Greetings all and welcome to Team Play 101, a series of games in which the various aspects of the civ teams function will be explored.
This series is intended to be informative, interesting and most of all, entertaining.
Of course no Team Play session would be complete without a team member, so without delay I introduce the man who needs no introduction, the aptly named TheMeInTeam.

Together we'll be working through the series of games utilising different aspects of team games. More often than not we will be learning things for the first time and success is not guaranteed.
Feedback, discussion and debate is the ultimate goal and we hope for plenty of community feedback. For our part we will endevour to maintain an interesting and varied walkthrough of our gameplay.
Initially we will be running the games in a two person succession game format playing the same civ, with the intention of developing a number of multiplayer games controlling different civs.

For our first up challenge, allow me to introduce
TotallyHotInATotallyHistoricallyAccurateWayCatheri neTheGreatofRussia
Who shall henceforth be known as HotCathy.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

Catherine the Great is a Russian leader with the creative and imperialistic traits.
She begins with hunting and mining, her unique building is a Research Institute which replaces the late game laboratory and offer 2 free scientists.
Her unique unit is a Cossack, a cavalry replacement which gains a bonus against mounted units.
We will be running HotCathy through a diplomatic gauntlet on our way to a glorious domination victory, or a humiliating and degrading loss.

The Game Settings
Pangaea
Speed: Normal
Size: standard
Difficulty: emperor
World wrap: flat
Climate: cold
Sea Level: medium

Aggressive AI ON
Complete kills ON

Lonesome HotCathy will be squaring off against a trifecta of dynamic duos.

Team 1
HotCathy

Team 2 Mongolia
Kublai Khan
Genghis Khan

Team 3 Germany
Otto Von Bismark
Fredrick the Great

Team 4 France
Napoleon
Charles De Gaulle

Team 5
*gasp*...not you again!

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Theteams.jpg
If it looks like the picture was constructed by a 4 year old using MSPaint...
.. I'm a physicist damnit man, not graphical designer!

In addition to the game settings we will be imposing several rules.
As the leader of the Russian Empire HotCathy (the great) will not be allowed to declare war, however once a war is begun she may not end it until the last sign of the enemy has been obliterated from the face of the earth.
She may however use her feminine wiles to befuddle and confound her inevitable suite of suitors, and if two men were to end up fighting over her? Well, she can hardly be blamed if they happen to misconstrue her intentions... can she?

May not declare war
May not make peace
May not make vassals
May accidentally bribe other AI into declaring war on each other completely not on purpose honest, total misunderstanding.


Without further ado
The start
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg

Looks dry but we have irrigated corn and cows. Am tempted to move the scout east where it looks a little greener.

Comments? Thoughts?

I'd definitely send the settler east-it will put you on the river instead of the lake.

Dude, this looks like the Earth 18 start for Cathy...eerie.

Anywho, settling in place sounds good. 1SE nets a river but also two unimprovable sea tiles in the BFC.

That is some fine artistry! It's at least at the level of somebody 9 years old, and possibly higher ;)!

HotCathy is aptly placed in the sandwich position in the diagram, just how she likes it. She takes a gander at the surroundings and thinks them "fertile".

I say we use flip a coin, read tarot, or interpret a yugioh card to determine whether the scout goes E NE or W NW. We are looking for convincing reasons to summon monsters or perhaps settle 1E or 1W.

So which triangle diagram will HotCathy enter first? Only time will tell!

Scout 1W then 1NW.

Settler 1 NE then post a picture to discuss where Settler should end his turn.

This will reveal more surrounding lands. We are looking for more green land and resources. South is near the coast. Better to settle on a river tile.

Played quite a bit of team (2) games emperor/immortal and important thing to consider, which was quite annoying compared to single, is when thinking about your diplomatic status always take into account the least favoured opinion about either of you. Example:
Bismarck pleased with Cathy1
Frederick pleased with Cathy1
Bismark pleased with Cathy2
Frederick annoyed with Cathy2
Germany annoyed with Russia, so they won't trade, are more likely to declare and so on. And this gets more frustrating throughout the game as sometimes it's hard to please both parts of a team (especially when each of them runs different religion), which results in no trades. Moreover I like throwing in more teams and going with large map for more diversity, so that you can actually have 7 teams as in a standard single game.

Apart from that I find bulbs to be less effective as the cost of techs goes up and GP born in your team influences both of you not equally though. So if one of you is running two scientists and the other has GL+NE set up in a GP farm, the first person will probably never produce a GP as the cost keeps going up.

Wonders are the upside of teamplay as they usually affect both of you with Taj Mahal being an exception.

Let's play. I liked ABCivFans suggestions but ended up moving the scout 1E first.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0000-1.jpg
Stone on a river, looks good to me.
move settler onto the forest, settle the next turn.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0001-1.jpg

Doesn't take long to start to meet the crew

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0002-1.jpg
I am Napoleon, military genious and emperor of France. My invasion plans are already... wait... I say too much. I see you soon little woman.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg
MEIN HUT, DER HAT DREI ECKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg
Hellooooo nurse, there's a party in my mouth and everyone is co... wait... where are you going? come back!

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg
Hello my Dear, ignore the little corsican cretin and the absurd germans. Please, come, take a seat on my hat.


http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg
She can take a seat on ... no wait... don't leave, come back...

I'm so alone...


---------------

No sign of the Mongols or Shaka yet, looks like party time at the other end of the continent.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg
Our scout meets (and bests) a rogue jungle cat.

We begin to see the land, looks very good.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg

Irrigation and AH is in. Tech set to BW, but considering Masonry to grab the stone.
A perfect chance for TMIT to show off his barb busting skills. I was planning on circling the scout back around along the eastern coast (try to do the inland stuff before archers start showing up)

Where to settle first?
Bronzeworking or Masonry for GW now?

I'm considering the GW not for the barb immunity, but for the early great spy. I have a feeling that espionage could play an important role in this game.

All yours, Teammate =D

3 cities come to mind:
1) Agressive settling 1E of the top stone. Gets you horses in the second ring, stone, 2 silk, an oasis and a gold. Little low on food but definitely not bad on the resources.
2) 1N of the sugar. Commerce heaven with 2 gems and 2 sugar. Enough money, riverside and enough production. You need iron working though to work the gems :(
3) 1E of the spices. Nets you in spices, horses and fish or 1SE of the spices depending on the rest of the land there.
4) Maybe bananacowcity also, giving you a decent amount of land and strong cities.

I'd say two quick cities - first one 1 or 2 E of the NW cow, the other getting the N gems and gold, depending on where the food is there. After that it really depends on what scouting reveals. Can't really tell if you're boxed in or if there is room to the NE or W. Have to wait and see where the coast goes.

There's not enough explored land for any good advice on city placement. 1N of the sugar seems like a killer commerce city, but useless until IW. The gold/stone site has promice, but there's no visible food source. Get some more warriors out and explore the coasts for seafoods, that will clarify things.

I hate sugar... I always have my tea with honey if nothing at all :-P
Back to the cities : 2 quick cities sounds good, 1st 1W of stone so you can net all resources in BFC if for no other reason than to deprive them from the AI and the second ON TOP of the northern sugar, netting the resource for the bonus and farming the other one (will become a 5F tile post biology and not this meager meh . .. .. .. . sugar is.

What's the game difficulty again? Any thoughts about GW? Imperialistic can leverage GW very nice and you can rex to oblivion with barb protection on. Since you won't be able to declare, I say go-go GW. You even have stone, what more do you want?

First decision is on tech.

I suggest Mason -> BW.

You are Imperial, plain river stone gives hammer boost for pumping settlers. And Mason makes BW cheaper (-2 turns?) Also you will have the option of super early GW.

There are some good suggestions on city placement already, need to be aggressive with settler chopping though:

1. 1W of top stone on hill. This gets horse, gold, silks, denies a precious stone to the AIs, and on hill for defense bonues

2. Banana+Cow

3. 1N of suger (2 gems, 2 sugers and cottagable grasslands)

Yes, circle the scout around to explore NorthEast of capital, 2nd worker at pop 3 for chopping/mining/roading. Early rush is also possible. This looks to be a very strong openning.

In response to the questions/suggestions: The difficulty is Emperor, the AI is in teams of two and we may not declare (so early rush is out of the question), only provoke wars on us.
However once war is declared we may not make peace, meaning that this game may quickly descend into an always war scenario if we do not stay in top of the diplomatic situation.
We may only win by Domination, thus provoking wars and balancing our power rating to allow the AI to declare is going to be a major part of this game.

I'm in favour of Masonry to build GW while we grow our pop, once GW is in then switch to settler spam to claim 3-4 front line cities.

Will probably go for alpha fairly early to pick up IW in trade.

Considering that you might get stuck in some long wars and all, I believe you are right and espionage might play an important role this game. GW for the GSpy is a strong move.

I would go for Mason->Wheel->BW next

The first 2 cities in mind would be

1. 1E of the Horse, you can work on the oasis and horse immediately and have Char ready for early defense.
Edit: forgot that cath is creative, so 1W of the stone is much better.

2. 1N of the cow

This two cities will complete block the rest of lower land for yourself.

I would start the 2nd worker at pop 2 and settlers at pop 3 to quickly settle those two cities. preroad to the city site.

I would not suggest for GW, by careful diplomatic manipulation, you won't and don't be involved in more than one war at a time. So Gspy is useless early on.

Well, TMIT is away looking for employment (btw, if anyone is interested in employing two guys who play waaaay too much Civ, give us a call!)

I'll play the next turnset.

Tech order: Masonry->Bronzeworking->Wheel

Build order:
Warrior->Settler->Settler->GW

It's a something of a race to beat the barbs with that sort of build order, but it's only Emp and with stone in the BFC and bronzeworking for chops, the GW will be in place to protect the cities before barbs think about entering borders.

The lone warrior and scout work together as a team keeping a line clear to our planned city sites.

So let's see what happened
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0000-2.jpg
My name is Shaka Zulu, you killed my father, prepare to die.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0005-1.jpg
My dear man, you need to work on your diplomacy.
Annoyed with us already, what a cranky pants.


http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0001-2.jpg

French settler sighted! This is actually a good thing, will prevent barbs approaching from the west. Warrior moves east to open up the settler coridoor

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0003-1.jpg
Here is where I chose to settle, screenshot taken a few turns later once borders popped.
Turns out we missed the bronze by 1 tile, no other bronze in our territory. Oh well, still a good city and at least we have horses (not that we'll need them right away)
Second city is also visible.
The combination of having the scout on the hill to the north and the warrior busting the jungle in between means that our settlers were never in real danger from animals and GW should be finished before barbs even consider entering our territory.

Speaking of which
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0002-2.jpg
With the help of a chop and excellent production tiles, completed in record time.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0004-1.jpg
Dotmap of third blocking city. That leaves us with room for a minimum of 3 cities to the east. 7 cities on good land should be more than enough.

Hmmm, 7 cities feels pretty short for a typical emperor game. Perhaps we need to make fun of the french team package (...) or poke fun at shaka. Womanly wiles can be quite...demanding! But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

I'll have the next segment up in a few days, but perhaps the hive mind can have an influence on hotcathy's activity for the near future. But don't forget that sometimes women are hard to understand, especially if something goes awry......

There's land up around our northern city and hopefully more space to our west as well so we might be able to rex out even more if you're not comfortable with 7-8 cities. I haven't done a lot of scouting (obviously) because I wanted to make sure I secured our city sites, which meant using our few units as early fogbusters rather than for scouting (although I did forget to move our scout off the hill once the city was settled >.<


I've set tech to writing with zero beakers depositied, but you probably want to take pottery first instead.

pottery-writing-alphabet should get us access to spies at around the same time as our Gspy is born. I'd go with infiltrating our french neighbour and backfilling from that. There are three seafood resources visible to our west, hopefully there's another fish hidden in the fog for a good early gp farm and a late Globe whipping post. 2 seafood/food is usually what I aim for.

Goodluck guys. I'll follow this one.
Since the teams will normally outtech you guys Im curious how you will handle them.

If you whip in a couple of settlers you can probably steal the land directly to the west of the capital, that makes for 9 cities, which is plenty. The only concern is the amount of food you'll have for early production. Both the settled cities don't have any right now. The stone/gold/horse city won't until CS, and the gem city won't have any until IW, and even then only marginal growth, suitable for a cottage city. A high food whipping site would come in handy.

And writing? What do you guys need writing for? IW will give far better returns by opening up two gems, directly opening up the jungle, and revealing iron. Considering health is not a factor, you having two forge-powered happiness resources, and plenty of potential post calandar, Novgorod can be a powerhouse.
IW, then a beeline toward calandar would have my preference, both for the early high happicaps and the high commerce tiles it would free up.

Yeah I'm hoping we can pick up another city to the west in addition to the one I dotmapped, but haven't had much of a chance to explore that land yet, once our settler arrives the warrior over there should be able to scout further out (he's currently fortified on a forest hill to guard our western flank and keep the coridoor clear for our settler)

There's one settler currently building in our capital with a chop on the way (should be complete in3 turns), we can then have a second settler out 3 turns after that to settle either to the north or to the west. I'm trying not to whip away the citizens working the cow and stone, as we're imperialistic those hammers get the production bonus to building settlers meaning that they are very excellent tiles.

After that we're going to need a lot more worker than we currently have, need to get some cottages down to push us through to our next tech target (that meanst switching from writing to pottery TMIT).

My preference is for alpha, because we're almost guaranteed to be able to trade for ironworking in addition to a bunch of other filler techs.
I rarely self tech Iron Working in my own games unless I'm playing as Romans. TMIT might feel differently.
The alternative of course is to head for priesthood after writing and pick up the oracle for CoL/MC.

I need to take a serious look at this game when I get back. Sometimes I go writing before pottery, to get early scientists up as the slider drops (and for a faster 1st GS). This can force-tech pottery and wheeze to early trade techs also, even at max speed expansion (just don't run out of money too fast...!).

I also rarely research IW directly on high levels because it's easy to get in trades when you meet everyone early (I'll get it in isolation or non-isolated starts with few AIs since they won't be ready to trade it yet), but hotcathy is probably going to play this one "by ear". Or eye candy.

btw, if anyone is interested in employing two guys who play waaaay too much Civ, give us a call!

Call me too, you never know :lol:
Seriously, it's an interesting game... I foresee troubles with the "land stealing" french jerks (this qualifies all 3 french leaders imo :sad:) right next to your borders :mischief:... copper/iron are priorities... unless you want to defend with archers/HAs/walls (seems meh)? Getting a hill city like ABCFan likes could help killing stacks from both civs with minimal efforts (St Pet. if the AIs choose to target it).
Anyway, looking forward to this ;)

Cheers,
Ras

I admit I rarely tech IW myself as well, I prefer the aesthetics line. That invariably leads to a 50 turn delay on IW, usually not a big deal, but considering the two jungle-infested gems you have available, that's a huge waste of easy bpt.

I admit I rarely tech IW myself as well, I prefer the aesthetics line. That invariably leads to a 50 turn delay on IW, usually not a big deal, but considering the two jungle-infested gems you have available, that's a huge waste of easy bpt.

Those are some good points, I'll have to sit down and crunch the numbers, but I find that in the early game especially, the "effective bpt" is dominated heavily by "trade multipliers". Due to the settler spam we're also seriously behind in our worker count which will delay the gem mines (we also have stone, gold and horses to hook up) to the point where trading for IW using Alpha will not significantly delay the stage at which they start being worked (I think).

I agree with JammerUno on IW.

This is a strategic decision here and I would prefer IW for the following reasons:

1. No Copper in sight (need more exploration with warriors)
2. You settled 2 cities to grab resources but with low food and jungles, library wont help much except in capital. But capital is pumping settler/workers/troops.

It does make sense to go IW directly to bring Novorgrad online ASAP. Farm the sugers and work the gem hills. This will bring twice more the bpt than running 2 scientists and will even pay for your expansion.

To deal with aggressive REX, you work a few cottages, or drop slider to 0 and run 2 scientists in some cities. But sometimes it is better if you have cities that can work Gem/gold. It is much faster commerce than cottages early on.

After IW, prob go for Alpha. With 2 gems you could prob reach Alpha about the same time than if you skipped IW. But yes, you will need to send 2-3 workers there to farm/clear jungle/mine. Being creative You can first build workers in new cities if you really need them fast so the Capital can keep its focus on Settler/escorts.

I'm back, but you never posted the save after your 2nd turn set PK. Slacker! Haha!

Sorry for the wait all :(. As soon as PK gets the latest save up I'll continue us along hotcathy's first journey!

Some more sound advice. Hopefully there's enough discussion here for TMIT to come up with a solid turnset (of course he will!)

I've been playing a number of team permutations at home just to get a feel for where to take the series (and to determine a natural progression in terms of difficulty), and I have to say that they're a lot of fun! I'm really looking forward to playing these games out =)

-edit- oops, the save. Sorry I'm a tard, will post it as soon as I get home (couple of hours, got some marking to do)

Save posted, Good luck mate!

@PaulisKhan

Do you have the 4000BC save? I might be intersted to shadow it. Thanks.

4000BC save posted, if you can avoid spoilering too much of the map until we've explored most it ourselves, that would be appreciated.

Have fun =)

But what does HotCathy know about sticks anyway? Onward with the weak micro teammate. Haha!

Cathy surveys her land. Jungle gems and a lot of expansion left. What should she do?!

She opts to stick with writing :p. The capitol has 3 power tiles and can use them to pump units decently while running scientists. This will help her get other techs she needs, and an early great person.

Spotting some annoyances due west:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

Cathy LOVES facial hair! And he's more "mature" than his teammate!

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

Being a woman, now is a good time for an analysis of the diplomatic situation, cathy mulls over whose heart gets broken first <3:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg

And also realizes that the more dangerous men in the field have chosen worst enemies other than herself! Suckers!

The northern lands:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg

After writing a quick chop and:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg

Which alleviates some worker pressure. Also revolted to slavery at some point to whip workers out from lesser cities.

And here's the stopping point, for now:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg

A great scientist! How to use him? Academy vs settling is a number crunching exercise. Other potential uses? Cathy likes brainiacs, perhaps send him to war?!

Settler is on the way to cut some land off in the northern tundra:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg

Cathy looks at her little men:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg

And apparently, the world has discovered the disgusting computer science major (not to be confused with the cool ones who pull tail). This guy needs to shower!

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

Decision points:

- Gold is accruing in case we go academy. Alpha can probably trade for IW. Do we stay alpha or go elsewhere?
- How are we using the GS?
- If we want mids we have to start on them soon, or like now. Do we care about them?
- I didn't open borders with the germans since they seem universally hated. They're odds on targets giving us time to set ourselves up for baiting an attack. Still, what are our immediate diplo plans?

And a question:

- Can PA teams even capitulate? We might be able to draw some blood (on others' hands) without worrying about a true superpower for quite some time.

Save!

214815

- go academy. you might lose +4 gpt with new city but you gain that back with fur. deficit seems like it will still work fine.

- I'd chop/whip another library somewhere though to run 2 more scientist.

- too late for the Mids imo. I think they should be completed no later than 1000 BC which means you would have needed to start them around 1560 BC w/stone hooked up - then again - go for it ^^. If nothing else the failure cash would be very big =D.

- I'd switch to Asthetics. You have just enough of alpha researched so you can trade for it straight away once asthetics is finished.

Academy in capital. Moscow looks very cottagable later.

St. Peters works the gold when mined.

Novorgrad can work that river grass hill.

Keep going Alpha and trade for IW. Should be able to get it within 15 turns. Emperor AIs are pretty slow to Alpha, so Aesth does not help much here. we need IW ASAP.

Send the settler up to the fur site, can wait a bit until you get Alpha.

Not much we can do diplo wise here with no religion. HR/OR/Burea will prob be the civics for a while see if anyone like these civics. Interesting the AIs can be on the same team with diff religions since they can found diff religion and not spreading yet.

Kublai likes Bureau which is convenient, I don't know the rest off the top of my head.

AI teams can capitulate to another team. I wouldn't have thought it possible but it happened in one of my mess around games.

The beaver/deer/incense city looks good, what do we do about the northern barb city? keep it or raze it to resettle 1W to pick up iron in BFC.
It has potential as our moai city if we leave it in place and with cows+deer it will grow onto the ocean tiles quite happily.

Agree with academy in capital, will also want an academy in Novgorod (gems town) too.

Looks like we're surrounded by the French, we can use them as a buffer against wars with the germans, or we can use the germans to distract the mongols and shaka while we take care of the french?

If we have Iron I'll build half a dozen swords in our fish+horse+hills city to the west to go cap the two barbarian cities.

Will probably play tonight unless you want another set TMIT?

You take the next set. IMO taking france down 1st is tactically easiest. However, we might want to build a large tech lead on them first, then throw down. The only exception is if it looks like everyone is going to dogpile germany (which will then lose), then we might want to start making demands until we're about -30 or so with france :p.

ok, regardless of the period in which we go to war, Civil Service will be our next priority once we secure Ironworking.
Then we can decide if we want to go through machinery-> Eng for maces/trebs or Edu->Lib towards rifling/steel

Agreed on CS.

Ive played, am uploading the images now. You can play another set tonight if you like =)

Played through to CoL

Religion enters our borders
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0000-3.jpg
Decline for now, the city isn't at happy cap and diplo relations are still settling down.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0001-3.jpg
'ello 'ello, I am l'grande emperor Napoleon! I shall invade your puny empire with my superior army of well trained and drilled troops.

ps. please send horses.
(I remembered to cancel the deal as soon as was possible which is something of a minor miracle for me)


http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0002-3.jpg
With Alphabet due in one turn we drop the slider to zero and settle our beavertown. Workers are on the way up preroading to make sure resources are hooked up to the trade network asap.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0003-2.jpg
Barbarians threaten De Gaulles capital. He surrenders the gold mine in the face of overwhelming forces.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0004-2.jpg
Alphabet is in

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0005-2.jpg
And I break the cardinal rules of civ, I trade for archery and mysticism. WFYABTA is not in my vocabulary.

Do we have Iron?
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0006-1.jpg
Well that makes it simple.
Also ut workers to work on our gems and sugar.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0007-1.jpg
Religion in our capital now, converting is a possibility but we're just about to bring two luxury resources online and the political situation is still sorting itself out.
Keep in mind that in team games the AI can go into WHEOOHRN independently of each other. Sometimes it's a race between them to declare war on their own preferred target.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg
Hyarrrrr... arrrrrrr. I be a land pirate, give me your booty
This one we tell to get lost. He's busy with something else anyway.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0009-1.jpg
Well, the AI are getting a bit grabby so I don't hook up our second gems yet until they have something worth trading for.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg
A city up here can claim marble+silver+iron. I don't care that it will never grow, let's claim it in the next couple of sets. The silver would complete our forge happy trifecta. We could settle it to borrow the deer and have it work the silver and marble.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg
Nappy is feeling mischevious. I keep an eye on him, we have troops building anyway, he's unlikely to be a major problem if he decides to take us over the germans.

Speaking of whoom...

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg
Oops, that'll teach me for playing with the sound off >.> Completely missed that.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0014.jpg
Quick look at relations

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0015.jpg
CoL in

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0016.jpg
And we found Confuc in our commerce city (I forgot to mention, The Germans took MC from Oracle)

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpg
The tech situation. We're in a strong position which is only going to get stronger.


Notes: I have two cities building swords to capture the barb cities. Our horse+fish+ hills city is doing a good job at it, once it completes the 6th sword can you queue a LH in there so it can work all 3 plains hills.

Capital is at happy cap now and 6 turns from finishing Mids (because why not). I grew it to pop 8 on cottages and firing scientists, but the scientists are back up again. Will get a GSpy or GS next.
What do we do with a spy if we get one?

Tech: We can pick up aesthetics+lit while we wait for math to come on the market, or we can just tehc math ourselves and do CS afterwards.

Gems city has a few hammers dumped into a spearman (from warrior build) I wouldn't mind letting it finish as I already built a library in the city and a courthouse isn't immediately required there.

Looks like we'll end up with 11 cities total vs the AI's 4-5 each. I'm thinking we could just aim for a simple mace+treb war against the french.

Got it!

I'm not good in medieval times with warfare (it takes too long IMO) so you'll have to be our guiding light on the dark age beatdown.

From the looks of it we'll get pyramids somehow, which means trading for monarchy is less of a priority. I'm feeling a rush to settle the marble site for a TGL/NE run. That's a considerable research boost under rep and a hefty amount of GPP.

We might need it for the slow war. Although come to think of it, since we have to INSTIGATE the war, we might want it in medieval times since a huge power lead will make this difficult (though I suppose we could always delete units).

Edit: Machine locked up on me around literature's completion. I'll pick up from an autosave after I sleep. We got the mids and are in rep.

Also, I'm trying to start settling our eastern land (SW of the barb city is garbage to us IMO, at least at the moment). Dotmapping it is a bit annoying. Part of me wants to place a city to take the gold away from our current site (which is food poor and could work stone or other hammer stuff instead). However, that makes it hard to use all the food and still work the dyes. I'll listen to some dotmapping ideas then just go with whatever I have when I wake up tomorrow.

Hotcathy gets the pyramids after all:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0000-1.jpg

And decides that she can use peons to represent in the hood or something.

The fruits of GPP labor? Like fruits of rot :(.

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0001-1.jpg

Settled in moscow. Normally I'd deliberate more but moscow has an academy already and we're under representation so the boost is pretty big. To use espionage we focus on our (conveniently) close neighbors:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0002-1.jpg

Shaka phones cathy with some bad news: he's thinking about something other than her looks!!!

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0003-1.jpg

Cathy gives it to him so he's reminded of how great she is.

Might need to brew more trouble soon...

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0004-1.jpg

Or not! Haha!

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0005-1.jpg

Barb galley trouble, we'd lose the fish and build 2 galleys to cut the barb galley down and replace it.

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0006-1.jpg

Speeding along CS, if only slightly

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0007-1.jpg

Cathy unlocks her hero: the ability to spam units like no tomorrow!

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0008-1.jpg

Brotherhood is not the name of the game. This is sour news:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0009-1.jpg

Cathy claims it isn't all about the looks, but also somewhat about the books! In order to make her lie plausible:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0010-1.jpg

Here we are at 100 AD:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0014.jpg

The above is troublesome. The french already have engineering. I'm not sure I'm feeling that mace war now.

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0015.jpg

I say we steal either MC or calendar...need to get some spies in there.

I didn't adopt a religion, because it would piss someone off. ANY religion would piss someone off. The french are easily the best techers right now. Team diplomacy is somewhat troublesome. We could do something like go balls-out making nappy like us, then use him to constantly declare war on others as a distraction while we capture the cities. Or, we could still bait france into war with us, where if we won we'd be in complete control of the game.

They're teching FAST though. We won't have a big window. Maybe to slow it some early in the war we can cut down all but 1 of say de gaulle's cities, which would allow the team 50% research penalty to stay existing while we fought nap.

I'm stopping off here...we're close to CS and of course we should finish it. IMO NE isn't bad in the capitol (and later oxford). Parth is a pretty sure bet with marble + the tech picture. If we want maces we should probably steal MC or Calendar, research the other, then head toward engineering, otherwise it's on to paper. Have to decide quickly. What say you, PK?

214879

Good set, we're in a strong position. I think for fun we should play through to cossacks and then launch a retaliatory lightning Coassack/Spy war on the French (then we can backtrack to steel for cannons)

There are 4 decent sites still to settle, one is on the north shore of the bay, claims the copper, two hills and a fish (leave cows for moai).

One is NE of our capital and claims the dye/rice and a bunch of grassland for cottaging

One is E of our capital and claims the fish and some grassland

One is S of our capital and claims horse, hills and clams (?)

We also need to go grab our Moai city from the Barbs.

I'm going to finish that settler in the capital and find somewhere else to build settlers while I grow the capital up to its new happy cap.
I'll also consider building a bunch more workers to help get our new cities online asap.
There's a question of what to do with our capital and our best commerce city and the National Epic and Oxford.
There's no doubt that commerce city will outdo our capital in terms of raw commerce, the question is whether we fully cottage our capital and rely on Bureau to push it above gems town in terms of Oxford preference, or if instead we irrigate our capital and run a bunch of specialists under Castes with the NE and leave Oxford for gems town.
I've always been an Oxford+Bureau+commerce capital guy.

Heck... do we consider moving our capital to gems town and running the old capital as a fully fledged GP farm now that it has some good GP generating wonders?

Don't worry about the french techrate right now, they're going to fall behind over the next few sets as ours is just starting to pick up properly.

Moving the capital to Novgorod seems worth it. It's a great place for a cottaged up oxford/bureau capital. It will be a delay in any short term militairy buildup though. Depending on what kind of troops you're planning to attack with, that doesn't have to be a problem. Cossacks aren't the best UU, but vanilla cavalry is good, and an improved version is even better.

MC and calendar will give you a ton of potental for vertical growth, which also points to a cossack fueled war. There's a ton of growing to be done and infra to be set in place to realize that potential. CS and chain irrigation is a big part of that as well. It's a solid strategy; you can grow your cities big, and you'll have quite a number of them after backfilling the land you claimed. A very good chance to get a commanding techlead leading up to lib/nat and cossacks.

Rostov looks to be the logical place for the HE, 3 plains hills, horse and 5 watermills should be decent enough production (will have to shift some irrigation around).

Seems you guys are in a very powerful position already, really well played so far.

Moscow has more food and more hammer than Gem town, moving the capital will cost some hammers and delay. I think it is better to keep Moscow as the capital since it can build any improvements (oxford/uni and etc) faster than Gem town and you are already running cottages in Moscow.

Prob get Monochy through a trade and swith to HR/Buea in the same turn? I would consider adding some farms to Moscow to allow it grow faster, run more Specialists temporarily and work the hills. You can always convert the farms to cottages when you reach max pop there.

You will out tech these guys and be able to bribe at will later on.

Aye, I was looking at irrigating the non river grassland tiles at the lake to speed up growth in the capital.


Monarchy trade and the double civics switch definitely seems like the way to go. I'm considering opening borders with the germans temporarily, just get a scouting unit through into mongol lands so we can see how things are likely to play out over there. Judging by their techrate it's not fabulous land but it would be good to know for sure.

We're still lacking a good whipping post, I wonder if our soon to be built eastern fish city (I'll post a screenshot of it in the next set) would be up to the job with some adequate irrigation, I usually prefer two food sources but it would probably make do in a pinch.
Our newly captured barb city would be ideal if the fish didn't already belong to our HE city.

Just FYI, we GOT the pyramids, and are in REP. I don't see any reason to trade for monarchy unless we want the feudalism/guilds line (we can go HR anytime we please if we like it more than rep, but with TGL and a settled spy I doubt the ability to grow a bit bigger in a few cities will out-compete).

of course, rep. time to grow capital regardless!

I played a fairly long set (to Education) and I played it pretty badly. Over-reacted to a percieved French threat and it hurt our diplomatic position. Let's check the damage.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0000-4.jpg
The war situation. Pretty standard stuff, The Mongols periodically make peace and declare war on the germans. The combination of them and the French eventually drives the germans to near collapse by the end of the set.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0001-4.jpg
We revolt to Bureau

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0002-4.jpg
Uh oh. A large French army on our borders, against which we have no defense. Now, they might be going for the barbarian city (and it seems likely) but I really don't want to take that risk. I decide to revolt to Judaism in order to get him pleased so I can beg gold for a forced peace treaty.
Make the swap and YAY! He's at pleased.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0005-3.jpg
Right... the french don't have currency. I'm such an idiot.
Desperate now I decide to beg for Monotheism (really not expecting anything)

but what do you know...

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0006-2.jpg
Great success!!! Forced peace for 10 turns.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0007-2.jpg
Godamnit, looks like he was headed for the barb city afterall. Not wanting to lose our future Moai city to the French but not having enough forces on hand to take it right now (3 archers on a hill) I decide to close borders with them (temporarily) and reopen them the next turn.

Except I forget one thing
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0010-1.jpg
The AI don't like to be messed around. I guess I learn something new every day. SO now I've lost the +2 "open borders" diplo bonus and can't get it back any time soon.

In the mean time, De Gaulle has been a busy little worker bee
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0009-2.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0013-1.jpg
I know who we're going to be paying a visit to =D

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0014-1.jpg
We snag parthenon for ourselves

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0016-1.jpg
And capture Moai

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0017-1.jpg
The mongols make demands and we tell them where to put it.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0019.jpg
The French make demands and we tell them where to sho... naw, Nappy is so adorable. He also has a large army sitting on our doorstep. Thanks for the peace treaty champ!

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0020.jpg
Finally manage to restore open borders! Time to get those relations back up (at some point I also swapped out of Judaism since Nappy was getting annoyed with me)

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0021.jpg
Slave revolt in one of our primary commerce towns. Sigh. I pay and take the hit to pop.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0022.jpg
Trade for currency, get a good boost in commerce from it.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0023.jpg
Our future Globe Theater whipping post. This city is going to be very busy, I feel a little bit sorry for them already.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0024.jpg
The french have some absolutely vital military techs but they won't trade them, that leaves us with one option. Hard work? don't be silly. Theft!

Except we fail.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0026.jpg
Eventually we find success. Unlocks forges and machinery for maces (need them for the power rating boost)

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0028.jpg
AT around 33% odds we pop a GSpy. Ordinarily, with one spy settled I'd automatically build Scotland yard, except we desperately need to do something about the military situation without losing our lead on the research techs. I send him towards the French for infiltration. If he nets us Construction, Machinery and Engineering in the next few turns then I think it is well worth it (much more effective than a GSci) and may just be enough to save our hides from the worryingly aggressive French.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0030.jpg
At long last we finish Edu. I don't know if I thought that one out properly, our cities are already busy building forges, not sure how we're going to get 6 Universities built in any reasonable amount of time, I'm glad it's someone elses problem >.>
I would whip/chop/murder aggressively.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0032.jpg
The Tech situation

And just for one last laugh...
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/PaulisKhan/HotCathy/Civ4ScreenShot0033.jpg

Shaka... with a monopoly on Philosophy? Bless his crazy little heart.

There you go TMIT, try and restore some sense of dignity to the game! Steal those military techs, get our power rating up, get forges and universities built, get our globe theater whipping post up and running!!!

Have fun =D

An enjoyable game. I have not have such a good feeling of the game for a long time.:cool: Also I learn something of team play. It seems that the team members share the tech since when I trade with one member, the other one automatically have the tech. Their contributions to the beakers are not a sum but an average. The diplomacy is harder since it is either an average of altitude or the worst one. None of those AIs is a good trading partner and they are poor.

To 1000AD


Tech:
Agri->AH->Manso->Wheel->BW->Mys->Med->Priest->Fishing->Pottery->Oracle takes MC->Writing->CoL->Currency->Aes->Lit->CS->Drama->Music->Bulb Phi->Paper->Edu->Nat->PP

Capital:
Worker->War->Worker->Settler->Worker->Worker->Settler->Settler->Char->Oracle...

Wonders Cities: DG even lost his capital BFC tiles to SP

Capital
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/Capital-1.jpg

HE
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/HE.jpg

Another one
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/WonderCity.jpg

1000AD Empire of 12 Cities, another city next turn. Room for another 2.
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/1000ADEmpire-1.jpg

1000AD Tech AIs are barbarian :lol:
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/1000ADTech-1.jpg

Barb gaylies strike on cathy's shores, defeating one of her noble galleys and a fishing net. Argh.

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0000-2.jpg

Time to go a thievin'!

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0001-2.jpg

Cathy is fussy. She doesn't like her men that way. STAY ENEMIES!

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0002-2.jpg

The russian empire makes a tactical switch...to hinduism. The reason for this is that napoleon was annoyed with us, and if that continued we were sitting ducks. I don't like ducks unless it's duckweed playing a shadow that looks strikingly similar to our game. So, hindu it is, to keep all @ cautious.

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0003-2.jpg

Haha, grabby!

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0004-2.jpg

Cathy doesn't actually choose the following option, since it gives the french more gpt. She picks just our cities, since that at least might be nice for some theo xp. Maybe.

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0005-2.jpg

Popped a GS. Decided on bulb PP ---> finish, Philo, Lib ----> nat since we have marble and can win the taj easily.

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0006-2.jpg

Infiltrate really goes a long way...

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0007-2.jpg

Lib as planned:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0008-2.jpg

The staying "better liked than the disgusting CS major" plan continues to work:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0009-2.jpg

Popped an engineer. I'm banking him, for now. I know how PK loves these things, not to mention we don't need it for taj. What route to go? SoL? Golden age? Settle?

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0010-2.jpg

Did I mention that infiltrate + settle/focus goes a long way?

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0011-1.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0012-1.jpg

After this we take a detour to 1st to economics for the merchant. Current idea is to mass upgrade mounted units. Heroic epic city has put horse archers (now knights) on autobuild and has an appreciable stack already. By the time we hit rifling/MT #'s should be ok. Possibly we want to bait war before the upgrade, though I think we can get nap or somone to DoW us pretty easily by getting them to furious regardless.

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0013-1.jpg

I stop us off here, some basic specs:

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0014-1.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0015-1.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0016.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0018.jpg

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss213/CivIVTMIT/hotcathy/Civ4ScreenShot0019.jpg

Tech picture looks even better than before...this is a disgusting lead that I haven't seen since I last played...emperor :lol:. The wars are really screwing everyone up, and we're not even having to bribe them into action!

Currently I have us heading to rifling then backfill to MT...possibly steal it but probably tech it also.

Since we have so many cottages I was loathe to whip the big cities and lose them. We'll get oxford eventually but universities in the commerce cities is good enough for now, possibly the whole game.

IMO the hardest part about closing this game off might be convincing the AIs to DoW us after we curb-stomp the french. I guess we could go culture press or delete units (and have a ton hidden in queue).

Decision points:

- How to use our 2 GP's (not sure on engineer, probably trade mission from merchant for upgrades? We could go sushi too if we need culture since it's not like our war effort seems too daunting)

- Exact timing on pissing nappy off.

- How many cossacks to spam before capping them, and what techs do we want other than them? Airships + cossacks are completely overpowering against non-rifles, and I think we could do that.......

214992

Tech situation looks a lot better after that espionage spree.

I would build a lot of knights for now (try to stay just under nappys power), once we're close to Mil Trad we can start stockpiling gold.
Provoke Nappy into a war dec against us, mass upgrade the knights to cavalry and destroy the french stacks.
Once the french stacks are destroyed but before we grow too powerful, provoke the mongols into attacking us too. By the time we clean up the french lands the Mongol stacks should be getting close and we could deal with those too (wish cossacks still had Blitz >.<)

The germans are getting very close to capitulation (we now exceed their combined score).

Merchant for gold:
Engineer for.... I'll think of something, I doubt this game will last until Mining Inc becomes useful though. If we head to democracy or communism I'll probably use him to build the SoL/Kremlin

I'll steal drama in the next set so that we can set up the whipping post. Will aim to get Moai statues built. I like the suggestion for national park (if it gets to that stage). I'm normally very very slack at getting national wonders other than HE and Globe Theater built.

I think for future games we should aim for more GSpies than GScis. The team aspect means far fewer trading partners so bulbed techs become proportionally less useful (tech trade is normally the multiplier that makes a scientist competitive with a spy). However it's important to note that you're competing against the combined EP of the AI which can make stealing techs less effective once the EP buildings such as jails and security bureaus begin to appear (from a practice game against a team of 3 AI)

Continue for fun

To 1700AD

Tech: Constitution

Settled the last 4 cities. Oxford up in the gem city, BPT gains a small jump. Also Taj rebuilt in SP for cash and more culture press on DG
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/Oxford.jpg

Tech: Demo->Atro->Steal Guild & Banking
End of Taj GA
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/EndofGA.jpg

The fun part--Lib took AL, no one is near lib.
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/Lib-1.jpg

Edit: Skip the latter part if you don't want to be bothered

Want to be declared. Easy, a few click on demanding, you become someone's worst enemy. Also steal the 3rd/last tech -- Rifling from French.
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/Demand.jpg


The war comes earlier than expected
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/DOW.jpg


Cathy is weak at the moment, however, her war potential is beyond French's imagination.
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/SOD.jpg


Cry for peace? no way.
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/Peace-1.jpg


So in 1700AD, gone of French. The war went slowly since I did not beeline to cav but tried to play some fun part. Moreover, French are smart to beeline to Rifling to pretect them form cossacks. Next can gift all the cannons and some other units to help Mongolian to conquer German and finish the game in one final war. Tanks and Bombers vs Grens and/or Riflemans? Not so fun, but that's the war I'd go. -- The end.

1700AD Empire
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/EndofFrench.jpg

1700AD Tech
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/1700Tech.jpg

Capital
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu224/Duckweed_/Capital-2.jpg

Thanks for the save.

Sorry for the holdup. All my turnsets for my SG's came at once and I'm flatout preparing for a job interview.

I've just played a very short set. I ran us at zero % research while I bought Oxford online.
Stole drama, traded for compass and theology (possible civics switch once we go into war phase?)
Globe theater is almost ready to whip into place so I'd say we're pretty much set up for the war phase. Just a couple of techs to pick up on the way, which won't take long at 100% research.
I'm sending spies into French territory so we can watch for their stack. Since were letting them declare on us we need our troops in place ready for the instant upgrade (may as well keep our power low).
Moai city is done, currently building a lighthouse and then it will be ready to grow and will have pretty decent production soon.
I've been putting AP religion buildings in for the hammer bonus to help us out once the war phase begins.

Important news, The Germans vassaled to the French and then the Mongols declared war on the Germans which bought them into war with the French.
What I'm trying to say is that everyone in the word is at war except for Shaka and Us.
It's a mad mad world.
We need to get the French out of war asap, and then make them mad at us. REALLY mad at us. I'd go so far as to get the mongols mad at us too.

We only want 1 team mad at us at a time. If we bribe the mongols out of war, switch to a heathen religion to nappy, and make about 40 demands of resources, we'll be a safe bet as their next war target. We can then possibly bribe mongolia back in or get help from them via the dogpiling war mechanic.

Don't worry about the delay, take care of what needs to be done elsewhere...

I wish I could actually PLAY a turnset for my team in SGOTM, but since I can't guarantee my computer won't hang on me mid-game it's not worth the risk sadly.

Edit: but I'll play our next turnset regardless ;).

Just wondering as i've played quite a few team games, but together with the AI (how frustating :D )

In those team games the tech pace was a lot faster and I figured that if you guys had to play alone that you would be doomed as 2 AIs tech faster, but I get the feeling that if you play alone you get the normal beakers needed per tech instead of the teams who need more beakers for every tech, but I don't think it was twice as much.
Anyways the question is, do you get a bonus when you play alone or do the teams get a penalty?

btw I think this game is won :D nice one!

Just wondering as i've played quite a few team games, but together with the AI (how frustating :D )

In those team games the tech pace was a lot faster and I figured that if you guys had to play alone that you would be doomed as 2 AIs tech faster, but I get the feeling that if you play alone you get the normal beakers needed per tech instead of the teams who need more beakers for every tech, but I don't think it was twice as much.
Anyways the question is, do you get a bonus when you play alone or do the teams get a penalty?

btw I think this game is won :D nice one!

Teams get a penalty...IIRC their techs cost 50% extra or something. However, it is still very advantageous to research to be on a team, assuming the two players are equal or at least approximate in tech rate (and of course there's other reasons as well.

Tech costs go up by 50% per extra team member. So a team of two civs should research ~33% faster than a one civ team, three civ team about 50% faster. However, the reduced trade chances probably cut this down some in practice.

Meaning a team where a human leads tech choices will fare far better than an AI team that copies what all the other AIs do and limits trade opps.