23 turns)
Change worked tile to river-banana

Turn 9/660 (3730 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:19:30]

Turn 10/660 (3700 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:19:37]
MM approaches from North, and Alex from the East.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/65ff9878.jpg

Contact made: Malinese Empire
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Churchill(England), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'
MM is Spi/Fin and has unique skirmisher (4 str Archer, with extra 1st strike):eek:

Contact made: Greek Empire
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Churchill(England), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'
Alex is Phi/Agg, and has phalanx (5 str spear):(

Turn 11/660 (3670 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:19:42]

Turn 12/660 (3640 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:19:58]

Turn 13/660 (3610 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:22:41]

Turn 14/660 (3580 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:22:47]
Contact made: Carthaginian Empire
Attitude Change: Hannibal(Carthage) towards Churchill(England), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'
Hanny is Fin/Cha and has Numidian Cavalry (5 str HA with lots of bonusses) :mad:

Turn 15/660 (3550 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:22:52]

Turn 16/660 (3520 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:24:24]
Tech learned: Archery

Turn 17/660 (3490 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:24:31]
Research begun: Agriculture (11 Turns)
Turn 18/660 (3460 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:25:48]
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Alexander(Greece), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 19/660 (3430 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:25:53]

Turn 20/660 (3400 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:26:06]

Turn 21/660 (3370 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:26:56]
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Alexander(Greece), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Churchill(England), from 'Annoyed' to 'Furious'

Turn 22/660 (3340 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:27:09]

Turn 23/660 (3310 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:27:21]
Attitude Change: Hannibal(Carthage) towards Churchill(England), from 'Annoyed' to 'Furious'

Turn 24/660 (3280 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:27:30]

Turn 25/660 (3250 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:27:36]
FIRST BLOOD!
While attacking in the wild, Warrior defeats (1.16/2): Malinese Scout (Prob Victory: 99.1%)
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Alexander(Greece), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 26/660 (3220 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:27:58]
Warrior promoted: Woodsman I

Turn 27/660 (3190 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:28:14]
Tech learned: Agriculture

Turn 28/660 (3160 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:28:20]
Research begun: Bronze Working (18 Turns)
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Hannibal(Carthage), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 29/660 (3130 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:28:39]
London finishes: Worker
Decide to farm the banana before mining the gold.

Spot Mali borders to the East.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/07a0842c.jpg

Turn 30/660 (3100 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:29:21]
London begins: Archer (37 turns)

Turn 31/660 (3070 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:30:07]
Civics Change: Hannibal(Carthage) from 'Tribalism' to 'Slavery':eek:

Turn 32/660 (3040 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:30:31]

Turn 33/660 (3010 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:30:58]

Turn 34/660 (2980 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:31:07]
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Churchill(England), from 'Annoyed' to 'Furious'
Civics Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) from 'Tribalism' to 'Slavery':eek:

Turn 35/660 (2950 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:31:15]

Turn 36/660 (2920 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:31:31]

Turn 37/660 (2890 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:31:39]
Attitude Change: Hannibal(Carthage) towards Mansa Musa(Mali), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 38/660 (2860 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:31:50]
A Farm was built near London
London grows: 2
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Mansa Musa(Mali), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 39/660 (2830 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:32:14]
Civics Change: Alexander(Greece) from 'Tribalism' to 'Slavery':eek:

Turn 40/660 (2800 BC) [16-Dec-2007 21:32:52]

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/1d977211.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/4be1c27b.jpg

Any ideas on the purple dude(tte)?


MM is at 13 tiles to the East from counting. Alex arrived on turn 10 with a scout, so he is about 20 tiles away. Hanny arrived on turn 15, so he could be at 30 tiles.

Interestingly:
We are currently at 1.48% of world's land, owning 18 tiles. That means the world consists of ~1216 tiles and we need ~778 tiles (~37 cities) if we were to go for domination.
MM only owns 1% which is 12 tiles, thus he must be on the coast. And if he is the biggest contender, the others must also be on the coast.

One more point. It seems we can use the land to the south to close off the perimeter. If we place 5 cities (or defenders) close together in the mountains with walls and archers, nobody can get through except from the north.

THE SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/Trash_Team_SG006_BC2800_01.CivWarlordsSave)

:crazyeye: just realized I first said the first turnset would be 30 turns... Oh well nothing much happened anyway.

Roster
-Remconius (just played 40 turns)
-chopster (UP for 30 turns)
-cabert (on deck for 20 turns)
-patagonia
-stuge
-pigswill
-Cam_H

Note for the next player:
-There is no rush, so take your time to discuss a plan with the team.
-When london grew to 2, I assigned the gold mine as well, but I think it's better to work the lake or cows until the Gold mine is done.
-We probably need another archer before we build a settler.

Started adding an index to turnset report in post 3 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6247949&postcount=3)

Nice early turn set.

So, BW is 6 turns away. This is good, as we'll know the location of any nearby copper before having to decide where to place our next city.

With our neighbours having early UUs, perhaps a defensive initial position is a good idea.

I can't say I really like our lands.

That cultural borders map is interesting.
If we were to build a "culture bridge" from the cow island, we might be able to reach other land masses without Astronomy.

Any ideas on city placements?
I'll try and have a go at a dot map, but I'm far from an expert on the matter.


Note for the next player:
-There is no rush, so take your time to discuss a plan with the team. Definitely
-When london grew to 2, I assigned the gold mine as well, but I think it's better to work the lake or cows until the Gold mine is done. Even a grass forest maybe?
-We probably need another archer before we build a settler. I'd say definitely - I sure wouldn't be moving our valuable settler out to die in my first SGOTM!

Actually, so much can potentially change after the discover of BW, and there's little that will be any different until that point, I may try to play tonight up until that point, and then we can discuss city placements, and the way forward from there.

Good work on the secure opening.

I'm not sure if Gyathaar will have been kind enough to give us easy access to metals, but the choice of neighbours is certainly interesting, given that we'll be facing both anti-melee and anit-mounted UUs. It's almost as if we're being pushed towards a Feudalism sling to give us a unit that will stand up to all of those.

Interesting to see some Viking culture splashed on the overlay too.

Looking at the lay of the land, I'd be inclined to go cautious and settle York 1NW of the cows to pick up the second gold and rice. It won't be a great location long-term (it'll max out at size 14 if it borrows the cows from London once we've got Calendar to plantation both bananas), but it's easy to defend and will provide a decent amount of hammers and commerce this early in the game (thanks to London's next border pop, it'll be able to stagnate at size 5 working rice, gold, a farm 1N of the cows and two other mines for 11HPT without needing any culture of its own).

There are better long-term city sites out east, but they'll take a lot more time to develop making them more of a gamble while we're small and vulnerable.

As you say, the Feudalism slingshot seems even more preferable now we know who we're facing locally.

Actually, so much can potentially change after the discover of BW, and there's little that will be any different until that point, I may try to play tonight up until that point, and then we can discuss city placements, and the way forward from there.

Yes - I agree. Let's see where the Copper is (if anywhere) before getting ahead of ourselves too much.

Good thoughts so far guys! :thumbsup:

OK, got it.

I've opened the save, and here is my plan for the next few turns:

Pre play: I've moved the second citizen so we are working the lake (2f,2c) and the farmed bananas as suggested. This gives growth to size 3 in 8 turns, and BW in 4 turns. The gold mine is still 6 turns away. The Archer says 25 turns to completion, but this is more like 11 turns once the gold mine is on line and being worked.

Initial play: Next 4 turns will play themselves - the worker will continue to mine the gold, and I'll tech from BW-AH. Then I'll post a screenshot for further discussion about settling locations.

EDIT: How does one enable the "flying camera" I see in other's screenshots?

Ok, so I played those four turns.
WE'VE GOT COPPER!!!

This won't affect our decisions of where to settle the other cities however, as it is 1S of our capital.

Also, how do I get the autolog to list dates for the events?
This is all I get:Research begun: Bronze Working (5 Turns)
Buddhism founded in a distant land
Tech learned: Bronze Working
While defending in the wild near London, Warrior defeats (1.72/2): Barbarian Panther (Prob Victory: 99.2%)
Research begun: Animal Husbandry (11 Turns)


See attached screenshot for the lay of the land:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50975/Copper.JPG

Thoughts for the coming turns:

Work the gold mine as soon as it come on line. See how many turns this reduces AH to.

When should we revolt to slavery?
Immediately? or some later time?
Are we likely to want to whip the first settler, or build it by hand? If we're going to self build it, should we wait until after it's built to revolt, so as to get it out one turn earlier?

I've got 2 thoughts on what to do with the worker once it finishes the gold mine:
1 - N, NW, chop, NW, pasture cows, S, S, S, mine copper
2 - SW, W, mine copper, N, N, N, pasture cows.

The second wastes more worker turns moving, but gets the copper online sooner, while the first gets the cows on sooner (more growth) and wastes fewer turns. This one is a little dependent on the exact timing of AH though, but I think it's about right. How long to chop on epic? There might still be a turn with nothing to do before AH finishes up.

Here were some thoughts I had on city placement.
As I said I'm no expert on this, so all input and criticism is appreciated.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50975/sgotm6d.jpg

Red city: Now, this is different to the spot proposed by patagonia. This site will take longer to be useful, but is coastal, has access to fresh water, and works out ok medium-long term if it works the cows, the rice, the gold, 1 plains hill mine and two grass hill mines. This makes 16hpt at size 6. The down side is of course that it needs culture. After AH, we could detour to mysticism (required anyway) before writing and begin building a monument straight away while working the forst grass hill, and possibly with a chop.

Yellow City: This city site gets the fish and the cows allowing it to work 5 grass hills in its radius while still growing. This city of course also needs culture, and it needs Iron working to deal with the jungle in its radius.

Cyan City: Gets the fish and island cows, also secures spices. Not a lot useful here, other than building a library, and assigning two scientists for research and GPPs towards lightbulbing Astronomy techs. Also needs culture.

Pink City: Just a location that seemed to fit with the others, gets rice and has quite a few river grass tiles for cottaging if we so desired, or farming to run specialists. Needs culture.

Well, there was some talk of building Stonehenge earlier, along with the Oracle in our capital, and this would seem to fit well with the culture requirements of the city sites I drafted. Interested to hear thoughts of all players on these ideas. I usually don't like as much overlap as I've got with these cities either, but it appears we are constrained a little in order to make use of what's there.

I disagree with red city.
1 W is better short term, and not worse long term

It's too early to discuss (and more so to found) pink city.

some food for thoughts :
- cottage economy is hard to run in AW.
- there is stone nearby.
Who thinks we have a shot at the pyramids?

Good stuff Chopster :goodjob:
Some basics:
->Camera flying - ctrl-Alt-F, but you need to enable it in the civilization.ini file in your my games/warlords folder.
->Autolog - In the options you can turn on all the mod features including the autolog. The autolog is then stored in the my games/warlords/autolog folder.


We definitely have a shot at the pyramids, dont forget we are playing prince. Pretty much anything we attempt on time should work.

Regarding religion. We should get one at some point. We do not need to worry about negative penalties in relations :D and especially theocracy will give us a nice boost.

As I said, purely draft thoughts. Always happy to hear differing opinions - it means we're thinking about things!

->Autolog - In the options you can turn on all the mod features including the autolog. The autolog is then stored in the my games/warlords/autolog folder.
Already turned it all on - every option ticked except "silent" and "default log filename". I did change the location of the file though, maybe this has something to do with it.

EDIT: Fixed now, wonderful.

As this is my first SG, I'm being super cautious - I might play until the gold mine is finished, then post back and we can talk furhter about the next course.

EDIT: Of course, only one turn left as the mine finishes at the end of the next turn.
Here's the state of affairs after that turn:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50975/goldmine2.jpg

Interestingly, I didn't realise those two rivers "meet" allowing us access to the gold without roads.

I see the points now about the red city - the originally suggested position really only loses fresh water and one plains hill, which we weren't able to work anyway.

I've had a thought about the next few turns too.
I'm thinking of improving the copper, then the cows, and building: Archer (in progress), Archer (2nd city garrison), worker, settler (built/ chopped by 2 workers). I think this will get the settler out only a few turns after it would be if built before the second worker, and allow the improving of the rice and gold to make the city usefull more quickly. What are people's thoughts on this one?

I was thinking of working the following tiles
Size 2: Farmed bananas/ Gold mine
Size 3: as above plus unimproved cows until copper mine finished, then work copper mine until cows are improved, then switch bananas to cows
Size 4: bananas, cows, gold, copper.

Anyone else see a better way for this part?
I know I ask a lot of questions, but I'm really new at trying to optimise my every move, and this is one of the skills I'm really trying to focus on.

Excellent to see we have access to the gold. Let's get cows online when we have AH and then the copper followed by a farmed river grassland and we'll be rocking soon.

I agree with the dotmap and cabert's comment. Let's focus on short term with the next couple of cities.
For the Cyan city we might need to place a city on the cows island. Could be a Gyathaar trick that means the difference between needing Astronomy or not :eek:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/remcoverheij/sgotm6dmap.jpg

In my dotmap the A's are archers that we should get online asap to secure our perimeter. It's like our private Maginot line and will keep our lands and improvements safe. We can even extend it further to the north.

Great wall is also an excellent wonder in this game.

I've had a thought about the next few turns too.
I'm thinking of improving the copper, then the cows, and building: Archer (in progress), Archer (2nd city garrison), worker, settler (built/ chopped by 2 workers). I think this will get the settler out only a few turns after it would be if built before the second worker, and allow the improving of the rice and gold to make the city usefull more quickly. What are people's thoughts on this one?

I was thinking of working the following tiles
Size 2: Farmed bananas/ Gold mine
Size 3: as above plus unimproved cows until copper mine finished, then work copper mine until cows are improved, then switch bananas to cows
Size 4: bananas, cows, gold, copper.

Anyone else see a better way for this part?
I know I ask a lot of questions, but I'm really new at trying to optimise my every move, and this is one of the skills I'm really trying to focus on.

One archer is to defend the new city.
I like the 2 worker approach, before the settler. We'll need more archers after that.
We should also farm the river grassland. 3F 1C is better than just 3F.

Our 3rd city should include the stone if we want to go for the pyramids. (I think we should)

I do like the idea of a specialist economy as the GSs will support a rush for Astronomy. I'll look up the strategy for this one.

One more remark on overall strategy, I noticed in my test game that there is no WW in AW games. Also I was able to kill off my entire continent (napoleon, washington and hannibal) with just axes and a few cats. At prince level you just pile axes and do fine. Of course each AI will need a seperate strategy given their unique unit. MM is best attacked with swords, Alex with Axes and Hanny with some spears (unless we deal with him first)

My economy was completely messed up (losing money at 0% science :D) which I did recover from, but very slowly. I should have razed more cities and only kept 6-7 in total. Once the continent is cleansed we can expand at a controlled pace to head over to the next continent. Some well placed GP farm and tech plan should support this.

I dug up the Astronomy beeline strategy and Great Scientist prefs.


Astronomy Beeline:
Fishing
The Wheel
Mining
Sailing
Pottery
Bronze Working
Writing
Metal Casting
Iron Working
Mathematics
Compass
Calendar
Machinery
Optics
Astronomy

Great Scientist preferences:
(underlined we need, bold we need to avoid)

Writing (own Research)
Mathematics (own Research or GS)
Scientific Method (later)
Physics (later)
Education (later)
Printing Press (later)
Fiber Optics (later)
Computers (later)
The Wheel (own Research)
Philosophy (avoid by avoiding Meditation)
Chemistry (later)
Fission (later)
Fusion (later)
Optics (GS?)
Paper (avoid by avoiding CS and Theology)
Astronomy (2 x GS?)
Biology (later)
Electricity (later)
Flight (later)
Genetics (later)
Compass (GS?)
Satellites (later)
Sailing (own Research)

What it means is we need to avoid Meditation, CS and Theology. We can use Great Scientists for Mathematics, Compass, Optics and/or Astronomy (2x).

That's a whole lot of scientists, but we don't need to worry about that just yet as none of the avoid techs are on our immediate path (if we take the poly route to priesthood).

My main reservations with building the pyramids for a boosted SE are twofold:
In the safe zone behind our proposed Maginot Line, we'll have to sacrifice production in most cities to gain the food surplus we need to run specialists.
Even with stone, the pyramids would equate to a whole lot of axes/longbows, which will do us more good in the short term.
I can see the payoff being there once we've secured our island, especially as the AI capitals would doubtless make great scientist farms. However, if we're talking about bulbing most of our way there, representation isn't essential.

I think the main boost the pyramids would give us is in allowing us to run caste system merchants under representation to keep both economy and tech afloat while we overexpand through war. Based on the current map, the best location appears to be the forested plains(?) hill 2N1W of the stone as clear-cutting that area will get us most of the hammers we need once the multipliers are thrown in.

So I'm up, next task being :
- build archer, worker, settler
- improve copper, cow, then chop
- settle "red city"
?

Or does chopster have another 10 turns to run?
may I suggest that red city builds a workboat asap?

I've still only played 5 turns!
I'm happy to play less than the 30 originally outlined though.

It seems the red city is what we're heading for next, so I'll continue along that path, and post here again with the progress in around 24 hours from now, stopping if I think there's a point that needs further clarification.

There's still a number of hours to change the plan for the next few turns:

Build: Archer, Archer, Worker, Settler, Archer, ....
Tech: AH, Writing?, Myst?, Poly?, Priest?
Settle: City 1 NW of cows

Hold your horses, cabert ;), I think chopster still has a few turns to go.

He posted a few intermediate reports to discuss steps along the way. In his the last screenshot of london he is only at turn 45.... 25 yet to go. I reckon your job is settling the red city, but let's see what the world looks lke 25 turns from now.

@patagoinia - I like the stone city location, we do need some culture asap. chop a monument, I say, so we need to throw in Mysticism at some time.

We dont need all 5 GS, in practice you usually research compass and mathematics yourself, maybe even optics or half of Astronomy.

I do agree to the idea of building 10 Longbows/axemen instead of the pyramids. Who knows maybe we can capture it instead.

I've still only played 5 turns!
I'm happy to play less than the 30 originally outlined though.

It seems the red city is what we're heading for next, so I'll continue along that path, and post here again with the progress in around 24 hours from now, stopping if I think there's a point that needs further clarification.

There's still a number of hours to change the plan for the next few turns:

Build: Archer, Archer, Worker, Settler, Archer, ....
Tech: AH, Writing?, Myst?, Poly?, Priest?
Settle: City 1 NW of cows

Go ahead and play the next 25, once the plan is clear. It'll probably include both archers and the worker. Techwise after AH, Writing is pretty safe, before we need to make tactical decisions:

Do we go for the fuedalism slingshot?
Then we need to get to priesthood.

Do we want to try the pyramids?
We need Masonry, a third city, mysticism, the wheel and a monument.

Do we want to rush MM or someone else?
We'd need the cow/fish city as 3rd (or stick with 2 cities) and pump out a dozen axes.

Personally I like the idea of Feudalism slingshot, without the Mids and then clean out the continent with longbows. There is not much the AI can bring to the party to handle longbows and they make great defenders once we capture cities.

IMHO we can do the feud slingshot AND get the mids, but this being AW, a raid is in order.

IMHO we can do the feud slingshot AND get the mids, but this being AW, a raid is in order.
This being prince, I think cabert may be right. It's a gamble, but one that could set us up nicely for the remainder of the game.

If one forest goes to chop a monument, that leaves us 5 for the mids, which will get us 40% of the way there if we fell them when the stone's hooked up. Since we'll need to build the rest the slow way, we probably only need to send 1/2 workers there to get the chops done in time, and Nottingham will act as a good buffer for our early "core" of London and York.

If we go down that route, we should forget about stonehenge. London will need a rax and to pump archers, a 3rd worker and another settler in addition to the oracle; York should probably be an archer/axe pump and nothing but.

The main thing we'd need to be careful of if adopting that approach is slowing down our feudalism sling too much with the maintenance our archers and 3rd city will be costing us. With both gold mines operational, we should be OK at this level though.

Let's just focus on getting longbows ASAP and then cracking some heads. I don't like the idea of founding a city to grab the stone. It'd put an unwelcome strain on our research and be hard to defend. Especially keeping the stone online would be hard.

Chopster, heed cabert's suggestion of building a workboat first in red dot city. Some naval intelligence will come in handy.

I am with Stuge on this one. Let's focus on getting Longbows asap and overwhelm the AI with hordes and hordes of Longbow.

the problem we face here is lack of knowledge of the map.
If we can get domination without astro we certainly don't need the mids. For this what we need is :
- a military tech
- production
- CoL (for caste system)
and to build settlers to get the required land, then assign artists to get the culture.
If we need astro, we certainly would benefit from mids.

We could go for conquest which tends to be cheaper in maintenance than domination. If we're going for that it would be worth considering Great Wall so we can raze cities freely without having to worry about barb infestations.

We probably need to get a clearer picture of the continent to see where we stand in terms of land area for domination. I would be (pleasantly) surprised if we could reach domination without needing astronomy.

My turnset is likely to include finishing the archer builds, the worker, and probably most of the settler - I might even get the settler out, depending on the chops. I'm unlikely to get the gold/rice city founded, but we'll see. I might be able to play in my lunch break, I've brought my Civ disks to work so we'll see how that pans out!

While I like the cow/fish "yellow" city, it really requires IW to be any good, and this is a detour from the Feudalism slingshot we had planned.

We need mysticism for virtually all our plans, so then is the order Writing Mysticism, or Mysticism first? Obviously being AW, open borders aren't an issue, and I can't see us building any libraries in the immediate future, so I guess the order is less important that it otherwise might be.

Regarding the workboat for exploration - remconius postulated that most of our met rivals were coastal - is a workboat likely to survive for long attempting to explore the coastline of our starting continent?

Regarding the workboat for exploration - remconius postulated that most of our met rivals were coastal - is a workboat likely to survive for long attempting to explore the coastline of our starting continent?
yep
a galley isn't one of the priority builds for the AIs
Most won't even have sailing;) .

It's the knowledge of these kinds of things that will definitely improve my game. I imagine the workboat will be built by the sweat from your brow however cabert.

While I like the cow/fish "yellow" city, it really requires IW to be any good, and this is a detour from the Feudalism slingshot we had planned.

We need mysticism for virtually all our plans, so then is the order Writing Mysticism, or Mysticism first?We don't need mysticism for either of our first two cities, but will for the third as other possible sites will generally need a border pop to gain access to their best tiles.

Mysticism before writing is worthwhile if we're going to build stonehenge for free culture and happy everywhere, but aside from that it doesn't much matter.

If I was going to beeline Feudalism in an offline game, I'd leave detouring to an expensive tech like IW until both priesthood and writing were researched, so that I could accurately judge whether I'd get monarchy done in time, but I tend to play on higher levels where you need to get everything done that bit faster. I'd favour completing the beeline ASAP though, because the sooner it's done, the sooner we can attack, attack, ATTACK! We can tech iron while building our longbow SOD.

NB - in case I forget to mention it later, guerilla 2 longbows make uber mine pillagers, great for denying an AI metals and stifling their cities. Once you've reduced them to building nothing but archers, they're toast. Taking some prebuilt vanilla archers to war is also a good idea as they're on-hand to be instantly upgraded with booty money and/or can garrison acquisitions without depleting the main longbow stack.

I'd leave detouring to an expensive tech like IW until both priesthood and writing were researched, so that I could accurately judge whether I'd get monarchy done in time, but I tend to play on higher levels where you need to get everything done that bit faster. I'd favour completing the beeline ASAP though, because the sooner it's done, the sooner we can attack, attack, ATTACK! We can tech iron while building our longbow SOD.

I agree 100% that IW is an expensive detour before the sling is complete.

I'm all installed and patched up at work, so I'll play within the next few hours.

OK, so I've played.

Key points:
Research: Bronze Working - Animal Husbandry - Writing - Mysticism - Polytheism (7 turns)
Builds: Archer - Archer - Worker - Settler (2 turns when chop comes in)
Improvements: Gold mine - Cow Pasture - Copper Mine

Brief turn log:
Turn 40, 2800 BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!
Turn 43, 2710 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!
Turn 49, 2530 BC: You have trained a Archer in London. Work has now begun on a Archer.
Turn 51, 2470 BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!
Turn 51, 2470 BC: You have trained a Archer in London. Work has now begun on a Worker.
Turn 62, 2140 BC: You have discovered Writing!
Turn 62, 2140 BC: You have trained a Worker in London. Work has now begun on a Settler.
Turn 67, 1990 BC: You have discovered Mysticism!
Turn 68, 1960 BC: Hinduism has been founded in a distant land!
Turn 69, 1930 BC: Mansa Musa converts to Hinduism!

Save File : UPLOADED HERE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/Trash_Team_SG006_BC1900_01.CivWarlordsSave)

Lay of the land at 1900 BC:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50975/Turn_70.JPG

London at 1900 BC:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50975/LondonT70.JPG

Note: Once we complete the settler, we'll probably want to reshuffle the worked tiles, to allow growth faster than it will currently.

Thought: with our high happy cap, do we want to detour to pottery so we can grow our cities more quickly?

Full turn log:
Research begun: Animal Husbandry (5 Turns)
Research begun: Bronze Working (5 Turns)
Buddhism founded in a distant land
Tech learned: Bronze Working
While defending in the wild near London, Warrior defeats (1.72/2): Barbarian Panther (Prob Victory: 99.2%)
Research begun: Animal Husbandry (11 Turns)


IBT:

Turn 45/660 (2650 BC) [17-Dec-2007 19:57:01]
A Mine was built near London


New Log Entries
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Turn 45/660 (2650 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:02:47]

IBT:
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Hannibal(Carthage), from 'Pleased' to 'Friendly'

Turn 46/660 (2620 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:04:37]

IBT:

Turn 47/660 (2590 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:05:35]

IBT:

Turn 48/660 (2560 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:06:12]

IBT:

Turn 49/660 (2530 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:06:26]
London finishes: Archer

IBT:

Turn 50/660 (2500 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:06:48]
London begins: Archer (10 turns)
London grows: 3

IBT:

Turn 51/660 (2470 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:07:08]
London begins: Worker (13 turns)
Tech learned: Animal Husbandry
London finishes: Archer

IBT:

Turn 52/660 (2440 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:09:06]
Research begun: Writing (11 Turns)

IBT:

Turn 53/660 (2410 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:13:38]

IBT:

Turn 54/660 (2380 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:14:22]

IBT:
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Hannibal(Carthage), from 'Friendly' to 'Pleased'

Turn 55/660 (2350 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:14:46]

IBT:

Turn 56/660 (2320 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:15:09]

IBT:

Turn 57/660 (2290 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:15:31]
A Pasture was built near London

IBT:

Turn 58/660 (2260 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:16:10]

IBT:

Turn 59/660 (2230 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:16:24]

IBT:
Attitude Change: Hannibal(Carthage) towards Alexander(Greece), from 'Pleased' to 'Friendly'
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Hannibal(Carthage), from 'Pleased' to 'Friendly'

Turn 60/660 (2200 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:16:38]

IBT:

Turn 61/660 (2170 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:21:23]

IBT:

Turn 62/660 (2140 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:21:30]
Tech learned: Writing
London finishes: Worker

IBT:

Turn 63/660 (2110 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:21:40]
Research begun: Mysticism (5 Turns)
London begins: Settler (15 turns)
Research begun: Mysticism (5 Turns)
Research begun: Meditation (5 Turns)
Research begun: Priesthood (5 Turns)
Research begun: Mysticism (5 Turns)

IBT:

Turn 64/660 (2080 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:25:17]

IBT:

Turn 65/660 (2050 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:25:35]
A Mine was built near London

IBT:

Turn 66/660 (2020 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:26:22]

IBT:

Turn 67/660 (1990 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:26:48]
Tech learned: Mysticism

IBT:

Turn 68/660 (1960 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:27:17]
Research begun: Polytheism (9 Turns)

IBT:
Hinduism founded in a distant land

Turn 69/660 (1930 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:27:45]

IBT:
State Religion Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) from 'no State Religion' to 'Hinduism'

Turn 70/660 (1900 BC) [18-Dec-2007 11:28:01]

Some things to note:

We'll have excess hammers from the chop(s) available in a few turns, so we can pump a couple of more archers quite quickly after the settler completes.

The forested hill discussed for "stone city" will also include horses (plains) in its base square, so it might be a valuable city to settle in the not too distant future irrespective of our intentions for the stone. The other horse location is in thick jungle and quite unappealing.

Now for the humble pie part - does anyone have any criticisms of my turnset? Be as brutal as you like, but explain why you would have done something differently, and I'll try to explain why I did it the way I did.

Now for the humble pie part - does anyone have any criticisms of my turnset? Be as brutal as you like, but explain why you would have done something differently, and I'll try to explain why I did it the way I did.It looks like things are going well - these are very minor quibbles (you did ask!) and down to personal playing style as much as anything else...

I'll take a proper look at the save tomorrow, but at a cursory glance at the last screenshots, I'd have placed the archer on the cows 2N1E on the grassland hill to fogbust the backyard a bit and get early warning of enemy approach from the NE; and placed the one in the capital on the forested plains hill between the jungled rice and bananas for added security from the SW. The warrior on the gold could then be pushed south/west into the jungle too.

We need to stick the wheel into the tech list (preferably now - we can come back to poly afterwards) so that we can connect our cities (+2 commerce!) and get cows and rice hooked up to enable London to grow closer to its happy cap.

==========

6 archers and 1 axe will secure our borders nicely (archers to go on hills and the axe in the forest to the south (where he can accumulate woodsman promotions); we've already got 2 of those archers, which is a good start.

Based on our current tech rate, it'll take 53 turns to get the wheel, poly, priesthood and monarchy done; the oracle will take about 14 turns in London once it's grown into its next 2 mines (size 6; the current happy cap is size 7), so the emphasis should be on rapid growth and troop production there in the meantime I think (I'd sacrifice the copper for the farmed bananas once the settler is in) - we've got 36 turns or so to play with in terms of production once the settler is finished.

Can someone more familiar with Epic speed tell me roughly what game date 53 turns will take us to?

I'll take a proper look at the save tomorrow, but at a cursory glance at the last screenshots, I'd have placed the archer on the cows 2N1E on the grassland hill to fogbust the backyard a bit and get early warning of enemy approach from the NE; and placed the one in the capital on the forested plains hill between the jungled rice and bananas for added security from the SW. The warrior on the gold could then be pushed south/west into the jungle too.

The resources are where the units are, as both Alex and Hannibal had scouts wandering - I'd hate to have handed the game over with pillaged improvements! I don't know how likely this is, as I'm relatively new to AW.

We need to stick the wheel into the tech list (preferably now - we can come back to poly afterwards) so that we can connect our cities (+2 commerce!) and get cows and rice hooked up to enable London to grow closer to its happy cap.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

6 archers and 1 axe will secure our borders nicely (archers to go on hills and the axe in the forest to the south (where he can accumulate woodsman promotions); we've already got 2 of those archers, which is a good start.

We'll have another two of those Archers in about 5-6 turns once the chops come in - also, after growth we'll be running 11 HPT at size 4 so they'll come pretty quickly when we want them.

so the emphasis should be on rapid growth and troop production there in the meantime I think (I'd sacrifice the copper for the farmed bananas once the settler is in)

My thoughts exactly. It won't even be too many turns before we're working the copper again.

I'm really enjoying this!

^^scouts cannot pillage!

^^scouts cannot pillage!They're also cheap XP for our units if they stray close enough. :mischief:

They're also cheap XP for our units if they stray close enough. :mischief:
:yup:
that's the easiest kill you could think off.

with horses in the fat cross, I think stone city is in order pretty soon, no?

That city would need an obelisk to be any good.

:goodjob: chopster. Good to see you take things seriously.

So far it is looking rather good. The capital is turning into a powerhouse. Our lands are defendable. and we have some nice cities left to build. With the Oracle slingshot we'll overpower the continent with ease.

What this game comes down to is how can we achieve victory?
For conquest we need to be able to reach the whole world.
For domination we need to acquire 778 tiles. Curious to know how big our island is, we are playing Bis and Small. Could be enough... But I reckon we are on the small island.

Looking good indeed.

I think we should take a shot at Stonehenge, if it's still available after London pumps out some military and a second worker.

I think we should found the cyan city before building the Oracle and then found the stone city as a nice forward base when we get longbows. It'd serve as a good rally point and we could chop barracks and longbows there. Also a monument, if we don't get 'Henge.

Cyan city should just focus on running two scientists ASAP.

My computer is still misbehaving and back in the computer-garage. I'm hoping it will be fixed before the Christmas closedown.
This means that I can't download a save atm to look at the map. Before getting too bogged down in tech paths and dotmaps I think we need to be deciding on victory condition.
For a quick win we'll be looking at either domination or conquest. If we know the victory we're going for we can then plan the strategy towards acheiving it as quickly as possible.
A fundamental question is how big is our continent. Another fundamental question is whether we can reach all our opponents by galley. The sooner we know the answers to these questions the better.
In the immediate future I think that we should settle a coastal city asap and get it building/chopping/whipping a workboat as its first build to start on exploration. The later we leave it the more likely it is to encounter a galley. Until it meets a galley or trireme a WB is essentially invulnerable.

Edit: Its worth considering that seafood resources are vulnerable to pillaging. I've only played a couple of AW SGs but in both of those nets just didn't survive long term.

^^scouts cannot pillage!

OK, now I feel really silly, but learnin is good!

They're also cheap XP for our units if they stray close enough. :mischief:

Unfortunately not :(

with horses in the fat cross, I think stone city is in order pretty soon, no?

That city would need an obelisk to be any good.

Agreed, it feel should be in our earlyish plans, due to its proximity to MM's borders.

I think we should found the cyan city before building the Oracle and then found the stone city as a nice forward base when we get longbows. It'd serve as a good rally point and we could chop barracks and longbows there. Also a monument, if we don't get 'Henge.

Cyan city should just focus on running two scientists ASAP.

Unfortunately as mentioned below, cyan city needs to work the fish (dangerous to pillaging, need trireme(s) to protect) or the cows (needs sailing - galley) to have the food surplus for two scientists. This puts it a little further down the list IMO.

My computer is still misbehaving and back in the computer-garage. I'm hoping it will be fixed before the Christmas closedown.
This means that I can't download a save atm to look at the map.

Bugger, hope it's all better soon.

Before getting too bogged down in tech paths and dotmaps I think we need to be deciding on victory condition.
For a quick win we'll be looking at either domination or conquest. If we know the victory we're going for we can then plan the strategy towards acheiving it as quickly as possible.
A fundamental question is how big is our continent. Another fundamental question is whether we can reach all our opponents by galley. The sooner we know the answers to these questions the better.
In the immediate future I think that we should settle a coastal city asap and get it building/chopping/whipping a workboat as its first build to start on exploration. The later we leave it the more likely it is to encounter a galley. Until it meets a galley or trireme a WB is essentially invulnerable.

It's looking like we're pretty much all agreed on the first build for the gold/rice city should be that exploratory workboat.

Edit: Its worth considering that seafood resources are vulnerable to pillaging. I've only played a couple of AW SGs but in both of those nets just didn't survive long term.

Great point - it really limits the timing of that cyan city as mentioned above.

So, it seems like London goes Settler (2 turns) Archer, Archer,?,?,?
And "Red City" goes workboat,workboat?,?,?,?

Are 2 WBs worth considering, sent in opposite directions? Borders can't stop us with AW, and if one survives it can eventually eat the fish for cyan city.

About net pillaging, I just tried G-major 19 (AW monarch, you have to go for space. I failed badly 3 times already) and indeed had to defend those nets with all force.
However, if we're far enough away from the rest of the world, nets are safer than land improvements.
Why? because you just put any boat (except workboats :p) on a net, and it calms the AIs for a long time. The AIs on the same continent come with land troops.
That's why we really need to know if some remote AIs could come through galleys/triremes or not.

Just one question : why polytheism and not meditation?

Just one question : why polytheism and not meditation?If we want to use GS to bulb up the optics > astronomy line, then we need to avoid meditation (opens up philosophy), CS and theology (open up paper > education) to do so.

The intel from our work boats will hopefully tell us if astronomy is going to be needed or not. I very much doubt our current landmass will give us enough for a domination win though.

I'm seeking direction for my turnset.

here is my own suggestion, open for discussion.
- tech poly>priest>monarchy
- settler 1 for red city in london, then archer, then oracle
- red city goes workboat (chop?), archer, settler 2 for stone city.

edit : not for my turnset, but for later, we need to go caste system so we need CoL pretty soon. I would like a religion too, for later theocracy.

Not sure about monarchy after priesthood.

I would prefer to see IW first.

Not sure about monarchy after priesthood.

I would prefer to see IW first.

If we want the feudalism slingshot, we need monarchy.
Is it better than IW? No. Is it more urgent? I say yes.

I must confess, it is my first Feudalism slingshot :blush:

Alright, I think you are all set cabert. Not much else to decide at this stage until we have more intelligence.

Consider building Stonehenge, if feasible. It would help a lot with our conquests.

Consider building Stonehenge, if feasible. It would help a lot with our conquests.

I fear it's too late already.
What would it take? It's very near to the price of a settler.

I fear it's too late already.
What would it take? It's very near to the price of a settler.Stonehenge is useful, but with this being an AW game I think we have other priorities unfortunately.

The main addition to the existing plan is to switch research to the wheel now, then go back to poly, priesthood and monarchy later.

With London working all its available mines, we'll get 17HPT which builds the Oracle in about 22 turns (a fair bit faster than we'll learn Monarchy at our current tech rate), so I'd focus on getting some military out next. Once we've got our archer net cast, we should think about barracks/a 3rd worker/another settler. With early HR, we're going to have a high happy cap from the get go, which means we'll need lots of workers to keep our cities working productive tiles.

And finally...

Having a surplus of vanilla archers before we hit Feudalism is a very good thing. We can take them to war to garrison cities and upgrade them on the spot with the money we make through conquest. We don't need to worry about building too many of them.

==========

Looking slightly longer term, I think we should be aiming to settle our 3rd city around the time we complete the Oracle, with our next techs being IW, sailing and CoL. We can then dip back into the tech tree for anything we've missed; as long as we keep the war machine rolling, we should be able to do our continent serious damage before the AIs hit construction and HBR.

==========

As far as civics are concerned, I don't see much point in revolting to slavery now as we want to be growing our cities rather than whipping them; maybe a triple switch to HR, vassalage and slavery when we complete the sling is called for? It'd consolidate our anarchy anyway.

I agree with patagonia's points.
I didn't DL the game yet and won't play today.
Feel free to give me more input, I'll try to play tomorrow evening.

edit : Dled the save, opened it so this is a "got it". The wheel takes 6 turns to research at our present rate.

So we are going to tech:

Switch to wheel now, then back to poly, then priesthood, then monarchy?

If we happen to miss the oracle, how many turns will this lose us if we self research Feudalism and still go longbow happy?

Did we decide if we should go with 2 workboats to open the map up faster?

Re: Stonehenge - I fear it's too late already.
What would it take? It's very near to the price of a settler.

What if we swtiched to henge immediately after this settler comes out - we'll have a few spare hammers from the chops, which we would otherwise have used towards an archer or two. The settler is at 118/150, so it needs 32 more hammers. It gets 24 from the next two turns of production, so when 30 hammers comes in from the first chop, there's 22 spare hammers, and 30 coming from the second chop 3 turns later. 52 hammers there, so there's 128 to go. 6 hammers per turn for 9 turns is 54 hammers (working bananas instead of copper to grow) leaving 74 hammers remaining, which at 11 hammers/turn is 7 turns. SO, the earliest we could have Stonehenge without whipping is 16 turns from now.

Do we want to trade 5 archers (which we could produce with the same hammers) for Stonehenge? Would it even be available in 16 turns time?

With this being prince we can take a shot at stonehenge, I reckon. Our second city can then pick up the archer production after a couple of workboats.

I'd rather get the archers to be honest.

If previous prince AW games are anything to go by, we'll start to see some AI units entering our territory around 1500-1200BC (nothing scary, probably just a few warriors) and I'd rather have a defensive net in place than take the gamble.

Missing the Oracle is incredibly unlikely if you beeline like we're doing, but feudalism's that expensive a tech that we'd have to go IW and skip it altogether IMO. We should be on course to complete it several hundred years before a prince AI.

In terms of religion for happy and theocracy further down the line, Mansa has very kindly founded Hinduism for us. The Oracle will help to get a prophet for the Hindu shrine too.

I'd rather get the archers to be honest.

If previous prince AW games are anything to go by, we'll start to see some AI units entering our territory around 1500-1200BC (nothing scary, probably just a few warriors) and I'd rather have a defensive net in place than take the gamble.

Missing the Oracle is incredibly unlikely if you beeline like we're doing, but feudalism's that expensive a tech that we'd have to go IW and skip it altogether IMO. We should be on course to complete it several hundred years before a prince AI.

In terms of religion for happy and theocracy further down the line, Mansa has very kindly founded Hinduism for us. The Oracle will help to get a prophet for the Hindu shrine too.

sounds good.
I'm not really willing to build stonehenge before we have connected the stone, and I'm almost sure it will be built in a faraway land at that time.

Alright, Archers instead of Stonehenge. I think that is a solid plan to protect the South and East of our lands.

I'm exhausted and won't be playing tonight.
If someone (weekend warrior?) wants to go, be my guest.

No problem cabert, take it easy...

patagonia (on deck), or stuge can swap with cabert if they want.

Then cabert can be reinserted in the roster afterwards.

Latest info is that my machine needs a new HDD which should get fitted tomorrow and then hopefully it will be up and running in time for Christmas.

Looking through it appears there are two possible sites identified for red-dot. I'd prefer if we went for remco's option, placing gold, rice and cows in the first ring so we don't have to build culture there before it becomes useful. In the longer term it's a weaker site but hopefully in the longer term we'll have plenty of other cities to compensate.

Latest info is that my machine needs a new HDD which should get fitted tomorrow and then hopefully it will be up and running in time for Christmas.

Looking through it appears there are two possible sites identified for red-dot. I'd prefer if we went for remco's option, placing gold, rice and cows in the first ring so we don't have to build culture there before it becomes useful. In the longer term it's a weaker site but hopefully in the longer term we'll have plenty of other cities to compensate.

Pretty sure we firmed that up as the "red city" site - I was easily convinced my suggestion was the inferior option.

I'd rather get the archers to be honest.

If previous prince AW games are anything to go by, we'll start to see some AI units entering our territory around 1500-1200BC (nothing scary, probably just a few warriors) and I'd rather have a defensive net in place than take the gamble.

Once I did the calculations, and saw just what we'd be giving up for stonehenge, I was inclined to agree. It's basically our entire "defensive net" in those 16 turns. Also, having played BTS primarily since its release, I forgot how sucky it is to have henge obsolete with Calendar, not that we're going to have too many happiness issues for a while.

As far as civics are concerned, I don't see much point in revolting to slavery now as we want to be growing our cities rather than whipping them; maybe a triple switch to HR, vassalage and slavery when we complete the sling is called for? It'd consolidate our anarchy anyway.

I just re-read this part, and think this is an excellent idea personally.

I can play this afternoon.

I can play this afternoon.
just do it.
I'll take the next free spot.

Roster
-Remconius
-chopster
-stuge (UP for 20 turns)
-cabert (on deck for 15 turns)
-patagonia (15 turns)
-pigswill (10 turns)
-Cam_H (10 turns)

All in all, pretty quiet. The English learnt how to build roads, discovered a pantheon and how to build temples for them, and are now thinking about establishing a monarchy. Fermenting grapes is also being figured out, so that everyone can hail the first king by getting wasted.

On the always war side of things, a Greek archer brought the first real battle with him. He was combat 2, but wouldn't attack our archers positioned on hills or in jungle. So I had to wait until he exposed himself by going after our banana farm, and then smack him with two archers. His promotions caused us to lose one of them. We'll have to come up with proper military burials. :salute:

Despite getting killed, the Greeks obviously possessed more wit than the barbarians, whio are either deranged or sporting a death wish. Warriors charging archers on a forested hill is hilarious, albeit in a sad way.

London finished the settler, built archers ad nauseaum and has just started the Oracle. I think that the monarchy research and the Oracle should finish roughly at the same time, once London starts working the copper mine and the gold comes online in York.

Speaking of which, York was founded on the red dot. It's been working on a workboat through the whole set. Alex too has an exploring workboat. Can you, gentlemen, picture the CLASH OF THE LEVIATHANS? :mischief:
Once our very own battleship Bismarck is ready, York should take over the archer duty.

Pay attention to the following screenshot.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n266/stuge_T/TSGOTM%206/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg

I've assigned one of London's first ring-tiles to York. It's irrigatable, so York should have no problems with working all the hills around it.

Our defences in the south.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n266/stuge_T/TSGOTM%206/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

Final note: Scouts may not be able to pillage, but they can still be damn annoying. Mansa's scout pranced around London and prevented the use of some tiles. Fortunately he has trapped himself.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n266/stuge_T/TSGOTM%206/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

Shoot him where he dies slow.

The save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/Trash_Team_SG006_BC1300_01.CivWarlordsSave) for cabert, the weekend warrior.

Which direction did Alex's archer come from?

==========

And on an unrelated note:

I'm going to be away and unable to play from the 24th to 28th. Shall we take an xmas hiatus or does someone want to swap?

==========

Just had a look at the save. We should mine the riverside hill in London next and then carry on improving York (with farms and mines). Working the copper hill brings the Oracle down to 20 turns during which time London will grow again to work another mine, so Cabert should complete the slingshot on his set. Once that's done, I vote we revolt, build barracks in London and York and then spam Longbows ready to take out some rivals.

York should finish its second workboat at about the same time London finishes the Oracle.

He wandered up from the south, before the sentry net was complete.

90 : nothing to change
91 : moving archers
92 : growth in london brings oracle to 18 turns, while monarchy is 21.
Working the gold mine in york brings monarchy to 17 turns :king:.
93 : one less scout to worry about (combat odds : 98%)
95 : WB goes north. I start an archer.
100 : one less barb archer
103 : archer finished i, I start a settler for stone city.
106 : A barb archer dies to one of our glorious protective archers.
However, the barb's hidden twin kills the glorious archer ignominously.
107 : monarchy in. I start masonry (needed for the stone, and very cheap). Our glorious archer is revenged.
108 : oracle in. I take feudalism in 880 BC. :goodjob: team.

I already have gone over my turnset, so I stop here.
I didn't revolt yet, but we can do a triple civic change (see picture).
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/74263/sgotm6_civic_change1.JPG
Or is serfdom better for a while?

I found no new enemy land, but there is an island to the north.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/74263/culture_map_SGotM6.JPG

the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/Trash_Team_SG006_BC0880_01.CivWarlordsSave)

Great work guys - two very successful turnsets that aligned perfectly with our goals. :goodjob:

And on an unrelated note:

I'm going to be away and unable to play from the 24th to 28th. Shall we take an xmas hiatus or does someone want to swap?

My vote would be for a break - there's likely to be a lot of people unavailable for some time over the coming week or so, and we're at the point where we've completed our short term plans, so some more in depth planning is probably warranted before we get too far ahead of ourselves.

Looking at the culkture graph on the progress page, would you guess that CRC built Stonehenge AND the Oracle?

Good stuff on feudalism slingshot.

Maybe go for serfdom, cuts down on the number of workers needed and stops possibility of slave revolts in London.

Pottery after masonry?

Christmas break? Sounds good.

My computer is back and working though haven't reloaded civ yet.

Excellent turnset, cabert.

I agree with chopster to have a small christmas recess. Most people are visiting family with limited access to internet, let alone the game. Of course, discussing next steps is allowed!

Happy Holidays!

I won't play until after the xmas break though.

Some thoughts on where to go next:

HR + Vassalage + Serfdom makes sense to me, mainly because we'll be able to survive with fewer workers for a little while and our priority at the moment is military.

In terms of tech:
Masonry > IW > Pottery makes sense to me. The main reason for getting IW before pottery being that we want to be working mines rather than cottages for now, and we want to be building longbows rather than granaries (plus if we're in serfdom we won't be whipping). Learning IW will also allow us to see where our enemies iron is and pillage it.

After that we should be thinking about either maths > construction; or go straight to sailing/CoL depending on how the war effort's going.

In terms of a plan for the next few sets:
Founding Nottingham to get horses and stone seems to be in order. The workers can chop a monument, then chop a barracks, two chariots (one promoted to sentry; the other to medic 1) and some longbows.

Once London's built a rax, it should spam longbows. Being on the frontline, Nottingham will want 2 to defend it. Nothing'll shift CG3 longbows there for a long, long time. The rest can go into an SoD.

York is the city I'm unsure of as we've got 3 options there as I see it.
Option 1 - finish settler, build another worker.
Option 2 - finish settler, spam archers (these don't need a rax, they'll be CG2 for defending acquisitions).
Option 3 - finish settler, build another workboat for anticlockwise exploration.

At the moment, I'm torn between options 1 and 2. Option 2 gets us to war faster (always a good thing in AW games), but 2 workers is not enough. We may be able to capture some once the fighting starts, but probably not until the end of the war unless the AI gets careless.

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When I do play, is it worth me playing until Nottingham's founded (21 turns) since that seems to be the next natural breakpoint, or shall I stick to the 15 I'm officially up for?

there's a point for slavery if we want to rush monuments

about next turnset, I overdid it, and suggest you do the same.
Turns will be longer to play when actual fighting occurs.

Try to get us one or two more workers. The conquest will go much quicker if we can build roads to the targets. (Combat engineers ftw.)

Mansa looks like a good first victim. He's nearest, and Nottingham will provide a nice supply line. That city should build a monument, perhaps barracks (both chopped) and then longbows.

Masonry-> IW-> pottery sounds good. I'd go for construction after that, then CoL to prevent going broke.

I'd prefer slavery over serfdom. Whipping a captured city for a longbow is a great way to keep the war machine going. We won't even have to worry about slave revolts. (Does "Warlords" ring a bell? ;) )

Not keen on building workers in York in the near future because I think its better off growing and working more tiles sooner. Maybe London could knock out a worker before completing barracks? Maybe York could build a barracks then produce longbows. We've got some archers already, LBs and archers have the same maintenance cost so I don't really see the value in building obselete units.

I hope everybody had a great christmas! :)

Founding Nottingham is definitely in order.

York should spam units until it's grown to a good size.

London could build a few workers in between lbw spam.

Civic-wise I normally prefer to see slavery, but as we have cities with good production and average food I prefer serfdom at this time.

Techwise I agree to get IW. Later we should see if we can get to a religion and Theocracy for more experienced units.

Regarding turn-length, go ahead and found Nottingham. It's a more natural end of a turnset. Once the war gets nastier we'll go to a regular 15 or 10 turn turnset.

The only advantage of building archers instead of lbws is that they are built faster. They are roughly half strength at 50% of the cost. They are strong enough to defend cities and its a great way to increase unit-count fast. Longbows can then be promoted to attack cities.

Well it sounds like we've got a fairly clear plan set out. I'll probably play later on tomorrow.

In terms of the whole slavery/serfdom debate, I'm with the serfdom camp at the moment.

Although we're not spiritual, it's a fair few turns before we'll be going to war and serfdom will be more of a boon in that time. There'll be a few turns of anarchy in each city we capture and keep, so we can always revolt to slavery during that window later on if there's sufficient population available to whip up an army.

Now reloaded civ and hof mod and managed to download the 880bc save so I should be good to go when its my turn (though I'm rustier than the Titanic ;) ).

Pigswill, good to see you are back in the game. Starting the game is the first step. ;-) Now let's see if SGOTM6 brings your interest back.

With regards to the rust, grab some sandpaper and oil and you'll be rolling in no time!

Heavy-duty industrial solvents are also good. ;)

880BC: revolt to HR, vassalage, serfdom (3 turns of Anarchy in the UK).

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/9870/revoltev6.jpg

zzz

775BC: Alex founds Thebes (location shown below).

zzz

610BC: Nottingham founded; forest chop arrives in Nottingham (monument there in 5; border pop in 20); IW discovered.

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/2440/ironrs1.jpg

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I can't formally upload the save because I'm getting the following error when I try:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: xmltoaarray() in /home/gotmciv/public_html/submit/civ4sgotm.php on line 50

Not sure what that's all about - I'll try again tomorrow.

If anyone wants to peruse it in the meantime, I've attached it to this post.

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Quick recap of the situation:
Revolted to HR, Vassalage and Serfdom.
York built the settler with the aid of a chop (done to mine the grassland hill there.
The workers built another farm by London, completed a road to Nottingham and chopped a forest there the turn it was founded to get the monument done faster. They're not teamed at the moment as one of them had a turn spare.
London built a rax and 2 longbows (currently working on a 3rd).