RBP1 Succession Game - Celtic Light Infantry (PtW) [Archive]

Charis

Nov 03, 2002, 09:35 PM

First round by Charis, roughly 40 turns

Starting thoughts...

Our starting position is interesting. There's a grass cattle, excellent,
and we're at a potential choke. That's a lake of fresh water to our north
(you can tell from food being 2), and two mined grasslands. On the downside
I can see some forested tundra peeking through to the south. No reason not
to found where we're seated, and start irrigating the cattle.

We're military and religious, with what seems to be an outstanding
early UU, the Gallic swordsmen, so our first priority in research is Iron
Working via Bronze. For us temples are 30 shields and barracks a mega-cheap 20.

With culture linking on, the countries we're mostly likely to start next to
are: Korea, Carthage, Arabia and Spain. The only one with an early UU is
the Numidian mercanary (a REAL bear, we're unlike to take him on).

First unit will be a warrior to scout. If we had pottery and were playing
like farmers, granary would be next. But for us, the warriors we make will
be upgraded into our UU, and wouldn't vets be nice?? I hope to make it an
OPTION to go early limited war or oscillating war - hitting hard and quick
to hurt neighboring foes and stall their growth, without the pitfalls of a
full blown all-war opening. That means: found four strong cities asap,
don't fear having a few extra warriors (proto-Gallics) and be ready to settle
on an iron spot, or fight for it if need be, when we get Iron Working.

(The added details below for trading and management are for the sake
of newer folks or lurkers, please pardon the length)

[0] 4000 BC - Settle where we start and head worker to irrigate then road cattle.

[5] 3750 BC - First warrior out, cattle irrigated, a we grow next turn already.
Tis emperor, so need to kick lux to 20% immediately at size two.
Growth in 7 turns, and either settler or temple in 7, great timing!
Let's get the settler out first. It's 4 shields and 3 excess food right now.
Actually, micromanagement between tree and bonus grass will get growth in six
and the settler to pop on the seventh turn. (Four turns at 3f/4s, then go 4f/3s)

Over the next few turns we explore NE by North, scaling a mountain and swinging
North. Lots of mountains and hills over there, decent chance at some iron.
Then we see plains ivory and a river flowing from a mountain due NE of capital.
If bonus food, a good spot for city two.

[12] 3400 BC - Indeed, there's some wheat there, and a goody hut, and...

a warrior from Spain. We greet the mediterranean fellow, who serves
a woman called Isabella. The Queen is cautious and to-the-point.
Ouch! Starting with Alphabet and Ceremonial Burial, they already have
learned Bronze Working, Masonry, and Pottery.

We also see the new 'contact trading' that civs do, as Spain has clearly
contacted the Arabs and sold them communication to us - for we can
communicate with them. They have the identical list of techs, having
started with Pottery and Burial. "Abu" is annoyed.

Neither have warrior code, and because we come in as 3rd civ, we can get
a two-for-one deal on the code! Let's make our nearest neighbor pay the
most, then sell to Abu. (Miser price for Bronze is 24+2gpt, and for
Pottery 4+2gpt or 22+1gpt. That's a valuation of 18 gold for 1 gpt, so cost
is 60 vs 40. "Base" research cost for these are 3 and 2 (likewise, Masonry 4,
Alphabet 5, Wheel 4, Iron Working 6). That suggests no discount at all for us
having researched about 15% of the needed beakers. Is that true?
(Test: save game, swap us OFF bronze to throw away all beakers, then check
the price. Miser price is way up to 17+3gpt, or 70. Now that suggests our earlier
low prices does reflect a discount for partial research, but it suggests that
there is a premium in value held by the AI for Bronze compared to Pottery.
Could this be correct? As a spearman tech, that's how I would see it :P)

I don't like giving our foes archers, but if we fail to trade and they research
it, we'll be totally shut. Can't pass up 2-for-1 deals... So we proceed as follows:

Spain: WC for Masonry and Pottery, flat trade @miser. She's polite.
Arabia: WC is now @3rd civ, worth far less. WC+4 for Bronze Working. Still annoyed.
We can wait on alphabet, and switch research to Iron Working.

There is one more choice now... we could swap settler due next turn to Granary.
That would then take six turns to complete, or whippable after two.
For settler cranking, how does a granary rate? Without we grow from 1 to 3 in
about 12 turns and take about 13 to make a settler. With one, we grow two sizes
in 6 turns, and cycling at a higher population size means more shields and we
can produce a settler in about 6-7 turns as well. This doubles the rate of
expansion, at a cost of delaying our first settler by 10-11 turns. If we pop
out this settler first THEN build the granary, it comes in much slower because
we're back at size one and fewer shields. (The agony of this decision is what makes
Civ 3 a great game, and also what makes the opening so crucial.)

Since our goal is 3-4 more cities in good spots, we take the "long term"
view and switch to granary!

[13] 3350 BC - Ah, word of our little civ gets around. With no need for us
to buy communications, we can contact the Ottomans and the Carthaginians.
Ok, so this continent is kind of densely populated.

Carthage is cautious, and like the rest, is only up by 'Alphabet'
The Ottomans are annoyed, perhaps because they lack Alphabet :P
They both started with similar techs as those already known.

And for the goody hut... barbarians 8-\ We survive, one win, no promotion.
Further NE we hit coast, seeing cattle and wheat on plains.

[17] 3150 BC - Granary done, now growth in 5 and settler in 5, very good.

Swinging back west with the scout, we see the top of the river, and a
second wheat. (So a choice, settle-inward or settle-outward? :P)

[20] 3000 BC - the most advanced nations list is: Arabs, Carthaginians, Spanish,
Ottomans, Celts, Koreans, Mongols and Vikings. It's clear we have five on
our continent, and the others are either together in one, or split up.

[22] 2900 BC - Settler is done. Another would take about six turns. The alternative
is a temple or warrior or spearman. Do we feel like farmers or fighters?
Or do we farm first then fight? :P Actually, slipping in a warrior in two
for another scout and future Gallic sounds best first.
(The warrior completes in two thanks to food-and-grow calculations preceeding
shield calculations, getting the two extra shields needed)

[26] 2710 BC - Our first founding decision. How far to capital? Several good spots
on river not far from wheat and ivory. Five away, wasting no squares at all,
is on a hill, off the river, but with two good bonus grass in range. Could
get lucky resource in hill/mountain, too early to tell. One past on the ivory,
can't tell if it's on a river due to ivory. In Despotism it shows up as 2 gold
either way. Also, food is very low there. One step further looks good BUT...
it leaves about a two row gap of prime-time near-cap land that is either wasted
or huge overlap. Another step out, eight squares from capital, defines the second
ring, is next to the wheat (no temple needed for the food), on a river,
and catching two hills. The problem, lack of grass means major long term
food problem. 8-\

Given problems in all spots, I take the closer one, and will consider it
a barracks town, not a food town. We found Elesia, and start a rax.

[28] 2630 BC - We disperse a barb camp for 25 gold and promote.
The culture graph is identical, meaning no one has any temples yet at all.
On score, Arabia is on top, Spain next to last near us. If anyone needs to
get our cash it would be weaker far away folks. That suggests Ottomans.

Folks have the Wheel and Mysticism now to supplement the Alphabet.
We buy the wheel off Osmon for 51+2gpt. Knowing horse locations might help.
It bumps him from annoyed to cautious. Spain has two workers for sale (chuckle)
In the old days that would have meant we could cripple her. Now even one is
so expensive it 'cant be done'. (Short of 6gpt which we don't have)
Wait.. Arabia doesn't have the wheel? He'll trade Mysticism and 1 gold for it, nice!

Good shape on horses! Both Entremont and Alesia will have horses in range with
one more expansion.

Hmm, that worker deal is a tough call now. I could contort myself temporarily
for until our third city is founded, which is soon. The extra roads from the
worker would pay for itself before long too. Let's try it (and we are guaranteed
to leave Madrid one worker)

Where to put our next city? The area to our west has a grass wheat, gold hills,
and either: i) fresh water (same as capital), ii) coast, iii) both, but overlap.
Actually, I like 'iii', with the advantage of being able to irrigate the wheat
immediately. The focus so far is strong start, not so much life-at-size-21,
although we're not even close to ICS. One last advantage of choice 3 is that
it, along with our capital being on a bottleneck, form a total blockade
of our 'backlands', if we place two guys next to Elesia guarding the wheat
and horses.

[29] 2590 BC - Phew! We watch our scout get beat to 1hp by barb, then become elite!

[30] 2550 BC - Have you ever been *SO* broke that you pray for a barbarian camp to
plunder the gold? That's how bad a worker purchase sets you back :P We're at 0/+0

[33] 2430 BC - Yay a barb camp! We defeat it for 25 gold, and then our other warrior
pops a goody hut with Alphabet! We found Lugdunum, on lake and coast. A granary
comes to mind with its strong food, although a warrior would work.
We see Carthage alone has Math, the others being poor.

[35] 2350 BC - Arabs start the Oracle. (Note of alternate strat for us: start
Pyramids in Entremont, building or whipping temple first)

[38] 2230 BC - Our capital can afford to be temple-less no longer, we pause
popping a settler this turn to start one... The appearance of a barbarian
next turn makes us swap this immediately to warrior (badly needed for MP anyway,
actually)

We see Korea now available in the Diplomacy list. He's got
Iron Working, Writing, Math, Horseback Riding (ow) So does Carthage and Arabia,
while Isabella lacks Writing and Osmon only lists Iron Working.
(I take no action with any of these, leaving it to my successor. I've surely
left us too poor to buy Writing and sell it to the other 2 for techs ;P)

[42] 2070 BC - Going two turns over to clear up that minor fiscal and capital
defense mess, here's our situation going to the next player... (Mid-turn, btw)

Six turns left on the painful 5gpt trade to Spain. After that investment,
the work of the work will go on to Modern Ages :P For his next move, decide
between a road, else run him over to the wheat and irrigate it for Lugdunum.
(That's why we're running -1gpt deficit and 8 gp in the treasury)

A settler is in the middle of the map, directionless. Guide his destiny!
Actually, he's on a decent spot itself - on a river, next to gems (nice cash
we could use) and a horse, and three flood plains in range! Overlaps (only)
two plains with Alesia. You can settle there, giving immediately more cash,
or send him further, up to the double wheat about 5 squares NE.

The scout to the NW can fortify on his hill and rest, else go after that camp.

There is a second warrior-scout not far from the settler, who should likely team up.

The worker at Alesia can divert to the new settler to connect him, or make
a road on the ivory for a much needed luxury (and one more gpt there), or
work a bonus grass or go to connect a horse. (Keep in mind we're infantry and
can NOT make use of horse-based units!!)

Military: we have 7 of 12 allowed units, one warrior per city (want a spear
added to each at some point), one barracks in Alesia, and a granary in Entremont.
With the founding of the next city we've got our "base core" on which to grow.

Next up:
Maniac Marshall (Carbon Copy - on deck)
Pardon going a turn and a half extra - if possible, take this turn
plus 18 more, stopping at the end of 1500 BC to keep things even.

The zipped save file is given in the next link - the zip also
includes the 4000BC starting save. Please use format RBP1-Celts-year.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-Celts-2070BC.zip

Good luck! (You always need that after a 'Charis' start :)
Charis

Charis

Nov 03, 2002, 09:37 PM

Comments on the first round, with dotmap (it is so rough and quick it's just to give some thoughts, not in anyway a presentation of a perfect plan. I'm still pretty rusty from my break!)

The situation for the Celts in 2070 BC is shown as follows:
(hopefully not too badly mangled)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-Dotmap.jpg

The 'X' is the capital, Entremont. 'A' and 'B' were the first two
cities founded, Alesia and Lugdunum. The settler is currently
standing at 'C', which is a decent place to settle, with gems,
flood plains, and horses. Sites 'D' and 'E' are decent spots too,
'G' is a low corruption fishing spot near the capital, and the '?'
area unknown behind us. Units planted on the horse and wheat next to
Lugdunum seal off our 'backlands' until mapmaking, if need be. (So leave
'G' and others for a bit later until other land has been grabbed)
Blue 'H' locations are visible horses.

Iron Working is due in 14 (at 1 beaker rate), and we'll see if we
have iron in one of our hills/mountains or if we need to settle to
the east or elsewhere - we *DO* want iron asap. (Whether to hook up
or pay upgrade warriors is another matter)

Madrid will NOT sit idle while we found these spots, so expect settler
pairs to appear anytime now, likely going for or near one of these areas.

Thoughts...

The opening I chose was meant to be flexible, allowing a military option
if desired. There were two medium risk gambits - i) I leave our three
cities *bare* for most of the ancient era, focusing on exploration
and getting a granary and rax somewhere, and ii) fiscal reck for the past
dozen turns to buy a Spanish worker. (After recent 'discussions' on our
board about the cheeziness of buying workers for almost free, I wanted
to see how good a solution the 'high priced' worker is - so let's see
first hand. I will tell you that I had to change all tile management to
maximize commerce, and use an entertainer on some rounds, to even get us
"up" to the point of being 0 gold/+0 gpt, so it's not cut and dry anymore)

I can easily see us going a few different ways...

A.Peaceful rapid expansion, forsaking military and infrastructure for
the sake of grabbing as MANY sites as we can. Capital pops one settler
per 7-8 turns with this approach, and Alesia makes Spears to defend
them, at a slower rate. Other cities build warrior, temple, and maybe
granary.

B.Slower expansion, capital tries for Pyramids. With good shields,
granary, good food, and fresh water, we would likely get it. But...
we don't have a great secondary 'food' site to replace the capital for
settler production. Also, Alesia is the only shield city, and our only
defense if an AI goes postal on us.

C.Gallic swordsmen rush. The most interesting choice, going with the flow
of the civ and the 'light infantry' rules. Let's be clear - with cavalry
and tanks illegal for us, this is our **BEST** offensive advantage we
will have all game! Our only fast unit until the Modern age and Mech Inf,
facing only spears, facing a fairly weak civ (Spain), and with the production
means to pull it off. The idea would be to found a city with our current
settler, one more IF we need it to procure iron, then start cranking out
Gallic Swords (or upgrading warriors). For this plan swap Lugdunum over
to barracks, and rax in Entremont after the temple (perhaps one more
settler). Rax in new city. Then one spear for each and the rest swordsmen.

Domination and Conquest are the only victory conditions. If we don't gain
a "strong" position as a dominant force in the ancient era, when?
Early middle ages would mean Medieval Infantry and Longbow vs Pikes and Knights.
Late middle ages see our Muskets shooting in offense vs other muskets, and
defending against Cavalry.
Early industrial and our rifles must outshoot fortified rifles.
Late industrial sees our guerrilas and infantry fighting other infantry and Tanks.
Modern sees our Mech Inf as our offensive unit, going against other Mech Inf+Modern Armor

Now those choices sound grim, but if we so choose, we can overcome them!
Artillery will be absolutely hands-down required, and in large number.
We would also do well at that time to deny the key defensive resource to the
civ we plan to fight, *before* they get to make/upgrade units to that type
(for example getting to Replaceable Parts first then denying rubber)
Still, a fast unit with attack 3 going against slow defender of defense 2 is
by far our biggest chance for a real 'advantage'.

* Ancient war does NOT mean ancient conquest! * It can, but they're two
very distinct things. One can play a war of limited agression either one time,
or in an 'oscillating war' strategy. The goal is to hit your neighbor, very
hard and very fast, after a dedicated burst of offensive unit production.
Then demand techs for tribute, and use the ensueing peace period to consolidate
your gains and build some infrastructure. The oscillating war approach does this
in (rapid) succession, one civ at a time. Each one loses either 2-3 nice cities
or its capital (capture, not raze). The setback to an AI will be enough to throw
it into last place never to recover. Repeat as long as you're able to cripple
as many civs on your starting continent as you can. Given our start, Spain
is the prime target, and in fact, Madrid has no buffer - we would settle for
no less than their capital unless they do some magic in the next dozen turns.

I can see this 'oscillation' occurring not just in ancient era. After a war
or two, we'll see the end of dominance of our Gallic Swordsmen (sniff).
With a good target appearing after that, we might hit them for a city or two
with Medieval Infantry, tying that in with Iron/Pike denial or Saltpeter/Musket
denial. There's nothing to deny with rifles, and no good new offensive power for
us, so expect the early industrial era to be a pure 'building' phase. Then
we get Replaceable Parts and deny rubber to a foe - upgrade our swords/MI's to
guerrilas and oscillate again. For a domination win, the next to last goal is
keeping rubber away from your remaining foes, and the last step is to wipe out
said foes.

* Let's talk about our friends!
- Spanish - Conquistadors. Coming only at Navigation, and in the hands of
AI who can't use them, not a fear.
- Arabs - Ansar Knights with move 3 - *OW*, but they need Both horses and iron
- Ottomans - Siphali, 8.3.3 cav - *double OW*, need saltpeter and horses
The absolute last thing we want is to be their enemy in the timespan when
they know Military Tradition and we've not yet learned Rep Parts (or Nationalism!)
- Koreans - 12.1.1 cannons need saltpeter and come at Metallurgy (unlike artillery,
however, range and rate of fire are still 1, like the cannon)
- Mongols - 4.2.2 Keshiks - "cheap" knights who need horses
- Vikings - 6.2.1 Axe-wielding berzerks - This could hurt, but not if we're on offense
- Carthaginians - 2.3.1 Numidian Mercenaries, need no resources. Our nemesis of the
ancient era, we would do very well indeed to pick ANOTHER foe to cripple as ancients.

If we went 'purely' in order of threat and timing, we would go after Spain first
as nearest neighbor, then Arabs and Ottomans (to avoid them at their golden time),
then Vikings or Mongols when they're a tech or two short of their UU, else wait
until next era for them. Wait for Carthage until mid-middle ages. Koreans whenever.

You can probably tell I would advocate an oscillating war approach, at least
against Spain, Arabs, Ottomans, starting with a Gallic Swords rush vs Spain.
Yet the next steps lie in the hands of ManiacMarshall :)

Charis

Carbon_Copy

Nov 04, 2002, 12:03 AM

With culture linking on, the countries we're mostly likely to start next to are: Korea, Carthage, Arabia and Spain.

Where did you get that one from? I always play with culture linking off, so I don't really know the particulars of it, but as I understood it it would clump civs of like culture group together. The Celts are European, and thus would spawn next to Spain and/or Scandanavia. Korea would be next to the Mongols, the Arabs and the Ottomans would be next to each other, and the Carthaginians could spawn wherever they please since we don't have any other Mediterranean civs in this game. But I could be completely wrong on that point.

As for what to do with the settler, it's not my call but I think it should be founded where it stands. That's a decent city location and IMO it would be a mistake to pass it by to found a second-ring city.

On your dotmap, I think spot D is better off one square due east. That one overlaps Lugdunum by only two tiles, one of which is coast and the other is a hill, trades several water tiles for land tiles, puts the plains cow in the first ring of tiles, and redeems a bonus grassland that goes to waste on your map. Also, and this depends heavily on what's beyond the fog to the east, it might be better to wedge in another city one square SE of the eastern horse resource, then move your eastern ? city two tiles over onto the hills if that's feasible. That's a tight fit, but IMO it uses the land better. If we can found the E city on the map, it could be a worker camp and lend all its shield tiles to C and that other city.

Of course, Isabella will probably just ruin it all by founding cities in lously locations. That can be fixed, though, and Madrid looks like a very tasty spot to put the FP anyhow.

Charis

Nov 04, 2002, 02:47 AM

>> With culture linking on, the countries we're mostly likely to start
>> next to are: Korea, Carthage, Arabia and Spain.
> Where did you get that one from?

Trial and error with some exploration blitzes on maps before I made the SG one. Koreans were amazingly common, and never saw a Scandinavian. Odd. Would love to see an official list...

> As for what to do with the settler, it's not my call but I think it
> should be founded where it stands.

Agreed

> On your dotmap, I think spot D is better off one square due
> east. That one overlaps Lugdunum by only two tiles, one of
> which is coast and the other is a hill, trades several water tiles
> for land tiles, puts the plains cow in the first ring of tiles, and
> redeems a bonus grassland that goes to waste on your map.
Good points, I like your suggestion.

> Also, and this depends heavily on what's beyond the fog to the
> east, it might be better to wedge in another city one square SE
> of the eastern horse resource, then move your eastern ? city
> two tiles over onto the hills if that's feasible.

Key is iron, where is it, and do we have any in range yet?
Otherwise, good points.

> Of course, Isabella will probably just ruin it all by founding cities
> in lously locations. That can be fixed, though, and Madrid looks
> like a very tasty spot to put the FP anyhow.

Now you're talking! :hammer:

In fact, you DO have more say than you thought!
Marshall is on vacation for the next week with no PtW or CivFanatic access (he posted on RBCiv)

So you're up! On deck is falsfire (or if need
be, Ozymandous, depending on availabilty and
if things get ugly :P )

Good luck, plan and play well!
Charis

Ozymandous

Nov 04, 2002, 08:12 AM

Madrid would be better "moved" one square to the SE if "D" is moved one square East since it would mesh better with fewer wasted spaces.

Also, 2 E - 1 SE of our capitol would be a good place for a "fishing village" with a fish, grassland and mountians but that can wait till later.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 04, 2002, 11:19 AM

Okay, I guess I get to decide all this stuff :mwaha:. Will probably get my chance to play this tonight or this afternoon, if not you can expect it sometime tomorrow.

Ozymandous

Nov 04, 2002, 12:07 PM

Are we going to try to beg, borrow or steal a better form of government before triggering our golden age with the UU?

Carbon_Copy

Nov 04, 2002, 08:58 PM

2070 - First things first, I decide to plop the settler down where he stands. Camulodunum is founded, and that readjusts our income, putting us at +1 gpt instead of -1. Raising Science to 20% however does not make Iron Working come in any sooner. The new city starts on a warrior. I also notice while moving the scouts around that all my preference settings have become what must be Charis's preference settings. I readjust (and apologize in advance if my prefs annoy whoever is behind me). Both workers start on roads, the Spanish one on the tile he's on, the native one on hooking up the ivory.

2030 - Dilemma: Our capital is exactly 20 shields off its temple, I can rush it for -1 pop and have it this turn so that we can build more settlers. However it is only 4 turns off completing naturally, but with the city at size 3, it will riot at the end of the turn if I don't raise taxes. I decide to rush it. I have to raise taxes anyhow, but just for this one turn.

1990 - Temple completed in Entremont, settler started. If we were trying to win by culture, it would have been a no-brainer to whip that temple. With the official build date of that temple being 2030 BC, its culture will compound on 1030 BC, 30 BC, and 970 AD (and 1970 AD, but hopefully we would be done by *then*). If it were allowed to build naturally, it would have been finished in 1870 BC, which would have magnified the difference in overall culture by more than the original 4 turns' difference. Between the one fewer citizen and upkeep for the temple, our commerce drops from +2 to +0, but at least isn't negative. West scout finishes healing on the hill and heads for the barb camp, north scout encroaches on Spanish territory to try to get past without being forced out.

1950 - Spain demands we get out. I say yes, but move the warrior towards the opposite Spanish border. Barb camp is dispersed and we're 25g richer.

1910 - Ivory hooked up by Alesia (the ivory tile now generates 3 commerce and can be irrigated which would suggest that it in fact was on fresh water). Entremont grows back to size 3 and has 3 content citizens. Spain didn't demand our warrior to leave and he thusly breaks through to the other side of Madrid.

1870 - Spear complete in Alesia, another warrior ordered up. Our gpt deals expire next turn, but I'm not sure what I will do with that cash when I get it back.

1830 - The Arabs demand 20g from us on the off-turn, I comply. Koreans start the Oracle also. Our commerce per turn jumps from +2 to +3 to +11 from the last turn to this one. I then start shopping around for prices on the remaining 8 turns on Iron working. We can put all of our gpt towards it and shave one turn off the arrival date (8 turns to 7), and thusly spending 77 gold. I can pay 4 gpt +2g up front (82g) to get it right now @6th, or I can pocket the extra 77g and have it just come in in 8. Or...

...I check the asking prices for Writing @6th. It looks like 6 gpt + 15g, which is less than what we would have to spend to get that tech in 20 turns of research (8 gpt). I buy from the Ottomans, who look like they're lagging behind the other AIs on this continent. The other 5 gpt I plan on saving up (demands notwithstanding) for establishing embassies.

1790 - Settler finished in Entremont, another one started. I don't plan on spitting out settlers ad nauseum, but I want a shot at founding at both D and E dots and it looks likely that Spain would expand towards us and plains rather than in the other way, which looks like all jungle, hills, and mountains from what my scouts see. Carthage establishes an embassy with us, they turn out to be to the immediate north of Spain. They also start the Pyramids, and Lugdunum goes into civil disorder upon reaching size 3 (oops). Given the choice on where to send this settler, I decide on trying for food-rich E rather than the closer and higher shield potential D (and hopefully the second settler will come in time to grab that one).

1725 - Spain founds Toledo in a region that messes up our plans for dot E. It forces us to shift that city to the east of where we wanted it originally and we'll have to engage in a war for dominance (culturally or otherwise) in that area.

1700 - Camulodunum finishes warrior, starts worker (we need more of these, and I didn't want to mess with other city projects).

1675 - Barb horsie seen within striking distance of our spanish worker by Lugdunum. I move the spear out of Entremont to block its path and fortify , the only way a move 2 unit could reach the worker now would be through it. Eastern scout warrior also dispatches a barb that was somewhat menacing our Dot E settler en route.

1650 - an unseen barb dispatches a Spanish warrior on the off turn, then a horse west of spain takes out our regular scout. Horseman by Entremont does not go for the worker, but moves into the forest by Entremont. The vet spear takes it on, goes down to 1 hp, then wins and promotes to elite.

1625 - Isabella extorts the 17g we've thrown together so far. Entremont finishes settler, starts barracks. A road is completed to Lugdunum, through the horses we can't use. That worker moves to the other side of Lugdunum to start working on irrigating the grassland wheat. with Lugdunum connected to the ivory, I can drop lux tax from 20% to 10%.

1600 - Iron Working comes in, I start research on Literature now @min sci. There is iron right next to Alesia, and the only other one we can see is on the far side of Madrid. The warrior I had on eastern scouting patrol had turned into a settler escort after seeing barbs in the area. It dispatches one of two horses in the barb camp adjacent to where I want to put that city.

1575 - Barb camp dispersed by E. Warrior escorting the D settler discovers a barb camp right where we want to put the city, luckily no horsies seen from it, though there is a pirate running around the coastline.

1550 - D settler moved into place to found next turn, western scout leaves a barb camp by the Spanish city of Santiago unmolested to continue harrassing those Spaniards. I then use 29 of our 34g in the treasury to establish an embassy in Spain (the only civ I could afford, and throwing cash down a rat hole is better than having another civ extort it from you). For the team's info, it's currently building the Oracle, and was 41 turns out at the time of my investigation.

1525 - Barracks complete in Entremont, which begins a spear. Richborough founded 1e of the E dot and starts a temple which should be whipped at first opportunity (in 10 turns). Barb camp at D is dispersed, and that settler can found next turn. I decide that culture war is more immediately important than a worker and switch Camulodunum from worker to temple to whip in three turns.

1500 - My last turn. I notice that the barb camp was actually 1 tile NE of where I suggested D should go, then I ponder about it some more. It's coastal, and its current position would mesh with Madrid's cultural borders (including redeeming some floodplains that would go unused). My plans are to build a warrior then a worker in there and maybe try to get a temple out there to push Spain's borders back.

Instructions for the next leader:

-Do something about that barb horseman near Lugdunum. You have a few options, you can either: A) move the garrison warrior from Lug to cover the worker irrigating the wheat and leave the city open, B) interrupt the worker to move him into the relative safety of town and throw out the 4/8 turns he's put towards irrigation, or C) use the garrison unit from either Entremont (elite spear) or Lugdunum (regular warrior) to attack the horse via the road. I'm not inclined to make that call and then leave the next leader with the fallout should I choose unwisely.

-Whipping instructions: We need to win the culture war at Toledo. To do this, we must have our borders expand in Camulodunum and Richborough ASAP, and that means whipping temples. Camu should whip in two turns, Richborough in 9. Lugdunum is almost to 20 shields away from completing its granary. It should whip in 3 turns and then start making workers or something, since we only have the one native one and the Spanish one.

-As for Entremont and Alesia, these both have barracks and should probably devote most of their time to building units. Gallic swords cost more than regular swords to build, so we probably shouldn't build more than one or two settlers, if any, out of Entremont from here on out and let the population grow to boost production. It might be best to get some more warriors built up prior to attaching the iron by Alesia since they are so much cheaper to build than our Gallic swords.

No new techs have come up on the diplo screen, which means that either the AIs are beelining to techs we can't see (Currency and Construction, unlikely but possible), or that they're all at work on some beastly tech to discover. They're probably close to a breakthrough by now, so pay attention to the diplo screen. Hopefully they aren't going for Literature and we might be able to nab that one first and trade it around. In any case our gpt deal with the Ottomans for writing will end in 6 turns, the next chief will then have another 6 gpt to toss around for either research or more dealing.

Here's the world as we know it now, I'll post again shortly the link to the file.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 04, 2002, 09:11 PM

The save file is at:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-1500_BC.zip

...I think, I'm not used to the easy file upload system.

Falsfire, you're now up, and Ozymandous is on deck.

Charis

Nov 05, 2002, 09:13 AM

Good turn Carbon!
A few points.... (ok, detailed analysis coming up!)

> must be Charis' preferences

Indeed, the GUI preferences are stored in the game save file, a dubious choice, but you're correct. Anyone should feel free to set prefs as they like. (That does NOT mean using a city governor or automating workers, two big no-no's if anyone is new to RB games!!)

> Dilemma: Our capital is exactly 20 shields off its temple, can
> rush it for -1 pop. However it is only 4 turns off completing naturally

Eep - for a savings of only three turns, we put the city growth closer to 6-7 turns behind, permanently, which will delay *all* subsequent settlers or troops from there, and will keep taxes higher for 13-20 more turns due to the whipping unhappiness. (In other words the growth curve hit is a 'recurring cost')

Strikes me as odd, almost weedy, but if you beat an AI settler to a good spot by less than three turns, it might yet be the right choice?! Tough call

> 1910 - Ivory hooked up by Alesia (tile now generates
> 3 commerce and can be irrigated which would suggest that it in fact was on fresh water).
No, not really. If a tile is next to a water source, or an irrigated tile, it can be irrigated. In this case the town itself is next to water, and so any irrigable tile next to the town will have the option of irrigation - it doesn't mean that it's on water itself.
Think of the city as an irrigation source if any tile next to it is irrigated or a fresh water source. That can be used sometimes to have fresh water for irrigation jump a 'choke' where a city is founded.

> Spain didn't demand our warrior to leave and he thusly breaks through to the other side of Madrid.

Excellent! I wouldn't have pushed to try that, but the exploration should be quite useful!

> 1830 - The Arabs demand 20g from us on the off-turn, I comply.
Ack!! My first thought is - come get some Abu!! It's emperor, not deity, and with us getting iron online he would get a very sound thrashing! Yet I don't fault 20 cash for allowing US to pick the time of conflict. I do wonder if he was bluffing...

> I then start shopping around for prices on the remaining 8
> turns on Iron working.

Eep!! I got really nervous reading this. Min science is deceptive. We're *NOT* 32/40 or 80% finished, rather we're a flat 32 beakers into the tech (running min science). That's why moving the slider up didn't make it come in faster for us. It's not even clear if the AI will discount fully a partially researched tech. In the old days, if you were 90% done researching a tech you could buy it from anyone at basically 10% the price. I don't think that's the case anymore - although I don't know if it's a reduced discount, almost no discount, or only certain techs

A decision to buy would have wasted our 32 turns of research and bought it at "full price". I'm glad to see you "let us finish researching it ourselves" :goodjob:

The writing looks like a decent buy.

> Carthage establishes an embassy with us. They also start the Pyramids

Good to know where we'll have to capture them from, someday when in the middle ages where their UU doesn't rock.

> I decide on trying for food-rich E rather than the closer and
> higher shield potential D

High food is a good choice with dual wheat bonuses, except...
Toledo snuck in and prevented our founding 'E'.
> 1725 - Spain founds Toledo in a region that messes up our
> plans for dot E. It forces us to shift that city to the east of
> where we wanted it originally and we'll have to engage in a
> war for dominance in that area.

The site for Richborough is less than rich - we get the coast, but miss getting a second wheat by settling one square closer to us. Will we have enough food for it to grow beyond size 3 in the next five hundred years? (Too bad having the settler 3 turns early DIDN'T let us beat Toledo :P ) I'm rusty on disease - is settling directly on flood plains a bad chance of getting disease? Worse than founding 'next to' flood plains?

Good job taking care of the barbarians over the next years...

> 1625 - Isabella extorts the 17g we've thrown together so far.

I suppose that means you gave in? We're getting picked on pretty badly here - but you're probably right, our military is not yet strong enough to wage war 'effectively'. If this isn't corrected, in the next players' turn, it will not be corrected until we're in the middle ages facing Keshik and Siphali :eek:

Good timing on Isabella's part, it's right before we get Iron Working and before we know if we even have any iron or not.

> 1600 - Iron Working comes in, I start research on Literature
> now @min sci. There is iron right next to Alesia, and the only
> other one we can see is on the far side of Madrid.

YES!! Phew! I was hoping that our collection of hills/mountains would contain some, but frankly thinking they would show up just to the east of our Alesia tiles. This is GOOD news!

> 1550 I then use 29 of our 34g in the treasury to establish an
> embassy in Spain (throwing cash
> down a rat hole is better than having another civ extort it

Well, can't argue that rat's hole is worse than extortion, but that's the second time we're lining the pockets of our upcoming foe. More important than what she's building - what were her defenders?!

> 1500 - My last turn. I notice that the barb camp was actually 1
> tile NE of where I suggested D should go, then I ponder about
> it some more. It's coastal... plans are to build a
> warrior then a worker in there and maybe try to get a temple
> out there to push Spain's borders back.

I have a better idea to push Spain's borders back. Waaay back :hammer:

Coastal? I wonder what implications a fresh-water-only coast has? Harbor-yes? Colossus-no? Commercial dock-?? Trading route-no?

> Do something about that barb horseman near Lugdunum.
Ceding the city would bankrupt us again, and we're already dangerously close to "no money whatsoever to upgrade warriors" (despite min science)
The attack via the seems the best choice vs a conscript-1 defense unit.

> Whipping: We need to win the culture war at
> Toledo. To do this, we must have our borders expand in
> Camulodunum and Richborough ASAP, and that means
> whipping temples.

We certainly don't *need* to out culture it, if we capture it or raze it, or demand it as tribute after sacking Madrid. But yes, temples are an option.

> As for Entremont and Alesia, these both have barracks and
> should probably devote most of their time to building units.
> Gallic swords cost more than regular swords to build, so we
> probably shouldn't build more than one or two settlers, if any...
> It might be best to get some more warriors built up prior to
> attaching the iron by Alesia since they are so much cheaper to
> build than our Gallic swords.
We're already "late" in getting production ready for a swords war, although only a little bit - snagging those other two cities was probably worthwhile, but delaying military to found another one ourselves, in less than "woohoo" sites would not be wise.

A big problem with the warrior upgrade approach is the same reason you want to make cheap warriors first - high shield swords - the cost in cash will be twice the difference in shield cost.
Warriors cost 10, and Gallics cost 50 (rather than 30). That means EACH upgrade will cost us 80 gold!! I doubt we'll have the cash for even one upgrade, and no more than one in the next few hundred years :P If we're going to make these bad boys, we need to get high production towns and NOW!

> Hopefully they aren't going for Literature and we might be able
> to nab that one first and trade it around... the next
> chief will then have another 6 gpt to toss around for either
> research or more dealing.

For *saving* :P We don't need anything that we don't already have except cash and production ability. I was wondering if you were thinking Great Library with literature, but we can't afford a city with a chance to get it, or we'll have near zero production capability in our civ.

This brings us to the 100,000 question - what's next? What's our goal for the ancient era? Which we pick isn't so important as not having a plan! Most of the options mentioned next just can't be done "half-way" without failing miserably.

In my earlier post I mentioned as options -
A. Peaceful Rex
B. Consolidation of existing sites, build a Wonder in the capital
C. A focuses effort at a Gallic sword 'rush'

Carbon took a "flexible, balanced approach". In the early game where you don't know much, that's never a weedy choice, and he did well with it. But on emperor diff you can only stick with "flexible" so far... Let me explain -

First, why do I call his approach "balanced?
- Had he gone for "A" he would have avoided making the barracks in Entremont, would have made a granary there instead, and would never have rushed the settler.
- Going for 'B' is closest to his approach. Would not have whipped the capital, would have built a worker to work the capitals' squares for better growth and production, may have whipped the granary in Lugdunum, would have settled Richborough for two wheats (those last two comments because no more settlers from Entremont)
- Had he gone for 'C' he would have gone for city 'D' and NOT built a settler for 'E', and would not be concerned at all about culture/border wars. There might also be a barracks in Lugdunum and/or Camulodunum (or plans to whip them soon)

Instead there positive elements from all three like an extra city and a rax in the capital.

How would a continuation of a balanced approach look?
- Use Lugdunum for settlers and try to found more cities as the opportunity presents itself. Build temples everywhere, both for actual culture, happiness, and border control. Get a worker built to increase production. Use Entremont and Alesia to build one spearman per city, then have Entremont start a wonder.

And this would not be a bad approach. It makes sense. And it would work well on Monarchy. Here's where it gets into trouble for us in this game -
- Starting a wonder that late would get us 'a' wonder, but not one of the best ones. We would likely end up with Colossus or Great Wall, unless the AI are screwing up.
- There's no extra production for swords anytime in the next few hundred years, and Entremont is out of the picture. A 'rush' would be out the window, and our hope would be to get enough swords made to capture Madrid just before it gets Feudalism. We then need to hope that war doesn't get ugly, and honker down in our bunkers when Chivarly comes, and keep our heads down again at Mil Tradition. Not a glorious day for the 'infantry' :P
- We would get another city or two with this plan, but not as many cities as all-out-expansion. (And no military might to do any other kind of expansion than peaceful)

How might it look instead to going after one of these goals more 'aggressively' ?
A - REX. Entremont switches to settlers after a granary (by building or whipping), Lugdunum whips its granary and also cranks settlers. Richborough does the same. A unit or two from Alesia go exploring
to the east. We post two units next to Lugdunum where the worker is and on the horse, sealing off our backlands (or have two extra units ready to do so on first sight of a settler pair). Camu whips temple then builds worker, Verulamium probably does temple and worker too. Alesia builds spears for all the new settlers. We pay any and all tribute demands that come up, hoping to spend on embassies rather than extortion.
B - Wonder at Entremont. Switches immediately to Pyramids or Colossus, no more settlers or even defenders. We get a few workers made asap to help it out, and if needed join the city. Solid consolidation in other towns - temple, at least one town with barracks, use Lugdunum for a settler or two. Sealing off the badlands is still a good idea. Alesia on spears.
C - Existing temple switch to barracks and cities allowed to grow some to increase production. Connect the iron and Entremont and Alesia crank Gallic swords for the remainder of the ancient era (at their cost it will be a slow crank). We need four or five of the cities producing vet military, with the other one or two high food ones doing workers (not settlers - we badly need mined hills and other mines in our mil towns). Do not seal the backlands, in fact hope someone will found a city for us there - we'll take it before the end of the era. Camu will need to irrigate the plains to be able to grow past size 3.

What I don't know is how fast 'C' will result in enough units to start a conflict. Remember the goal is capture of Madrid (our future FP site) and one other city, then make them beg, demanding tech. That's all we need to do to have very nice gains and to hamstring Spain. If we can hamstring the Arabs too, before Feudalism and Chivalry, we will have had a successful ancient era. I really don't think we'll need many 3.2.2 swords to pull that off, certainly six would be a stack of doom in a relative sense, with a few spears to protect them and to garrison. Even four Gallics, well timed, would likely capture Madrid. With some spears to hold it, theres no way Toledo wouldn't fall like ripe fruit.
In fact, taking Seville as a 'third' city would gain us more iron, deny it to Spain (making it a total cripple, no Pikes in middle age) and definitely make them give us *anything* for peace.

Here's the key point - even if during our build-up Spain fills up the entire area to the east and even our badlands (and they won't, they're not that good) - 20 turns after the Madrid-Seville-Toledo stomp, we easily take ALL those cities, and thank them for all their effort! :hammer:
Isn't that a nice trade-off? Six to eight swords at an aggressive pace, saving any and all cash for upgrades of one or two more, and we own a full dozen cities including Madrid?

Charis

PS To those new members of an RB succession game, I hope this analysis is useful. For me, getting such feedback and insight into planning was extremely useful. The comments also shouldn't be taken as "picking on Carbon" :P He's a strong player who made the choices he saw as best while he played - that's what an SG is all about. There was also nothing I labeled "weed", just a few things where I presented a different view of what might have been done. CC knows they're just opinions and worth all that he paid for them! I also go over these strategies because if my thinking contains weed, I would *love* to be told that (just ask Sirian :cool: )

I also go into this kind of detail because I think the next 10-20 turns will be pivotal, and I wish falsfire and Ozymandous all the best! (Had to edit it to 15000!) Ironically, we might well see 20 turns of military prep time, and the loaded gun placed into Griselda's hands to fire! :love:

Carbon_Copy

Nov 05, 2002, 11:58 AM

Firstly, you're forgetting something, Charis. YOU built the granary at Entremont. After whipping the temple, the city was back to size three three turns later (or however long it was, I noted it in my report), and those three turns probably didn't matter much on the cosmic scale since the city built two settlers immediately afterwards and might have lost those 3 turns in there anyhow. Then my plans for the city was to build it up to be able to put out 50-shield Gallic swords and so I kicked things off by building a rax.

Secondly, I went back and saw if Abu caved, and he didn't, he declared war on us. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem if he was far away but the real problem lies in the fact that I had no idea (and still don't) where the heck he was at, and at the time I didn't know if we had any iron or not.

Thirdly, regarding the ivory by Alesia, it wasn't the fact that you could irrigate it so much as the fact that it was generating 3 commerce in Despotism (meaning that it would generate 4 commerce in a different government) that suggested it was on fresh water, unless Ivory normally generates 3 commerce without a road.

Fourthly, regarding establishing an embassy in Spain, when I said throwing money down a rat hole, that's what happens when you establish an embassy. NOBODY gets that money, it gets tossed down a rat hole never to be seen again. Otherwise I'd be pounding on Hannibal's door demanding my embassy money from him. :hammer:

Fifthly, what we need are workers more than anything else. We can win or lose that cultural battle by Toledo but if Camulodunum, Richborough, and whatever that D city is named are going to be useful to us, they need to be improved. Oscillating between sizes 1 and 2 building workers for a bit until there are bona fide productive tiles in those three cities seems as good a way to spend their immediate futures as any and if the next chief doesn't want to whip, he could always switch them over to worker and let them build out (that's what I would have done with those two cities after whipping the temple, anyhow). And with the current worker layout, I think it will be physically impossible to finish connecting the iron by Alesia by the end of the next player's turn no matter what we decide. One native worker and one slave are just not sufficient to serve 5 cities.

Sixthly, the reason why I was advocating the temple whips was mostly so that they could be over and done with (being 1 shield towns both) so they could start doing something like worker producing 20 or so turns sooner in those cities (building 2 workers apiece will tie them both up at a low-enough pop that the whip memory would fade and luxuries wouldn't have to be raised). Plus I played around with the dots a little and the place where I put Richborough needs expanded borders in at least one of those cities to be contiguous with Camulodunum.

And lastly, the reason why I went for Literature versus any of those other techs is because that's one that the AIs seem to go for last of all the techs available to us at the time (Mathematics is often another good one to beeline towards, then exchange for other tech, but somebody already got it and passed it around, probably from a goody hut since I've never seen AIs run straight for it with their own research). I was figuring that, regardless of what we do with that tech when it arrives, we should be able to exchange it for other peoples' techs unless min science is too slow to prevent it from being discovered independently and sold around.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 05, 2002, 12:03 PM

Whoops, double post. Forums are a bit wacky today.

Charis

Nov 05, 2002, 01:03 PM

Excellent reply, thanks!

1 - I forgot there was a granary in Entremont - that greatly reduces the pain / slowing-of-growth from the whip. I like the rax in the city looking towards Gallics
2 - More good timing on the part of the AI (are they not choosing UNwisely anymore?!) Demanding tribute before we know our iron situation was good on his part
3 - Ah, you're talking about extra commerce not irrigation :rolleyes:
5 - I do agree, we need more workers, and the sooner the better
6 - Good point, if you definitely plan to whip a city, the right time for that is often "now" so that it has 20 turns of working on other things you will NOT whip (like workers) to erase the memory. Plus a temple whip is it's own answer to unhappiness! That's much better than little units first, followed by back to back building whips (meaning unhappiness lvl of 2 for 20 years, and a further 20 years after that with one unhappiness)
- Glad you clarified the reason for literature. I tend to see it and assume people are thinking Great Library, where in this game that's pretty unlikely. I'm not up-to-date anymore with what techs the AI likes to go for in v1.29 or in PtW, so any comments along those lines later will help

The comments were secondary in my post, I really wanted to raise awareness of the need to have a goal in mind over the next 20-30 turns, and to re-make the case for a Gallic push pretty soon. Your play was quite good, as expected (you went early in the rotation for a reason :P )

:D
Charis

falsfire

Nov 05, 2002, 02:27 PM

consider this my "haven't got it yet but will get it when i get home" got it post.

I'll read over everyone's lengthy comments, and see what we can do. I agree that we're not in a place where I think I'll be able to prepare a bunch o' swordsmen in my 10 turns, but will see what I can do with only 1.5 workers to work with.

I will focus on getting us some more workers, and getting some tile development done...

falsfire

Nov 05, 2002, 10:25 PM

1500 BC (0) - First order of business, why is science set at 20%? I drop it to 10%, we'll still get Lit in the same amount of time but this way we'll earn 2 extra gpt. Then I move the warrior out of Lugdunum to block the barb horseman from mutilating 50% of our total workers. He can't get into Lug this turn newayz, and if I moved him onto the worker to guard, he could attack, killing our warrior AND worker, or walk into Lug this turn. I'm pessimistic and thinking our regular warrior will be brutalized, so I prepare a new defense by moving the elite spear out of Entremont towards Lugdunum to reinforce. I also move the vet spear out of Alesia towards Entremont to re-garrison it.

Shoot me for this later guys if you will, but I also change Alesia from spearman to worker. We need more of a workforce NOW to get the Iron connected, as we have no guarantee we'll still have the gold to upgrade warriors if we build too many of them. 'sides, it'll be back up to size 3 right soon after anyways, and only 2 shields are lost in the switch.

I leave Cam & Rich on temples, they'll whip as soon as they can then build rax for swordsmen. Knowing that two of our valiant warriors will come under attack by the barbs when I hit end turn, I cross my fingers and hit the magic button.

IT: the barb horsie near Lug turns toward the vacant capitol (which will be manned by a vet spear b4 he can get there), and the horsie near Richborough turns around and heads toward Cam? barb AI is strange in this PtW...

1475 BC (1) - Alesia builds it's worker and starts on another spear. I move the vet spear into Entremont and the elite spear into Lugdunum. Not much else happens this turn, 'cept Arabia has a worker available for sale but it'd cost us too much (5gpt and 26g), so I don't bother.

IT: the barbs break our nice road by Entremont, and the resulting loss of luxuries at Lugdunum causes it to go into disorder.

1450 BC (2) - I don't do much this turn 'cept send the newly built spearman from Entremont up to Camu to reinforce the garrison there. I set Entremont to build a worker to help with the much needed work effort. Iron will be online in 6 turns. I ponder whipping the temple at Camu, but if the barb horsie kills our regular warrior and sacks it, we could lose all those shields and have to start over from scratch, at a smaller pop-size also...

IT: barbs are weird now. the horsie near Entremont moves SE into forest, towards our irrigated, roaded cattle-tile! We can't let them pillage that... and the horsie near Lug move N towards a Spanish warrior, also adjacent to our worker, who has conveniently JUST finished irrigating.

1425 BC (3) - I recall the spear that was heading to Camu, he returns and garrisons Entremont, then the spear from Entremont moves onto our irrigated cattle tile and fortifies. The worker near Camu, instead of roading the tile he just irrigated (and possible dying to the barb if he attacks us instead of Spain, or if spain attacks him on the hill and loses), moves into town, he's going to move to either irrigate a plains or mine the hills near Camu. NOW I whip the temple in Camu, instead of wasting more turns of indecision to the barbs romping around. Another barb horse approaches Richborough. Abu must be under siege as he still has that worker in his capitol.

IT: Osman comes demanding 21g. We really are the poor kid getting beat up for his lunch money here. We're not ready for war yet, so I cave (we still have 25g left afterwards). The spaniards kill the barb horse on the hill near Camu, and the barb horse near Entremont impales himself against our spear guarding the irrigated cattle tile. The barb horse near Richborough moves towards the spanish warrior.

1400 BC (4) - Camu Temple-->Rax. Entremont Worker-->Colossus (prebuilding for a gallic sword, only wonders will take 4+ turns), Lugdunum hires a tax collector to ward off civil revolt until the road near Entremont is rebuilt, and our valiant regular warrior dispatches a barb camp in the south, losing one hp, not promoting, and he's now standing next to another barb horse :( But we have silks down there, which we can probably assuredly own (that'll be three local luxes for us with the gems near Camu) Arabia's besieged worker is still hiding in their capitol.

IT: The spanish warrior dispatches the OTHER barb horse on a hill, w/o taking a scratch, and as expected our 2hp warrior in the south dies to the barb horse's attack. Great. Now HE'll be threatining Entremont's worker in three turns, or Entremont itself in 4.

1375 BC (5) - Nuttin. Arabia has 333g!! And his worker is still hiding in his cap. Our northern elite exploring warrior spots a pink border (Arabia...I've played another PtW game so know Arabia shares French pink)

IT: The little prick Osman demands another 22g from us! I'm so tempted to tell him to pike off...but he might be close to the SE, so I give in, again. Guys, we HAVE to teach this dude a lesson.

1350 BC (6) - A little strategic analysis here on my part: (I hope the pic uploads so you guys can see what I mean)
The barb horse near Entremont could make one of three moves as I see it. He could beeline straight N to threaten our worker, or N then NE to threaten both the worker and our plains tile and Entremont itself, or onto the hill and threaten the worker, Entremont, and our irrigation. If he chooses one of the latter two, I have to protect both the worker and the irrigation (from which he could threaten Entremont), so I pull our warrior out of Alesia so we'll have two military units down here to work with. Next turn, regardless of what he does, I can guard all three tiles as switching Entremont to another spear will have it online next turn.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1-001.jpg

IT: he moves onto neither three, he moves NW into another forest tile. Silly barbs. Now we've got a mini-army in place down in Entremont (2 spear plus one warrior)

1325 BC (7) - Our warrior roams into Arabia, and spots the blue Korean border at the same time. I move one spear from Entremont onto the hill to stand as a lookout over the barb's activities, and the warrior fortifies in Entremont (he can maybe be upgraded to a sword if we can only get some damn gold coming in again).
Ottomans have MM. I dunno if you others will like this choice but I trade him our WM for his TM plus all his 34 gold. Let's hope he doesn't just demand it back. We now know he's even further NW of Arabia/Carthage/Korea, so his threats were probably pretty empty. It'd take him a long, LONG time to get any respectable number of units near us.
Arabia also has MM, I get his TM and 28g for our WM.
Ditto with Korea, we get his TM and 38g for our WM.
Then I get Carthage's TM and 32g, followed by...Spain doesn't have MM yet.
We now have a good knowledge of where our rivals are, and 181g.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1-002.jpg

IT: Barb moves to threaten our vet spear on the hill.

1300 BC (8) - I upgrade our first vet warrior to a Gallic sword, and switch Alesia and Entremont's production to Gallic swords. I fortify the vet spear on the hill. I hurry the granary in Lugdunum. I also establish an embassy in Arabia at a cost of 79g, partially to improve relations, partially in case somebody just demands it, and partially b/c we don't really want to upgrade regular warriors, do we?

IT: Barb horse runs in circles.

1275 BC (9) - Our first Gallic Sword moves south from Entremont to try and once and for all eliminate that damn barb horse. Lugdunum Granary-->Worker. I hurry the temple in Richborough.

1250 BC (10) - Richborough Temple-->Worker. Verulamium worker-->Rax.

And that's my turn! We have two towns with Rax producing Gallic swords and two more Rax under construction. One could be rushed in Camu, but that'd cause happiness problems so I'll leave that decision up to the next player. I hope the vets here don't find my moves too weedy...this is my first Emperor epic, but not my first Emperor game (played one to a winnable stalemate 1-on-1 industrial era situation and lost interest) My only other Emperor experience is playing Epic 18 so-far, and am also playing my first serious not-hamstrung Deity game with epic 17.

rbp1-1250BC.zip (http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1-1500_BC.zip)

Carbon_Copy

Nov 06, 2002, 01:52 AM

Overall, a pretty solid turn. Especially good to get all those workers turned out, we were really hurting for them by the time my turn was done.

I think Camulodunum should NOT whip the rax, but should instead build another worker or let the rax build out naturally, especially since barracks are so cheap for militaristic civs to build, and that one in Camulodunum is five or six turns into it already. If I had my 'druthers, I 'druther get another worker out of that town before building something else, though there is something to be said for having a barracks there since war with Spain is so imminent.

It looks like you got faked out by the new Barbarian AI. They no longer are hunter-seeker suicide troops, now they're more of a vague roaming menace, and Charis must have put them on raging, since they're EVERYWHERE in this game. One thing about barbs, though, is that even on Emperor you get a large bonus in combat vs. barbs. A warrior, even a regular warrior, is likely to pull out a victory against 1-defense conscript horsemen with that bonus on the attack. That's also the safest way to turn them into veteran warriors that are worth spending 80 gold on upgrading to Gallic swords. The best way to get rid of those menacing horses is to go on the offensive and attack rather than waiting for them to attack you, I'm pretty sure that if you had used the elite spear out of Entremont to attack the horse in 1500, you'd have won.

I, for one, approve of your move to sell our WM for the other TMs. Now that we know where they are and their relative sizes, we can now justifiably tell them to pike off if they demand more of our gold. We also don't have to worry so much about the safety of that northern scout, I was avoiding barb camps during my turn with that one because we couldn't afford to get a bad set of rolls and lose our only scout.

Looking at the map, it doesn't look to me like we can do Charis's oscillating war strategy, at least not to its full effect. In order to get to our second-nearest opponent (those dreaded Carthaginians), we might as well take out the rest of Spain on our way there. We've put the pressure on Spain, Isabella has nowhere to expand except for a spot or two on the western coast or into the jungles which she's competing for with Hannibal. And then once we get to the Carthaginians, there's nobody else next to them that we could oscillate to unless we capture a corridor through their territory. Once we're finally up there, though, we could probably pull off an oscillation or two between Korea, the Ottomans, and Arabia, though by then we should be so much larger than the other civs that we could probably stomp them out as easily as beat them up for their tech (especially Korea, Korea got the squeeze put on them from the looks of it). And with 6 of the 8 civs on this one continent, by the time we hunt down the Mongols and the Vikings (how fitting that the two Zulu clones got stuck alone with each other) they likely won't have anything in the tech department that we don't have already. It's too bad that the map had to line up all the civs on this continent in a row and put us on the far end of that line, since I was itching to try it out, too.

Oh, and that 20% science was either :smoke: on my part or I was playing around with the sliders before I saved and didn't set it back in the right place. I'm really not sure since I noted putting the science slider to minimum when we started Lit. Good catch, though.

Charis

Nov 06, 2002, 10:00 AM

Way to go falsfire! I hadn't seen your play and was wondering how you would do - quite well!

Nice catch on the sci slider - that kind of attention to details goes over very well in the RB games :P

The swap to workers was a good one, well justified and needed. I think we all agreed we needed more workers, and your decision was "now then, not later".

On the barbs - they're VERY different now aren't they?!
My only puzzlement, maybe only due to mis-seeing the map, was why didn't you on the first turn just attack the horse via the road? I warrior vs a conscript horse has about a 70% chance of winning, while if you let the horsie choose to attack he has over a 50-50 chance to win. With 2.1.2 barbs, take it to THEM!
(Or could we not reach them via road immediately? In any case, letting a conscript defense 1 unit sit unmolested on the road was dubious, and duly punished by it destroying the road)
Oh yes, as CC points out, there's the bonus too - 25% vs barbarians on attack and defense. That's vs 0% on deity, 50% on Monarch, etc.

BTW, the barbs are definitely only "Restless", not Raging.

1425 Osman demands tribute??! :mad:
On Deity I auto-cave, on Emperor I think twice, and with the UU advantage in our favor, I strongly consider telling him to kiss off.

1375 - HE COMES AGAIN?!! Definitely bug off time!! We can't take this kind of bleeding every TWO turns, ow ow ow!
For all the extortion we've paid this game, we could have gotten a Gallic upgrade. We don't fear war!

These tribute comments are obviously biases by hindsight - at each time the thought of a single payment buying 20 years was a reasonable move, but I do want to point out that we have nothing to fear from these guys, and we're not on Deity.

In any case, come what may, Osman is toast. If it comes down to it, even if risky (not suicidal), I say we hamstring Osman after Isabella before his UU arrives.

But you know what guys, I have a good idea why we're getting bullied so bad. You're leaving cities undefended to meet the barb threat, eh? On higher diff setting, this basically waves a flag in front of the AI that says "Extort me please!!" It is *NOT* a sign that they are about to plan war on us. Unfortunately, it also means that they have a very genuine target "empty city" and are likely NOT bluffing.

There's really one more thing that one needs to understand about Emperor diff - there's little more harmful to an AI's growth curve than getting into a "nonproductive war". Any rax they build is a granary or temple or settler they don't. Every pair of spears they build is a settler and warrior they don't, and a city they don't found. The AI's strength in the beginning is expansion, not fighting ancient wars on your turf when they have no special unit to do it. A non-neighbor fighting us, with no UU of their own, is almost guaranteed to be unproductive for them and will benefit us by seeing their growth slow. Even better, another AI might take the opportunity to hit on them - witness RBE2 where their tangling with the Zulus gave Cleo the idea to go for a piece of Shaka too, even without a treaty.

"A little strategic analysis here on my part" (- Hey, I like this falsfire guy!)

On the map trading. Normally, with land left ungrabbed I would cringe in a major way at this. But in this game... great move!!
i) we seem to be caving in due to ignorance of the threat, and this will help
ii) LET THEM come settle a city over here, it will make for easy Gallic pickin's and one less city of theirs in their core we have to take to extort peace from them!
iii) it helped our treasury alot (*do NOT* cave in to any more demands and squander this, guys!)

1300 "We don't want to upgrade regular warriors do we?" Normally I would say no, BUT with the barb activity in that area, I would do it - and have a very reasonable hope of having him promote in the field. Besides, if he's teamed up with another Gallic later, it's very likely he can do the "mop up" shots at hurt foes and get a promotion there. We ARE militaristic, after all.

End of turn - I agree with Carbon, don't whip the rax. Another worker there is a good idea too.

The map of civs kinda... stinks!!! The very LAST civ on earth we want for a "second foe" is the Carthaginians with thier Numidean Mercenaries. Conversely the ones we definitely would LOVE to strike at in the ancient era (before Feud+Chivlary) are the ones with Knight-based UU's - Arab Ansar Warriors (speed 3! definitely our preferred second foe!), Mongol Keshiks. Just slightly after that would be Viking Zerkers and Ottoman Siphali, but if you don't hit them in ancient era you have no "differential advantage".

CC is right in that the desireability of oscillating went down significanly given the civ locations, but I wouldn't discount short tactical wars along the following lines
- Get an RoP and/or alliance with Carthage - we need them as friends to pull off any northern agression or we get flanked and slaughtered
- Send up a dozen Gallic swords along the west coast
- Deny Arabs horses (might be tough, but if we can, we totally shut them down in the middle ages!)
- Raze two cities each of the arabs and Ottomans. They're too far from home to keep, as our spears can't keep up with the swords. The goal is to set back the AI's with upcoming early Middle Age golden ages as well as to extort tech for giving them peace.
- If by some chance their capitals are not deep but near the
front close to us, we'll teach them a lesson they'll NEVER EVER forget (or recover from) by razing their capitals.
- Think about it, it's like we have Knights with one less attack point, NOW, vs their spears. They are as raw meat to be fed through the Gallic grinder!! :hammer:

What's the alternative to sending the swords up the coast after orange and pink?
- Peaceful consolidation. That's fine. We can have the worlds best UU's of their era sit home playing tiddlywinks, and prepare to be run over by an unchecked Siphali horde :P
- Wipe out Spain completely. Well, we could, but to what gain?
Capture Madrid and two other cities, extort techs for peace,
and in the next twenty years of peace do the west coast rumble
as described. Just before Feudalism, with the treaty over, we
finish wail on them again, three more cities, and more tribute.
- What's the downside to this? That someone will settle in our area? See above under category "Ha! Let them try" Again, I literally hope pink or orange sends down a settler.

Mind you, I'm NOT a rabid warmonger, as you know if you've followed my other SG's. It just that I can't imagine a better civ to try this strategy with, especially given a weak first opponent to dissect or swallow whole, as we choose.

Ozymandous is up, should be a fun turn pal :)
Griselda is on deck, with no doubt lots of ideas from
whatever Ozy comes up with as well as insight from the
several good analysts on our team here

:king:
Charis

PS Thank goodness I "copied" this whole reply as a precaution before
hitting 'Reply' - I got the dreaded "Server too busy" message!

Ozymandous

Nov 06, 2002, 03:48 PM

Well I was going to play this one tonight, but the link is bad to the saved game so I guess it will have to wait till tomorrow. :(

falsfire

Nov 06, 2002, 09:32 PM

the link is now fixed. sorry bout that, guyz.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1-1500_BC.zip

Griselda

Nov 06, 2002, 11:17 PM

I realize that I haven't posted here, but that's just because I've been in lurk mode :scan: Also, I've been involved in some, er, "strategic research" (also known as Epic 18, so I can say no more).

Anyway, it's been a heck of a work week, but it looks like I should be up just about in time for the weekend. [party]

-Griselda

Charis

Nov 07, 2002, 01:24 AM

ALERT :smoke:

The 'new' save file is the wrong one - it's CC's 1500 zip file, despite the 1250BC in the link/name.

Falsfire, can you zip up YOUR 1250.save and upload again, then give the link.

(Hopefully Ozy will catch this and not just play what was posted :P)

Charis

PS @ Gris - tnx for checking in

Carbon_Copy

Nov 07, 2002, 04:10 AM

I think it's going to be a very long time before we see any pink or orange settlers in our backyard. If anybody is going to settle our backdoor, it will be Carthage. IMO, Lugdunum should do nothing but build workers or settlers for the forseeable future and we can gradually expand east and south as a secondary effort.

The way I see a "successful" war vs. Spain is this:

-We capture Madrid, Toledo, Seville in the initial hostilites.

-We make peace with Isabella and get at least Horseback Riding and Mathematics (hopefully Isabella will be able to buy into Mapmaking before we lay the beatdown, it looks like she is already lagging behind). If we really hurt her badly enough, we might be able to take her second-to-last city in the negotiations. 20 turns later, we do not renew peace and wipe her out. I highly doubt that she'd be able to buy into anything worth extorting in the late ancient era with just a city or two, and keeping her around longer than necessary would just inflate the the tech prices for us if we bought peacefully (@second-to-last instead of @last).

As for who to take after Spain, I think it's a tossup. Quite frankly (and no offense intended), I think Charis is a bit too focused on the various UUs. The Arabian knights will wilt defensively if they end their turns exposted, the Koreans and their fireworks cart UU shouldn't be cause for worry at any point (can they even trigger a Golden Age with it?), and once we reach Feudalism the Carthaginians' Numidian Mercenary is just a full-cost pikeman that doesn't require resources and has a rather useless extra +1 to attack. The only ones that should give us pause in this game is the Viking one since it can attack from the sea (though it's possible that they won't be able to reach us until Astronomy or Navigation) and the Ottomans' monster cavalry. As long as we're the ones on the offensive it should always swing our way in the long term, and once we're twice as large as any of the other civs we'll have an edge on them in production throughput. Carthage IMO should come under the gun sooner than later, I'd almost rather go after them right away so that their Golden Age is squandered early than to wait until the late middle ages and give them one on a lucky roll.

falsfire

Nov 07, 2002, 10:37 AM

sorry guyz...i will post the correct file when i get home tonight, really sorry bout that.

I unfortunately won't *be* home til about 10:30PM CST though as i have night-school tonight...

Charis

Nov 07, 2002, 12:02 PM

CC - a solid plan against Spain, and one that would work out fine if we choose that route. You also correctly note a "biased consideration of UU" in my comments thus far :P

> If anybody is going to settle our backdoor, it will be Carthage
> IMO, Lugdunum should do nothing but build workers or settlers
> for the forseeable future and we can gradually expand east
> and south as a secondary effort.
That's consistent, and a good idea for Luggy.

> Carthage IMO should come under the gun sooner than later, I'd
> almost rather go after them right away so that their Golden
> Age is squandered early than to wait until the late middle ages
> and give them one on a lucky roll.

That would mean fighting the best defenders on the planet (ancient era) during their Golden Age! :eek:
And with 3 attack vs 3 defense, we lose the 'shield' battle with our expensive Gallics.

Consolidating with a settler rush to avoid them coming in and taking our/Spain land is viable, going after them as second foe in an ancient war would be far from my top choice! :P

Anyway, I was almost ready to concede that Spain wipe out plus aggressive settling was the best choice, but then remembered our critical variant rule for this game...

NO horse-based units/tanks of any kind!

Remember, the big reason for this ancient push to either hamstring or take-out another civ is because this will be the Last and Only time in the game we have a differential advantage in firepower! We go from 3.3.2 vs 1.2.1 in the Ancient era, for an offensive to 4.2.1 vs 2.4.1 in the Middle Ages. And on defense, we go from our 1.2.1 defending against 3.2.1 at best, to having 1.3.1 defending 4.3.2 and 2.4.1 defending vs 6.3.3. Far FAR uglier is 8.3.3 coming against our 2.4.1 muskets in late Middle Ages. And industrial is no better, seeing 4.6.1 vs 4.6.1 then 6.6.1 vs 6.10.1 and against 16.8.2.

So while production is for us as time goes on, "Light Infantry" rule works rather strongly against us with time (until/unless we have to 'wimp out' and hold on for dear life until Mech Inf).

The thing about a quicker shift in focus to a second civ rather than re-hit and wipe out Spain in Ancient times is that if we simply deny them iron, we have our leisure throughout the middle ages to slaughter them. That is - we cripple Spain badly now, hamstring Arabs and Ottomans by razing three cities each, and then play a build up game and finish off Spain in Middle Ages.

I do think both plans are viable, they just have different levels (and types) of risk, and we'll do fine with either approach.
Just More food for thought :P
Charis

PS Hmmmm... I take a time out for a minute to see WHEN the wars occurred in the Sirian Infantry game... Nod, we were stuck on the island and had no ancient wars whatsoever. We did the "Sleepy Gambit (TM)" First war was 550 AD vs Babylon. Longbow and Catapults vs Pikes. We did ok via high "numbers" of attackers. It can be considered the "early hamstring". But... no further action until 1605 AD (!!) basically due to: i) building up infrastructure, and ii) lack of differential advantage. We've gotten past the reign of cavalry and with infantry and artillery in hand, it doesn't get any better (ie don't wait for tanks!)

Arathorn

Nov 07, 2002, 12:24 PM

Don't neglect the value of pillaging. A 3/2/2 should make an awesome eco-terrorist in the ancient age. If you can eliminate their roads and their improvements, they'll never (or close to never) catch up.

In fact, Sirian's strat during Epic ?? of using infantry to cover explorer pillagers and then propoganda might well be the easiest/best way to go.

Of course, until you see how the war against Spain goes, it's all rather idle speculation, don't you think? See how many techs you get, where your forces are at, if the rumored PTW AI propensity for massive defensive troops plays a roll, etc. Heck, the AI might decide the issue for you and somebody else might come roaring in at you.

Arathorn

Zed-F

Nov 07, 2002, 12:33 PM

I would go for whichever plan gives you the most production and research advantage over the AIs. To me that sounds like swallowing Spain and building that FP asap. If you can put a hit on a nearby neighbor and grab some ground there too, fine, but don't worry too much about your neighbors to the north until you have the ability to reach them with decisive amounts of force. Take bite-sized chunks at a time! You don't want too many of your neighbors angry with you at once, and consolidating your gains should be a significant priority, if not the only one.

Why? You have pointed out concerns with the enemy UUs and the infantry variant unit restrictions. I say they are not nearly as much of an issue as you make them out to be, IF you have a production and research advantage. In that case, attrition works in your favour; you may not have access to mobile units, but you will be able to crank out defenders like no tomorrow relative to their ability to produce mobile attackers, both due to a larger empire size and due to cheaper unit costs. You ought not to have a problem producing enough defenders, and this could even be parlayed into a mass assault relying on troop numbers rather than quality. Also, more well-developed territory means faster research. That can suddenly change the game from your MedInfanty/Muskets against their Knights/Muskets, to your Rifles against their Knights/Muskets, at least temporarily, if you can capture and consolidate enough territory to be able to get a tech advantage by the late middle ages. Infantry+Artillery is of course where you will really start to shine and it should be no problem at all to get that into play while the other civs still only have Rifles/Cannon, if you can capture and consolidate a significant amount of land now.

EDIT: I'll second Arathorn's motion of the utility of pillaging. If you are going to go to war against more than just Spain/Arabia, this is the way to do it. I'll point out, however, that if you are going to pillage you need to be careful that you don't allow anyone whose land you pillage to get swallowed up by another AI. This was not a problem in Sirian's game as he only had 2 relatively weak AI civs to worry about. Pillaging in Always War is an uber-strategy since all the AIs will be sending many of their offensive troops your way and not worried about gobbling up their neighbors that you have crippled (and moreover your goal will be to cripple all the AIs anyway.) In a more conventional war where you only have one or two opponents, care is required not to allow the neutral AIs to steal too much land as a result of your pillaging efforts.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 07, 2002, 09:39 PM

-I agree, I think the time to go against Carthage is NOT during the Ancient era when they have the best defensive unit in this game (I'd dispute that the Greeks' 20-shield Hoplite is a lot more useful than their 30-shield Numidian but that's a debate for another day). The best time to go against Carthage is at Feudalism during the start of the Middle Ages when we have 4-2-1 Medieval infantry and those Numidians are just fancy pikes. And I've heard that Gallics are a free upgrade to Medieval Infantry since they have the same shield cost, but I've never tried it before so I wouldn't know for certain, and it may not be to our best advantage to "upgrade" Gallic swords to Med. Infantry.

-The answer to the $10,000 question: when the start of the Middle Ages is going to be, will decide a lot of things after we've had our way with Spain. We're already halfway through the Ancient Era (I figure that the AIs discovering Mapmaking is the division between "Early Ancient Era" and "Late Ancient Era"). We'll be spending some time battling Spain, and then exactly how long is it going to take us to move offensive units to Arabia or the Ottomans? Are we going to trust that Carthage will use their Industriousness to clear out and road all those jungles, hills, and mountains between us and our northern neighbors so that our Gallic swords are moving faster than 1 square per turn all the way up even with a ROP? We'll probably have to attack by sea if we want to get there anytime this age, which means that it's critical that Spain have Mapmaking when we make peace or that we trade for it if they don't.

-I'm not talking about "settler rush" with Lugdunum, I think it should be more along the lines of just building spear -> worker -> settler or whatever we can sustain until we either don't need more workers (unlikely to be anytime soon with that jungle to our north) or we've slowly grown into the land around us. I suggest Lugdunum just because that's our most developed "food" city: it's got an irrigated grassland wheat, it's connected to the roads (at least it was), it has a granary. Richborough would be an even better candidate for the same treatment once it gets some improved tiles and a granary.

We've also left one integral part of our first Infantry win completely untouched in these discussions so far: diplomacy. We might not enjoy an advantage on the unit stats in the early Industrial Age, but we can play the AIs off against each other to do our dirty work (where would Infantry #1 have been without Rome and China to join us in our mad schemes against India and France?) and we can reap the subsequent rewards if we do it smartly.

falsfire

Nov 07, 2002, 09:58 PM

In other words, here's the real link to the real file.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1-1250_BC.zip

ManiacMarshall

Nov 07, 2002, 10:48 PM

Hey. The forums FINALLY decided to let me activate my account. Don't have any idea why it wouldn't before. I agree with not messing with Carthage at this point given the choice. I should be ready to go by Sunday. I'll have more to say then :)

Ozymandous

Nov 08, 2002, 03:05 PM

I should be able to get to this sometime during the weekend.

Ozymandous

Nov 09, 2002, 09:13 AM

A few issues... 1) I can't seem to get the "easy upload file system" to work with the save so I guess I'll have to email it to Griselda. 2) The forums here are incredibly SLOW, I think we need an alternate area, 3) Carthage thought he would be a bully and I told him where to stick it.

This will be breif because after writing my report earlier and trying to upload the file twice and attach it once, I get a message saying the file size is too big (at 104k? Huh?).

Built workers and swordsmen. We might want to build a setler to hit the luw (silk or dyes I forget which) south of our capital in the tundra. Spain has almost all of the discoveries as everyone else. We have 5 or so Swordsmen, most of which were out to our East exploring when Carthage demanded and I refused, so all but the regular ones I had on orders to move to a central gathering point. The regular swordsman might want to explore until he's promoted vs. Barbs.

Will email the save to Griselda.

Griselda

Nov 09, 2002, 03:19 PM

Should be able to play by today, if the forums stay up long enough for me to review.

-Griselda

Griselda

Nov 09, 2002, 09:49 PM

Not exactly the war we'd envisioned, but I suppose it will have to do. For now, let's just say it was an exciting turn, and the AI's appear to handle alliances differently.

(0) 1000 BC- I take a look around. First thing to note, we're at war with Carthage! From Ozy's report, I'd thought they'd ignored our refusal (though I'm guessing more details were in his first attempts to post). I note that Carthage does have ROP with Spain, so I'm assuming units will arrive sooner or later (not sure how many turns in we are).

I see that our two border towns are our only two towns without spear guards, but we do have 1 spear by Entremont and one being built that we can send up. I'm not sure what the bar situation near Entremont is, but we need to protect our borders first. I'm not sure where the swords' meeting point is, but a lot of them seem to be heading south. I try to click on them all so they'll wake next turn and I can move them around. We need them up north! (Later I saw from the one I didn't click on that they were headed up north, but I wanted to be sure). I'm also thinking that Richborough is probably going to be Carthage's target, so I move the meeting point a bit west to the hills north of Richborough. I think we'll have a second meeting point up N there on the mountain, for flexibility if units approach Verulamium instead. We can consolidate more when we're ready to march on Spain. There is a bar camp right by our only regular sword, so I will be able to promote that guy soon, I hope.

I notice that Entremont's not growing? Ack, it has an entertainer? I put all laborers to work, and MM. We need to move lux to 30% to afford it, but that onl costs an additional 5gpt, and that means the different between a growing and not growing capitol. A Lugdunum laborer can also go to work, and earn an additional 2gpt. So, we're only paying 3gpt more for the lux.

I deicde that a settler for the silks can wait. Let someone else come settle it first! :hammer:

Spain has settler/spear pair by Richborough. We can take that one from them with minimal resistance, I bet. ;)

Richborough has no barracks, but is building spear. I swap to worker, because Camulod will need a worker. I chose worker before granary because it might not be safe to have workers out in a bit, depending upon a war with Spain. So, I'll get a worker now, and build a nice safe granary then. Richborough isn't going to produce much besides food for a while I think. Someone with a rax can send Richborough a spear.

MM Camulod to grow in 6, sword in 3.

All AI's have literature, so we really aren't going to be able to broker it. We are way behind on tech, but I'm not sure it's worth our while to trade at the moment. We just better get a lot of tech from Spain :lol:

Between turns- Barbarian warrior near Alesia sword leaves camp, heads N to hill.

(1) 975 BC- Regular sword heads to hill and kills the bar, promoting and losing no hp. I start a road on the flood plains in Richborough. This is pure :smoke: , but there was a method to my madness. First of all, the worker was already on the flood plain, not on the wheat (did this worker come from somewhere else?). I'd been thinking that I should just road the fp, then move to the wheat and irrigate, THEN move back to irrigate the fp. I'd lose an extra turn in movement, but would be better in the long run. Then I got to thinking that I should connect Richboroguh to my core for faster unit movement. I wouldn't want to send the worker on road duty with unimproved wheat, thought, would I? Lots of indecision...

(2) 950 BC- Now-veteran sword takes bar camp, losing 1 hp. Lugdunum hires taxman for 1 turn until worker completes.

BT- Arabia demands 24 gold + TM. I don't want 2 wars, but Arabia is even farther away than Carthage! I don't cave, and Arabs declare war. Hopefully I'll never see a unit from them.
Entremont completes swordsman and starts another. Alesia completes spear and starts sword. Lugdunum completes worker, starts rax. There's a mined grass shared by Entremont and Lugdunum, but so far neither city would gain anything using it versus other tiles in their radius. I'll try to keep an eye on it.

(3) 925 BC- Swords are beginning to collect in 2 northern groups. Spears are heading north to the border towns.

BT- Bar comes north towards Entremont worker. Shoot! I wasn't sure if there was a camp down there anymore. Send Entremont spear, who kills bar war. Entermont spear will head back, but its next sword will have to go clean up down there. Spanish found Salmanca. I can't wait until it's ours! :hammer:

(4) 900 BC- ...
BT- Verulamium completes temple, and starts barracks. Corruption is rampant. Koreans complete Oracle, and the others cascade towards Great Library.

(5) 875 BC- Entremont can now benefit from shared mined grass tile. With it it will grow in 4. Even with only a few cities, the far ones are terribly corrupt. I could buy code of laws@5th, so I do. I buy from Korea @ miser - 133 + 1gpt + WM. The Ottomans don't have code of laws, and they offer mathematics for it. I hope to improve relations with them by not also extorting gold from them (they'd be willing to pay). But, they're still cautious. I swap Verulamium to courthouse.

BT- We hear report of a massive barbarian uprising near Alesia! This is odd because I haven't seen a single bar since I dispatched that camp.

(6) 850 BC- Entremont's spear is safely home.

BT- Spain requests TM for our TM + 3. I say no (I think politely). Carthage and the Ottomans have signed an alliance against us!

Hopefully that means that Carthage will have to have a rep loss when we make peace. So much for trading to the Ottomans @ diplo.

(7) 825 BC- Hannibal will talk, but wants a city for peace.

BT- Spain signs an alliance with the Carthaginians! This seems like a huge change from the way the AI's handle war and alliances in vanilla. Well, we're now at war with just about everyone. Charis, you say we don't fear war, so you're going to get plenty on your turn!

I still haven't seen any non-bar units. Bars show up near Alesia, and two horses also appear SW of Entremont. Entremont completes sword, and starts another.

(8) 800 BC- Entremont sword goes SW to bars and sees six when he was only expecting 2. Was there also an uprising near Entremont (that wasn't reported?). The sword near Alesia (he was diverted from going N because of the uprising) heads south to a hill.
Maybe the eastern bars will head for Salmanca? Loot 'em good, boys! Since Spain is now at war with me, Isabella must learn that she has chosen unwisely. I send my 5 northern swords towards Toledo.

BT- 3 horses attack Alesia sword, who promotes, losing no hp. 2 horses attack Entremont sword, who promotes and loses no hp.

(9) 775 BC- Toledo swords are in position. One sword attacks Toledo, and beats a spear, losing 2 hp. That triggers our golden age.

A second sword attacks, and beats a spear, losing 1 hp. Toldeo is ours. :cool: It is now a size one city, with one resistor. I move the other swords in, and see a Carthage warrior fortified outside. I also see an Arabian scout by Verulamium. Maybe we should send Ver's warrior over to kill it? (I didn't do it, but still an option for Charis I think). The war allows us to lower lux ( :smoke: for not realizing this sooner). Lux to 0% for now. Lugdunum needs an ent.

What to do with the sword by Alesia? To the north- 4 bar horses on a mountain. To the east- 2 bar horses on a hill. If I go East, that leaves Alesia open. I move NW to a hill. My northern warrior who was contemplating dipping into Carthage for a quick pillage beats a bar horse who (I think) was coming for him. Sword by ent is hurt, with 7 bar horses in the area. I fortify him to see if he can heal.

BT- Alesia worker taken by bar horse. [pimp] I hadn't noticed it was in range. Sorry! Entremont sword is attacked once, and wins, losing 0 hp. Toledo resistance ends. Richborough completes worker, and starts courthouse. Both Richborough workers need to hide.

Bars now threaten Camulod, Richborough, Alesia, and hopefully Salmanca.

(10) 750 BC- Sword from Toledo kills Carthage war, losing 2 hp, and moves back to Toledo. The two good swords move out. They can pillage Madrid until I have an full offensive force (unless Charis decides otherwise, of course). Alesia sword loses 2 hp to 1 bar horse.

Diplo- Of the warring nations, only Carthage will talk. He wants 82 + 6 gpt for peace.

And that's the state of the nation at 750 BC. Have fun!

-Griselda

rbp1-griselda-750bc (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbp1-griselda-750bc.zip)

Charis

Nov 10, 2002, 02:15 AM

Oh my! Well we sure did get war! :P

"Got it", I'm too tired to look at it right now, but wanted
to see if anyone got around to playing it yet. I'm looking forward
to Ozy's report - maybe you could fwd that to me gris?

Good job guys, we're doin' fine, and I love your Salmanca comment Griselda! :hammer:
Charis

Ozymandous

Nov 10, 2002, 11:49 AM

Sorry I didn't do a turn by turn report since all I did was build workers and swords during my turn.

I did note two things however:

1200 BC - Regular warrior from Cam lost to a barb horse. The barb horse was killed a turn or two later when he tried to attack a spear guarding our worker.

1050 BC - Carthage demanded Territory map + 21 gold. I refused and he declared war.

I did have the war declaration in my first post, but thought I included it in the second one as well, sorry.

Some of those worker moves may have seemed weird Griselda, but mainly what I tried to do was either 1) mine/irrigate where I could to give us a boost in Despotism (mine bonus grassland, etc) or 2) connect our cities. IMHO, connecting cities is more important than reason 1 because when the cities are connected you can get troops there faster, which may keep the city from falling. Not to mention the resources/lux's being connected as well. Not sure if the worker was roading without improving as he went, but it is a possibility if the terrain was regular grassland or plains.

On war's in PTW... The PTW games I have played haven't differed much from CC3 (classic Civ3) in that if the AI's declare on you they more than likely will drag other civ's in, so you're still better off dragging the other in on your side anyway. The only noticable difference I have seen is that the AI (in barb's and civ's) seems to attack and/or pillage better. No more belining to the cities, but if they know they can't win they will pillage all your stuff. They also build a LOT of radar towers, which could be trouble for us assuming we last that long. :)

The biggest issue I think we'll face is being so far behind the curve technologically. I'd bet that we'll start seeing Pikes and Medieval Infantry in the next 20 turns.

This game may be a little different than we planned, but since it was a "shot in the dark" so to speak, hopefully we'll treat it as a learning experience should things so south to fast for us to recover, which I don't think will happen, but if we plan to pull this one off we need MORE cities pronto, or else we won't have a strong enough base to do much of anything.

BTW, in the last full PTW game I played SP, I was the Carthaganians (sp?) with the Celt's next door. They attacked me about 5 turns before I declared on them and I ended up taking about 4 of their cities, including their capital. I ended up beating both the Carth's and the Arab's so let's hope our Carth's don't suffer the same fate... :)

Carbon_Copy

Nov 10, 2002, 04:07 PM

I'm not sure how you do it, but what has worked rather well for me in both Epics and SG play is to run Notepad in the background and alt-tab into it every turn or two to mark down what happened, then when you need to do your writeup you just do some minor editing, upload the file, then copy-paste into the reply window, and then your replies are proof against the forum going down between opening the reply screen and posting it. And even if the forum traffic does eat the reply and you get the "forum too busy" message, just backing up will restore your message (at least it does for me in IE 5.5).

As for the "easy" file upload system (a complete misnomer if you've never used it before, it certainly took me a while to get it figured out), you didn't mention what was throwing you off so I can't give you any help.

Griselda

Nov 10, 2002, 08:18 PM

if we plan to pull this one off we need MORE cities pronto, or else we won't have a strong enough base to do much of anything.

Well, I'm not necessarily one to have a competent strategic analysis, but this seems to me like a pure "guns or butter" situation. If more cities becomes our focus, we'd need to cut back on our military buildup. We do need more cities, but cutting back on military now might lead the AI's to even more aggression towards us, and I don't think we'd be able to handle that while playing the builder. Also, as Charis likes to remind us, this is the time when we have the UU advantage. If we continue with the military path, we can hopefully win some more cities, plus maybe actually get some concessions for peace.

The only worker action I was wondering about was the Richborough one, and only because it led me to be completely indecisive during my turn. ;) The indecision was all mine, though, and now the barbarian situation makes road building impossible anyways. However, with the bars spreading out the way that they are, they shouldn't be too much of a concern for too much longer, unless there's more camps out there that are about to pop.

-Griselda

Charis

Nov 10, 2002, 10:02 PM

All I can say is... we kicked some major league hind this turn! :hammer:
To those before me who prepped for war, I salute you, and you'll
enjoy this report.

Things look to be in good shape, minor changes at start:
- Lugdunum tile swap to get rax done in one turn. We don't need it
bigger quick since it can't keep happy anyway
- Hey, nice to see all those workers doing their thing
- Simply superb shields at Entremont, 17 per turn, almost no waste for a 50 shield Gallic
- OMG look at all the horse bars at Alesia!
- Toledo may get swapped to barracks
- I have two warriors fight and kill two barbs now, rather than defend with them
Another warriors traps the Arab scout and will kill it next turn
- By the histogram our score is quite good, and our power is good, and our
culture is best in the world!! Why on earth did they extort so much? Were those
extorted leaving cities open with no defenders, ie by chasing down barbs??
In fact our world rank is number two, after 3 cave-ins, and on emperor diff.
Despite the pain here guys, this is a very strong start!

I take a closer look at end of falsfire's turn in 1250 BC and now.
CivNow: 7 cities, sizes 8,7,5,4,3,1,1, 4 barracks, 4 temples, 2 gran. 32gpt income!
CivThen: 6 cities, sizes 5,4,3,2,1, 2 rax, 3 temples, 2 gran. 9gpt income
MilNow: 7 Gallics (5v,2e), 6 spear (5v,1e), 3 warr (1r,1v,1e) 7workers - Great!
MilThen: 0 Swords, 5 spear (4v,1e), 5 warr (3r,1v,1e), 4 workers
Currently making 4 Gallics, a Rax and two courts. Civ has 43 shields/turn, almost a sword
Tech: OH NO! This is NOT good! As Ozy suggested, they've been trading likes hounds
so much that Pikes are not far away, and Knights after that. Our window of opportunity
is quite slim indeed 8-\ In fact, it's worse than that. Take a close look at the
F4 screen. All the portraits have changed, EVERYONE but us IS IN the Middle Ages 8-(
Frankly this sucks, and is very much like deity - it's the downside to pangaeaish starts.
Foreign status: At war with the known universe except for Korea.
(This should not have happened, unless it all came literally at once. Once you get
two civs against you, it's *imperative* to get an ally vs your biggest threat)
Korea could help, positionally, vs Carthage and Ottomans. We have cash on hand either
to upgrade one warrior, or to get an embassy and buy an ally. The question is, how
much would it take? Probably too much. The problem there too is that it's money
in a foe's pocket, and your gain is very small. Once it's 4 civs vs you, it doesn't
matter if it's 3 or 5. But at the time when it's 2 on 1, you getting the ally first
makes it 2 vs 2 instead of 3 vs 1, a HUGE difference. We basically lost our chance
for a useful ally, and will not throw money down that drain now. Plus I don't
exactly fear Korea coming after us too.

My hope - that there is just enough time to capture Madrid and form a front of
Madrid, Verulamium, and Toledo, to halt the advance, using hills and forest for
cover. Taking Seville would be the best additional thing to do at that point, but
with 4 on 1 there's just no play for actually 'expanding' during this war. We hope
to smack down enough foes to bring a fair peace, gain just slight ground (Madrid
and Salmanca, capture/raze anyone who founds in our backyard, and get it back down
to an us vs Madrid war, then we finish it up in ownership of Madrid, Seville, Santiago.
With luck too, at least one great leader from all this fighting. *IF* peace does not
come, or comes at too high a price, we push out and start a big pillaging campaign.
If for some odd reason the AI mounts no offense at all, we also bring it to them.
But seeing their in Middle Ages means that what we do, we must do very quickly.

Gris, my only strong comment about your turn was that getting an ally would
have been by far the best choice. When it got to be Carhage and Spain vs us,
you look and see who is bordering Carthage and not small enough that Carthage would
swallow them up. In this game that is the Arabs. Ottomans would work, but you choose
the closer one first, so that they don't get in the war against you and pose a
bigger problem. Once the Arabs joined in the war, it was our last chance - and
an alliance with the Ottomans vs the Arabs was the way to go : those two are direct
neighbors as well as being far away from us - the Arabs would basically do all their
fighting up top and send NO one down to us. The other benefit is that when we're done
with Spain and teach Carthage a lesson, we have the two "knight-fearsome" foes having
sapped some of their own strength, to a stalemate. If this war kicks our rear badly,
the reason will fall back on this lack of allies. (That's just future FYI, what's done
is done here and we'll have a ball playing out the choices we've made!!!)

We also see the problems with Literature as a choice. It's an optional dead-end
tech, we need to get toward a govt tech, we won't be building a library until the
next millenium, and we had no shot at Great Library. I would have chosen Polytheism,
since it can safely wait 40 to reach, non-optional, and on the path to Monarchy.
What we research next, in 5 turns, should be something that we 'could wait' for, is
expensive to buy, since we'll be buying every other ancient tech. With a much
slower tech pace I would have thought Monarchy for extended war would be a good choice,
but since they'll be in Feudalism before we get out of despotism, there is no war
or limited war likely in our middle ages future - so we'll go for Republic, at 40
turns. This means I need to buy Philosophy.

I get Philosophy+7 gold from Korea, for 5 gpt. If he wants to join the anti-Celt
party, let him do so at his own economic peril. (Ah, *KEY* tip - if you THINK someone
'may' declare war or ally against you, buy a tech at pure gpt and let them screw
themselves. If you think someone's face looks mean on F4 and they might bully you,
buy a tech for pure gpt. Then you can say 'screw off!' to tribute with impunity.)
Korea does NOT have Republic - too bad, buying it at high gpt to use during our
GA would have been sweet, and really been an incentive for him not to ally vs us.
The entire world is still in despotism, and no one is working on hanging gardens.
In other words, these clowns made a bee-line to get out of ancient era! Gah!

In fact, I continue this "tech insurance" thought, and buy Polytheism from him
for 13 gpt, and getting 62 cold cash NOW. Basically, a reverse mortage, or taking
out a loan! That gives us more cash on hand to upgrade Gallics if we need to,
and now if he declares war on us, we gain a whopping 18gpt. That would be like
him gifting us 4.5 Gallic swords :P It also gives the next leader a chance to
overrule my government preference and try for Monarchy. In fact... *IF* the cascade
of wonders is broken before anyone can start Hanging Gardens, it behooves us to
get Monarchy asap and actually snag that wonder. If someone cascades to the Gardens
we would have no chance. Republic is nice for us in that we plan to have a smaller
number of higher cost units, and they won't be sitting home idle doing MP duty -
two factors where Republic wins. Also, if Korea gets either gov tech soon and it's
affordable, I buy it with gpt and revolt immediately.

Tactical analysis - we consider the map in distinct regions:
- Madrid area, two-five Gallics are within 2 turns of striking it! [FP :)]
- Entremont, one hurt Gallic faces THREE horses, and needs to clear out a camp
down there. (Or so I must assume) [Capital]
- Alesia, heavily wounded elite Gallic needs to be saved [E]
- Richboroush/Toledo zone, minor Barb problem and need for roadwork [NE]
There's also an opportunity to take Salamanca when it hits size 2
- Camulodunum, aka the "Camel" zone. Major barb activity, worked roads are in danger [N]
- Lugdunum, safe productive Gallic production zone [NW]
- Verulamium, front lines, no barbs, but I expect foreign troops before long [NW Front]

OK, it's been two hours now, let's move our first unit! :hammer:
Midturn, btw, our Gallic outside Alesia held out vs the 3 barbs, dropping to 1 hp.
Our spear held in Alesia. And it's trick at Camu with 3 horses there, 2 on mountains,
and only one defender who can't leave. Sword due next turn. Alas, big pillage
danger of a nice irrigated/roaded square.

[1] 730 BC - Warrior kills Arab scout outside Verul.
For worker actions, I consider the Great Age bonus adds one shield and/or
commerce to all tiles already earning one, but subject to despotism limits.
That makes mining 'bonus' grass useless, no bonus in forests, a nice
bonus to mining a plain grass, to mining iron hills, irrigated plains,
Alesia could benefit most, with plains and iron hills. Toledo needs irrigation,
as does Richborough. Verul could use a plain irrigated. I see Lugdy and Entremont
can take turns on a mined grass profitably, and do so now. (If it weren't
all war right now, a swap in capital to Colossus in 12 would be appealing!)

Here's a close call - to swap Verulamium from courthouse to rax. That's not the
right "general" thing to do, but you don't play a general game, but a real one.
Verul is positionally our front line and at some point before long will be in
dire need of a barracks. The other key point is that we're now getting 5
shields of production out of it, for ten turns to a Gallic. With courthouse it
will get 7 shields at best, maybe six. 7 shields is still 8 turns to a sword.
A rax would finish in 1 turn, so now would be the time. Otherwise, courthouse in
13 would need to be followed by a rax. Can we wait that long? A vision by the
name of "Pikes" comes to me, and I say we can't. Switched.

Toledo will take forever to get to a rax at 18 turns, so I swap it to worker,
as it has distinct immediate land needs.

Richborough had the wrong tiles in use, maximizing gross shields rather than
net, which is only one no matter what. With a growth rate of about six turns,
it's of more use as a worker farm than with a courthouse in 40 turns. Another
expediency thing...

- Warrior kills horse outside Richborough
- Gallic at 1hp heads home to Alesia to heal
- NE workers head out of hiding for the wheat
- Hurt elite warrior scout fortifies to heal
- Entremont workers - one to help mine, other to Alesia hills
- Entre Gallic south near barbs doesn't like the odds, and fortifies
- At Madrid, we want to strike all at once, so we move up two Gallics to
within striking distance, and send two to forest next to Madrid.

Midturn one barb attacks and we win, other barbs in center do a shuffle,
Carthage finishes the Pyramids! (For US to take, nice!) Our warrior scout
heals a pt and turn ends with him next to a barb and a carthage warrior.

[2] 710 BC - A spanish archer appears near our warrior outside Verul who went
after the scout. I would normally attack here, but we've got too much cash
and he can be upgraded. Entre, Alesia and Camul all have new swords, and they run
run out to kick some barbarian tush!

teaches lesson, promotes, and whoops! we're smack next to spanish city of Barcelona.
It's size 1, with a spear defender (at least). I hope to survive and get upgraded!

The Richborough warr is vet and begs to be upgraded - he heads for Camul.

Minor slider swap - instead of 10% sci and one entertainter, we go 10% lux
and one scientist, at least while we run min sci.

Madrid is ripe. Our first attack (being sure it's not across a river) succeeds,
[promoting a sword to elite, 1 hp lost) Woohoo! Repeat performance from
second guy, and that takes the city of Madrid! :hammer:
That gets us two captured workers too, and two more swords to move.
We're going to starve it down. (Not an exploit, just not 'kind') The future home
of our Forbidden Palace can't have more than one foreignor. So we start right
away with a temple, which we plan to whip. For info sake we see if Isabella will
talk. Talk? She'll beg! Peace for Horseback, Lit and 11 gold. Sorry, Issy,
we'll get Lit in 4 turns ourself, don't need horses, and plan to eat your
lunch at one or two more cities first, but thanks for talking. It would also
break her word to Carthage, but she won't survive in game long enough for that
to matter. Seville is the new capital, btw. Another key point - she lacks both
horses and iron - Spears and Archers are all we'll ever see from Spain!!
Actually they have iron at Seville, just not hooked up - that makes it a key
objective. We see Salamanca is size two now.

The Gallic from Alesia takes on the barb who is on the road, a pillage threat,
and smacks him down - another promotion (sheesh! I'm starting to like this
mil trait thing, or has it been increased in PtW?)

The new Entre Gallic heads back to help his friend with the barbs.

Outside Madrid we step up to take out a barb horse, and see a Carthage warrior
and Spanish archer two away. Our far north scout takes on the horse and wins,
ending up next to two (who for some reason don't attack)

[3] 690 BC - The Ottomans complete the great library in Isanbul. We get the
message saying the people want a Forbidden Palace (ironic that it's in response
to our capture of Madrid). The Vikings insta-finish Colossus in Trondheim by cascade.
Our South capital gallic survives two horse attacks, now at 1hp and needing to get
back to the barracks. The archer near Seville retreats. No counterattack at Barcelona.
One resister quelled. The two horses left at Camul break off, head towards workers
coming back from Madrid towards Toledo. Barcelona has two silks, it's a "must take".

- Retreat the Barcelona warrior
- Richboro warrior ends up next to barb warr, so he kills him
- Slightly injured Gallics in Camul take out the horses
- A vet Gallic says no one camps on iron but us, takes out the warrior
On the height he can see a Numidian on the way (phew! would have been tough
to dislodge him!) as well as two injured Spanish archers, 3 barb horses, Cartha warr.
- Our north scout takes out another horse
- Madrid swords stay home, to try to quell quickly and to be in tip top shape for
all the foes that lie ahead.

Midturn - incompetent barbs cant take out injured archers. One archer ALMOST kills
our sword, bringing him to 1 hp. No barb attacks down south.
The resistance in Madrid ended! Mecca starts Great Wall... doh, finishes it, in Mecca.
(That means a pillaging rather than a city stomping campaign up there, if any)

Continued next post...

Charis

Nov 10, 2002, 10:03 PM

[4] 670 BC - Those two Gallics who beat off the horses at Camul are on the way to
the action at Madrid.

- We whip the temple at Madrid, next turn it will be size 1, kinda unhappy
- An elite Gallic take the iron mountain - just try to dislodge him
- More movement of troops north

[5] 650 BC - Madrid starts a warrior for cheap MP and flip control, and future
upgrade. We see somehow the Numidian got badly injured by the barb, so we
take what might be our only chance to kill him. Losing 2 hp, we do. It's
warrior buddy got separated, and picked off by a Gallic vet, becoming elite.

Logistically, I note we can be at Barcelona's door in one turn, vs two for
Seville, going for what seems to be weaker defense. We bust one horse down south.

Midturn our Gallic buster gets hit by four horses, winning all and getting promoted.
Being in the forest helped. I also have to wonder if the presence of our lone
warrior scout up north is pinning down the Carthaginians?

A wonder check shows no one is working on anything, so Lighthouse and Hanging
Gardens are still available. Literature comes in and we get to pick Republic or
Monarchy. We ask our Korean friends for their advice. He says neither he nor
any of his world leader colleagues have any knowledge of either. Monarchy would
take us about 22 turns, running a deficit, and Republic 26, so running 40 makes
more sense.

Folks, we see the first fruits of worldwide ancient war. Everyone is still in
despotism, despite having reached the Middle Ages. They may be ahead 4 low cost
techs, but they're growth has actually slowed. I do figure however, that with only
a 40 turn research path, we'll not get to Monarchy first, and might not be able
to play with wonder building when we do. More likely is a great leader, used for
Sistine or Leo or Sun Tzu. We forge then to Republic, since it's both a good
one for us and the more expensive of the two to trade.

Entremont hits size 9 and 15 shields per turn. For normal swords that would
be a prime two rounds each. Here, it's too much wasted on a spear, and a bit
extra on a Gallic. When the GA is over we won't have the luxury of this problem :P

We attack Barcelona. First elite Gallic wins (but no leader - gosh, its a good
sign how good promotions are going when hopes run this high :P)
Second one beats a second spear, darn, an archer left.

[6] 630 BC - Phew! Our Gallic vs barbs drops down to 1hp but survives. We now
see the camp, plus just one more - almost done! Still, a great training grounds
for eliteness.

We upgrade a vet spear for 80 at Camul. Smackdown a spear at Seville, no hp lost.

At Barcelona, not a pretty victory, but a good one. Two Gallics down to one hp,
including a retreat, and one to 2hp, but the city and one worker are ours!

:hammer:

Is it odd that picking the new cities for our FP comes to mind - a nice ring around
Madrid, composed of Barcelona, Santiago, Seville, and our Verulamuim and Toledo.

[7] 610 BC - With all these captured workers, I swap Toledo and Richborough off
worker, to warrior. Cheap MP, future Gallic, and still size 2 to be able to
whip a temple. Otherwise a quiet round.

[8] 590 BC - All we saw move was one spanish archer and a numidian. In the south
the last horse killed itself on our Gallic. Thanks for promotion! Just the camp remains.

Alesia pauses a moment from the sword cranking to fit in a Temple, exactly 3 turns
during our GA with 10spt output.

Lugdunum tries the same, but is a candidate for veto back to Gallic.
(Strong early culture, especially when the AI ignores it like in this game,
is a great boon for flipping and for seeing your conquered cities not revert!)
It hits the magic 10spt number too, so just 3 turns off sword duty will get it.
(At 10spt don't even think of poprushing!)

A Korean worker wants to emigrate to our great nation, known for its culture.
Who are we to deny it's life wish. We pay 6gpt to cover his relocation costs :P
We put him to work making a road to the barb camp down south because it's been
getting SO much traffic :P This round we finally disperse the very pesky horse
camp, netting a helpful 25 gold. At the bottom now we can see a perfect double whale
spot! No rush, but when we get back to settler production, that's an excellent
low corruption spot. Similarly the grass spot reaching two fish and bonus grass
to the east of the capital, below Alesia 3 tiles, is very nice.

We irrigate the desert next to Toledo, NOT for its own sake but to bring fresh
irrigation water to the wheat above it. (After rbd1 I had to point that out
in case Sirian is reading :D )

Up North, our scout was allowed to fortify on a hill to rest. Then a *regular*
Cartha warr parks next to him with no backup. We slice him up, and will retreat
to the mountain to reheal next turn.

Finally, we keep the pressure on Seville, beating down another spear, waiting
for the straggler new Gallics to arrive and crush it. The road network has gotten
very high priority, but a few key tiles are needed to finish it.

[9] 570 BC - Midturn a reg Spain archer impales itself on a Gallic fortified on a hill.
This my friend is why I don't fear taking on the AI in emperor early war.
On a wide open battlefield with fluid objectives and a lot of dynamic variables,
where we get to pick the battles and terrain, we're seeing a huge victory rate.

Our boundaries expand at Spain. Toledo finishes a warrior - a spear
now next door comes in to relieve a Gallic from unhappiness duty, and the warr
also takes off to get himself an upgrade. (I have no issue with upgrading a
regular now - we have very few warriors left, we have excess gold, and with the
barbs and spanish archers for easy pickings, he'll promote quickly enough.
Actually, he's going to go to Madrid, where we plan to build a rax soon enough,
for flip and MP duty and to let free a Gallic from defense there.

At the old south barb camp, a Gallic decides to rest in the fields to heal for
a turn or two - his oversight will prevent a barb reoccurrence while he's there.
(Next leader can decide if he wants to keep an eye to prevent this or to actually
make it go foggy and hope for more, to train future vet Gallics to become elite!)

We keep the pressure up at Seville, defeating another spear and promoting our
Gallic to elite. Er, wait, pressure nothing, that third spear was the last...

Seville is ours!! :hammer:

Our entire national map...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-550BC-Map.jpg

Continued next post...

This new city pushes our allowed units to 40, and we're at 32 (been increasing)
No workers to start roads unfortunately. Roads + speed 2 = 6 squares. Roads
are our friends! The capital is now Santiago. That's definitely next, and
if it were me, our last stop. We do NOT want a total wipeout because we want
to extort all we can from Isabella, wait 20, then finish her. The next leader
will have the choice of demanding Salamanca in tribute, or specifically leaving
that as the one city they have left, so as to be sure it's *US* that gobbles
up Spain, not someone else. If we can't get all the techs from her, another option
is demand concessions for peace, wait 20, take all but last city and conceed more,
then wipe out 20 after that. That's for another to decide...

I note we can put lux at 10%, let Lugdunum run a scientist, zero growth rate,
and avoid 20% lux or 10% slider. It's size 7 and a nice 10 spt output. Saves 5gpt.

Arabs and Ottomans remain totally arrogant about peace, being insulted for a
treaty. Carthage however, who has seen four or more units killed opportunistically,
is coming closer to seeing it our way, with only a "I doubt it" for free peace.

[10] 550 BC - Holy Golden Age batman, Entremont hits 20 shields per turn! That's
one spear PER TURN, no waste, vs three turns and 10 shield waste for Gallics.
Start cranking baby! Richboroough starts a courthouse (vetoable if you have a
better idea) We get a palace expansion for this glorious reign :cool:
Alesia hits 12 spt now that I've mined the hills. It's begging for a courthouse
at earliest conventient time, when not on Gallics.

A worker is mining the gold hills near Lugdunum, and will be finished almost
exactly when the borders expand with the about to be finished temple.

* Carthaginian galley hits the coast of Toledo. Nothing disembarks, so I'm
thinking it's a settler pair heading SE, or just an exploring ship. I hope it's
a settler pair - taking that city (which we must) would give us a free city AND
be the last bargaining chip to tell them "Peace now, or a piece of you!"
It's NOT a military invasion however, as they would have disembarked.

The odd/encouraging thing - I see NO activity near Seville, no counterattack
units of any kind from Carthage or Spain. Where are pink and orange? Loudmouths!
I wonder if we'll see them at Santiago?

I sent two workers outside of Alesia to start to work a road in the direction
of both Richborough and Salamanca. Since there were barbs there earlier, a lot
of fog, and of course, Salamanca, I've dispatched a Gallic to Alesia to respond
quickly to any threat - I recommend keeping him there or on mountaintop where
he can cover the workers. This is also because Alesia had a "Gallic gap" while
it worked on its temple.

I truly want to go two more turns, but must resist and stop. With a half dozen
elites approaching Santiago, hope is strong for a Great Leader! (If we are looking
for more war, make an army and make the long term investment in Heroic Epic.
An Army of Gallics is good through Muskets or longer, if properly cared for.

Final stats of our reign - by end of the present turn in 550 BC -
Domestic- We now have 10 cities, up from 7. Entremont at size 10 and happy.
Five barracks, 7 temples, 2 granaries. Spt output of civ is almost 60.
Mil- TEN Elite Gallics and SIX vets, 16 total. 9 spears (8v,1e), 2 warr, 12 workers.
Economy around 250+18gpt, Income doubled despite 2 tech purchases. Can support 6 more units
Diplo - We've "bought" Korea for an ally for free and no money spent on embassy, they're
gracious. They can't war against us without a huge gpt loss. It's a bonus that our
best (ok, only!) friend in the game is not getting beat up on!

Notes for next leader... (Marshall)

* STILL ACTIVE - An unmoved Gallic inside Toledo, either get him up to those front
lines now, or pull him back to Richborough as a rear offensive guard vs
Barbs or a suprise flank attack from Salamanca or another civ (unlikely?)

- Put the two workers SE of Barcelona to help complete the road - it should
finish end of next turn if you do, connecting Barcelona to the empire - then
slide them over to get a road done to Madrid, or else up North to Santiago.
** Mil advisor says there are definitely barbs near Alesia, careful!! **

- The NE scout near Carthage is fortified on a mountain. Play the defender,
and rest to heal if they let you. If that warrior next to you sleeps, attack
only when you're back at full HP. (Check back in 3 turns, don't forget him)
Or... play chicken and run away, to other mountain. Your call.

- Warrior on hill near Richborough, can stick around core for MP, or head to Camul
for quick upgrade, or Madrid for slower/potential upgrade and MP. He's a regular.

- There is a Gallic parked on the iron outside Seville, just because that area
has seen Numidians and I do NOT want one of them parked up on a mountain.
It'll take artillery to get him down if that happens. However if need arises,
he can be awoken and moved.

- There's one Gallic 'ahead' of Seville to scout. He sees nothing. If you
go after a Carthage city, go with at least four elites, as you will expect
at least two Numidian defenders, and a few retreats on our part.

- Another Gallic is fortified in the open near Santiago - he's got just one round
to sit there to heal, then wake him up and send him forward

- If Entremont grows again you'll need one more permanent garrison there for MP.

- Careful to maintain one scientist, although the city it appears might be
subject to change. I had to swap about 4 times, whenever a city was about to 'waste'

- As far as candidates for city production changes, Madrid to Barracks is an option,
plan/consider Barcelona whipping temple when 20 shields to go on temple. (You
definitely do want a temple in every captured city) Likewise consider temple whip
in Toledo when 20 left, courthouse in Richborough is just one possibility,
Verulamium can stay on courthouse or shift to mil production if the northern
aggressors ever show up :P

Here's something I've never seen at this stage in Emperor - we have a "Strong"
military compared to *every* civ in the world, and they're all despots! Woo!

Here's our newly aquired land. Note here Madrid is now on the BACk lines,
we've swept so far forward!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-550BC-SpainLand.jpg

After Santiago falls, you'll want to think about when to stop for peace. Just
do NOT break the assault before Santiago, or I'll curse not going two more turns :P
We'll control about 35% of the continent, with the five other civs sharing the rest.

MarshallManiac <-- up, lucky dog
Carbon Copy <-- on deck, should also have lots of fun with other civs mad

Save file: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-Celts-550BC.zip

Good luck!!
Charis

Griselda

Nov 11, 2002, 02:57 AM

Not because I'm quibbling about your comments, but because I'm curious. :) First of all, when trying to negotiate a peace treaty with the AI, do they consider the strength of your civ or just how you're doing in the war?

I'd actually like to take the war thing step by step so that I can figure this out, if you don't mind, Charis. All of these things happen on the half-turn after the date, of course.

1050 BC- Carthage declares war.

When I get the game in 1000 BC, I am planning to check every turn until they'll talk, and try to get out of the war. I'm hoping the distance means that I won't see any actual fighting.

950 BC- Arabs (NOT Spain) demand tribute. In hindsight, I suppose with one war ongoing, I should have caved. But, since I didn't cave, and there are now two semi-distant AI against us, should I assume that a mass of alliances vs. us is imminent unless I buy the others first? I was thinking that I didn't want to commit to 20 turns of war if I could talk my way out of them without fighting. In any case, 4 turns later the Ottomans sign on, and Spain is the last to declare vs us, in 825 BC.

-Griselda

Ozymandous

Nov 11, 2002, 08:25 AM

Carbon:

I hit the "upload file" link, browsed to the save on my home PC and then hit the "Upload" button on the bottom of the window. I will admit I didn't read the whole post on how to use the system but I thought it would be self-evident. I browsed out to both folders that uploads are supposed to go to and never saw my save, this iw while trying to upload while logged in also if that makes a difference.

Charis:

Don't forget that workers can now make "outposts" that clear out the fog. If we have any of these (foreign I'd assume) that we want to spare until we can later settle an area, we may want to try to push some of the fog back to keep barbs from hampering us all the time.

BTW, the spot East of the capital was mentioned way back when as a good spot, glad to know you agree. ;)

The barb's East of Alesia that I saw were from a cmap roughly 4 squares SE of that city. I don't know if their camp now will be in the same spot, but might be a good place to check.

Griselda:

Charis or someone else may have a more concrete answer on war, but from my experience Civ strength has little if anything to do with a Civ agreeing to peace with you, while how much pain you deal to them seems to be the greatest factor of when they will talk. Civ strength seems to be the best deterant to them declaring war, but even that's not guarented.

If you haven't killed any of a Civ's units, pillaged their lands or caputred their cities and aren't over-whelming in Civ power compared to them don't expect them to want to give you peace for free... :)

On Alliances... Bringing other AI civ's into an alliance depends on a few factors. For me, if I am on an island or far enough away from another civ I don't really care if they declare, since you can generally have enough troops made and deployed before they reach you. If an enemy AI civ is right next door for example, or you're all relatively close on the same land mass, forming an alliance, just to keep the heat on them and not you, is generally a good thing.

For example, one game I was on the top of a longish continent. The civ in the middle declared war on me, so I made an alliance with the civ on the botom to help fight. Now the civ in the middle was caught from both directions and eventually destroyed.

As Charis mentioned, if you could have brought one of the other "far away" civ's into against it's neighbor that would have more than likely caused them to fight each other, instead of them streaming troops down to us, and slowed them both down in growth.

In any event, not criticizing, since I am far from a good player myself, just try not to mess up too bad. :)

All:

Sorry about the lack of report, I'll do better next time.

Charis

Nov 11, 2002, 09:02 AM

@Gris...

> First of all, when trying to negotiate a peace treaty with the AI,
> do they consider the strength of your civ or just how you're
> doing in the war?

As Ozy mentions the biggest factor is pain. If they've been doing the dishing, not only won't they make it hard for peace, but their demands will increase. If you've been pillaging them, beating their units, giving more than you get, their price starts to drop. Take a city and they're more than likely ready. Take *3* cities and they coming begging to YOU to stop. I can't remember any case where they wouldn't agree to free peace or give a handsome tribute, after you "take 3". In limited wars of agression vs tougher bigger civs, it's often a goal to take 3 cities in 10 turns then have peace.

There is a given time period

> When I get the game in 1000 BC, I am planning to check every
> turn until they'll talk, and try to get out of the war. I'm hoping
> the distance means that I won't see any actual fighting.

Don't bother checking for the first 10 turns. There is an automatic minimum time during which they won't even consider your envoy, even if getting very badly beaten. Think of 10 turns as minimum war duration.

> I was thinking that I didn't want to commit to 20 turns of war if
> I could talk my way out of them without fighting.

If they declared on you and want a price for peace, they will certainly not give up before 20 turns if you give them no pain. So a fear of making an alliance taking you 20 turns at war is not realistic, you WILL be in it for 20 years with a distant civ that you do nothing to.

> In hindsight, I suppose with one war ongoing, I should have caved.

Nope, you did the right thing at that point. (Before that point, allying with Arabs vs Ottomans was good, but once the Arabs came demanding, telling them to shove off was good)

The reason is because they're so distant they will NEVER be
able to mount any attack whatsoever. The situation where caving would have been called for would be if such a civ were on your 'other border'. Lets say the Mongols lived East of Salamanca and had been quiet the whole time. The last thing you want is a two front war, and caving to prevent that is worthwhile. But...
In that case even better would be to ally with those Mongols to be sure that you have a friend, not an enemy, on your rear flank.

> But, since I didn't cave, and there are now two semi-distant AI
> against us, should I assume that a mass of alliances vs. us is
> imminent unless I buy the others first?

On any higher diff lvl, the AI can be quite fond of dogpiling on the human, because alliances are rather cheap for their benefit. If you get a situation where you see two alliances form against you, by all means do expect the worst dogpile. That means seek an alliance if it will help (often it's too late by then, that last one to join the party is usually the one you should have gotten as an ally!), or make it highly unattractive for other folks to join the dogpile. For example, I put Korea in a position that was either very awkward if they were considering war, or very gracious if they were peaceable folks. If they were the Mongols I would have done the same thing, and they may have dogpiled, but I would be up two techs and saved a huge pile of gold by them reneg'ing.

One other tip in the dogpile situation - these alliances are frail. If you can get one civ to come to peace before 20 yrs is up, you blacken their rep, which is a good thing - they're less likely to be trusted as an ally partner later, and might get on the receiving end of a dogpile. If there were more than 3 Spanish cities left and we cared about their rep, we would make peace and tarnish them.

(BTW Gris, the comment on an alliance was meant as "great job, really just one thing I would have done different" than as anything invective :P )

@Ozymandous

On browsing for new uploads at CF, keep in mind their system is case specific. So if you upload RBP1-xxxx, you'll never see it in the lowercase section near files like rbp1-yyyy.

> Don't forget that workers can now make "outposts" that clear
> out the fog. If we have any of these (foreign I'd assume) that
> we want to spare until we can later settle an area, we may

Ah! Outposts! I'm not at all used to the other 'new inventions' of PtW, good point. I don't think I would spare a worker just yet given our major needs for improvements and roads, but with the several captures we got and the smart planning by other players, we might end up with one or two to spare. Also keep in mind that if an outpost ever falls under enemy culture border, it goes poof.

As for the barbs hammering, maybe I got lucky, but being able to train three swords to elite and lose none was a positive thing, made even sweeter by the 25 gold. But with workers lose and/or no swords in the foggy areas, it could get ugly. Also, I don't think I faced a "massive uprising" - then I would have wished I made an outpost.

> BTW, the spot East of the capital was mentioned way back
> when as a good spot, glad to know you agree.

Hehe :p I thought that point was made before, but didn't look

> The barb's East of Alesia that I saw were from a cmap roughly
> 4 squares SE of that city. I don't know if their camp now will be
> in the same spot, but might be a good place to check.

If we can spare a spear or sword, we could surely use one on sentry duty with a mountain view somewhere back there - to keep us up to date on barb activity, to keep a massive uprising from not occuring *right* next to our city, and to see if any AI sneaks back there and settles.

> For me, if I am on an island or far enough away from another
> civ I don't really care if they declare, since you can generally
> have enough troops made and deployed before they reach you

Very true, this and other factors play in as well. For example, if you're going for a diplomatic win, and someone declares on you, ally with everyone you possibly can. You do NOT want to have 2-3 civs, or worse, a dogpile, of furious AI's, rather you went them all gracious with memories of "ah yes, my close friend and ally from way back in the war of Persian agression..."

> As Charis mentioned, if you could have brought one of the
> other "far away" civ's into against it's neighbor that would have
> more than likely caused them to fight each other, instead of
> them streaming troops down to us, and slowed them both
> down in growth.

Exactly, the benefit of two civs who live right next to each other, of equal strength, beating each other senseless, simply cannot be overestimated. It's like we went in and pillaged both, and slew a dozen units or more, all with no effort on our part.
That's why even if you don't "need" an ally to save your rear, it's often a good thing. There's also the chance that your ally will make peace before 20, and blacken his own rep :crazyeye:

One parting general comment... If I wasn't impressed with the Gallic sword before, I am now. Virtually every one promoted, and either zero or one losses, with well over a dozen casualties inflicted on the enemy, three cities captured and one about to fall. These guys just rock! "Working" the terrain, who attacks and who defends, and the fact that they're seeing a lot of 2.1.1 style opponents, means they have a big advantage. The 'retreat' ability with high speed alone saved us 4 of them - that's 200 shields!! Unlike plain swords, where a long push forward means moderate attrition, the Gallics see instead a brief pause every half-dozen turns or so, as a group of them stop and heal - then on again with the fight. If that can be timed so that their healing time is time well spent on quelling rebellion, so much the better.

Charis

Arathorn

Nov 11, 2002, 09:13 AM

You won't see any massive barbarian uprisings for quite a while. It's been established (at some point, I don't know when) that a "massive barbarian uprising" (where the definition of massive depends on the barb setting) occurs when the second civilization reachs a new era (middle, industrial, modern). At that point, every single existing barbarian camp has a "massive" uprising at the same time.

BTW, looks like barring some major :smoke:, the game is won. Congrats.

Arathorn

Rowain deWolf

Nov 11, 2002, 09:39 AM

Yup Arathorn is right. Considering your land mass I guess there won't be many AI's left to reach Industrial.

And the Gallic Swords are as powerfull as expected/feared.

Congrats to you. :)
Rowain

T-hawk

Nov 11, 2002, 11:26 AM

Hey, I had missed that this thread was here, somehow. But I'll be lurking, and commenting, now :)

Commenting on a few game mechanics:

It's not even clear if the AI will discount fully a partially researched tech. In the old days, if you were 90% done researching a tech you could buy it from anyone at basically 10% the price. I don't think that's the case anymore - although I don't know if it's a reduced discount, almost no discount, or only certain techs

I'll assume the "old days" are 1.21 and "current" being 1.29 (I haven't gotten PTW but it doesn't sound like this changed). There still is a discount, and it's the same proportion; the difference is in how tech devaluation changed. In the old days, tech would devalue linearly: it'd cost 1/7 of the base amount for the last of 7 civs to discover it. Starting with 1.29, tech devalues on the order of something like 2/3 of an increment per civ (if that made sense); the last civ of seven gets a discount of (2/3)*6 / 7, or 4/7; therefore paying 3/7, 42% of standard cost.

Also, the multiplier for buying instead of researching tech changed from 0.5 to 0.75. These changes together mask the discount for already having partially researched a tech, but it's still there. (Also, your comments about minimum research progress being 32 beakers, not 32/40 = 80% done, are right on.) And there may be multipliers introduced for buying certain techs like the governmental ones, Nationalism, and Space Flight. I'm not totally sure that these exist, though; they're not in the editor.

...

Whipping the capital's temple way back when: I wouldn't have done it, because it ran afoul of the hidden cost of whipping: because whipping fills the box, the shields produced that turn go to waste. That whip actually only got 13 or 14 shields; not enough in my book. Whipping is significantly more useful at outposts (especially flood-plains cities) that are only pulling a couple shields per turn, or if you can whip-switch (rush, say, a barracks by whipping a settler to 30 shields, then let the city build the remaining 10 shields by itself in two turns.)

Coastal? I wonder what implications a fresh-water-only coast has? Harbor-yes? Colossus-no? Commercial dock-?? Trading route-no?

Harbor - no; coastal wonders - no; commercial dock - I'd guess no based on offshore platforms (which also don't affect lake squares). Dunno whether the game calculates water trading routes across fresh water, but it'd be pretty rare for two cities on the same lake to not have a road. :)

1550 I then use 29 of our 34g in the treasury to establish an embassy in Spain. Well, can't argue that rat's hole is worse than extortion, but that's the second time we're lining the pockets of our upcoming foe.

Cash you pay for an embassy doesn't go to the receiving civ. In fact, if you're in a situation where you want to divest yourself of cash, embassies are a great way of using it.

Just nitpicking, and I'll be eagerly following along with you guys as well :)

Carbon_Copy

Nov 11, 2002, 11:51 AM

I was going to suggest outposts earlier, myself. According to the manual, an outpost on mountains has LOS of 4 tiles. If we put one on the mountain furthest to the east of Alesia, when combined with Salamanca there should be far fewer places for barb camps to pop up in the east. It should even push the black fog back a bit. I suggest that if we do it we use one of our foreign workers, of course. What I don't know is if outposts are pillageable, since it would still have to contend with any existing barbs roaming around in there.

Also, looking at the various screens made by different people make this SG a showcase for all the different tilesets. I'm using the European tile set, looks like Charis is using some version of Sn00py's, and I think Ozy mentioned that he was using the watercolor tileset on the RBCiv forum. It's too bad that the Winter tileset makes it so difficult to distinguish between normal and bonus grassland, or I'd be using that one instead of Euro.

Griselda

Nov 11, 2002, 11:53 AM

Originally posted by Charis (BTW Gris, the comment on an alliance was meant as "great job, really just one thing I would have done different" than as anything invective :P )

I know, and I appreciate the feedback! I want to learn a little bit more about how all of this works, so please don't hesitate to post suggestions. :)

Arathorn (about the uprisings)- That makes perfect sense! That's why there was an unannounced uprising near Entremont at the same time there was one near Alesia, considering the AI's beelined to the middle ages. Definitely good information!

-Griselda

Zed-F

Nov 11, 2002, 12:23 PM

CC: I would expect that outposts, radar towers, and airfields work exactly as resource colonies do: that is, they are attacked and destroyed by hostile forces the same way, and forces that do not wish to be hostile must avoid them. I don't have a game but it sounds like they have been implemented as an extension of resource colonies (e.g. requiring the permanent sacrifice of a worker, etc.)

As for the use of a native versus a foreign worker, that depends on whether you are short on available worker-turns or short on cash. Since you are expanding your empire right now, I'd say you probably need the worker turns more than the cash, so using a foreign worker is probably the right call.

Mystery13

Nov 11, 2002, 12:44 PM

Just taking in my usual update on your thread and I see talk about making alliances. I've completed two PTW games now and in both games this occurred: withing 5 turns of making the alliances that Charis has suggested, my partner has turned around and allied against me! I had not seen this in pre-PTW so I'm assuming it's a new "feature." Bottom line, if most AI-civs are against you, you may find that your new alliances don't hold.

Charis

Nov 12, 2002, 02:17 PM

Just a note in case anyone missed it on the RB forum, Marshall "got it" and should be able to play it tomorrow.

Arathorn - AH! That's where the massive uprising come from!?
Does that also mean no new barb camps form, or will those camps continue on if there remains fog?

> BTW, looks like barring some major , the game is won. Congrats
Hehe, while I don't challenge the assessment, that's about the earliest count-your-chickens comment I've heard in a long time :lol:

Rowain...
> And the Gallic Swords are as powerfull as expected/feared.
Now, that thought certainly does come to mind, but let me counter that (or at least take a preemptive stance against their being called uber)
1. Spain is WEAK, with no horses or iron. Any civ that had military ambition could have taken them just as easily as Celts. In fact, an archer or horsemen rush by civs who start with the right techs, or a Jaggie rush, would have been even quicker.
2. We had iron, and got it online early. Persia or Rome would have done just as well (Conversely, Spain failed to hook up the iron that was right there in their core)
3. The folks here did an outstanding job in the opening. They had a plan, expanded well, worked the food well, made the barracks, and executed. Everyone here seemed to micromange very well too, wasting almost no shields on their turns
4. Our GA helped fuel the extra shields needed to crank out the
Gallic swords we have
5. Our GA is now over, and it was 'used up' in despotism. If the Turks or Arabs get their act together they might say "The Ancient Era was yours, but we own the Middle Ages!"
6. The terrain, mostly open, and the fact that we got to pick our battles, made most of the 2 speed advantage.
7. Promotions, omg, is the level increased in PtW, or have mil civs always been *this* good at promoting, or did I see a very lucky streak? Perhaps good luck in combo with two things - barbarian fights where you're almost a shoe-in to win due to the bonus, and also the ability to retreat, and you don't lose promoted units as often

@ T-hawk
> Commenting on a few game mechanics:
> It's not even clear if the AI will discount fully a partially
> researched tech....
> There still is a discount, and it's the same proportion; the
> difference is in how tech devaluation changed. In the old days,
> tech would devalue linearly: it'd cost 1/7 of the base amount
> for the last of 7 civs to discover it. Starting with 1.29, tech
> devalues on the order of something like 2/3 of an increment per
> civ (if that made sense); the last civ of seven gets a discount of
> (2/3)*6 / 7, or 4/7; therefore paying 3/7, 42% of standard cost.

Ah! Thanks, I was trying to find that info and could not! :goodjob:
Hey, it might just fit that the 2/3 discount would apply to 'partial research' as well. A tech where you are 1 beaker from finished would still see you paying 33% of the full unresearched price. The turn before you might pay 36% of the price. Whereas in the old days you would see the price drop to near zero on the last turn, now you would see a much smaller price drop each turn.

> Also, the multiplier for buying instead of researching tech
> changed from 0.5 to 0.75. These changes together mask the
> discount for already having partially researched a tech, but it's
> still there.

Ah! More good info!

> And there may be multipliers introduced for buying certain techs
> like the governmental ones, Nationalism, and Space Flight. I'm
> not totally sure that these exist, though; they're not in editor.

It seems pretty definite there is a premium - if you compare the "Tech costs" in the editor, I've seen (pretty sure) a significantly higher price charged by the AI for a gov tech compared to a normal tech of the same beaker cost.
It wouldn't have to be in the editor if the new cost was
coded as:
if TechAllowsNewGovt() = true or TechAllowsDraft() = true then
Call JackUpCost;
endif

You would do this rather than just increase the tech cost itself so that there were no barrier to researching it yourself, it just makes the AI want to hold certain techs close to its chest. (Which is a VERY smart thing!) I don't know which if any other techs get a premium, but if *I* were coding it, I would add:
if TechShowsNewStrategicResource() then JackUpPrice;
That is, wheel, iron, gunpowder, replaceable parts, etc.
Basically, this cleanly implements some of the logic a human would use.

> Whipping the capital's temple way back when: I wouldn't have
> done it, because it ran afoul of the hidden cost of whipping:
> because whipping fills the box, the shields produced that turn
> go to waste. That whip actually only got 13 or 14 shields; not
> enough in my book. Whipping is significantly more useful at
> outposts (especially flood-plains cities) that are only pulling a
> couple shields per turn, or if you can whip-switch (rush, say, a
> barracks by whipping a settler to 30 shields, then let the city
> build the remaining 10 shields by itself in two turns.)
I agree, and you give some good points to support it. In this particular situation, I don't think it hurt us too bad.

One thing I've been doing for a while now, to reduce that 'hidden 1 turn cost' to a whip, is to try to see if there is something you can build that takes one turn less, whip it (whether cash or population), then switch to what you really want to get.
For example, you have 3 turns left to finish an infantry you want NOW. Checking the number of shields needed vs your production, you might see that swapping to a Frigate, whipping/rushbuying it, then switching to infantry, lets you complete it in "1 turn" just as if you whipped it directly, at a reduced cost. I view this as strategic micromanagement, and extra bonus to be squoze out by those careful enough to do it, and not an exploit. It's similar to the Whip-Wait-Whip in 1.17 - an 80 shield improvement could be whipped cheapest by - needing 79, switching to something smaller needing 39, whipping at a loss of one worker, switching back to original improvement, now needing 40, wait one turn, then whip again.

@Carbon_Copy

> Also, looking at the various screens made by different people
> make this SG a showcase for all the different tilesets. I'm using
> the European tile set, looks like Charis is using some version of
> Sn00py's, and I think Ozy mentioned that he was using the
> watercolor tileset on the RBCiv forum.

Hehe, I look forward to a watercolor map post - I've been thinking about trying that one out. I use a Snoopy's as you guessed, with the addition of "straight railroads", "letters with the resources". The similarity of jungle and forest was what drove me to use a mod in the first place, but now the more visible resources is something I couldn't go without now :P

Zed - good comment on the worker, foreign vs domestic. An outpost on our mountain behind Alesia sounds like a winner

@Mystery - thanks for chiming in, wow I'm surprised you got backstabbed THAT badly! I've not seen that yet in PtW, and never saw it in classic Civ. Ouch! Be sure you make such deals in gpt, not cash, eh? In this game, I've been pleased to see Koreas gracious status and non-involvement in the war.

Good luck to Marshall, if you can read this forum yet!
Charis

Arathorn

Nov 12, 2002, 02:39 PM

Camps continue to form in fog, regardless of era, civs remaining, etc. The continue to crank out their little piddly token occasional unit every so often in any era. The "massive uprisings" occur when a 2nd civ enters a new era and all existing camps go nuts. This is rarely seen outside of the middle age entrance, but I've read seemingly-reliable reports that it happens every age.

As for the "congrats", I've gotten tired of reading doom and gloom predictions from SG teams sitting pretty. Of course, were a human playing Arabia or the Ottomans, you might be right about them swinging a GA advantage into crushing you, but this is the AI we're talking about.... That doesn't mean, of course, that it won't be fun, but it does mean that y'all can probably afford to experiment a little bit (just avoid the wacky stuff) with PTW and we can all learn from it!

Militaristic civs have always had impressive promotion rates, especially from regular to vet. You appeared to have been somewhat lucky, too, but it's not far out of the line of expectation.

Partial whipping and then letting finish on its own is also a very powerful strat with cash-buys. If your city is making 20 shields/turn and you need a cavalry ASAP, it makes MUCH more sense to change to a musketman (cost 60 shields) and rush that, then change back to cavalry (80 shields) and let the city complete the 20 shields on its own -- saving you 80 gold. I've used this a fair bit with medieval infantry and ansar warriors in my PTW experiment game.

Looking forward to the rest of this game and the RBD PTW game starting soon!
Arathorn

T-hawk

Nov 12, 2002, 02:46 PM

It seems pretty definite there is a premium - if you compare the "Tech costs" in the editor, I've seen (pretty sure) a significantly higher price charged by the AI for a gov tech compared to a normal tech of the same beaker cost.
It wouldn't have to be in the editor if the new cost was
coded as:
if TechAllowsNewGovt() = true or TechAllowsDraft() = true

Yeah, that'd be the logical way to do it, and if the jacked-up costs do exist that has to be how it's done.

One other thing I forgot to mention - there's now an extra multiplier of 2 for buying a tech if ONLY ONE civ has the tech already. If it cost 2000 beakers for the Kazakhistans to research Radio, and they were the only one with it, the first civ to buy it from them would actually pay 2000*0.75*2 = 3000 cash. This has been dubbed the "Monopoly Swine" effect, and is a key component of maintaining a tech lead in the game now (keep selling your tech - especially intermediate useless ones like Atomic Theory - at grossly inflated prices, more than it cost you to research.)

Arathorn - I've seen uprisings happen for the industrial age, and presumably they do for the modern age as well. One other thing about barb camps - they do not form on a continent with no civilization-settled cities; that worked in our favor in LOTR4 on the intermediate Russian islands. (It might be fun to take the LOTR4 final save, research the last couple medieval techs, and watch all the camps on the huge eastern continent go nuts...)

Zed-F

Nov 12, 2002, 02:53 PM

Yep, Charis, the game's not over, but it's over, if you take my meaning. :) You'd have to pull out some REALLY wacky weed to lose from this position -- how long it takes may depend on a few factors, but a complete collapse (which is what it would take to lose) looks nigh-impossible, especially with your cadre of elite CWs to hold the line while you consolidate. The land you've got is ample to guarantee victory even without pressing the attack on the Carthaginians, and we all know how inept the AI is at actually attacking a competent human defender.

In fact, I am starting to think that all the new worker improvements in PTW are going to make life far easier for the player than for the AI. The AI doesn't know jack about how to amass and apply force, or how to effectively use battlefield intelligence, whereas the human player does. The only impact these will have will be to make the mop up phase last a bit longer and to allow the human to recover from desperate situations ala RBE2 a bit more easily (as if we needed the help! :) )

Rowain deWolf

Nov 13, 2002, 03:53 AM

Originally posted by Charis
Rowain...
3. The folks here did an outstanding job in the opening. They had a plan, expanded well, worked the food well, made the barracks, and executed. Everyone here seemed to micromange very well too, wasting almost no shields on their turns

Thats absolutly true and my comment was not meant to deny this. As a matter of fact you must play on a very high skill-level to kick AI-butt that hard as you did. :D

So if anyone feels offended by my comment I apologize.

But:
Originally posted by Charis
One parting general comment... If I wasn't impressed with the Gallic sword before, I am now. Virtually every one promoted, and either zero or one losses, with well over a dozen casualties inflicted on the enemy, three cities captured and one about to fall. These guys just rock! "Working" the terrain, who attacks and who defends, and the fact that they're seeing a lot of 2.1.1 style opponents, means they have a big advantage. The 'retreat' ability with high speed alone saved us 4 of them - that's 200 shields!! Unlike plain swords, where a long push forward means moderate attrition, the Gallics see instead a brief pause every half-dozen turns or so, as a group of them stop and heal - then on again with the fight.

You yourself described their powers. ;)

Additionaly the retreat-ability does not only save the shields it also denies the defender a victory which means less promotions for him.

Rowain

Ozymandous

Nov 13, 2002, 09:15 AM

Originally posted by Zed-F
In fact, I am starting to think that all the new worker improvements in PTW are going to make life far easier for the player than for the AI. The AI doesn't know jack about how to amass and apply force, or how to effectively use battlefield intelligence, whereas the human player does. The only impact these will have will be to make the mop up phase last a bit longer and to allow the human to recover from desperate situations ala RBE2 a bit more easily (as if we needed the help! :) )

Ah, I wouldn't agree with this totally. I don't know what Soren did with the AI, but you haven't seen a "oh crap this may hurt" situation like the late game in PTW until you try to invade a AI with Radar Towers every two tiles interspersed in between their cities. They sprinkle those things around *everywhere*! Not complaining as they make the game a bit more of a challenge if you're unprepared, just that the AI does use at least some of the new abilities pretty well.

Zed-F

Nov 13, 2002, 10:04 AM

Ozy, my point is that in the scenario you describe, you are on the offensive, and if you are on the offensive in the late Industrial Age, odds are you are already winning the game. :) Just about any human-led civ capable of going on the offensive in the late Industrial Age is also capable of hunkering down for a space race victory, for instance; even if that civ is not the biggest, it is likely to be the most well-developed infrastructure-wise, as the human player knows a lot more about how to formulate intelligent build orders than the AI does. A human player also knows about things like sending cavs (or conquistadors -- the ultimate pillager) in to knock out undefended radar towers behind the lines before the main tank rush on the cities begins, or using rails to ship up workers and build his own radar towers before a major battle, and can generally make a plan to deal with or work around radar towers and the other new improvements far more effectively than the AI will be able to do against the human player.

So, trying to invade another AI in the late Industrial Age may be more painful, but at that point, you're in mop-up mode anyway; the game is yours, it's just a matter of which way you win, and how long it takes to beat the AI into submission. But, for the human player confronting an RBE2-like situation (regardless of the difficulty level), radar towers may turn a desperate defensive struggle into much less of a contest. This might allow him to focus attention elsewhere than military buildup and maybe pull a rabbit out of a hat to win the game.

ToddMarshall

Nov 13, 2002, 12:37 PM

Well, it simply refuses to send me the pass for my other nick...... Anyway, I'm finally home, finally have ptw, finally have a working comp again with civ3 and ptw installed. Im working on patches now. Then i'll load up and play my turn sometime today. Thanks to everyone for being patient with me.

ToddMarshall

Nov 14, 2002, 06:04 PM

OK, thanks to a family crisis I'm just NOW getting to it. I should have the turn posted within the next few hours.

ToddMarshall

Nov 15, 2002, 03:14 AM

OK here we go. I apologize for the lack of detal in this report after the first 5 turns, but my life has been a living hell the last 2 days and I just want to do right now is crawl under a rock and sleep for the first time in almost 3 days.

[0] I move the gallic from Toledo twards the front lines. I move the scout warrior from the south mountina to the north one, hoping carthage will leave him alone. Interturn a barb horsie moves next to our Alesia workers :(

[1] I take out the barb horsie with the sword which was thoughtfully put in Alesia for just that purpose. I decide to move one of the Galics next to Leptis Minor to see what the heck is defending it. Turns out to be a regular numidian....... ok, we ARE taking that city because we ARE going to want the FP in Santiago I'm sure and thats a first ring city for it. Besides that, it has a spice in it's inner ring, which SHOULD make 5 lux in our territory soon. I send many Galics that way to prepare for the assult.

Not so lucky with Santiago. It has an eliete spear :( . The 3 gallics in the neighborhood move next door so we can take it next round.

[2] The first Gallic attacks Santiago and his victory produces a Great Leader...... OMG a leader?!
*blink* I literally spilled my drink. You have NO idea how rare leaders are in my games. I've never, ever had a leader this early even in an allways war game. The next Galic splatters a regular spear, and Santiago is ours! I'm REALLY tempted to just use the leader to rush the FP right there, as it seems the IDEAL location, but Charis seemed to think a Galic army was the way to go, so I figure I'll send him over over to Seville to do just that.

In a surprise, the capital jumps to Samalanca.

I dial up Izzy and figure I'll take peace for all 4 techs or both other cities and 3 techs..... WELL She WONT give up Murcia for anything. The best she'll do is Valencia, Currency, Construction, and Horseback... not even Map Making instead of horseback.... SO no deal. I'm gona auto-raze that city she won't give us and we can just replace it with one of our own.

[3] A Numidian reinforcement appears outside Leptis within striking range of an eliete Gallic. I figure nows the best chance, so I attack...... and whack him without a scratch :)

[4] The battle for Leptis Magna begins The first vet Gallic drops to 1hp, does NO damage, but retreats. The next vet Gallic does 2 hits to the Numidian, then dies :(. The 3rd Gallic, an Eliete wins with 1hp left. The 4th Gallic (an eliete) takes out a regular numidian 3-2 and Leptis Magna is ours :) Hanibal still wont take straiight up peace at this point (unfortunately as all but one of our gallics over there is out of commission for several turns) aparently because he has another numidian on the other side of the city waiting to counter attack :(

Interturn the Arabs start Hanging Gardens

[5] The annoying city Spain refuses to give us is auto-razed. NOW Izzy will give us Valencia, Map Making, Currency, Construction, and 67 gold for peace (not horseback though). We take what we can get.

I check with Hanibal to see if he will donate horseback riding for peace to get us out of the dark ages and we are "close to a deal" Well, I have one vet Gallic I can sick on that last Numidian so, what the heck? The RNG likes us still. Now Hanibal WILL give us Horseback Riding and 20 gold for peace. We accept. Welcome to the Middle Ages boys.

Now I notice something... Korea has droped to cautious... DOH! No wonder they were Gracious! They are at war with Spain and Carthage! I'm now left wishing I'd known. It probably would have been worth it to wait a few turns, heal up the galics, and try to take another city or 2 from Carthage and really put the screws to them. Sigh. Sorry about that move guys.

BTW - Spain is now sending 3 units from Samalanca through our territory in the direction of Korea. I decided to let them go. Two of them are spears and pose little if any threat, so why not let them go away from the city we want to take soon?

I dial up the Ottomons, and they will give us WM and 20 gold for peace now. Might as well. War with somone that far away right now seems pointless. Besides, a few orange swords just showed up spoted by our northern warrior.

The Arabs will now accept a flat peace treaty, so I take that too.

Ironically, our leader has just now arrived at his intended army making spot, and now I decide we don't want an army since we are at peace...... SO, he heads right back over to Santiago to make that FP afterall X_X.

Now I check the diplo screen and everyone now has the Republic, everyone except Spain now has Monotheisim, and everyone except Korea and Spain now have Monarchy.

Maybe this is a weedy move that will get me tar'd and feathered but I decided we couldn't afford to wait 31 more turns for The Republic. I just feel really strongly that 30 more turns in despotisim would hold us back more than getting a productive government now would cost us up front. So I bought it from the Ottomons for the best price available which was 465gold and 7gpt. I decided to revolt immediately, figuring we would make up for the lost shields/income in the 4 turns of GA we had left.

General Stuff from the last turns:

I switched most of the large cities over to markets to help maximize our income, AND, with the idea that we will get a 3rd and maybe 4th lux on line soon to get bonus happiness working for us. I moved one of the workers onto the mountian to hook up that gems - not sure if this is good or bad. I know it will take a long time, but it should be worth it. If the next player disagrees with this, by all means do something else with him.

I have workers trying to road up that spice from Leptis Magna to the core cities. I definately feel like this should be done.

There is also a question of the Ivory over by that Razed Spanish city. I have a settler almost there to replace that city with one of ours, however if we re settle that exact spot, though it looks to be the best one to me, the ivory won't immediately be within our boarders. We could either settle for a less than ideal spot and get it now, use one of our foreign workers to colonize it and get it fast that way, or bite the bullet and do without it for a while. Personally I'd like to see us get it sooner rather than later since we now have hapiness issues being in Republic, but that won't be my call.

I started a coleseum in Entremont since its in the worst happiness shape.

Alesia completed an Aqueduct since it is really our only core city not on fresh water.

The eastern shore cities were left on courthouses.

We now have the FP in Santiago, so the several cities in its ring should all be good producers once they grow. One of the new cities we took from Spain is whiped and can't sustain a single content citizen, so its runing a scientist at the moment working on Engeneering. The new cities are all working on a temple at the moment for boarder purposes.

I hope my play didn't suck too bad. Sorry if it did. I'm just not thinking very clearly at the moment. Maybe I should have just steped aside and let the rest of you handle it with my current state of mind. Everyone waited on me, so I would have felt bad if I hadn't taken my turn, or if I'd put it off any longer. But now that I finished it, I wonder how bad I messed up.

I tried to figure out how to upload the save file and the pics, but I just cant get it. Maybe it will all make sense in the aftenoon when I get up and can see and think straight

Ozymandous

Nov 15, 2002, 07:00 AM

We already have our FP and we're still in the BC times (unless I counted wrongly)?? Cool!! :)

Since we'll be fighting a lot (in another 20 turns no doubt) we should hopefully get another leader to make the army with eventually so that shouldn't bee bad. The boost from the FP so early will help more than the army would now anyway, unless it had spawned a second leader when it atacked (which I don't think armies can trigger anyway).

Nice that we use the last 4 turns of our GA in a Republic. :) Heh, we're even with the AI's now, which means that we're probably going to be leading the pack by the end of the Middle Ages (hopefully).

Seems like a good job to me. Oh, and I'd rather settle the city for better long term growth and use a colony than otherwise, if we're discussing that as well.

Charis

Nov 15, 2002, 07:54 AM

Looks like an *outstanding* turn, Marshall!! :hammer:

First off, I want to say I'm sorry about whatever situation leaves you wanting to crawl under a rock and desperate for sleep :sad:
I hope everything is ok and will be praying for you...

Glad we had a barb-hunter in reserve in Alesia, our next leader may want to think about that mountain 'outpost'

> I decide to move one of the Galics next to Leptis Minor to see
> what the heck is defending it. Turns out to be a regular
> numidian....... ok, we ARE taking that city because we ARE
> going to want the FP in Santiago I'm sure and thats a first ring
> city for it. Besides that, it has a spice in it's inner ring, which
> SHOULD make 5 lux in our territory soon. I send many Galics
> that way to prepare for the assult.

Now that's bold, you're going to take it to Carthage?!! :hammer:
I like it, although I didn't want to commit to taking on the Numidians on my watch.

> The first Gallic attacks Santiago and his victory produces a
> Great Leader...... OMG a leader?!
[dance]

Woo!! I knew from the promotions that these Celts take their 'mil' nature seriously, and with all the elites we have, this doesn't surprise me one bit.

> The next Galic splatters a regular spear, and Santiago is ours!
> I'm REALLY tempted to just use the leader to rush the FP right
> there, as it seems the IDEAL location, but Charis seemed to
> think a Galic army was the way to go, so I figure I'll send him
> over over to Seville to do just that.

Now don't let my ideas get in the way of solid plans. My thinking was based on the thought that Carthage was not going to want peace anytime soon, and that the Arabs and Ottomans were not going to give up until they gotta at least a little beating. A Gallic Army would have been a "peace extractor" who could force our will on the opponent of our choice. But... an early FP in a great location is nothing to sneeze at!

> In a surprise, the capital jumps to Samalanca.
Ha! Well that makes it "come back in 20 to 40 to finish her off" rather than a "take Salamanca as part of the tribute"

> She WONT give up Murcia for anything.
Ding ding ding - she just put up a sign that there is a "future resource" in its tiles - found our city in the same spot! (I agree with Ozy anyway, long term thinking is best. Although I hate colonies and would just put a few culture bldgs in and wait to expand)

> The battle for Leptis Magna begins The first vet Gallic drops to
> 1hp, does NO damage, but retreats. The next vet Gallic does 2
> hits to the Numidian, then dies . The 3rd Gallic, an Eliete wins
> with 1hp left. The 4th Gallic (an eliete) takes out a regular
> numidian 3-2 and Leptis Magna is ours
Sweet! That's the difference the speed 2 makes, we lost two instead of 1, needing 'double the number of defenders' of attackers to take the city.

I like your method of getting us to the Middle ages, playing whack-a-mole with the last Numidian.

> Now I notice something... Korea has droped to cautious... DOH!
> No wonder they were Gracious! They are at war with Spain and
> Carthage! I'm now left wishing I'd known. It probably would
> have been worth it to wait a few turns, heal up the galics, and
> try to take another city or 2 from Carthage and really put the
> screws to them. Sigh. Sorry about that move guys.

Actually, if Carthage was allied with either orange or pink, you just busted their rep, which is good! (They may have only been allied with Spain, I can't remember) Korea made their own bed when they wouldn't give a straight-up alliance, now they have to lie in it. At least the pressure is off us, and we took Spain totallly off their back.

> I dial up the Ottomons, and they will give us WM and 20 gold
> for peace now. Might as well. War with somone that far away
> right now seems pointless. Besides, a few orange swords just
> showed up spoted by our northern warrior.
Ah, they'll pay?? I figured they would need some pain first, given their haughtiness. Nice.

> The Arabs will now accept a flat peace treaty, so I take that too.
Well, I'll be...

> Ironically, our leader has just now arrived at his intended army
> making spot, and now I decide we don't want an army since we
> are at peace...... SO, he heads right back over to Santiago to
> make that FP afterall X_X.
Well being at peace instead of at war vs 4 civs certainly is a factor! Santiago??! Excellent choice! It's much better for producing 'more' non-corrupt cities than Madrid, which is what I figured, but given peace we can stretch out the distance from our core. Also, with a leader, Santiago is feasible - I was figuring Madrid because i) we could build it manually, and ii) it was closer to home and readily defensible. We'll want a strong garrison there to protect it since it's so far from home though.

> Now I check the diplo screen and everyone now has the Republic
> Maybe this is a weedy move that will get me tar'd and
> feathered but I decided we couldn't afford to wait 31 more
> turns for The Republic. I just feel really strongly that 30 more
> turns in despotisim would hold us back more than getting a
> productive government now would cost us up front.

Spot on man!! Good call! We're out of despotism AND being rel were able to do it fast enough to get some GA time under republic. In general, btw, don't expect tar and feathering, and it's ok (no, better than that, good) to take 'current' conditions into account with your own planning than plans which are meant to be dynamic.

I like the gems move and marketplaces too, and road to Leptis.

The only thing I half wish differently - it won't be long before the world has Feudalism and our glorious, glorious Gallic Swords fade away into oblivion. If we still had a force of 8 Gallics including several elites, I would have gone up and razed an orange or pink city, pushed them as far as we could before Pikes appeared. We're constrained now for 20 turns of peace with *everyone* and by then we might see all Pikes. I don't recall the map, but if there was an iron patch nearby that we could have taken, it would have meant no Pikes for the ones it was taken from.

I say "half wish" because with such a successful war, we are indeed in great shape and could certainly use an extended consolidation period.

> The new cities are all working on a temple at the moment for border purposes.

Good deal, let them heal and grow and be happy. As relig, if we can pop out a good number of temples, we'll have a great culture that will help with flips, flip prevention and most importantly in this game, atittude :P With all the war going on you can BET the other civs have been totally ignoring culture!

> I hope my play didn't suck too bad. Sorry if it did. I'm just not
> thinking very clearly at the moment.
No, you're not, your play was super :p

> Maybe I should have just steped aside and let the rest of you
> handle it with my current state of mind. Everyone waited on
> me, so I would have felt bad if I hadn't taken my turn, or if I'd
> put it off any longer. But now that I finished it, I wonder how
> bad I messed up.

If your family or the situation needs you, don't give us a second thought, do what you need to do. Have a good name, and we look forward to the pics and save file. Thanks for you committment, I hope the game was therapeutic - don't let fear of messing up take any fun away - that's against the spirit of our SG's

:goodjob:
Charis

PS @Ozy and thoughts...

Right, armies can't make leaders. The player-after-next will have to think carefully about where we're heading after the peace expires. There may yet be a window where we could have a 'tactical' Gallic war to hurt a foe or two and make some gains in land or tech, before the "great hiatus" we'll have until infantry arrive. As a "light infantry" variant, we'll totally miss out on Knights and Cavalry, and later on Tanks. Role-playing-wise, we think they're inferior and disdain them, but as players we know that a time of slumber may be coming for us, a much longer 'consolidation'. Artillery will be our great equalizer, if previous games shed any light. Because the win conditions are military, there WILL be a ton of fighting and yes, Army and Epic will help sooner rather than later. The next two turns will be pretty much buildiing infrastructure, and seeing big growth in our FP ring of cities, and coming up with the means to defend them vs Knights (even UU ones). Carthage's time of dominance is gone with Feudalism too. Out of the remaining civs, the one I *least* want to face in a war during their prime is the Ottomans and Siphali, so any chance to hamstring them before then would be a really good idea.

Can Entremont or Alesia start a wonder soon? The latter can do so via Palace placeholder even if we lack the tech. In our game Sistine, SunTzu and Leo's all rock, as does Bach. It would be super to snag one. Perhaps after Alesia's aqueduct? (and/or cathedral if the tech pace is slow and the others don't start a wonder)

Ozymandous

Nov 15, 2002, 09:24 AM

Since we're "at peace" for the next 20 (unless the AI changes this) how about popping out a few more settlers and heading East to the land we haven't settled yet? We should be able to pop a few more cities in there, which never hurts. :)

Have we explored all of that area yet? And if we do add more cities in that direction would it be worth it to more our capitol to Alesia for a more "central" location in that end?

T-hawk

Nov 15, 2002, 09:55 AM

Gallics do upgrade to Medieval Infantry, right? Those beat pikes. Although - do you get cash BACK for "upgrading" since the Gallics cost more to build? :)

Zed-F

Nov 15, 2002, 10:05 AM

Gallics retreat ability means they beat pikes too. Might be better to save the Gallics as Gallics (certainly the elites at least) for when you need mobility.

Hiatus until Infantry? Why? Sure, you want to consolidate first, but there's no reason you can't take it to the AI with Med Inf. and Pikes -- you may not have a speed advantage but you can have numbers. Those will work just fine until Cavalry arrive in the AI hands, and by the late middle ages you should be ahead on the tech tree. Taking a break then to wrap up outstanding infrastructure and build factories/hospitals should get you to about the point where you are approaching Replaceable Parts anyway.

Arathorn

Nov 15, 2002, 10:07 AM

I believe it's a "free" upgrade -- Gallic to medieval infantry for 0 gold, in any city with a barracks. Which is preferable is, of course, open to debate.

And I would claim that Gallic swords can easily beat pikes. Medieval infantry can probably beat muskets (40 shields vs. 60 shields, so losing 3 to kill 2 is a break-even proposition and you can probably do better than that.) Gallic swords vs. muskets might be very ugly, but with enough of 'em (hard to do @50 shields, I know), it shouldn't be a major problem.

I'd keep the offensive pedal to the metal for a while, if I were you. Maybe join the sharks against Korea (depending on time to walk there), even though they didn't frenzy on you.

Plenty of window for attacks yet, before cavalry/riflemen force a wait for artillery. At least IMHO.

Arathorn

Charis

Nov 15, 2002, 10:38 AM

Time to fire up my simulater again I see :D
These all assume defender is fortified, in a town less than
size 7 or open field. (If > size 7, bombard it down!)

Vet Gallics vs Reg Pikes - Win 42%, Retreat 31%, Lose 25%
Vet Gallics vs Vet Pikes - Win 28%, Retreat 40%, Lose 32%
Vet Gallics vs Reg Musk - Win 30%, Retreat 39%, Lose 31%
Vet Gallics vs Vet Musk - Win 16%, Retreat 44%, Lose 40%
Vet MedInf vs Reg Pikes - Win 66%, no Retreat, Lose 34%
Vet MedInf vs Vet Pikes - Win 50%, no Retreat, Lose 50%
Vet MedInf vs Reg Musk - Win 50%, no Retreat, Lose 50%
Vet MedInf vs Vet Musk - Win 35%, no Retreat, Lose 65%
(If Vet muskets, bombard them down to 3hp first)

Number of units needed to 'blitz' a town of 2 Vet Pikes:
4.4 Gallics, expected to lose 1.1
3.3 MedInf, expected to lose 1.3
Number of units needed to 'blitz' a town of 2 Reg Muskets:
4.4 Gallics, expected to lose 1.1
5.5 MedInf, expected to lose 1.5

Chance of a 4 on 2 siege vs Vet Pikes working, no barracks
Gallics: 72% win, 27% withdraw, 1% all die, expected loss of 1.0
MedInf: 95% win, 5% lose - expected losses of 1.3

Conclusion- too close to call! The Gallics win less often but die less often with retreat. In fact, a 'mixed' attack on a city probably gives the best results - soften a point off the defenders with a Gallic, and go for the win with Medieval Infantry. Certainly don't "upgrade" an elite Gallic to become a vet Medieval Inf.
There's also the advantage you can't quantify for being able to step up one square and attack a town on the same turn with the Gallics. Also, they're probably much better at chasing down Knights left in the open so they can't retreat.
Do we get to continue to make Gallics, due to the speed advantage? (Don't think so, just asking) Assuming we can't, keeping as many as we can around when we 'need' mobility is an excellent idea. (BTW, good call on your estimates of how our two offensive choices would fare against Pikes and Muskets)

Part of the purpose of the game is to see just what the Medieval Infantry can do (although Persian Immortal loves already know), so I think they'll definitely play a big role.

@Ozy - Excellent idea to backfill the east area, especially with peace

@Arathorn and Zed - Offensive pedal to the metal is probably a good idea, and you're right, we're not forced asleep until Cavalry which is a long way off. I'm hoping the Ottomans give us some lip, and we get the world against them so they're gone before Mil Tradition :P

We may be able to use strategic thinking to our advantage.
Denial of horses OR iron mean no knights!
Denial of iron means no pikes.
Denial of saltpeter means no muskets.

If a given foe lacks the resource needed for the 'current' advanced unit, we have a major advantage. The Gallic ability
to move and pilllage may come in handy there too.

Our advantage in numbers may come due to our nice FP and its whole ring of support.

:soldier:
Charis

Arathorn

Nov 15, 2002, 11:17 AM

Questions on your "simulator" Charis.

1. Is it available for others to use?
2. Do/can you record hps lost?
3. Do you account for promotions at all?
4. Do you account for the difference in retreat chances for vet vs. regular and vet vs. vet?
5. Why didn't you run elite numbers?

Of course, movement has other advantages besides retreat, as you noted. And I doubt you can build Gallics after medieval appear, since the former upgrade to the latter, but I've never been exactly clear on when you can build your UU and when you can't (I *think* it has something to do with whether or not you've had your GA, but I could easily be wrong on that.)

To me, though, it's reasonably clear that 5 medieval infantry are probably a match for 4 gallics (same 200 shields) but that it might be very prudent to have both around, as they have different exact uses. The answers to some of my questions above might change this opinion, however. (Specifically, my intuition is that the additional deaths of the medieval lead to more promotions which makes those fights tougher.)

Arathorn

Zed-F

Nov 15, 2002, 12:27 PM

The nice thing about this game is you are well setup for an attrition war; i.e. you are religious so can swap to Monarchy if need be in heavy fighting and back to Republic when you get the chance, your civ is larger than your neighbors so you can better absorb the expense of many units, and you don't have to worry about fighting on multiple fronts (although the one front you have is by no means small.)

That is the one thing the AI does not get a break on on harder difficulties -- things that require CASH (i.e. not science.) Unit support costs can become a killer for overly militaristic AIs, especially those that drop into less productive governments.

Charis

Nov 15, 2002, 02:50 PM

Arathorn wrote...
> Questions on your "simulator" Charis.
> 1. Is it available for others to use?

1. At present it's a Visual Basic app that I wrote last week, because existing calculators I saw gave only "base, one attack numbers", where what I really want to know is - can I take this city with these nn attacker? If I know they have a barracks or can get reinforced, how many units should I need to take it in a blitz, one turn? If we slug it out in a siege, keeping track that the defenders are losing hit points, how should it turn out. So basically it's a simulater that takes these scearios, runs them 1000 times and gets the percentages. If there were other 'real-world' questions that would be good to answer, lemme know :p

If there's interest I could make it available, but would want to polish up the interface a little bit. It also exports a CSV file with every attacker/defender pair for a tabular rather than interactive format.

> 2. Do/can you record hps lost?
Yes, that's the key feature, it keeps a sorted list of attacker and defender hp, and includes retreating.

> 3. Do you account for promotions at all?
Not at present, as I didn't have the number present. It is a 'known' thing though, isn't it? %chance to promote for mil and non-mil civs. Link? For cases of trying to overcome tough defense by sheer numbers, this would be important.

> 4. Do you account for the difference in retreat chances for vet
> vs. regular and vet vs. vet?

At present I use 50%, but is the real formula that:
%retreat chance = (fast units' max hp) / (fast unit max hp + opponents' max hp)
If so, reg vs reg or vet vs vet is 50%, but vet vs reg is 57% and elite vs reg is 62% - or is there some other formula?

> 5. Why didn't you run elite numbers?
I was quite in fear of presenting too many numbers as it was :p

..........
Elite numbers:
Elite Gallics vs Reg Pikes - Win 57%, Retreat 25%, Lose 18%
Elite Gallics vs Vet Pikes - Win 40%, Retreat 32%, Lose 27%
Elite Gallics vs Reg Musk - Win 42%, Retreat 32%, Lose 26%
Elite Gallics vs Vet Musk - Win 25%, Retreat 40%, Lose 35%
Elite MedInf vs Reg Pikes - Win 75%, no Retreat, Lose 25%
Elite MedInf vs Vet Pikes - Win 63%, no Retreat, Lose 37%
Elite MedInf vs Reg Musk - Win 63%, no Retreat, Lose 37%
Elite MedInf vs Vet Musk - Win 46%, no Retreat, Lose 54%
(If Elite muskets, bombard them down to 3hp first)

Number of *elite* units needed to 'blitz' a town of 2 Vet Pikes:
3.7 Gallics, expected to lose 0.7
2.8 MedInf, expected to lose 0.8
Number of *elite* units needed to 'blitz' a town of 2 Reg Muskets:
3.6 Gallics, expected to lose 0.7
2.9 MedInf, expected to lose 0.9

Chance of a 4 on 2 siege Elites vs Vet Pikes working, no barracks
Gallics: 89% win, 11% withdraw, 0.2% all die, expected loss of 0.7
MedInf: 99% win, 1% lose - expected losses of 0.8
See the last example, 89% vs 99% chance of win, but likelihood
of losing 1 MedInf and no Gallics in this siege
..........
Ok, you want to know how may Regular warriors it takes to blitz a town held by 2 Elite Mech Infantry don't you??! (If not elite at start, they will by the second horse each :P )
The first run ran out of memory trying to simulate 1000 such hideous events! :lol: Restarting with less apps open, it says:
- You need about 83 warriors and will lose 81 in a blitz
- If you siege 2 Mech Inf in the open surrounded by 100 warriors where they can't heal, the warriors have a 77% chance of winning, and a 23% of losing. So with enough Jaggies you can rule the world!

If you think it would be useful to make this available, or make an excel table available, or have formula corrections, let me know.

Charis

PS Question - You heal to full hp if you have a barracks and make no move or attack. With no barracks do you gain back 1hp? Does the AI get 1hp back, or does it gain 2? (I seem to remember seeing that latter via city inspection some game a long time ago)
This would be important information for the 'siege' calculations, and it's not currently included

Arathorn

Nov 15, 2002, 03:19 PM

Promotion chances:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24371&highlight=promotion+chance+regular

I believe healing is 1 hp in the open, 2 in a city without barracks, full in a city with barracks (or is it just 4 hps? Any modders know?) I also don't know about armies of units and how they heal. I think this is the same for the human and for the AI.

There're about a million questions I would like to ask a civ combat-ulator, but I don't have a good enough one. Have you considered counterstrikes out of the city with "defensive" units? What about one fortified, one not fortified? I want to go on more than my gut feel (which is usually accurate but not always) about the use of attacking a one hp defender when I have 3 one hp attackers. I, for one, would like a nice general emulator, but I should maybe just code my own, so I can call it how I like....

I'm not sure on the exact formula for retreats -- I've never seen it. I've always gone with a 50% +/-5% for each experience level of difference, as a "pretty good" estimate. Yours looks good, but I've not seen it anywhere else. I don't know. Maybe somebody could/should set up a huge situation and see... I also think that the retreat %age is important. You do have it set up, though, that a unit will not retreat if the opponent has only one hp left, though, right?

Well, I suspect some might not be interested in the numbers, but I'm a math geek (Ph.D. and all), so I very much appreciate the analysis, in as much depth as you care to present it. I figure it's easier for others to completely skip something than for me to guess accurately.

I guess I'm also confused by how you define "seige". My mental image of a seige is attacking until one side or the other is eliminated. How, then, can Gallics have a withdraw %age? Can you clarify?

Also, as a favor, could you run 6 knights (4/3) vs. 7 ansar warriors (4/2), with attacks and counter-attacks in a bloodbath? Or is that beyond your simulator? I'd like to see comparison results of knights attacking first vs. AWs attacking first. (No retreat since both are "fast" units.)

How many knights does it take to take out 3 riflemen -- 2 vet and one conscript? Probably assume a city size 7-12. Also, how long/much effort does it take to run your simulations (e.g. am I asking for too much?)

Arathorn

T-hawk

Nov 15, 2002, 04:17 PM

I think healing in a city with barracks is 4/turn rather than full, since that's how armies heal. Also, territory of an RoP partner is considered friendly - you can heal in it without Battlefield Medicine.

The promotion percentages are known: 1/4 for regular to vet; halve the chance for vet to elite; double the chance for militaristic. Also, a unit that wins two combats in a single turn (if it's defending, attackers that retreat don't count) automatically promotes after the second -- this is quite important against warrior/archer rushes, and is why jaguar rushes can work so well (they retreat).

What would be really great and applicable is a simulator in which you could list all your attacking units (of a combination of types), the defenders you'd expect to face, and have it tell you your chances of winning, expected losses, and even what the optimal order to attack with your units is (do you send the Gallics in first hoping they do damage and retreat, or save them to clean up wounded defenders?)

Charis

Nov 15, 2002, 04:20 PM

Excellent, a fellow geek (PhD Chem Engr here, thesis in Math modeling)

First, thanks for the link, wow that is everything you wanted to know about leaders. Also about the healing info - what you said sounds right.

The sim at present doesn't have the defenders attacking, nor does it have "combined arms" in any way.

> You do have it set up, though, that a unit will not retreat if the
> opponent has only one hp left, though, right?

Well of cour... er... in double checking I see I had it included but incorrectly! That's fixed now, but early numbers would have overestimated retreating somewhat.

> I guess I'm also confused by how you define "seige". My mental
> image of a seige is attacking until one side or the other is
> eliminated. How, then, can Gallics have a withdraw %age? Can
> you clarify?
Correct picture of the siege. I have a checkbox marked 'All Out' which if not checked, a unit that has been one hp left will head home to heal and withdraw from the siege. If all attacking units drop to 1hp, they break off. That's an option because in practice I would seldom if ever attack with a 1hp attacker, but it's good to give the program the option.

> Also, as a favor, could you run 6 knights (4/3) vs. 7 ansar
> warriors (4/2), with attacks and counter-attacks in a
> bloodbath? Or is that beyond your simulator? I'd like to see
> comparison results of knights attacking first vs. AWs attacking
> first. (No retreat since both are "fast" units.)

It won't have both attacks and counter-attacks, but I can give the answer letting each side take offense. (And yes, if speeds are same there's no retreat) I'll take both sides as vets and give the defender a fortify bonus since he's not counterattacking, but not give him a city or hill or anything other than grass. Siege results:
Knights on ansars - 70% win, 27% "withdraw", 3% lose
Expected number of units left after such a siege: 3.4 Knights, 0.8 Ansars
Ansars vs Knights - 60% win, 33% "withdraw", 7% loss
Expected number of units left: 3.0 Ansars, 1.1 Knights
("Withdraw" means attackers break off siege when all have
1hp left, although there were no retreats per se)
Conclusion - for these guys being on the attack is beneficial and you would counterattack rather than fortify, either way. Also, it's apparent that the Knights would win a "counterpunching" fight overall, but not by a great margin, probably whoever went first would still win.

> How many knights does it take to take out 3 riflemen -- 2 vet
> and one conscript? Probably assume a city size 7-12. Also,
> how long/much effort does it take to run your simulations (e.g.
> am I asking for too much?)

It's far longer to type the results than to get them, the run just takes a second or two. Ah, mixing the defenders, can't handle that at present, so let me give some other numbers -
Vet knights assaulting a size 7 grass city of three rifles
Three vet rifles: It takes 11 and you lose 4.5 in a blitz, or it takes 9 to have a 50-50 chance of winning a siege (losing 4.5).
Three reg rifles: Takes 9 to blitz (losing 3) or 7 to seige (losing 3)
Three conscripts: Takes 6.5 to blitz (losing 2) or just 4 to siege (losing 1.5, going all out)
(Takes 5.5 to siege two vet rifles alone, and 1.1 for solo conscript,
so interpolating gives in imprecise 7 knights to win the siege)

An assumption in the siege is - attackers go in order of descending current hp, whereas in practice, many folks milk elites by letting vets go first - that would be interesting to study.

:egypt:
Charis

theos

Nov 15, 2002, 04:25 PM

Originally posted by T-hawk
...and even what the optimal order to attack with your units is (do you send the Gallics in first hoping they do damage and retreat, or save them to clean up wounded defenders?)

I'm very tempted to write a program to do just that, but first I'll need to know how the computer chooses the order in which defenders defend (e.g. 2 hp rifleman or 3 hp musketeer?). I've tried to find answers in forum backposts but no luck, unsurprisingly. So does anyone reading this know, or should I just start my own thread in the General Discussions forum?

T-hawk

Nov 15, 2002, 04:40 PM

The game chooses the defender by Remaining HP * Defense Value (modified by fortification, etc). That of course gives the defending unit with the greatest chance of winning the combat. When there's a tie, the game uses the unit with the least damage.

Your example of 2-hp rifle or 3-hp musket is still a wash, of course. If there's still a tie (neither unit damaged), I _think_ it chooses the higher-defense-rating unit. I'm pretty sure I've seen conscript rifles defending before veteran cavalry do, which makes sense as for what the defender would want to happen.

I'm also pretty sure that vet pikemen defend before veteran knights; presumably the check causing that behavior is that a unit with a lower offense defends before a unit with a higher offense. This may or may not occur before the check in the previous paragraph.

ToddMarshall

Nov 15, 2002, 07:15 PM

*Yawn* I'm awake now ;) . Offensively, I'd agree I did pretty good. A little RNG luck vs Carthage didn't hurt at all.

Bold move taking that city from Carthage? Nah. We had 5 Gallics -2 eliete 3 vet - on it and it's best defender was a regular. Everyone is going to have pikes soon anyhow. I didn't see a reason in the world NOT to take that city. Seening nothing better than a regular there was like waving a banner reading "Take me NOW please!" at me. Plus, at the time I was thinking we would want to go for the "take 3" against them before we would get a reasonable peace deal from them. Knowing what I know now (ie they are at war with Korea - which I couldn't see since we dont have an embasy with Korea), I wish we had taken one more city and tried to extort either monarchy or monotheisim or feudalisim for peace.

Things I messed up IMHO.

1) Not putting the FP down in Santiago right away. I should have just trusted my own judgement on that call but this is my first SG so I'm trying to look at the big picture of what the team thinks. BTW, this site ROCKS for the FP. Only our 2 east coast cities have any real shield loss now. They are at 40% or so loss and are closing in on their courthouses :)

2) My micro managment could have been a lot better really. I ended up overpaying 10 shields for the settler because I wanted it NOW not in 5 more turns, and there wasn't anywhere except Entremont, which I wanted to keep at size 10 for the rest of the GA, I could make it from faster than that without waste :( I was also a turn late on a temple whip when I miscounted shields (no, I wasn't tired or anything :) ) ALso I have a worker mining a grass that probably should have been Irrigated. He's got 9 turns to go (foreign worker) so somone might wana veto that stupidity ;)

3) Not realizing Korea was at war with Carthage - We should have gone for the jugular there. BTW, KOREA IS WINNING. That Carthagenian city (Theveste) that controlled all the insence is a pile of ruins now. Unfortunately, we got a tech from Carthage, so we are stuck for 15 more turns. I STRONGLY suggest we keep a close eye on that conflict and if Korea is still at war with them in 15 turns, I think we should just help them finish Hanibal - not completely, but rather to try to get feudalisim or monotheisim or theology out of him.

4) I messed up one turn and didn't have a scientist, so we are a turn behind where we should be on our Engeneering research. Probably not critical, but still.... The scientist is currently in a size one city because its whiped and cant sustain 1 happy citizen at the moment, so he might as well be a scientist. Keep an eye on this, and when the whiping penalty lifts, move the scientist somewhere else.

Other notes.

To the next player- we have 2 regular warriors sleeping in one of the cities - can't remember which - but they arent needed there. Look around and find them and figure out what to do with them. I'd not upgrade them at this point, but they might be useful as a 2nd defender/flip supressor somewhere at the front. Originally I was going to upgrade them, but didn't have the cash and now I don't think it's worth it to upgrade them as they are regulars.

Our income looks bad at only like 6gpt, BUT we have 2 deals with Korea expiring in 1 turn so it will jump dramatically after that. The biggest problem is that we have to run 20% lux right now. Thats why I want those lux on line pronto. I'm not a big fan of colonies, but in this case it MIGHT ber justified if we can get that lux on line 20-30 turns faster that way because unhapiness is a serious problem for us right now. If we get 4 lux hooked up instead of 2, and add in the marketplace effect in the larger cities, and the Coleseum in Entremont thats almost finished (We may want to veto that to marketplace? Next players call on that), we have it made happiness wise, and our income will be pretty darn good too. Ordinarily I hate Colesums (Cathedrals are a much better return), but I think that one may be justified.

I thought about building the Lighthouse in Entremont, but decided against it since it could be near completion on the other continent - probably is actually. Surely SOME civ is working on it. While it would be nice to get it and make money from the contacts it could bring us, I felt we had more pressing needs right now.

We desperately NEED more workers. We should look at setting up a worker factory asap somewhere imho. We also need more spears soon, preferably before we have to build them as pikes.

The barb camp south of Alesia is gone. When I got the WM from the Ottomons, I saw where it was and had the Gallic take it out. Also, it won't be coming back any time soon. That carthage galley WAS a settler pair and they have a city to our south now. There are very few places left that arent in view of at least one civ so the barbs are running out of places to appear. Plus they are more likely to harrass Spain or Carthage if they do pop up.

If we get that road hooked up to Leptis, we should have a road all the way to Carthage. Please, please, please, give this road priority. I can't emphasize enough how key I feel this road is. The worker outside Leptis making the road through the forest there is a Carthage slave, so he will be slow =/. There are also a pair of spanish workers roading north to meet up with him.

I think we should go agressively at Carthages 4 western cities as soon as we can. This will give us more spices, more ivory, 3 cities that should be salvagable with courthouses, and if we can take and hold Carthage itself, the mother of all ancient wonders, the Pyramids.

On the subject of upgrading gallics to med. inf.... I think it's a bad idea for now. My suggestion would be leave them as Gallics until we get a target picked out, take the first or 2nd city there with Gallics, THEN rush a rax and consider upgrading some of them there. Eventually they will be better off as med inf i think, but lets leave them mobile till we get them all where we want them. I like Charis's idea of half and half actually.

Further thoughts.

"We're constrained now for 20 turns of peace with *everyone*"

No, we arent. We didn't get cities or techs from Arabia or the Ottomans, so if we HAVE to we can shread those and go get some, though that would probably give us a rep hit? My thinking on taking peace with them was it would be several turns before we had a healthy force of Gallics to spare to attack either of these opponents. Taking healing time, garrison needs, and the fact that half our Gallics were over in the west and would have to travel through forest/jungle to meet up with the eastern forces made me think it would be 15 or so turns before we could mount a credible offensive in either of those directions. We COULD have continued pumping Gallics instead of infra I suppose, and maybe been able to shave a few turns off that, but in my opinion, we needed markets and republic if we are going to play the buy tech game. Also, I THINK, could be wrong, that we are going to want pink or orange as an ally at some point, and which one is NOT clear to me, so why not keep them friendly for the time being? That was my thinking anyway. I don't play enough conquest only to be a master of it, so that could be weedy I suppose.

The capital would be much better placed in Alesia once we have taken those 2 cities in the south from Spain and Carthage, and given the opportunity, we should consider moving it there.

After we finish with Carthage, or maybe even while we are working on them, we should look at allying with either the Arabs vs the Ottomons or vice versa. I'd prefer the former. It looks possible that the Ottomans may not get horses. Looks like it will come to a cultural battle with the Arabs in one location to me unless I missed something. The Arabs DO have horse units (our warrior in the north watched one take out a barb horsie.)

Consider getting those last 2 embasies to give us allying options, and to improve Korean relations. The arabs and ottomons are now polite twards us :).

Consider wonder strategy. Do we want to go for a wonder soon? I think we should try for either Sistine, Sun Tsu's, or Bach's but we will need a prebuild soon if we are going to go for one of those...... Plus we have to worry about the Hanging Gardens cascade snatching them away. The one wonder I now see as a MUST is Smiths. With the new ecconomic developments, this wonder is now THE wonder to grab it seems to me.

Now, will SOMONE PLEASE explain to me, in plain english, step by step, how I upload this file so you can all take a look at it? And also how I upload pictures. I tried to follow the directions here but I couldn't get it to work.

If not here, then aim me at WCManiacMarshall or MSN me at Pojounderdog@hotmail.com, or as a last resort, e-mail me at Rphgmc@aol.com.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 15, 2002, 08:45 PM

Here's a step-by-step on how to upload a file to Civfanatics:

-Go to the bottom of the page. The VERY bottom of the page. There's a row of links that appear on every CF page, the rightmost one being the file upload link. This is a part that threw me off for the longest time since I was expecting the upload link to be somewhere above where it actually was.

-When you click on the link it will spawn a small popup window that will prompt you to select up to three files for upload. Browse through your directories and find your file(s) that you wish to upload.

-Once you've found all the files you want to upload, hit the upload button.

-Your files are now uploaded, and are located in the folder http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/ (note the civfanatics.net instead of .com) Link to them like you normally would, using url and /url tags in square brackets, or by using the "http://" button above the entry window and following the prompts, or just by typing the url into your post and have the "automatically parse URLs" option checked below the entry window. Note that any spaces in the filename are converted to underscores. The page that the upload window shows you after you successfully upload the file should also give you the correct url for those files (IIRC, I didn't want to upload a dummy file to test), at least there should be some place that you can copy-paste it from after it's uploaded.

To show an image, enclose the url for the image in img and /img tags. If it's an image below 100k, you could also just attach it.

ToddMarshall

Nov 15, 2002, 09:29 PM

Should it actually do something when I click upload lol. I've done that and nothing appears to happen.

Ok, now it SAYS upload successful, but when I browse the folder.... they are NOT there.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 15, 2002, 10:41 PM

Interesting, I just tried uploading my monkeys-wearing-suits avatar pic and it didn't seem to have problems.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/ccavatar.jpg

That said, I rooted around the folder and didn't seem to find any files that looked like your savegame (assuming that your file started with rbp1 or RBP1). You'll just have to try again, I suppose.

ToddMarshall

Nov 15, 2002, 10:56 PM

well, i got one that finally said it uploaded, but it didnt succeede. its 0k :( Ive tried 20 times now. I honestly don't know what else to do.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 15, 2002, 11:04 PM

...just email it to me. Carbon@c-14.org. I won't be able to play it until Sunday, so there's no real hurry.

T-hawk

Nov 15, 2002, 11:20 PM

The upload file link is a pop-up window, which is kinda unnecessary and a tad bothersome to those of us who run browsers with pop-ups disabled.

You can bookmark the upload file page directly, at this address:

http://www.civfanatics.net/upload.html

Charis

Nov 15, 2002, 11:24 PM

Marshall, excellent post and analysis! Much more lucid now that you have some sleep :p

As far as uploads, a few ideas -
1. Use a 'zip' file not a .sav file
2. When you look for the file, remember that upper/lower case matters
3. When I browse the directory, i see a file in there called
RBP1-Celts-350BC.sav - but it's of zero length
4. You might check browser settings, you might have 'security level' set too high, or have javascript disabled, both of which would kill this upload from working

Also, for typing in a link, just type in the h t t p address by itself, and it will get auto formatted. For an image, click the "IMG" button above, and it will wrap the URL you type with [ IMG ] and [ \IMG ] (no spaces in practice)

But if none of this helps, email it to CC and he will post it to CF
or you can email it to me and i'll do same -- my addy is
charisena at insightbb.com (<-- use 'at' symbol obviously)

Charis

ToddMarshall

Nov 16, 2002, 01:57 AM

OK. Charis, I sent the save file, a screenie of the Rename our victorious unit, and 3 screenies of our empire/west Carthage to your e-mail. I've never had a problem with that working before so hopefully thats ok. Please confirm that you got them when you get a chance. Thanks, and sorry for the problems.

Also, before I sent the save, I went in and just activated those 2 warriors and resaved so carbon wouldn't have to hunt for them.

ToddMarshall

Nov 16, 2002, 04:43 AM

Further proof that it is best to play Civ while awake...... We ALLREADY have Ivory hooked up (DOH - I thought it was Incense for some reason) So we will have 4 lux NOT 5 and there is NO reason to make that colony. I still think the markets are the best way to go.

I did a little indepth thinking on the hapiness situation. We are currently paying out a sad 24 gold for entertainment at 20% lux. At 10% level, we would only be paying 12, and yet it would still keep almost all of our cities other than Entremont happy. The 2 it wouldn't could get by with a tax man I think. We might also want to bleed a few workers off from these cities to kill 2 birds with one stone.

Entremont needs 20% AND a clown at the moment. With that Coleseum due in 3, it will only need 10% and a Clown so my call would definately be to finish that coleseum, start it on a market, and drop the lux to 10%. 12gpt (10 after coleseum maintenence) adds up in a hurry. It will take 9 turns to get the gems on line, which is conveniently about the time Entremont and Valeruminum or something like that will finish markets and get a bonus happy face. It will, unfortunately, take longer than that to get the spices hooked up. More like 15 turns since we only have 3 slaves working on that road.

Thats my suggestion anyhow after reviewing it.

Btw, I finally got an attachment to work. Yea @ me. Give me another round and maybe I'll have uploads worked out. This is the event that literally caused me to knock over my pepsi. In the background you can also see the utter disrespect Hanibal showed for us by defending his boarder city with a REGULAR Numidian. Guess we showed him huh.

Charis

Nov 16, 2002, 10:32 PM

My orig post here got eaten JUST as the forums went down today... Shorter version:
I got an email from Marshall with the save and pics. The pics were shrunk to 800 width and smaller file size.
(One more thing next time you try upload Marshall, use lower case letters for file extension, ie .sav not .SAV)

(Edit- also, it would be nice to use 'Grid' (cntrl-G) for these pictures, as it helps dotmap considerations quite a bit)

Our North:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/OurNorth-350BC.jpg

Our South:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/TheSouth-350BC.jpg

Carthage:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/Carthage-350BC.jpg

Save file at 350BC: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-Celts-350BC.zip (direct from Marshall with orig pics)

And yes, you sound much more lucid and coherrent with sleep!
:lol:
Charis

ToddMarshall

Nov 16, 2002, 11:02 PM

Ack. I sent you the one with the grid off? The beauty of that is I did that on accident, went back in and took one with it on, then sent you the wrong one..... Oh well. The good news is I cant do anything else weedy for a whole rotation now right ;)

Carbon_Copy

Nov 17, 2002, 04:22 AM

got it, should play sometime Sunday afternoon. Looks like we're in great shape.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 17, 2002, 05:51 PM

Inherited turn - I assess our empire, now much larger than it was the last time I looked at it. First thing I do is change some stuff around. Madrid goes from Market to granary, Lugdunum goes from market to settler, Entremont goes from Colosseum to marketplace (I am really not a big fan of Colosseums except when going for culture wins or when you just don't have luxuries), Camulodunum goes from market to granary. I send one of the warriors north, the other one I send south.

330 - Interturn, the Ottomans establish an embassy. Then the Mongols complete the Great Lighthouse. I check the F7 screen to see what the wonder situation is, and I notice that we probably won't have to worry too much about the Vikings later in the game if the Mongols have the Colossus in the city of Trondheim. We now have 27 gpt going from expired deals. First thing I do is establish an embassy with the Koreans for 45g. Seoul pulls in 7 shields per turn at size 4, has one clown doing happiness duty, and is building the Hanging Gardens which will be due in 33. It is also defended by two spears. With only 6 shields left on the marketplace in Entremont, I maximize commerce in the city and manage to pull out enough happy faces to run the city for this one turn without a clown, at the cost of only pulling in 7 shields per turn.

310 - Settler complete in Lugdunum, market complete in Entremont. Lugdunum starts worker, Entremont starts a galley.

290 - Gergovia founded on the rubble of that old spanish city by the ivory, and starts a worker. I send the settler from Lugdunum to found the fishing spot by Entremont, and use that reg warrior I sent south to provide a token garrison. The northern warrior and the vet spear sitting on the iron by Madrid will provide the garrison in that town to free up the elite Gallic.

270 - The first ship in the Celtic fleet sets sail on pirate-busting, taking out one on turn 1. Lugdunum completes worker, starts spear, Barcelona completes temple, starts worker. For the lack of something better to build, Entremont starts on a Gallic. I check around for the prices on Monotheism, and while we can afford it, it's just a little too rich for me.

250 - Camulodunum finishes granary, starts on a spear. Augustodurum, Ozy's fishing village, is founded.

230 - Four tiles from shore, our galley spots a whale, which would strongly suggest an island to our southeast. I keep looking at Monotheism prices (for our cheap cathedrals, a much more robust happiness solution than colosseums). Best I can get so far is from Korea, 15 gpt and all 298 of our treasury. I decide to wait at least one more turn on that to drop the gpt price some more.

210 - Hannibal starts Sun Tzu, most of the AIs have Feudalism except Korea and Spain. Gems at Camulodunum are hooked up. Verulamium and Entremont, which would riot without an entertainer, can now run all their citizens due to the extra two happy faces from the third lux and 20% lux tax. Actually, I go back and drop lux tax to 10%, we are now pulling in 54 gpt and Entremont rehires the clown. I then dial up Wang Kong and give him our WM + 298g + 14gpt for Monotheism. I then switch Entremont from Gallic to Cathedral which will be complete in 3 turns. And we still have 40 gpt left to toss around. I scout around the whale a bit and see that we can reach the other side safely on the next turn.

190 - Not much goes on. I cross to the island to our southeast and plant the gallic that's been running around on barb patrol to scout.

170 - Aha, found the mongols. I see a yellow border on the island but I cannot make contact. Santiago and Leptis Minor finish temples, Santiago starts a granary while Leptis starts a worker. Camulodunum finishes its granary and starts a cathedral.

150 - Camulodunum riots when it reaches size 8. Oops. Contact with the Mongols is made. And boy are they behind the rest of the world in tech. On the plus side, the contact can be traded around for drastic discounts on Feudalism and Monarchy. I start the fun by trading contact with the Spanish and Polytheism to the Mongols for contact with the Vikings, their world map, and 162g (their whole treasury). The Vikings turn out to be down to their last two cities and are completely broke. I trade them contact with the Spanish for their piddly world map. Then to the Koreans I trade contact with the Mongols and Vikings, the new world map, and 215g for Feudalism. Then to the Arabs I trade contact with the Vikes and Mongols, 100g, WM, and 14 gpt for Monarchy. I then trade contacts + WM to Carthage for their WM, 65g, and a worker.

Now, I thought that trading for Feudalism would be a safe thing to do, since I'm pretty sure I could build both Gallics and Medieval Infantry after Feudalism in another game as the Celts, but apparently not in this game. On the up side, we can now build Medieval Infantry that have 1 higher attack and cost 10 fewer shields.

I've tried my best to get us military-ready for the next player while building up our infrastructure. There are 9 gallic swords in Leptis Minor, seven of them elite. I made sure to keep the Ottomans and the Carthaginians out of gpt deals so that we can attack them at our convenience without pulling any exploits once the mandatory 20 turns on the peace treaties run out. That was also the reasoning behind always trading with Korea, so we could keep our options as open as possible. That and I wanted to indirectly assist them in their war against Carthage (who had been sending units in Korea's direction throughout my turn). Carthage should definitely come under the gun as soon as we are able, for as much of their territory as we can grab rather than a quick "take 3" since we are at tech parity with the rest of the world. If we take Utica, Leptis Magna, Carthage proper, and whatever city is to the east of Carthage by the horses, we'll have all of their strategic resources and they'll be unable to build knights.

Some concerns for the next chief(s):

-We really need more workers, especially up by Santiago. Dedicate one or two cities to just build workers. The sooner all that junk up there gets cleared out and the tiles get improved, the better off we'll be. Once Augustodurum gets its temple and gets a granary (and maybe a harbor) this would be an excellent choice, but in the interim Verulamium, Barcelona, and Madrid are good choices once they get their granaries built.

-More markets. I know I vetoed more marketplaces than I built, but we really do need these. Our fourth lux will be hooked up during the next player's turn and that means two extra smilies in every city with a market.

-This is easier to tell on the minimap than on the main game screen, but there is definitely some sort of land to our northeast by Richborough just out of our vision. It would be a suicide galley to reach it, but might be worth our while.

-We might want to start thinking about building libraries and doing our own research. With our early FP we should have enough cities to pull away with a tech lead by the end of the Middle Ages.

Here's a picture of the main Mongolian-Scandinavian continent. The Mongols also have three more cities on the smaller island closest to us.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1Mongolia.jpg

And here is the save file:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-Celts-150BC.zip

Charis

Nov 17, 2002, 09:46 PM

Good job, Carbon - the choices in place at your turn start were good, but the changes you made were also good - a case of deciding between two good alternatives.

> With only 6 shields left on the marketplace in Entremont, I
> maximize commerce in the city and manage to pull out enough
> happy faces to run the city for this one turn without a clown, at
> the cost of only pulling in 7 shields per turn.

I meant to comment on this as a "advanced general tip" for newer folks --
- If just one city in your civ has happiness trouble, consider an entertainer rather than raising the tax rate, but see how much you save and compare to how much it hurts what is likely one of your best cities
- Half the time when you put on an entertainer, you have more happy than sad faces, and can swap it to a taxman or scientist instead
- When you're short just "one face", ie with all tiles worked there is just one more sad than happy, and lux rate is non-zero, then moving *which* tiles are worked to maximize commerce instead of food or shields can change the unhappiness level in the city. For example at 14 commerce 10% luxtax just gets one happy face, while pulling in 20 commerce nets two happy faces.
(That's precisely what Carbon did, and why he knew how to try maximizing commerce - to gain one more happy face)

Good move on waiting as late as you could for Monotheism, as just didn't "need" it just then, as all places had productive things they could work on instead of Cathedral. Also glad to see another settler or two being made.

Good job finding the Mongols, and trading with Korea to keep all war options open - now *that* is good team-SG play! :goodjob:

> Now, I thought that trading for Feudalism would be a safe thing
> to do, since I'm pretty sure I could build both Gallics and
> Medieval Infantry after Feudalism in another game as the Celts,
> but apparently not in this game. On the up side, we can now
> build Medieval Infantry that have 1 higher attack and cost 10
> fewer shields.

Doh! I wasn't sure if that would be the case or not. I think it's blind as to the quality of upgrades, but just disables the old one in an upgrade chain. Normally there would be a backup plan that disconnecting or selling our only iron would disallow Medieval Infantry to be made, since they require iron. But... we're just plain stuck - Gallics need iron to. As the *only* move 2 unit we're going to see until Mech Inf, don't use these guys carelessly!! (I would still love to see a Gallic swords army if we have enough)

Do **NOT** "upgrade" any Gallic to Medievals!! Build them from scratch or upgrade warriors!

> I've tried my best to get us military-ready for the next player
> while building up our infrastructure. There are 9 gallic swords in
> Leptis Minor, seven of them elite.

I fully like the idea of taking it to the Carthaginians, and getting all those cities that would be non-corrupt near our FP. Those are simply "must have, why wait" cities, in fact. The problem is that we would prefer to see Gallics live. So I would suggest a very quick generation of a combined assault team - MedInf to take first strike on defenders, and Gallics to take the hurt ones and fish for a Great Leader. Also have a spearman around with them to be the defense rather than a Gallic defender.

And Carbon as right, with nothing to gain from extortion, you go after and take all the cities of Carthage that you want, not just 3. If Korea will pay for an alliance or do it free, it would keep us as gracious friends in this game. Denying horses to deny knights is a great plan.

> We might want to start thinking about building libraries and
> doing our own research. With our early FP we should have
> enough cities to pull away with a tech lead by the end of the
> Middle Ages.

I think we have the city base that we 'could' do this, but I'm still drawn to the "Our sword is our research lab!" idea :p

falsfire <--- UP
Ozymandous <--- On deck

Good luck!
Charis

LKendter

Nov 17, 2002, 09:51 PM

Now, I thought that trading for Feudalism would be a safe thing
> to do, since I'm pretty sure I could build both Gallics and
> Medieval Infantry after Feudalism in another game as the Celts,
> but apparently not in this game. On the up side, we can now
> build Medieval Infantry that have 1 higher attack and cost 10
> fewer shields.

It took my awhile to figure out why one game I still could build Jags in the middle ages and another could only build swordsman.
You ALWAYS can build your UU if you haven't had your golden age. After you have your ga, you only can build the highest unit on the upgrade chain.

falsfire

Nov 17, 2002, 09:58 PM

Got it.

Will try to play tomorrow, depending how I feel. I'm kinda down with a cold now. (I *hate* winter)

If I can't play tomorrow, I'll try to drag myself over to the pooter long enough to post a pass-off, in that case I'll either play after Ozy or wait til next rotation, whatever the consensus is.

I will definately play tho if I feel up to it when I awake tomorrow.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 17, 2002, 10:08 PM

Thanks for the info. Now that you've mentioned it, it all makes sense now. I had never put the two of those together.

Charis

Nov 17, 2002, 10:31 PM

I hate to waste bandwidth with "me too" posts, but...

Lee, thanks!!! [dance]

I *know* I've seen cases like you mentioned, where I could build my UU despite the availability of upgraded units, and other games where, with same resource availability, definitely could not. Including a bowman and longbow choice at the same time.

Why do I get the feeling that a year or two from now I'll STILL be finding out simple explanations for things like this that I never knew!

Charis

PS - EDIT
I just looked closer at the 150 save...
- The worker in Lugdunum will pop out nicely in 2, not in 3 as it says thanks to the city growth which will take in the gold shields
In fact, Lugdunum looks like an ideal worker farm for the horse of workers we could use
- Valencia is no longer feeling hopelessly whipped, try to get her off scientist duty and let her grow ASAP. This round in particular, Camulodunum can have its non-worker be a scientist
- Madrid - SHOOT, the city will grow before the granary finishes, a loss of one-half box of food! Take off one worker and put it into no-growth or shortage!
- If we expect battle vs Carthage, *definitely* get a barracks at our front line Leptis minor asap
- Pretty efficient use of shields in the capital to make Med Inf, which need 40 shields, as it produces 14 per turn, done in 3.
Even better, once we hit max size of 12, if you MINE the cattle and the hill, and use some forests, we'll get *20* shields per turn, cranking out a zero waste Med Inf every other turn :hammer:
- Glad to see those courthouses getting built

ToddMarshall

Nov 17, 2002, 11:53 PM

Wow, looks like a great turn to me. Kudos on noticing that whale and finding the other civs.

Vetoing the markets was the right way to go IMHO. I knew that a lot of them would get vetoed, but at only 4 turns on them, I figured the next player could figure what to make there and honestly I was too tired to come up with a comprehensive strategy at that point. The only one I semi dissagree with is the grainery in Camulodunum because I'm of the opinion that we will have the Pyramids soon and we are allready growing about as fast as we can find happy faces, but the grainery ceartianlly wasn't a bad choice.

The Entremont market was absolutely right. I didn't realize we would be able to get Monotheisim that cheap that fast. That we did makes that an even better call since we will have a market AND a Cathedral instead of a Colesseum there soon.

I wouldn't sweat the Feudalisim thing at all. I'm playing a "Europe" game on my own right now on Emperor (the 8 civs that are in real Europe not counting the Russians and I randomly diced for a civ) and drew a spot that features 5 Iron, 4 Saltpeter and ZERO horses for thousands of miles, so I'm effectively playing "light infantry" by force. I've been impressed with how well my Medieval Infantry/Hoplite combo have done against the English Knights, Spears and Archers.

Charis says "Also have a spearman around with them to be the defense rather than a Gallic defender." After seeing the hoplite/med inf combo cruising through England in my game, I'd say get a vet pike to escort if possible. This will seriously mess up their counter attacks.

Med Infantry seems like a really good unit in the hands of a capable human for any of you that haven't been able to muck about with them yet. I think it will pretty much make Longbows pointless in any setting where you have Iron. Besides, I think we will want to get some pikes on the front line soon anyway seeing as others will be cranking knights and their own med infantry soon.

I mostly agree with your ideas on Carthage. Currently they have a 7 core and that one city to our south. The way I see a successful war against them would be to take Leptis Manga, Utica, Hippo, and that city to our south because they can all be productive cities, and Carthage itself because of the Pyramids. At that point, we should see what we can extort from Hanibal for peace. If it is something worthwhile, I'd say just let him live 20 turns with those 3 cities (or more likely let him die at the hands of Korea). I don't see the horse city as a threat. They would have no iron for knights, the horses aren't hooked up (unless they were on your turn), and none of those 3 eastern cities are hooked to each other. Even if they got the horses hooked up, horsemen dont frighten me that much right now, and they wouldn't get more than a couple made in 20 turns anyway. Of course, if he doesn't have anything worthwhile to offer for peace at that point, then we just exterminate him.

One minor thing on the trade order. I don't think I'd have traded contact with the Spanish for the Viking WM at that point in the order. I'd have brokered contact with them at the monopoly price towards a tech first, then come back and gotten the WM, or just bought their WM if it wasn't too high. Then again, they are so small contact with them might not have been worth much anyway. Thats a pretty minor quibble though on what appears to be a really excellent turn.

At first I was thinking trading for Monarchy at that pirce was weed since I don't think we will get any use from it for a long time, but clearly it was a good choice since you got a discount on the price for contact brokers.

On the libraries, I agree with this caveat. I'd build markets first. That leaves open the possibility of sticking with the ecconomic route via banks.

I really strongly urge we keep an eye on the Wonder Race and try to get Smiths if the cascade cooperates.

With 4 lux and cheap Cathedrals, we should be ok happiness wise till Hospitals. If I've figured it right, once the big cities have market/temple/cathedral, we shouldn't need any lux tax and just 1 tax man at size 12 with that combo. Plus I note that the Koreans have an extra fur we might be able to trade for once they hook it up and we get a road through to them.

We are doing just fine with buying tech at the moment, and while I think we can start thinking about doing our own research soon, it isn't critical for us to do that until the start of Industrial Age where we can do the Medicine/Sanitation/ToE tech whore thing an just leave the AI in the dust.

Anyway, looks like you got us into great shape for a push on Carthage while still pushing infra. Congrats on sorting through the weed I left ya.

falsfire

Nov 18, 2002, 03:30 PM

150 BC (0) - As suggested, I change the Valencia scientist to a field worker, telling her to work the tile we're currently mining with our workers. I tell Camu's juggler to go juggle some beakers and test tubes instead. However, it's still going to grow in seven turns, I hope the two necessary tiles to link up our spices will be roaded by that time.

I will see if I can take it to Carthage this turn, but I agree that wasting our valuable Gallics would be a mistake. To that end, I hope to get some Med. Inf. going, and also some pikes to relieve our gallic defenders at various cities.

I hope nobody objects, but I change Veru to build pikeman, it's already growing good enough w/o a granary and I do want to get some pikes up for defense, and also to free up our scattered gallic defenders.

130 BC (1) - Madrid completes its granary, w/o wasting the 1/2 food box, and I re-work the grassland. I change it to rax so it can also start providing some pikes and med. inf.
Alesia marketplace --> Med. Inf.

110 BC (2) - Lugdunum worker-->worker. I also buy a Korean worker for 6gpt.

90 BC (3) - I rush the temple in Seville, this city can also RAX and produce military for the front lines.

70 BC (4) - Leptis Minor worker-->rax. Can't build the worker in 5 turns, as the city will take 10 to grow back to 2.

50 BC (5) - Richborough courthouse-->settler (to load into boat to head across and see if we can settle that nearby island). Valencia Temple-->Rax.

Inter-turn, our 1hp galley defeats an attacking barb galley! But no promotion.

30 BC (6) - Entremont Med. Inf-->Med Inf. Lugdunum worker-->worker. Lugdunum can build workers every two turns by making sure you change it's field worker from the mined gold hills to the unimproved grassland adjacent to the city every time a worker completes (using "Zoom to..." function). Veru Pikeman-->Med. Inf.

10 BC (7) - I hurry the rax in Seville for 40g. Korea, Arabia, Ottomans, and Carthage all have Chivalry now. Ottomans also possess Theology, but won't part with it for nothing.

Inter-turn, the Arabs settled Bukhara on the doorstep of our capitol, by the silks! haha...if it doesn't culture flip it'll be easy to take. I wonder if there's a future resource like oil, aluminum, or uranium there...

10 AD (8) - Since we have so much gold anyways, I build an embassy with Mongolia for 40g. It may be a rat-hole, but I'm just curious to see what he's trying to do with his growth...I also hurry the settler in Richborough, as our galley is in position for him to board next turn.

30 AD (9) - Our suicide galley I hope survives, looks like fertile lands over yonder.

50 AD (10) - Our galley did survive, and the settler/spear pair disembark. Up to the next leader to decide where exactly to settle over there, I see a hut right next to them and a grassland wheat to the NW. No sign of any rivers, though.
http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1-003.jpg

Summary, I didn't take us to war, but I did get us a fair number of new workers, got some rax going at the front lines to provide vet military and healing capabilities, and I have three Med. Inf. and one Gallic (all vets) parked on the hills near Carthage's southern city. These units could also easily turn back NW to wipe out Spain after taking the Carthaginian city.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1_50AD.zip

Charis

Nov 18, 2002, 03:42 PM

Nice turn falsfire :p

Getting some pikemen going was definitely a good idea, it didn't strike me that *we* had Feudalism, I was so worried about the AI's getting it. I like the front line rax's too, and with time not gold of the essense, the rushes seemed appropriate.

Good plan on the Lugdunum worker factory, hopefully the other leaders will remember to swap the worker frequently.

> Inter-turn, the Arabs settled Bukhara on the doorstep of our
> capitol, by the silks! haha...if it doesn't culture flip it'll be easy
> to take. I wonder if there's a future resource like oil, aluminum,
> or uranium there...

I would almost bet money, YES, there's a resource there! And a trivially easy city to take when we want to lay down some smack.

> 50 AD (10) - Our galley did survive, and the settler/spear pair
> disembark. Up to the next leader to decide where exactly to
> settle over there, I see a hut right next to them and a
> grassland wheat to the NW. No sign of any rivers, though.

Wow, excellent! New island, wheat and fish. Not a bad spot at all where he is - keep in mind you will pop the hut by settling where you are without even having to move a unit. Of course, barbs would be ugly to come out!

Definitely good forward progress and leaves many good options open for our next leader.

With Chivalry in hands of foes now, horse denial should receive prime attention, as should expanding our FP ring into Carthage area.

Ozymandous <--- Up
Griselda <--- On deck

Charis

Carbon_Copy

Nov 18, 2002, 07:10 PM

And that resource would be silks. It was never a priority for us to settle because that land was so crappy and we had silks already from Spain, but we DID leave a chunk of land full of luxuries open for the taking, nothing too surprising about the AI coming around to grab those if we never get to them. I guess it's possible for aluminum, oil, and/or uranium to show up down there, but I'm willing to lay money that their priority was the silks. If it turns out they founded on top of or right next to a resource, I'll quit my skepticism, but it might be tough to verify since I'm going to guess that we win prior to Refining.

ToddMarshall

Nov 18, 2002, 08:03 PM

I opened up the save file and noticed a few items.

Noticed one thing immediately for the next leader. Entremont is clearing 19 shields. Swap a worker from the lake to a forest and get that Med Infantry in one instead of two.

Noticed another goodie. The mongols have buku extra grapes. Like 5 or 6 extra. I'd suggest we get a harbor asap (we do have one in going up in 14, and I don't see anywhere better to build one at the moment :( ). I checked and they DO have a harbor roaded to the capital. I suggest trying to hook up that other ivory and another spice or the other silk and trading with the mongols for their wines. This should pretty much completely solve happiness issues anywhere we have a marketplace allowing us to run zero lux and and reclaim the 20gpt or so we are coughing up for thespians.

I really like the worker factory. I looked arround for a better place, but I didn't see one any better than this. Nice job on setting that up.

At Entremont, it looks like once the cow gets mined, we can clear the magical 20spt there *even with a scientist on permanent duty*. In fact, that would be my suggestion for it. Then it can crank a med inf every other turn and do our lone scientist research for us if we decide to stick that route beyond Engeneering. It's kinda questionable if we'll have 40 turns to burn on anything else though. Engeneering is the prototypical can wait tech and nearly allways the one to do that way.

On the subject of horse denial, I noticed the Ottomons won the cultural battle for that horse up north..... GRRRRRRRR. They look to be THE weakest civ *right now* other than Spain, Vikings, and maybe Carthage at the moment. I really think they should be next on the list after Carthage if the game situation cooperates. Of UU's of the 4 civs left in a position of strength (assuming Carthage folds up) 3 of them don't scare me.

Rocket Carts dont scare me too much in AI hands, and Ansar Warriors and Keshik dont worry me too much since their 2 defense will see them torn apart in the counter attack by our med infantry. Even better is that the Mongols have to land them first often giving us a chance to whack them before they ever attack anything. Three movement IS something to be a bit concerned with, but unless things have changed, the AI wont handle that anywhere near the level a human would. On the other hand, 8 attack Cavalry scare me, especially if we are still playing catch up on tech. I don't want to see those coming after muskets! I'd say if we can eliminate Carthage as any sort of threat, then hamstring the Ottomons, we should be able to win the production war and grind out the victory.

I havent looked, but we might want to look into a city that can pump a pike every turn for a while too. If we have one thats clearing 15 shields that can be spared for that that is.

Charis, I'm pretty sure you can't get barbs out of a hut when you settle next to it. I coul'd be wrong, but it has never happened to me. I HAVE seen them pop from boarder expansion many times, but never from setting next to a hut.

On the subject of resourse next to that new arab city... It's possible there is oil there, but they might just want the silks. Shouldn't matter. If it turns out to be their only source of oil, we can take it away at our leisure as far from home as that tundra spot is :)

I wonder where that ottomon settler pair is heading...... Maybe we should blockade them.

I might add to this later if i see any other ineresting tidbits.

LKendter

Nov 18, 2002, 08:24 PM

Originally posted by ToddMarshall
On the other hand, 8 attack Cavalry scare me, especially if we are still playing catch up on tech. I don't want to see those coming after muskets!

Uh, the 8 attack units are more deadly then that.
In LK34 then are ripping through RIFLEMAN with ease, and suffering very little loses. I had a feeling that would be brutal, but I didn't even think it would be this severe.

ToddMarshall

Nov 18, 2002, 08:56 PM

Yeah, I knew they would give rifles about all they could handle, but having a large force of them come after muskets would be like signing our death warrent pretty much. If you think about it, that is equivalent to Knights vs Spears! (4-2 instead of 8-4) And if you think about it, Siphi vs Rifles is about the same as Gallics vs Spears (3-2 vs 8-6 so not quite as good but close), and I think we just got a good view of how well Gallics do vs Spears.

That's THE civ, the ONLY civ left, that really worries me since the Vikings are pretty much eliminated. Fortunately their cities are all pretty small comparitively and they seem to have less of them than Arabia or Korea. Thats why we need to put the hurt on them asap, BEFORE they get Mil Tradition.

Charis

Nov 19, 2002, 12:51 PM

I'm having this uncertain feeling like somebody mentioned they would be away for a week and to skip if they came up. I can't for the life of me recall if that was Ozy, who hasn't posted in this forum for a few days.

If around and you got/are getting it, Ozymandous, pardon the bump and please just give a 'got it'.

(If not, Griselda should take it 48hrs after the time of falsfire's save, which isn't until middle of tomorrow night. But there's time left, and more than likely Ozy is around and I'm misremembering someone else's post)

And a big 'nod' to the comments of Lee, Marshall and Carbon - only one civ left that could end up being 'fearful' if we slumber and let them become that.

Charis

Ozymandous

Nov 19, 2002, 03:12 PM

I wasn't sure if I would have been able to play tonight but it looks like I can, so GOT IT. Will play within two days regardless (and promise a better report next time. :p)

(EDIT: BTW, I miss like 2 days of running my mouth (or fingers rather) and you already think I am gone? *sigh* Nice to know I am missed. :p)

Griselda

Nov 20, 2002, 12:08 AM

I'll be away Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday, but I could probably fit in 10 Thursday night if it comes down to that.

Otherwise, I can play Sunday night for sure if I haven't already been skipped!

-Griselda

edit- saw the typo just after I hit post

Ozymandous

Nov 20, 2002, 01:59 PM

BTW I am abbreviating the city names because some of these are too long to type over and over. Call me lazy but I don't care. :p

This isn't an exact turn description, but covers most of what went on, other than worker moving, troops positioning, etc.

50 AD - Changed the Richborough pikeman build to barracks with the thought of why build regulars when we can wait a few turns and start building vet's. Entremont's shields rearranged so it's still size 12 but producing 22 shields (21 after corruption (AC)). Entremont is now building a MI every two turns.

70 AD - Santiago finishes it's granery and starts a barracks. Veru finishes it's build (forgot to note what it built) and starts a courthouse. Agedincum is founded over on the island in the spot where we landed after moving the accompanying spear to the hill and not seeing a better spot.

90 AD - Lung hurries it's barracks, the better to start cranking the military we need to fight our upcomming wars. Santiago and Leptic Minor also rush their barracks (rush being between 25%-75% bought, they were just going to finish near the end of my turn and I wanted them to work on other, more fun thing, before that.:)).

110 AD - Carthage builds Sun Tzu's! This caused both a "Oh crap!" and an "Oh Yeah!" at the same time because I knew we'd take the city soon, just not sure when and if it's benefits would hurt us too much before we could capture it.

130 AD - No notes for this one, I was thinking of what to do for the rest of my turn, so forgot to take notes. Citys building stuff, etc. Oh I did keep our "worker factory" going by moving that time, it was producing a worker every 3 turns and growing every 2. Thought I'd mention it here, but I did it from the start to end of my turn.

150 AD - Canu builds it's cathedral and starts a settler. A settler you ask? Yes a settler! See I had already figured out what I wanted to do with the rest of my turn, and figured I might as well get plans in motion. Canu has at least two flood plain tiles it can work (maybe more, but at least two) so I knew it wouldn't be hard to grow it again.

170 AD - Moving troops around and citys building. Oh, and I finally had everything in place so I declared war on Spain and Carthage. :p I took this turn to move the troops next to their targets, or to their staging areas (GS) so they would be within striking distance the next turn.

190 AD - The people apparently liked my ideas because the first thing that happens is we get our Palace expanded!

Time to explain the war a little I bet. I had been gradually been moving MI towards the Carthagian cities to our north while adding a unit or two to the stack of 4 we had to the Eastern stack. On the turns before I declared war I had three MI one tile (still outside the borders) from Hippo and the other stack had moved one tile from Had to the "far" East. I had also moved all but one of our Gallic's two tiles from the hill square two to the SW from Carthage. I had also moved the MI stacks next to the Carthagian and Spanish cities during 170, after declaring so this turn I was ready to rock and roll. I figured all of these troops would move into position attack within a turn or two of each other so we could blitz Carthage at once. I also moved two troops ourside Salama but should have used three, more on that in a minute.

First order of business, to attack Hippo with the three MI we had there. First round, the MI wins with only minor damage. Next MI attacks and loses! One last MI so let's attack! He win's with ONE HP left and we capture the city!! Woo hoo! We don't have anyone else we can move into position this turn so let's fortify him. Hmm, what's this, a Spanish archer one turn away from Hippo with another unit underneath? Must be a settler pair.... Um, no that's 2 archers! Ack! Hrm, good thing they are one turn away so we can move the less wounded MI to either defend or fortify next round.

Next I move my attention down to Hadrum, the Carthage city to our SE. We have three MI and a Gallic to attack with. MI attacks and loses vs a regular NM. Another MI attacks and wins vs. the regular NM. Next up, an archer, so our GS attacks and wins. The town is razed in favor of squeezing in two towns down there instead. This, in case you were curious is why I was building a settler. The settler was built in later turns and is moving to the forest one square W and one square SW of where Hadrum used to be (on a goto).

Ozymandous

Nov 20, 2002, 02:03 PM

Next up, the big one, our attack on Carthage.

We rush headlong towards Carthage with our Gallic's hoping our war cries and decorative body paint would scare the Carthaginians. I had left the GS behind who had already generated a GL to fend off any counters that made it past our front lines, and he did help by capturing a settler.

Here come our men, streaming down the hills, across the river and onto the grasslands next to Carthage, to bravely scale the walls and hopefully take the city. Our first Elite attacks and is hit by a catapult! He continues to attack a vet Numedian Merc (NM) and wins, although he only has one lone HP left at the end! Ohhh, this isn't impossible I thought, in fact I might have the ability to move to attack more cities when done with this one. :) Next up, another vet NM. No problem I thought I can take him too! So our brave elite GS rushes to show his bravery against this tough foe. Another catapult hits and next thing you know our poor GS is lying still on the ground after only taking ONE health off the NM... @^#%$! Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound I thought, besides the NM hadn't promoted and I had plenty of other troops that could finish him off.

Next up a regular NM for our killing pleasure. No problem I thought, an elite GS should be able to finish him off. WRONG! The GS loses 3 straight, wins one then loses another two and dies, and the NM promotes to Vet, now with three health! Son of a #%^%^% ^%^%^% *&*(&(*& I thought, I can't believe this! So I decided then and there that we WERE going to take this dang city or die trying! (Well within limits of course. ;)) Besides I had only lost two guys so far and had killed one and injured two other NM so we had the numerical advantage. Since Carthage had Sun Tzu's and the Pymarids, so it was worth the potential sacrifice.

Ok, who next want's some? You regular NM? Well here you go! WHACK! Vet GS beat's him down. Another regular NM? Ok.. WHACK! Another GS wins. Geeze, ANOTHER NM, and not wounded either? Well, ok, "here's your sign". WHACK! Another GS victory (and promotion). Oh, looky, this NM is a wounded vet, this is a good sign, looks like the one who killed my elite GS the first time. Ok, here's your dose as wel.. er, O.O, this may not be good, our Elite GS is down to one health and the NM has three. More fighting ensues and our brave GS falls after knocking the NM down to one health. *sigh* Oh, well he died bravely.

Ok, another wounded NM, looks like the one who promoted earlier. He has three health, so even a vet GS should beat him, right? Wrong! The GS loses three straight before knocking a single health off the NM and then dies. #$#%! $#%$! $#$#! Ok, the NM now has killed two GS and still has two health. Up comes another GS and the fight ensues. Crash! Crunch! The NM loses another health, kills another GS and then promotes. Ok, this is getting personal! At this rate I am not sure if we have enough troops to take this city, much less any others...

Ok, same guy defending, now elite with two health. Here's another Vet GS to take him on. Bam, Bam, Bam! Another GS bites the dust, not even wounding the NM. *heavy sigh* Ok, this guy must be descended from Zeus or something. One NM, who started as a regular, has beaten 4 GS and been promoted to Elite. Ok, well let's see how well you do against another Elite Mr. Invincible! (thought while crossing fingers just in case) Bam! Bang! Crash! WHACK! The Elite GS beat's "Mr. Hero" NM without losing a single health! Not only this but he has inspired one of the onlookers to become a leader for our country!! Woo hoo! What do we call this GS who fought so valiantly and well by defeating the NM who had slain 4 of his brothers? "Hero" of course. (I was literally dancing around the room when that damn NM died, the GL was just icing on the cake.)

As an anti-climax there was one last NM left, the one with one HP left, who was dispatched by a vet GS with only bumps and bruises. We kill the archer who was buried under these defensive units and Carthage is ours! I move the rest of our GS who didn't attack (2-3 I believe) into the city to supress and hunker down to defend the city. The GL, Orgetorix, is buried under about 4 GS, in hopes that we'll hold the city long enough to move him to safety.

I click next turn to see what happens. Not much.

210 AD - We fend of a counter attack on Carthage as well as beating the two Spanish archers outside Hippo, with both of the MI down to one HP after the fight. The units that sacked Hadrum move north to meet with reinforcements on their way to Salama.

230 AD - The unrest is quieted and I rush a temple at Hippo to help slow down all the units streaming down to counter attack.

250 AD - I rush the temple at Carthage more to help slow enemy units down than to worry about culture since no other cities radius even touches Carthage now.

Things to note:

- I had built a few pikemen to relieve the GS on militia duty, so we're in better shape there.
- I moved the Elite GS "Maniac" who had already made a leader up to join with "Hero" and they are now both in an army formed by our GL. The army, along with the rest of our GS are still in Carthage, but can be moved SW to help the three MI moving to attack Utica (or not, but might as well).
- One settler is on it's way to the spot mentioned earlier in the report, near where Hadrum used to be. Another city can be founded on the little spit of land to the NE and E-SE of Salma that can get a lot of water, game, and some plains. Not a bad city site either.
- If we do go to war with the Arabs, we should raze the city to our south and plant two cities in that area. One city go due S and get the two whales and the other on the hills to the W of the capitol to get the game and silks. THese would both make decent fishing villages.
- The island we found is of decent size, but no rivers anywhere. I started a settler from the city there, but we'll likely have to rush all of them out of there we want or else bring them over on boats. As big as this island is, we don't want someone else getting it.
- I wish I had sold the graneries and barracks before capturing Carthage since I am not sure if they auto-sell or just disappear, but out GPT is now 100+ per turn with the recent captures and wonder effects.

I hope I didn't do too much weed this turn, I am sure there was some somewhere, but oh well. :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1_250_AD.zip

(Sorry this is two posts. I had been trying yo submit this for over two hours and the forum kept timing out so I wanted to make sure the message wasn't too long.)

Charis

Nov 20, 2002, 02:52 PM

Reading through that and seeing our valiant, sole fast movers rush headlong to their deaths, my head found itself firmly between both hands, as if watching a dreadful horror story or reading about a terrorist attack. Had my secretary walked in she would surely have asked me what was wrong! :eek:

I was relieved when the efforts turned out fruitful and resulted in the generation of a Great Leader. That should overcome the ennui of seeing our glorious Gallics shredded by the infamous "Mr. Elite". It would have been ironic indeed had the GL come from one more victory by the latter!!

Army... I take it an army was made an got a victory? Heroic Epic time, very good. (That would have been my suggestion anyway)
You also noted that Sun Tzu in Carthage meant that we take that city first or near first, to reduce pain - and take it in one turn.

Ease my mind, because I just couldn't read it clearly -- did we attack honorably? (ie declare with no units in their territory?)
It sounded like we did, but I wasn't fully clear with the MDI attacking on the next turn (perhaps their borders were just small)

Carthage wasn't size 7 was it? If you attacked it quickly due to its low size of 6, that might be quite clever. If you faced a big defensive bonus at size 7 and wonder why 'regular' NM's of defense 3 weren't crumbling before your attacks, there would be evidence of :smoke: smoking :P (EDIT - See 'P.S.' below)
To minimize losses you take the first round or two to simply camp on their high food spots and watch it instantly shrink to a size with no defense bonus. Speaking of smoking, on re-read I found the sentence "70 AD - Santiago finishes it's granery and starts a barracks" mildly amusing. That followed by several rax rushes. It DOES seem your plan took shape and vision mid-turn, eh? :p

The results were good, I'm just wondering if it wasn't a tad rushed, why throw all the Gallics at fresh Numidians, since one turn to bring up MDI's should have been no problem. Perhaps we lacked a sufficient number of MDI's?

Let's try to keep that army alive and do some *major* damage with it! :hammer:

Wow, Griselda, done just in time for you to have a MAJOR FURBALL for your playing enjoyment before you leave for the weekend!! :goodjob:

Some thoughts on those lines....

** Do NOT leave our Army or GS for garrison duty in a city that
might possibly flip!!!
- To avoid flip of this 'wonderous' new city, I don't think we let
Carthage off the hook for any reason, this battle is to their death.
- Unless Spain can offer a cutting edge tech, it's also time for Isabella to go for good
- Doing so will *eliminate* war weariness, as such weariness is kept on a per-civ basis
- Our 'rear quadrant' should soon be clear of any non-Celtic influence
- If we do get another civ against us via an alliance, I would first shore up border defenses with pikes, beat down any offensive units they send after us, then they will soon be gassed, and our counterattack will be brutal. (Of course sometimes the best defense is a good offense)
- Good idea on settling the medium-large island quickly. The AI will be drawn to that like bloodhounds
- If the choice is up to us we want to see the Ottomans broken down into bite-sized pieces moreso than the Arabs, but the AI might make that choice for us. Clean up the Carthage and Spain war and have pike defenses on the borders before any further wars of aggression
- I might be mistaken, but our worker factory should be able to produce a worker in exactly 2 turns each time if one of the workers is moved in the middle of its production each time. See if this is true or not Gris, as an exercise in micromanagement

In older versions, you could right click on the rax or granary, and if it was "really built" you can sell it, even after getting SunTzu or Pyramids. If it's a virtual-wonderous improvement, you don't get the sell option on the right-click menu. After Carthage has full 21 tiles, feel free to sell off these improvements.

This turn was an encouragement for our ability to prosecute war successfully to make this continent our own during the Middle Ages, pre-Mil Tradition :hammer:

A fascinating turn Ozy, two great wonders and a GL :goodjob:
Charis

PS - EDIT - I see Carthage was size 7 back in 350 BC, so it did get a hefty bonus. Also, it's protected by river from every square in front of it except for ONE square, but I'll assume you picked that one square rather than give it an even bigger defensive bonus...

Size 7 is +50%, size 6 is +0%. Fortified is +25%, Grass/plains is +10%. So the NM's "effective" defensive strength is 5.5, not 3.

Vet Gallic vs a mere regular: 31% win, 32%retreat, 37% loss
Vet Gallic vs vet Numidian: 18% win, 40% retreat, 42% loss
(keep in mind an Elite Gallic hit by a cat is essentially a vet)
You need about 11 vets to take out 4 vet defenders, or 9 vs regs,
and that's not accounting for promotions.

Did I read right, six defenders? Ow ow ow... Vs regulars it's typical to need about 13 and have losses of *6* Gallics.
(Maybe it was just five defenders, hard to tell)

In other words, you didn't have hideous luck, but actually very normal if not 'good' results given the city size.

Run around the city, sit on the flood plains, block the road coming in so no reinforcements - those in the city can't/won't lash out at you. In one-two rounds it's size 6 and let's repeat numbers:
Size 6:
Vet Gallic vs Reg NM's: 46% win, 27%retreat, 27% loss
Vet Gallic vs vet Numidian: 33% win, 31% retreat, 36% loss

Expected losses: 2.5, not 6 Gallics, facing regular NM's.
With MDI vs reg NM, expected losses vs 6 regulars is 4 MDI.

Just FYI, to show effect of city size, and the power of fortified entrenched Numidians.

Ozymandous

Nov 20, 2002, 03:43 PM

Er, ah, well I wasn't that happy seeing them die either.. :( Matter of fact I thought of retreating the entire group once the first two died, but then three victories in a row made me think "he can't have *that* many more defenders, and he didn't, they just got a good RNG. *sigh*:eek:

Sorry I wasn't clear, but yes the two elite GS were formed into an army, but NOT used yet. Between moving the previous GL producing Gallic to where the other was (still helping defend against a straggler counter-attack while other Gallic's healed) and moving the GL back and forth from Carthage, to Hippo (more secure) and back, the army was only formed on the last turn before my time was up and I wanted the army fully healed for Gris to use on the next city to the SW.

And yes, with Sun Tzu in Carthage, I knew we'd have to take that city as quickly as possible, and on one turn or we might lose in a war or attrition (or at least lose more Gallic's than happened, if that's possible).

Yes, we attacked honorably, and that's why the Gallic's were rushed to Carthage. The other two cities I attacked only had one sqare of border so the MDI could move and attack on two turns, Carthage had three squares before the city itself could be hit. All of the units moved into Carthage territory after declaring war, the Gallic's moved to the hill SW of Carthage and the MDI moved next to their targets.

As far as I know Carthage was at or below size 6 when I attacked, but to be honest I'll load the save from the turn I declared and let you know (EDIT: See below). I hope I wasn't that :smoke: but to be honest don't remember. Even a regular fortified NM has a defense higher than our attack, so this was no sure thing even with the city size 6. Several of our Gallic's did retreat as well.

Ah, regarding the war preparations... Well, we needed the barracks anyway, if only to build pikes for defense, and since the cities mentioned were all either front line, or right behind the front line I figured the extra barracks couldn't hurt.

Why not wait till we had MDI's for Carthage? Ah, well, even though they were being prduced every other turn at least, it was still about 4-5 turns to get to the border and would have taken them 3 turns just to get next to Carthage itself. Having used MDI in other PTW games, I don't like how slow they are and how weak their defense is (seems they always lose, even to horsemen). I didn't want to wait to let Griselda have all the fun attacking either. :p I certainly didn't expect to take as many losses as we did, but oh well.

Comments:

- I am not sure if ANY of the Carthage cities have expanded borders now. Once I took their capitols all of the borders seemed to shrink to the 9 X 9 box.
- Ottoman's have a relatively small empire compared to us and the Arabs. Not sure if we want to hit them now or the Arab's instead since the Arab's unit is in play now with Chivalry.
- Our worker factory is producing a worker every other turn, as long as you remember to move the tile every time it finishes.
- The temple in Carthage should expand around the same time the city is starved down to one.
- Our Gallic's are mostly sitting in Carthage, healing, or were, they should all be ready to move into position around the same time the MDI's from the south arrive at the SW city.

EDIT:

Stupid forum! I had more to add and it said I had too many icons. Grr! Anyway...

- Carthage was size ELEVEN when I attacked.
- We only lost four Gallic's on the attack on Carthage proper, plus one to the Carthagian counter after we fortified in the city to heal. (We lost one troop, they lost two)
- "Mr. Elite" only killed three troops, and caused three to retreat, sorry for the confusion! If I had known that battle would turn so "epic" I would have kept better notes!
- The Gallic's effectiveness should last only until Knights or their counterparts are made, which is the Ancient and early Middle ages. After this time the Gallic's will be worth less than even Conquestador's and everyone complains about how bad that unit is.
- In the X number of turns a "siege" would have taken, Carthage would have had those turns to churn out vet NM and other units to counter-attack/invade with. Was the loss of 4 Gallic's worth the price of dealing Carthage a fatal blow? IMHO, yes, others may not agree.

By the way... I know some love Gallic's and love the idea of a "fast infantry" unit, but once 4.3.2 units come into play, they lose their effectiveness rapidly. Let's not confuse "unit usefullness" with their "role" in play-acting a game, please? Thanks. If Gallic's were to be that important then we should have delayed aquiring Feudalism and built more of them, but since we didn't, let's hoard them if we want, but remember that they ARE the only unit that can strike far into the enemies heartland with any speed and that they WILL have to fight.

I had a longer message originally, but since the forum's ate it, here are the high points..

Griselda

Nov 21, 2002, 01:08 AM

In fact, the game's sitting at 340 AD now, but I've noticed some weed creeping in as I get sleepier, and there's definitely enough stuff still going on that I want to be able to pay attention.

It doesn't seem right to discuss the game mid-turn, so for now let's just say that I tried to play conservatively, but you can still cheer for the fighting Irish. :D I'll have the turn completed and reported by tomorrow night for sure.

-Griselda

edit- I'll have the*turn* completed, not the game completed (as I originally typed) ;)

ToddMarshall

Nov 21, 2002, 04:48 AM

Bah. I had a lot of notes of things I noticed, but your midturn now so much of this may not apply. I'll throw a little of this out anyway.

I noticed the lux slider can go to zero now if we hire 2 taxmen, maybe not even that now as the 2 towns that needed a taxman were due for a market in a couple turns. It's probably anit-war wearyness. That would save us like 20 gpt.

There are 2 warriors sleeping in Madrid. I was thinking perhaps we should blockade some settler pairs. Thats less cities we will need to take later. Also, some uneeded clowns in carthage captured cities could be taxmen.

Also dont forget we have a trade route with Mongolia now that our harbor finished. Maybe when war happiness fades we can trade for their wines if we havent allready.

I meant to post this and some other ideas earlier, but I forgot DOH.

Just the turn Gris? I was about to be really impressed. :lol:

Griselda

Nov 21, 2002, 06:29 PM

I jumped into the turn ASAP to avoid racing through it the last minute before heading out, which is probably a good thing since I've spent hours on it already (somehow, most likely fussing over little details while overlooking the important details :P ).

Thanks for the notes, though. :) The lux slider has been at 0%; though I didn't catch that right at the first turn, I did get it there. The Madrid warriors have been upgraded, and I think they're off doing something (will doublecheck in a bit).

It turns out it's probably a good thing we don't have a trade going with Mongolia. More on that with the report. :)

Clowns were exchanged for taxmen first thing where I could, too, fwiw.

-Griselda

Griselda

Nov 22, 2002, 02:13 AM

(0) 250 - Take a look around. Spain and Carthage will both talk. Carthage will give chivalry for peace, too bad for him we're not interested. ;) Spain has no juicy tech to rescue her, too bad for Isabella. Tech-wise, Korea, Arabia, and the Ottomans have theology and chivalry. We could trade for furs from the Ottomans if we were sure we weren't going to carve them up within 20 turns, but I don't trade. Scandanavia and the Mongols are way behind in tech (Scandanavia more so), and broke.

I notice that we have science completely off. I hire a scientist in our island city, who will discover the secrets of Engineering in 8. At that rate, we may even still get there first. In any case, no point in buying Theology now.

Carthage MM'ed to 9 tax collectors. Even the one laborer would need 8 clowns to keep him happy, so all 9 will just have to tax each other now. MM Hippo for more taxes.

It seems like my biggest need is for pikes. Santiago, Verulamium swapped from med. inf to pike. After all, if all goes well, the infantry units will be able to regroup and head for another town, but we'll want enough pikes to defend the new towns. Other cities will start pikes when they finish their jobs.

We have some cash for upgrades. Valencia- spear to pike. Santiago- spear to pike. Augustodurum- war to med inf. Toledo- spear to pike. Madrid- 2X War to med inf.

Between turns- Carthage completes temple, starts courthouse. MM again- 1 clown, 6 tax, 1 laborer.
Alesia completes med inf, starts pike. Valencia completes med inf, starts pike. Augustodurum completes harbor (*not* opening up trade to Mongols, fwiw) and starts settler. We'll need another settler in the SE, plus some for the island.

(1) 260 AD - Hippo is now size 1, and the road is complete. Swap from spearman to courthouse. Army from Carthage heads towards Utica for starvation duty along with one other Gallic. Galley sees nothing up north. I wonder if there's another island up in that island-sized fog? Curiosity killed the cat, and the galley! It suicides up to the NE. Leptis minor is now size 1, and grow in 3. I do need workers up there, but I swap to pike.

BT - Ottomans request audience. They want TM for TM. I decline, mostly because I believe that nobody else knows about our little island yet. Entremont completes med inf, starts another. You just can't beat that med inf in 2 turns exactly! Lugdunum completes worker. I note that the laborer is already mining the hill, so it will grow in 1 or 2 (didn't note) and produce a worker in 2 with no MM.

Spain lands an archer by Richborough. Heh, to think Richborough was a border town the last time I was up! Also note that there are just tons and tons of settler pairs wandering through our lands.

(2) 270 AD - Galley: *row*

BT - Madrid completes market, starts pike. Barcelona completes market, starts pike. Sevilla completes med inf, starts courthouse.

Santiago completes pike, starts another. Verulamium completes pike, starts another. Galley: *sink*

(3) 280 AD - My units near Salmanca are healed (I had retreated them earlier so they could heal to full before I attacked. Now, they're ready to move in for the kill. Another round of upgrades- spear in Camulod, Madrid, Verulamium, Barcelona, spear X 2 in Gregoria.

Has anyone else noticed that the "D" button by the menu is harder to hit in PTW? I find it incredibly annoying. Anyway, I tried to hit "D" and hit next turn by accident. Luckily, I'd already MM'ed my starving cities, so the only thing I didn't do was to triple check lux and happiness and look at diplo screens and probably trade nothing. If I'd forgotten to MM the starving cities, or something, I'd have replayed the turn, but this didn't seem so critical, so I moved on.

BT - Entremont completes med inf, starts another. Alesia completes pike, starts another. Lugdunum- work, work. Hippo culture expands. Richborough completes pike. At 8 spt after corruption, med inf seems the clear choice there.

The Arabs complete the hanging gardens in Medina. Ottomans cascade towards Sistine. Utica starves to 6- mwahaha!

(4) 290 AD - Elite Gallic attacks Spanish archer in the open (near Salmanca) and wins. Vet med inf by Richborough attacks another Spanish archer and wins. More upgrades- Alesia spear, Lugdunum spear, Entremont spears. Those pesky Ottomans have Engineering! We're only 4 turns away! Luckily they seem to be holding onto it.

BT - Madrid and Carthage expand culturally. Most foreign settler pairs turn around. At least they look more like they're "milling about" and "beelining" for something. Carthage and Koreans start Sistine.

(5) 300 AD - I check Isabella one last time to see if she has anything useful. When I see that she doesn't, she tells me to "quit waffling." OK, Isabella, if that's how you're going to be about it, then it's time for :slay:

At Salmanca-
My vet med inf vs their vet spear takes 3 hits but wins. Then, my elite gallic beats their regular spear, losing only 1 hp. That, my friends, is all the defense that Isabella can muster. We capture Salmanca and 2 gold (got my wish from last turn :bday: )

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbp1spanishdie.jpg

Now, onto Utica-
My vet med inf vs their regular numid wins, losing no life. This is enough to capture a worker and the city! Shoot, I would have sent in an elite if I'd known *that*! There are 2 resistors.

I swap Richborough to galley. I forgot it will still be suicide galley to get to our island, but did realize that I could have a galley ready there by the time a settler could be ready to go. Salmanca is unhappy, but I'm assuming there's no point in starving it now, or building workers that would cost full shields but count as slaves, so I just start a temple. I actually did consider razing it, because that wasted wheat to its NW is annoying me to no end. That wasted tile seems even more obnoxious considering that we may move the palace to Alesia or even Camulod (I didn't make a firm decision there, but did think about it). But, there's far too many settler pairs in our territory to be razing anything that doesn't have a settler virtually in place.

Carthage now controls its 21 tiles, so I look into selling its barracks- 2 gold and 0 shields? No thanks, even if it will never do me any good (hmm, come to think of it I could have save upkeep, oh well).

I've been keeping one lazy eye turned toward Cadiz, the incense city up north. It was captured by the Koreans, but now it's Carthaginian again. I consider that as a potential next target, just because it may be easy to take as a result. But, Leptis Magna looks more appetizing for now.

BT - Entremont as usual. Utica resistance ends. Lugdunum completes worker but is now off cycle. I've been lazy because it's been completing a worker in 2 without any MM, so I didn't realize it had gotten off. I'll run it on high food for now to bring it back. Camulod completes settler, starts market. If for some reason you like this as a palace spot, it's a prebuild :P Verulamium completes pike, starts cathedral. Valencia completes pike, starts another. Our palace gets an addition.

(6) 310 AD - We have a lot of military now (you may have noticed the shift towards city improvement last turn). I decide that we can take some of our Salmanca units and bring them together at a spot SW of Entremont. I don't think we'll need them up north, and they'll be ready for when it's time to clean out the backlands. Settler heads eat towards galley (now I realize about the sea tiles, and wonder wtf to do).

BT - Madrid pike, starts courthouse. Barcelona, Alesia, Santiago complete pikes and start more.

(7) 320 AD - Lux to 0% (should definitely have checked that sooner). All I need to cover it is a taxman in Verulamium.

BT - Koreans request TM for TM, still decline. Engineering learned, start invention with lone scientist still on the job. Entremont as usual. Carthage is now size 1. Lugdunum does complete a worker this turn. Richborough completes galley, start market. Augustodurum completes settler, starts market.

(8) 330 AD - The Carthginians have been sailing galleys around my shores for too long now. There's a lot of tiles that I want to work on the coast that I don't want to cover. Also, I have a very bad habit of assuming that luck will always be on my side. I realize that sending a galley to the island may very well be the death of my settler, for negligible gains. I also realize that even loading the galley runs the risk of getting it attacked by the Carthaginians. So, in a fit of impulsivity, I send my new regular galley to attack a Carthginian one. I lose. Richborough swapped to build another galley.

I trade engineering and 21 gold to the cautious Arabs for theology.

(9) 340 BC - Aargh! Aargh! I notice that the Mongols, of all the blasted civs, have grabbed the land SE of Salmanca that I was headed for! I just went from cautious to furious! I turn settler pair around towards Entremont. At least I can have that set ready to jump in if we raze that city SW of Entremont. Lux seems to need to go back to 10%, otherwise Verulamium's just about hopeless, and I need a bunch of taxmen. I'm not completely sure what changed.

BT - Entremont as usual. Utica starves to 1.

(10) 350 BC - Finally! My Leptis Magna units were in position on the hill (a rives runs through it, but not between it and the city, so I assume that's the best attack tile) last turn, but this turn they're ready for a fresh attack. I look- and realize I have only Gallics somehow in my stack. Hmm, that wasn't quite what I intended, oh well. (OK, major weed, I think, considering the results, sorry)

My elite gallic attacks their regular numidian (hey, last time I wished I'd sent elite first, right?) and loses after only getting in 1 hit.
My second elite gallic attacks another regular numidian and dies after getting in 2 hits.
My third elite gallic (you cringing yet, Charis?) kills wounded numdian and takes 3 damage.
My fourth elite gallic kills an archer without taking a scratch.
My army (oh yeah, those guys [pimp] ) attacks the 1 hp numidian. The first gallic in the army retreats and the second wins, taking the city. The army could have moved back out, but I fortified it, just so that it would be able to heal up. I send a couple more guys in to hold the city while the pikes are on their way. The rest of my invading force moves E.

A few thoughts:
I didn't see much action in the Korea, Carthage war, and Carthage never attacked me (although they do have some random numidians wandering around). Both may well be gassed by now, and they both do remain officially at war with one another. Remember, Leptis Magna was just taken this turn. Some pikes are on the way there.

The military is all in a jumble. I've assembled a force before I've launched any attack, but all the units are getting completed in a trickle, and I've been trying to consider our future needs as I send them. So, there's a bunch of med inf moving towards the Carthginian capitol for starvation duty. I figure they can starve while waiting for a sufficient force to arrive. Carthage is talking tiles from the Carthginian capitol, so I haven't worried *too* much about a flip (didn't rush out a library, or something). We actually lead the world in culture, which is just silly. There is also a second force gathering SW of Entremont, and one unit covering some coastal workers. The rest are in transit somewhere or other. They need discipline! They need order!

There's a settler headed for Entremont (under a pike) and one in Richborough for your settling pleasure. The island is still just that one city; I'm not sure what the best way to approach that is.

Oh, just on this last turn or so I noticed that Ottomans and Arabia now have education.

That's all I can think of for the moment.

-Griselda

rbp1-griselda-350ad (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbp1-griselda-350ad.zip)

Ozymandous

Nov 22, 2002, 06:58 AM

Sounds like a good turn Griselda. :)

Lugdunum could build a worker in two already, the MM part was to move the tile worked from the gold mine to the unroaded grassland so it would GROW in two and then build a worker after it grew. This cycle was to keep it at size five yet still pump out a worker every two turns. No problem, just wanted to let ou know. :)

The spot the Mongols took, was that the little corner near the game, on the plains? I'd hope the settler I had on goto to the forest spot mad it or did you change orders? Just checking since I haven't DLed the game to check.

Glad someone else used the Gallic's to attack with before they are out-dated as well, sorry you lost a few, but oh well..

"Rusty" question here but I assume you MMed Carthage to grow and add more of our citizens while trying to stave the old ones out? How to you guarentee that your new citizen won't be the one starved out of the city? Just curious.

Over all sounds like we're doing very well, we may have this thing wrapped up by early industrial age, if not sooner, depending on when we get the technology (who has the lighthouse?) to cross the sea's safely.

Charis

Nov 22, 2002, 08:01 AM

Well done, milady!!

Way to prosecute the war, Griselda! :hammer:
Let me say you've moved from webmaster-never-played to good player in very short order! Looks like someone has applied a 'Prod' to you or something :p

I just have some comments of 'secondary' order issues...

- Nice move imho not getting in any long term deals with potential next targets
- Good MM of capture lands, tax and clowns
- I like the territory map denial too, although if they can't get there safely it doesn't matter
- Doesn't Warr->MDI have a much more powerful feel than Warr->Sword ever did?
- Glad you remembered no need to starve down any last spanish cities
- Ozy got it exactly right with the grow in 2, produce in 2 at Lug

> We'll need another settler in the SE, plus some for the island.
I would definitely NOT risk any further settler-gally combos before Astronomy. It's one thing to get out first and stake a claim when NO AI can, but you can't toss 60 shields and 2 pop points on a dice roll. That island must fend for itself until save passage
There's no trade opening up with the harbor because no (visible) safe trade route

> Has anyone else noticed that the "D" button by the menu is
> harder to hit in PTW? I find it incredibly annoying.

You use 'buttons' for these things??! Shift-D! That's one you
use SO often (or should) that shift-D becomes engrained in the fingers. If I find myself pausing my fingers sometimes hit shift-D before I even tell them too :P

> Utica starves to 6- mwahaha!
Now you're running with the big dogs :)

> Elite Gallic attacks Spanish archer in the open (near Salmanca) and wins
THIS is the type of battle we want to save our Gallics for!

> Madrid and Carthage expand culturally. Most foreign settler
> pairs turn around

You said this and "tons of settler pairs running around in our land"
Keep in mind they have no RoP with us, and being the Celts we are, if you could pop 2-3 such pairs from a civ, any civ, who is that bold, it would be a major setback to them. Depends if you think we can handle the extra foe :P If they've walked across the whole continent and are about to found, even better, as we add a few dozens turns plus upkeep to their 'bill'

> But, there's far too many settler pairs in our territory to be
> razing anything that doesn't have a settler virtually in place.

Actually, if we PLAN to go attack another civ within 20-30 turns, we should put out the welcome mat, "Please settle a city for us, saving us shields, pop, time, and making it easier to extort peace from your leader.

> I don't think we'll need them up north, and they'll be ready for
> when it's time to clean out the backlands. Settler heads east
> towards galley
Where I hope he turns around or waits til he learns his constellations :P Good to see we're prepared to take out the trash near home

> I trade engineering and 21 gold to the cautious Arabs for
> theology.
A good trade, and no gpt too!

> Aargh! Aargh! I notice that the Mongols, of all the blasted civs,
> have grabbed the land SE of Salmanca that I was headed for!
> I just went from cautious to furious! I turn settler pair around
> towards Entremont

What's the concern? Show them a "polite" face, and when they hit size 2, declare honorably, capture the town, and thumb your nose at the horde. (Note, I'm not NEARLY as 'rough' or callous in other games as this one, but when playing a mil civ and I'm top dog, the AI best not rattle my chain)

> I look- and realize I have only Gallics somehow in my stack.
> Hmm, that wasn't quite what I intended, oh well. (OK, major
> weed, I think, considering the results, sorry)

:eek: I put down my coffee before continuing...

> ... My third elite gallic (you cringing yet, Charis?) kills wounded
> numdian and takes 3 damage.
> My army (oh yeah, those guys ) attacks the 1 hp numidian
OMG you went with the army LAST? :smoke: Turn 10, so close to escaping weed-free this round :p

You and Ozy are suffering from "on my watch" syndrome, setting a goal for the game and seeing it turn into a personal goal that has to be complete during your turns. There's just no rush to throw irreplaceable assets to take a city 'now' rather than a half-dozen turns later. I remember one game where I was planning the invasion of a large island of an AI civ, I was producing a bunch of transports and cavalry and rifles, but not quite fast enough to 'do it right' during my turn. I could have landed ONE transport and hoped I was lucky and took one city, but they would have had insufficient odds and would have been retaken, mostly likely. Instead I got to hand off the game with this message: "You know have FOUR transports loaded with cavalry, artillery and rifles off the target coastline, covered by protecting ships, ready to invade en masse in two turns. Enjoy!" I don't think he had ever been 'setup' like that before, it was like the perfect 'set' in a game of volleyball, and boy did he smash it. He was able to take almost the entire island during his turn with the AI given no chance to counterattack. Take it into consideration next time if pushing forward or handing off is the best thing for the game. Sometimes it WILL be the former, but sometimes it means getting the 'assist'. I point this out only because we discussed the idea of preserving Gallics only for attacks with overwhelming odds (like using their speed to counterattack longbows in the open by moving up first then attacking) - and it seemed to be the consensus that it's a "good thing".

In both Gallic debacles, the war goes well and the victory is won, and we'll do fine even if every last one of our GS's is slaughtered taking out Carthage. So take it as a "consider this..." rather than something I'm cringing about ;)

> So, there's a bunch of med inf moving towards the Carthginian
> capitol for starvation duty. I figure they can starve while
> waiting for a sufficient force to arrive
When you don't have the 'surprise' factor on a civ (we don't, here) and you have no artillery to soften them up (when Metallurgy comes around or just before we'll want to make *LOTS* of cannons/artill), this is a very solid approach. Watch for an upcoming report on this approach one of my Epic games - I won't say which one :P

@Ozymandous --

> The spot the Mongols took, was that the little corner near the
> game, on the plains? I'd hope the settler I had on goto to the
> forest spot mad it or did you change orders?
SG note - in general long 'goto' are a big nono, except when you do what Ozy did, explicitly tell the next captain about it :goodjob:

> Glad someone else used the Gallic's to attack with before they
> are out-dated as well, sorry you lost a few, but oh well..
:lol: See above :P

> "Rusty" question here but I assume you MMed Carthage to
> grow and add more of our citizens while trying to stave the old
> ones out? How to you guarentee that your new citizen won't
> be the one starved out of the city? Just curious.

Incorrect!! Careful! If a city starves you will ALWAYS lose one of YOUR nationality first before any foreigners. IF you're starving down, you must starve down to size 1 before letting the city grow back at all.

Again, good turn Gris!! Should be a fun turn to bring some 'discipline' to the troops
Charis

ToddMarshall

Nov 22, 2002, 10:17 AM

Sounds Like a good turn. I haven't had a chance to check the save yet, but it sounds good. I think Charis pretty much covered everything I would have had a comment on, and I don't really dissagree with any of it.

I wouldn't worry about the Mongol's settling there. That city should be easy to take if it doesn't flip before we get arround to it.

@ Ozzy, The mongols have the lighthouse.

Ozymandous

Nov 22, 2002, 11:00 AM

@Charis:

Well :p! In defense of my turn (I had written this up in my 2nd comments that the forum ate) I felt it was more important to strike deep into Carthage and have Sun Tzu in our hands instead of an AI. :) I probably should have waited, but, er, I figured we had 15 Gallic's and also thought that we'd use the slower MDI to take the other cities that we wouldn't have to wade through enemy territory with. *shrug* Oh well.

If we lose our nationality first when starving then why work *ANY* tile once we're starving down a city unless it's a mountain? Griselda's comment on that had me confused, thanks for clarifying.

@Everyone:

Do we want to rush a temple, harbor and granery on the island so we can pump settlers better? IMHO, this island isn't so far away that this money would be wasted and I want to make sure we get as much of it as possible before the AI finds it. We could probably fit half a dozen cities there.

Charis

Nov 22, 2002, 12:22 PM

If you thought 'NOW' was the right time for Sun Tzu and the empire that's cool :p

> If we lose our nationality first when starving then why work
> *ANY* tile once we're starving down a city unless it's a
> mountain? Griselda's comment on that had me confused,
> thanks for clarifying.

That's pretty much right --
* If you're starving a city, leading up to the first reduction, while there is food in the box, you want to work NO tiles, or mountains only, to garner no food and drop it down quickly
* Once it's starved once it drops and stays at zero food in the
box. There's no difference then between negative one and negative 10 food, so working as many tiles as you can while stilll having a food shortage is good *IF* you get more productive shields by doing so
* More often it's a one-shield city, period, and so working no squares at all and running pure taxman is best. In fact, make one a scientist and free a 'real city' from having to use a scientist

> @Everyone:
> Do we want to rush a temple, harbor and granery on the island
> so we can pump settlers better? IMHO, this island isn't so far
> away that this money would be wasted and I want to make
> sure we get as much of it as possible before the AI finds it. We
> could probably fit half a dozen cities there.

Excellent question! If we flush zero resources on the island, we will save money but the AI will surely find it and get one, or likely settlements down there.

If instead we rush temple, harbor, granary there, there's a chance of settling the whole island peacefully. The AI may later attack it but are SO poor at island assaults they will fail.
Will you ever make up the cash lost doing it this way? Likely never, but you deny AI space, move closer to domination, and avoid having to fight a war to get what you could have had.

Even if you try the second approach if you get ONE foreign settlement there you will still have a war on the island at some point. Worst case is when like four civs each put ONE city there, making it brutally ugly to take the whole island. If I had to guess I would say by rushing we could take most of the island, but still see the Mongols found one or two. Two would be great actually, as we can take those two cities and the one in our backyard to demand some heavy tribute for peace.

:hammer:

So I'm pretty neutral on which route to go, and would likely let my treasury level guide me. (Also add an early rax rush and defender rush to the list to buy) We're more likely able to make the effort to focus on the island if we finish Carthage quickly then stop fighting (but I don't like that plan, I like a pink or orange target immediately after Carthage)

Charis

Charis

Nov 23, 2002, 12:20 AM

Initial thoughts...

- Wow, the map sure has changed since I last saw it
- Hey, nice island we have (so far) to ourselves! ('Cept no fresh water)
- Look at all that desert incense, unclaimed in no man's land near Cadiz
- We can get furs from Korea (or Ottomans) The lux slider at 10% costs us 33gpt,
and the furs cost only horses and extra ivory. Do we want Korea to have Knights?
Given that as our sole polite partner they are our last civ to attack and would
be threatened by Ottomans or Arabs, I see no harm. Actually, I look at map,
and they have horses TWO STEPS from Seoul, unconnected. Selling them horses
is not only safe, but a no-brainer.
- Whoa, they'll give us the furs for FREE if we ally with them vs Carthage
How much longer were we going to fight Carthage? We've got a SOD at their
capital and only five cities for them after that. What can they offer us to
stop? Nothing, absolutely nothing. (Same as the late Queen Isabella)
The only reason not to stop would be to oscillate into war with another civ.
The 'smart' other war now would be saltpeter and iron denial. (Well, no one
on the planet has heard of saltpeter yet, we don't know where it is)
- Arab horses are right near our front lines, Turks two back, next to Edrine.
The latter have another unconnected horse in their backlines.
- The Mongols have no horses, that's a laugh. Even better, neither do Vikings.
So they may never build a Mongol Horde.
- Settler pairs: three Turk, three Arabs, in OUR land, sheesh.
- How many units DO we have? 29 pikes, 8 GS, 23 MDI! NICE! Strong compared to all.

Here then is the plan...
- Over the next few turns, until Bukhara grows to size 2, get offensive units
in position next to every settler pair, and declare war
- When Bukhara, the backland city of the Arabs, hits size 2, we declare war,
take the city, slay all settler-pairs. Simultaneously or one turn after the other
hit the Ottomans too
- Capture the sole Arab horse, and cities of Najran and Fustat. 3 cities, war is over.
- Capture the turk cities of Adana on the lake near the incense, possibly Iznik, Antalya
- Crank out a lot of troops over the next dozen turns, then more troops
- Rush a 'little bit' on the island - enough to defend itself and to get two settlers
- Ally with Korea vs Carthage and try to get that over with ASAP

[0] 350 AD - We trade horses and ivory for furs and 10g to Korea
- Rush the temple in Agedincum, since we can't even use two workers due
to unhappiness, we'll rushbuy settler when it's size 3
- Swap Madrid from Courthouse to MDI. Purely tactical - it's NOW getting 10 shields
per turn, and getting 11 or 12 is no better. For now, we'll take a new MDI every
four turns.
- Barcelona is producing an evil 9 spt, and we're short just one shield on the
pike. To waste less I swap to... Heroic Epic is an option and it's NOT being
built?!??! I put Barcelona on the Epic. Due in about 18
- Alesia has the same 9spt problem, But he has a mined iron hill that was NOT
being used? I swap him from Pike to MDI because the latter finishes in 1 turn no waste
Plus, I need a BUNCH of MDI, NOW, for the planned settler-pair whacking
- Lug, third city in a row ONE shield short of making its unit last turn :P
I swap just for one cycle. Rushbuy Pike, swap to MDI, then borrow two tiles
to get MDI in just 1 turn, at lower cost than "rushbuy MDI" directly
- Seville swap to MDI too instead of courthouse, with it's waste of just 1 shield
- To show I'm not a courthouse hater, I switch Camul from mktplace to Courthouse
Because it's wasting 3 of 11 shields, we might see it get 10spt with court.
- Santiago I 'buy' the Pike for just 12 gold, then swap to MDI due now in just
one turn. (It says 2 turns but with the growth in 1, we'll get the MDI in 1 too)
- Salamanca rush temple so it can bring in wheat
- Move about 5MDIs a step closer to the settler pairs
- Send a pikeman from Carthage to cover the irrigated wheat at Oea
We'll NEVER starve them down if we leave tiles like that open
- Saw an unfortified regular NM in open ground near Utica. Sent my MDI from there
on the road after him, promoted to elite with no dmg :P
- In a fit of benevolence, the gracious Brennus GIFTS Polytheism and Literature
to the Vikings, so that they may pray and read their upcoming obituaries.
(It's a meager attempt to keep the Mongols in check)
- I don't like the worker connecting an extra iron we have no intention of
selling next to Seville, but I don't cancel him

[1] - 360 AD - Ah, the settlers are moving North. That's good actually, when I go
to slay them my troops will be in positon for the war, rather than in the rear.
- Midturn two NM's came OUT of Oea to sit unfortified in the open :smoke:
They do this next to an elite MDI. Leader time? Not yet. Would have been fun though.
- I'm at a bit of a loss where to send the two settlers. One on the double
whale spot SW of Entremont is one idea. The gap to our SE is another, but
it will have a ton of overlap and take up a 'close to capital' spot in the
corruption rank list. Ah wait, no city is grabbing that nice wheat, and there
is a river-forest plain spot near Alesia that will snag it. We'll bring the
other settler along up north in case a gap forms.

[2] - 370 AD - Midturn: all pink and one orange settler pairs reverse and go SOUTH
- One MDI defends well against a Carthage archer.
- Poor luck at sea, better results on land. Our gally completes and sees
a Carthage galley. We die without even damaging. That's it, NO MORE
galleys from non-harbour towns! :P
- On land however, I see some reinforcements coming to the big city
and with all the floodplains, and need for speed to finish with
Carthage and focus on the West, I decide to attack Oea. We win three
times losing a lot of hp. Also a win at Rusicale with an elite.

[3] - 380 AD - Midturn we defend, nay promote, vs a Carthaginian archer
One NM comes away from Rusicade, moves past one MDI, down road, and
past another, heading *nowhere*, and leaving himself in the open. [pimp]
- We look at him oddly, then take Rusicade, with only one defender
- Our elite fishes on this wayward merc and kills him
- We take Oea, losing one elite MDI. We see five replacements coming,
so timing was good! Capital moves to their only large city left, Sabratha
- One promotes to elite against an archer but ends up hurt in open next to archer
- We lower the lux slider to zero, just needing one more specialist, at Richborough
- Every settler pair in our land now has a shadow MDI right next to him!

[4] - 390 AD - That hurt one... wins, with 1 hp left.
- We have a (rushed) worker at island city, for roads and improvements. Settler next.
- Burdigala is founded, but there's still a gap, eventually we'll likely found
a town on the ruins plus capture the mongol town

[5] - 400 AD - The Numidians show why they are on their way OUT of this game
Rather than protect til archers arrive three NMs attack Oea, promoting
our vet pike to elite, and all dying. One more on the way, will surely kill
himself next round.
- Camul's courthouse finishes. We were hoping for 10spt as a result? We got 11.
- A temple rush or two, also the resistance in Oea ends
- Our lone catapult reaches Oea, fires on the not-so-smart NM, kaBOOM
(hey, Fireball?? I like the new catapult graphic :hammer: )
- No new techs anywhere (if above Education, we wouldn't see any)
- We're NOT ALONE on the island. The Mongols have settled Ulaangom on
the east end near the cattle, but not in 9 tiles. I predict a resource
due to this odd location. We can either grab the cow-iron spot to the NE,
or start cranking out war units. To do that well we need iron though! That
means a harbor.
- Celts will give one city for peace, but not two. Perhaps we take one more?
Ah, Cadiz, incense town.
- Bukhara is still size 1, settler pairs still live. Still... our big army
and elites sit idle thirsting for blood, and we give the foes a chance
to build Knights.

We cannot wait for them to build defenses.
The Celts declare war on Arabia. We slay their 3 settler defenders, so
capture 6 workers, and promote two MDI's to elite.
The Celts declare war on Ottomans. We slay their 3 settler defenders, so
capture 6 workers, and promote one to elite. Alas, two deaths for us.

Why am I acting *this* aggressively? If we play a consolidate and build
up game, this one is already *SO* won. Why not push a bit and see how
well extreme aggression works?! :P

Will Korea join us? Vs Ottomans they only ask... Spice! Vs Arabs, a bit more.
They're direct neighbors with Ottomans so let's get them fighting like cats
and dogs shall we? "Spice" it up!!

At Adana, just a spear defending, and spear and sword in the open.
Here's a case where surprise makes the difference. The Gallics are in
position to hit NOW. Vs Weak targets. They do so...

A win. A retreat (phew! would hate to explain a loss there). Now our elite...

The Great Leader, Caractacus, arises!! :hammer:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-GreatLeaderCelts400AD.jpg

(He must have noted an empty slot in the army that needed filling!)
He heads towad Utica. Sistine?? Another army?? Leo's??
At Adana, one more defender, another retreat, and we take the city!

On the streets, MDI's kill a spear and sword. On the other side of the
city we now see two swords and an archer. Glad they didn't reach the city in time!

Every city that started my turn with two pikes defending has sent their pike to
the front line. We fear no core attack. Entremont and Alesia are the only
exceptions, having an extra offensive unit staying nearby for zone defense.
Valencia also has a zone MDI, and Barcelona/Madrid area should get one soon.

(continued in next post)
Charis

Charis

Nov 23, 2002, 12:21 AM

Part 2...

6] 410 AD - Midturn - a CLOSE battle at Adana. Elite Turk sword brings our pike to
1hp before it loses, and our guy promotes. Then to the West the Turks
smoke some weed!! :smoke:

We moved our Army over on a mountain to pillage horse next turn. They ignore
him, as predicted, but move a ARCHER-SETTLER PAIR square in front of him
and right next to an elite MDI in the open??!!

Our citizens build onto our palace again (they just did that about 3 turns ago)
On the historgram, Korea is not doing so well these days, Carthage is miserable,
Arabia and Mongols are about equal at 20% each, and Ottomans around 15%. We're 33%.

We pillage the horses to Arabia, and take out the weinie settler pair.
Could this be some very deep ambush and tactics on the part of Abu?!

[7] 420 AD - Some pretty good news, and some kinda bad news in midturn...

The good news is that we defeat two counterattacks by swords vs our pikes,
and they do NOT go after our army (fear!) but it gets a ZOC attack on
an archer that runs past it :P There's ONE knight in the region.

The bad news... the Vikings... founded a city in the double whale spot RIGHT
in our backyard. (Easily disposed of, but a key point of this campaign was
to 'take out our backyard trash'. If the next leader is feeling really spunky,
he can take that city as soon as it hits size 2.)

Carthage wants to talk, and thinks that due to the lull in the action we've
forgotten him! Our fighters are poised to take Cadiz, and our next leader will
decide whether to crush Carthage, or take a city as tribute and let them live 20,
mainly to focus on the pink-orange wars. The only advantage to a very quick
wipe out would be we would not have to starve Oea or their last big city.

- Oh my! Just one defender in Cadiz? No wonder Hannibal wanted to talk so bad!
If we ask, he now offers Cirta *or* Nora, but not both. I'll leave the choice
to the next leader...

[8] 430 AD - At the Arab front, four targets in the open, and the city of Fustat
tempting target close to us. Najran is not far, and is first ring to Mecca!
Since the units in the open are offensive, let's get them first.
First attack we died on, but got a horse.

Midturn counter: An Ansar Knight comes SCREAMING out of the west, and kills
one of our Pikes. If they didn't have a GA yet, they do now.

Despite no real attention to infrastructure, and frequent small-scale rushing,
we're now over 2000 gold and running +191 gpt! That's in Republic with...
oh my!! *115* units! including 37 pikes and now 34 MDI's.

[9] 440 AD - Finally the backyard Arab city of Bukhara hits size 2, and we take it.

Also close to home we see a crazed Mongol sword in our territory moving
towards Eboracum. Ah, actually, that's a gap, not our land.

Up north we see our first Ottoman units, in the distance. A sword and archer
head towards Adana or Cadiz, and an MDI outside Antalya.

Midturn - a little nervous, after the two weak orange guys flee. In the NW,
a Knight and MDI move forward, and our army, now weakened, doesn't inspire the
fear it once did. We defend against an archer and barely survive!

[10] 450 AD - The first two battles are promotions, MDI vs archer in street,
and a Gallic on regular spear in small town of Fustat. We easily take Fustat
with its spear and archer defense.

Odd, we have 'active' a trade to Korea, but we can't start a new trade -
no route, uh... why is that? Did they lose a harbor?

Also odd - our gpt 'rep' is now shot with Korea, yet other civs will trade
for our gpt, and the deal in question is still listed as active??
There was no purposeful dastardly dealing here, and I don't see how route was
lost, unless their very act of accepting the spice for an alliance vs the
Ottomans caused the route to instantly break. Sounds more like :smoke: weed
on the part of Korea!

Thoughts for next leader...
- Decide what to do with GL outside Utica - A MDI army? Sistine later? Leo's in a while?
- Decide on crushing Carthage asap or letting him live 20. Two elite MDI sleep in Rusicade
If you let them live, starve down Oea more.
- How to handle the island and Mongol situation?
- There is an UNmoved settler on a hill behind Adana near the Ruins. Send him
wherever you like. Also, the settler just popped out on the island, send him
to snag the iron and cow, or build him some defense first, or rush the harbor
next round.
- There are a few unmoved MDI near Carthage too
*** Get the Army back to a safe barracks and let it heal!
*** With the city capture, Abu will talk. He's "close" on giving up Education and
will do so for peace if we pay 17gpt. If you do this, or take peace from him
soon, FIRST strongly consider getting a settler to the forest right next to
the horses near Najran and Fustat. The point of this war was to deny horses,
so peace can't be done until those are under our border control.
They have NO other horse source in their territory!
*** In fact, I recommend rushing a settler from Leptis Magna NOW, this turn,
and sending him there - then settle the forest-horse and take peace. Take the
lull to beat back the Ottoman threat, then finish off the Carthaginians.
By the time this is done you'll be more consolidated and ready to start war
with Abu again :P
=== Hmmm, even the Ottomans will take peace now, and pay a nominal 31 gold to us.
Unfortunately, our alliance with Korea has 15 more turns. It can be played out
as a psuedo-war for 15 if you like, or more aggressive, taking Iznik for sure!

Here's our new map... (A few things were rushed after the screenshot btw)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-450AD-Map.jpg

MarshallManiac <-- UP
Carbon Copy <-- On Deck

Save file: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-Celts-450AD.zip

Good luck!!
Charis

ToddMarshall

Nov 23, 2002, 03:18 AM

Looks good Charis. I havent actually opened the save yet, but I think I'll have quite a bit of fun on my turn :) .

As to the trade route lost with Korea. Yes, them declairing war on the Ottomans broke it. Our trade route with them was a land one via that southern Ottoman city by looking at your screenie. Ah well, we'll just have to trade them gold up front in the future if we decide to keep them arround. From looking at the save before your turn last night, I'd guess Korea is completely gased now and might be worth hitting ourselves before finishing Arabia.

Declaring war on BOTH Arabia AND the Ottomans is not something I probably would have done because I'm a really conservative player (note who made peace with everyone on his last turn and pushed infra ;) ), but was most likely the thing to do.

On the subject of our Republican Income..... That's why I decided it couldn't wait 31 turns last go arround :) . In most games, where you war a MODERATE ammount, it is THE government to be in until it can no longer sustain the wearyness. The extra income is SO much better than Monarchy at moderate war wearyness and only gets better turn by turn in most cases.

Anyhow, I should play tomorrow afternoon.

Ozymandous

Nov 23, 2002, 08:58 PM

Anyone know why we are mining the hill 2 squares due north of Bukhara in no mans land? Just curious since there are two workers there toiling away. :p

If no one objects how about changing the temple Bukhara is building to a settler and moving that entire city one square north to the hill so those other hills and terrain squares are actually used? :)

I suggested razing the arab city and placing two cities (one north of Bukhara and the other exactly where the viking city is) there last turn, but oh well. :)

If no one objects this would probably be the best use of the area, but it may not matter. Once we get control of our entire island we can then crush the Mongols and Vikings at our leisure. Concievably the game could end before no one reaches the industrial age.

Charis

Nov 23, 2002, 10:06 PM

You're right, Bukhara is MUCH better off one square North!
It pulls in a grass and an otherwise wasted hill.

On those two workers, they're not actually mining! They're building a road. Why? We had a MDI and GS sitting camped
on that square for about 10 turns, and I wanted to give our
boys a quick egress (road) if they needed one.

Switching the temple to settler would work except city is
too small - perhaps even merge in the Carhaginian worker nearby (let the other work stay and finish the road) to get the city to size 3 for the settler to 'pop'. (Or is there still a way to get it to pop at size 2 and disband the city - I think that involved starving down from 3). Swap, add worker, pop settler, disband.

Sorry I missed your comment earlier. I looked just now and STILL didn't see it until I searched for 'raze' - ah yes, I lost it at the end of your 'double post'. I admit I wasn't in "raze" mode, as I would not usually waste 30 shields and 2 pop points just to move a city one square when it's not a flip threat. Having it supply its own population (or eating one worker) is pretty nice actually.

Charis

Ozymandous

Nov 23, 2002, 10:32 PM

To make a city disband into a settler just do this:

Build a settler, and on the turn after it's completely done, remove ALL workers off the tiles in the city. The next turn you should get a mesage that the city is set to build a settler but not growing and given three options, one of which is to disband the city into a settler unit.

The city can do this even as size one I believe, I have done it before when I goofed and put a city one square in the wrong spot.

I usually don't raze either (or whip for that matter) but sometimes it saves time from having to tinker with a city for awhile that you don't plan to keep anyway. :)

(Sorry for the nag, and 'oops' about the road. :))

Charis

Nov 23, 2002, 10:46 PM

Ah!

> Build a settler, and on the turn after it's completely done,
> remove ALL workers off the tiles in the city. The next turn you
> should get a mesage that the city is set to build a settler but
> not growing and given three options, one of which is to
> disband the city into a settler unit.

That's it exactly, thanks for the reminder! In practical terms that usually means a rush is involved, as in fact we've done here. All 30 shields are 'done'.

> The city can do this even as size one I believe
Yes, this will work! Good call! I hope Marshall catches these
posts before he starts tomorrow!

Charis

Carbon_Copy

Nov 24, 2002, 11:11 AM

Yeah, I agree that the more aggressive we are getting the less likely it is becoming that we or anybody else will reach the Industrial. Now that we have all the researching civs in the world into war we are slowly wrecking the world economy. Scandinavia has been irrelevant the entire game, Carthage is beyond help, Korea is gassed, the Ottomans will be crippled beyond help soon (I hope, I hope), the Mongols are too far behind to consider right now esp. since we're killing off all their potential trading partners (speaking of which, we might want to entertain the idea of signing them to an alliance with us so that they cannot get any tech from the other civs before we're ready to deal with them), and the Arabs will have to research unaided AND fight us off, which the AI has not been renowned for its ability to do.

This scenario here was what I was alluding to when I said that we needed to start thinking about building libraries and researching by ourselves. Once we've given the Arabs the full business, there's not going to be much scientific progress from any quadrant unless we're willing to do it ourselves, and one round of oscillation with the Ottomans and Arabs is going to probably top us off scientifically for keeps. The age of researching with the pointy ends of our swords is probably over now.

We might also want to think about prebuilding for wonders. We've got the insurmountable production advantage, and it looks like our southern flank is more or less consolidated, so we could get away with having one or two of our cities building something big (what's still available to grab?).

ToddMarshall

Nov 24, 2002, 09:28 PM

Playing now. Should have the turn done later tonite or in the morning. I'm so busy changing my mind on what to do its taking me a while to get started.

Griselda

Nov 25, 2002, 02:38 AM

Originally posted by Charis
Looks like someone has applied a 'Prod' to you or something :p

Yup, I'd never have been ready to play here by now if I hadn't been "prodded" along! The prod game has been incredibly helpful.

-Griselda :whipped:

Carbon_Copy

Nov 25, 2002, 09:35 PM

How's the turn going, Marshall? Don't keep us in suspense like this! :cry:

ToddMarshall

Nov 26, 2002, 01:43 AM

Sorry. Its half done. my life interfered. Not going as well as i hoped, but ive got half the turn left. going to finish it now.

Finished. I have to go now. Will have the save and the report up in the wee hours tonite.

Charis

Nov 26, 2002, 09:17 PM

The new patch is out, v1.14f for PtW. After Maniacs' turn, we should all upgrade unless someone has a problem with that. It's mostly minor bug fixes, the only play items I saw were that both Berzerker and Hwatch'a are now added to the upgrade path, in other words -

Archer -> Berzerker -> Guerrila
Catapul -> Hwatch'a -> Artillery

Off course this comes as we reach invention anyway in the Viking game, with no archers in sight!

Good luck Maniac, I hope things are stabilizing in RL 8-\
Charis

PS Hopefully you can get some :sleep: although you may need to count :sheep: to do that!

ToddMarshall

Nov 27, 2002, 09:54 AM

Well, I assessed the city situation, and Every build order looked good except the one to change the temple to settler to move the city west of the capital. The biggest problem seemed to be what to do with the leader. I thought about this for a long time (like an hour). At first thought, it seemed that Sistine would probably be a waste this game. We would have 5 lux on line soon, and it seemed like with markets this would be plenty of happiness at size 12 with normal cathedrals, and I kind of doubited we would ever exceede size 12 cities. If sanitation ever sees the light of day, there probably won't be anyone but the Arabs and us that ever come up with it. Then the thought occured that it could make a diffrence in some war wearyness issues, and we should just go ahead and get it. Also, no one had invention or was working on anything BUT Sistine so the cascade would break and I could start a prebuild for Leo's. Well, after doing all this thinking, I promptly FORGOT about the leader...... who fortified the leader and why? DOH. So he didn't get moved that turn :(. This may turn out to be one of the great weed moves of all time. (Well, It could have been worse as you'll see).

Strategy wise, I decide that it's time for Carthage to go so there is no chance of Carthage proper ever fliping away with its wonders. Also, its time to "take 3" vs the Arabs and call it quits there since the 3rd city is their only supply of horses. This will give us a completely free hand to take 3 more ottomon cities, the last being their only source of iron. This should nicely keep them from making any knights or swords, completely crippling them offensively until military tradition. And even then, they will have only about half a dozen cities to our many many so we should be able to win via out producing them if nothing else.

Well, here goes:

[0] Forces move towards the Carthagenian capital to pilage it down to size 6 so we can take it without too much resistance.

[1]

Alessia - MDI -> MDI
Lugdunum Worker -> Worker
Camulodium MDI -> Market (The one I wanted on my last turn heh. Cant stop me now, it completes on my turn :) )
Gregova Pike -> Pike
Santiago Pike -> MDI
Richborough Pike -> MDI
Lep Minor Pike -> MDI
Samalanca Spear -> Pike
Eberocam Temple -> MDI
Adana Temple -> Pike
Bukhara Settler *poof*

MDI takes out an Ansar near Narjan. We move to rally the troops to the mountians near narjan for the safety of the high ground. Move in twards the Carthagenian capital to pillage to size six so we can take it out.

IT- Siphi counter attacks take out 2 MDI and a pike....... where did these guys come from :( I'm not feeling the RNG love.

[2]

Entremont MDI -> MDI
Seville Pike -> Sistine (I just remembered the leader...fortified)
Valencia MDI -> MDI
Cataractonium Founded to replace Bukhara.

2 Carthage archers are removed from the map, the pillage campaign continues.

Our MDI take out 3 of those Annoying Ansars.

IT - The arabs whack an MDI and a pike, BOTH on a mountian.....

[3]
Madrid Courthouse -> Pike
Lugdunum Worker -> Worker
Seville Sistine -> Pike
Russicade.....riots.....oops

Gyahhhhhhh the Arabs now have invention, so they can switch to Leos....... by ONE turn........sorry guys.

An eliete MDI attacks a knight on a grass with 1 hit left and promply dies... :(

Laprodium founded on our island up the road

Interturn Ansars kill another fortified pike on a mountian... This is getting ridiculous.....

Carthage lands a NM and an archer near Seville.

[4]

Entermont MDI -> MDI
Alessia Pike -> Pike
Hippo Aqueduct -> Pike
Cactaronium Temple -> Pike

Now its our turn to do the counter attacking. We slaughter 2 Ansars, 2 Archers from Arabia, and a spear and a sword from the Ottomans, losing only one MDI. We now have a wide vew of Narjan, and see no troops. We can also now see that the Ottoman city nearest has only a regular spear defending....... mmmmmmm, tasty when we get arround to it.

We are finally beginning to move a sizable force towards Narjan, having given out about twice the casualties we have taken, maybe not quite.

THREE MDI DIE trying to kill a regular NM on a grassnear Seville........... THREE.
THEY DO A TOTAL OF ONE HIT AND LOSE TWELVE...... At least the archer died. At this point, I'm ready to jump off a building.

Stage 1 Wearyness hits. Lux set to 10%

[5]

Lugdunum Worker -> Worker
Toledo Harbor -> Market
Santiago MDI -> MDI
Richborough MDI -> MDI

Our citizens aparently like luxuries, and spontaneously plant trees and bushes at our palace.

Sabitha has it size 6 time to rock and roll. The pillager/starvers all cross the river.

We continue slowly moving along the mountians towards the Arabian city of Narjan. MDI are traveling with pikes wherever possible.

Stage two wearyness hits...... allready.

I rush a cathedral in Madrid and a market somewhere i forgot to write down. Lux to 20% and a few clowns hired.

Interturn: Scandanavia allies against us with Arabia........ Well, I guess we can take out one of those last 2 southern encroachments on our landmass now.......

To be continued...

ToddMarshall

Nov 27, 2002, 03:06 PM

Entemont MDI -> MDI
Madrid Cathedral -> Pike (its now 16spt with the courthouse)
Barcelona Epic -> Settler
Burdiglua Temple -> Pike

Lett the battle for Sabitha begin!!

Eliete MDI vs Vet NM loses 5-1 :mad:
Vet MDI vs Regular NM wins 3-1
Fire Cat against a regular NM, it hits, bringing the -1 Vet one back up. Well, I guess we know what they have in there now.
Eliete MDI vs -1 Vet wins 3-1
Regular MDI vs -1 Regular NM loses 3-1
Vet MDI takes the city 1-0 Go us!!
An Eliete MDI attacks a NM that poped out of the city last turn...... no clue why. wins 3-4
Vet Gallic vs an Archer coming up from the south wins 3-3 promoting to eliete!

[7]

Toledo Market -> MDI
Richborough Cathedral -> Pike
Valencia MDI -> MDI
somewhere in here i messed up the worker chain at lugdunum....

I attack the viking city on our landmass with the eliete gallic in the neighborhood, its defense is only an archer. We win easily and autoraze it.

The lads have almost managed to stroll through the high ground to that annoying Arab city - taking more losses than I'd like/expected. We are about to give them some payback and deny them Ansars for the duration.

Which is good considering between turns FIVE Ansars show up, killing a pike and droping 2 other pikes to 1hp before 4 of them expire. Oddly we have better luck fending off attacks on a hill than we did on mountians. Go figure.

[8]

Entremont MDI -> MDI
Madrid Pike -> Pike
Barcelona Settler -> Pike
Gregorium Pike -> MDI
Santiago MDI -> MDI
Oea Worker -> Worker (I thought we needed some in the area, and this seemed the best place)

The northern Carthagenian city grows to size 2. Good for us, it wont autoraze.

Nothing much happening here. I move a pike, gallic, and MDI towards the new capital of Carthage. The other units rest up.

Our troops, including our army are now finally massed on the hill and ready to take Narjan next turn.

[9]

Alessia Pike -> MDI
Lugdunum Worker -> Worker
Camulodium Market -> Pike

Time to take Narjan!

Army vs Regular Pike wins losing only 1 hit
Eliete MDI vs Regular Spear wins 3-1
Eleite MDI vs........ nm, the city is ours?? They had a bazillion counter attack units out there, but only had a regular spear and a regular pike in a critical resourse city?? :weed:

OK, we met my objective for Arabia. Lets talk. Ummmmm, the Arabs wont even give us a tech for peace?? *sigh* Honestly, at this point, I dont care. I take peace and 140 gold from them, damaging their rep by droping out of the Viking alliance. They had no less than 7 MDI near the city and a few Ansars too ready to counter attack. They had worn down our forces, severly depleting out pike escorts, and war wearyness is getting close to unmanagable, mostly due to them I'm guessing.

At this point, I'm wondering what is up with the Ottomons. I've barely even seen a tithe of forces from them despite having a few units walking along the mountinas right in front of their city, and despite sending some pike MDI pairs in short forays towards the other Ottoman boarder city. Maybe like 5 total units the whole time. They are either militarily weak, priority targetde Korea, or, likely, both. I hadn't really paid attention, but I do notice now that Korea has taken that little Ottoman outpost in their corner of the world. That western city doesn't have a defender better than a REGULAR SPEAR:this should be a short, fun hit for the next player. Troops are in position to take that city in short order. MDI are also starting to head to the other Ottoman city, hopefully no better defended.

With the peace, wearyness drops back to stage one, lux back to 10%.

IT - Arabs start COP.....Oddly, they don't seem to be working on Leos now.... did they switch? Also the Ottomans have Invention, but aren't building a wonder at all? Strange.

[10]

Entremont MDI -> MDI
Carthage Courthouse -> Cathedral (vetoable)
Utica Pike -> Pike
Hippo Pike -> Pike
Richborough Pike -> Harbor
Samalanca Pike -> MDI
Sabitha Temple -> Pike
Agendium Spear -> Spear NOTE : yes, somehow I'd complerely forgotten about rushing on the island cities :( And aslo note the Harbor is no good at getting us capital connected since it takes a suicide galley. It's on its own there till Navigation comes in)
Laprodium Temple -> Spear

Forces move to kick the Ottoman campaign into high gear.

I left a lot of workers unorderd for the next leader to decide what to do with. I honestly don't think this game is going to make it to sanitation, and most of the cities seem to have the tiles they need the way they need them, sooooooo I thought I'd let a good micro manager decide what to do with them.

For the heck of it, in a fit of sheer impulsiveness, I fire the Cat at the regular NM in the latest Carthage capital. It hits, Soooooo. I decide to go leader fishing. The results of that can be seen below. As can a very poor job of cuting it out :(

Sorry this took so long. It seems like the only time my life is hectic anymore is the exact moment in time i'm up........

ToddMarshall

Nov 27, 2002, 04:40 PM

The save file can be found here (loaded absolutely no problem this time and I don't think I did anything diffrent)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/RBP1-Celts-550AD.sav

Also here is the shot of the successful leader fish.

A few notes: I don't get why no one is working on Leo's at all. I wonder if this is some kind of bug like the one that showed up with the Library in somones Epic 12 game. I guess we could just build it from scratch with our prebuild, and maybe use the Leader for Bachs or an Army, or COP.

I don't know how useful Bach's would be to us though with 5 lux on line (forgot to mention we did get the insence hooked up near the end of my turn) and with Sistine allready in our pocket.

Invention is available from Arabia for about 1000 gold. They won't deal for gpt. The Vikings will talk peace and accept it straight up. I didnt see if we could extort anything from them. I thought I'd leave that up to the next leader, but I see no reason not to take it.

There is a settler on its way to replace that Viking city. The other settler is still standing arround doing nothing. Maybe we should raze that next Ottoman city. It had twice expanded boarders. Or it might be better to wait till we march on the iron city and raze it. That's the last city we want fliping on us since it will disable their knight building.

I think Carbon..... or was it Ozzy *too lazy to check* was right. We should think seriously about building libraries now. Maybe even RIGHT NOW by switching from the military units for a few turns. The Ottomans don't seem to be anywhere near as imposing as the Arabas who should be half way through their GA now. The Koreans are a tech behind, and if we take those next 3 Ottoman cities they will be crippled too, down to six cities.

My suggestion would be to not worry about buying invention since no one is working on Leo's, just let it finish with the prebuild. But what to do with the leader then? No idea. An MDI army doesnt thrill me. It also doesn't thrill me to have a leader sitting around 18 turns waiting for invention to come in.

I'm sure Carbon will have an Idea what he wants to do with it.

Please finish off Carthage as soon as possible, though it may take several game turns from lack of troops in the area. And please don't stop with the Ottomans till that iron is gone for good.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 27, 2002, 05:37 PM

Wow, I can fight on this turn? Cool. Still have to get the house cleaned up for visitors tomorrow, so I might not get to this one tonight, in which case it probably won't be up until Friday night.

Not having seen the state of the game yet, I'm tempted to skate along on the troops we have and get some libraries built up. As for the Leader...Leo's won't be really useful for us until Nationalism or Replaceable parts, I agree that we can get away with letting that one build out naturally. However, if we still have to go out and research Music Theory ourselves, I might just make an army out of the Leader and fish for another one to rush Bach's (2 free content faces in every city will be a powerful way to keep WW in check in Republic, that's like rolling back an extra stage of weariness, isn't it?). It should also keep a lot of cities in WLTKD without much prodding from the luxury slider.

ToddMarshall

Nov 27, 2002, 05:42 PM

You can do better than fight, you can probably take a city first thing :)

Charis

Nov 27, 2002, 11:13 PM

Very good turn Marshall! Your play and execution went fine (other than the fortified leader of course :p )

But that's about the worst RNG luck I've seen in a LONG time! OW!

If we saw stage two weariness in that short a time period, I wouldn't turn down Bachs. As long as Mongols aren't the ones who build Leo's, we can capture it.

Looking at the map, I would say we own about 45% of the land area? With Carthage area in hand, if we take Arabia we're real close to domination, or take Ottoman and Korea and I would think we've got it.

Research??? What on earth for? Given what weakness we have to overcome for that domination, I think we already have our final offensive unit in hand - the MDI! We have nothing more to research but Gunpowder, and we can stay with pointy stick research for that :P Deny saltpeter after that and no civ can stand against us. If the MDI is our last offense unit, an army of them is helpful. (Although that's about as weak an army as one could make) As for Leo, again, if this is correct, we just don't have
much upgrading to do.

Arabia has three irons, so we can't well deny that. Glad no horses left though. With all that extra though, consider Ottomans might trade for it.

Unless we're looking to delay victory and avoid domination, I would say gogogo with MDI and steamroll Ottomans, then Koreans or a chunk of Arabia. If the pink act up again, raze their capital. Forget infrastructure (omg we have +176gpt income despite a 137gpt unit cost, wow!!), MDI's, pikes, temples, and muskets all the way should do it. It'll be over before rifles.

:cool: Have fun Carbon,
Charis

ToddMarshall

Nov 28, 2002, 12:56 AM

Hmmmmm, I hadn't noticed that Arabia had extra iron....... Oh well, I'm quite sure the Ottomon's WOULD trade for it if they could so that blows that thoery. Except.... I think if we take the cities I am hoping we do, I don't think they will have a trade route anymore, at least for a while.

I'm really not sure whats up with Orange. If the units I've seen from them so far are an indication, we might be able to just wipe them out, then take out Korea, who shouldn't have anything left by then. Not counting Mongolia, I don't think anyone has a military that can stand up to us. I've gotten to whack on everyone but the Mongols so far, and the only civ thats put up a good fight has been Arabia. They have put up more fight against me than the rest of the planet combined. They virtually crippled my attempt to take Narjan by slowing my advances, consistantly attacking and either killing or badly hurting our pikes. I'm not used to seeing fortified pikes on mountians attacked, much less killed. We don't want to go back to war with these guys on an impulse. We want to have muskets, a big stack and a plan next time :)

Why do our own research? Even with no other units avaiable to us, we really don't want to stay backwards unless we have to do we? And Arabia sure did have a lot of "can spare to counter attack" units. A lot more than I expected. They are gona be the only game in town research wise soon, and if we, or others, buy from them we only fuel further research and maybe pay for some upgrades for them. I'd much rather kick research into gear and be the one taking their money at 2nd civ which should slow, rather than accelerare them :D

If I remember right, we had mid 40's of both pikes and MDI, which isnt ovewhelming, but its not bad either. Right now our offensive vs Carthage has bogged down for lack of units unfortunately. I should have paid more attention to this and got 2-3 more MDI over that direction, but I thought we had enough. Heck, it might even be worth the time saved for the cost to just rush a couple out of Sarbritha. It might even be cost EFFECTIVE to do it this way because they have to be the cause of our wearyness. Orange hasn't hurt us much. Maybe they killed one or 2 units. Probably 2 more MDI over there would have us set to go. Baring any more RNG stupidity though, I think Carbon can just finish them durring his turn. And I know he can take that one Ottoman city right away. Our army, 2 Gallics, an MDI and a Pike can reach it next turn. Seeing as how a regular spear is its defender, that shouldn't be too much of a challenge :) Even if it is, several MDI would be there to hit it the following turn. I believe that taking that city cuts off trade between orange and pink too :)

EDIT

I looked. Actually, they have no trade route at all at the moment, though all the Ottoman's have to do is road up that tile under their horses to establish one. With that in mind, maybe we should try to push all the way up to that city and raze it. This would put the horse tile in Arabian hands briefly, but if we raze it and replace it with one of our own right next to the horses that would give us control over them and I think ensure the Ottomans and Arabians would never be able to trade too if we dont hook up a trade route with the Arabs. As it stands right now, the only road connection is the one from us to Korea via the Ottomans. With taking the eastern city, we will controll the fork in the only trade route that currently exists, and if we take control of the horse area, probably the only one that ever would exist other than one via roads under our control.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 28, 2002, 04:10 PM

550 AD (0) - Well, the first thing I do is move our leader. I get him into Rusicade on this turn. I check what Ragnar wants for peace, and while he'll give us all of his gold, we won't get gpt or one of his two cities (he is up to "doubtful" for his one on Mongolian land, though).

560 (1) - Interturn, a counter-attacker comes out of Iznik and defeats our pike cover, but is left with 1 hp. I counter-counter attack and kill the MI with one of ours, coming out with only 1 ding on him. I use the other one to pick off a longbow east of Iznik. All core cities that finished a unit start on a Library. I bombard the carthaginian city with our cat, and ding it down from size 3 to 2. I decide to refrain from attacking with just our gallic, so I wait another turn. In Carthage proper, Boudicca is turned into an army and I load a MI in it. Antalya is captured, nothing notable about it. I set it on a high-tax, low-food diet and move in the resistance goons. On the island I rush a settler out of one town that grew to size 3 and a spear out of the other.

570 (2)- More libraries started, more units moved around, the new army gets another MI. Cirta captured.

580 (3)- Interturn, Nora, the last Carthaginian city, starts coming under attack from Korean MIs. If I can't take it this turn, Korea has the force to do it on their turn, so the world will be safe soon from the Carthaginian scourge.

Trying to fish for another leader, I attack with the elite MI and win, taking the city and ridding us of Carthage! Didn't get a leader, though.

Ratae Coritanorum is founded on the southern tip of the peninsula south of Entremont on top of the razed viking city.

Iznik is fought down to a 1 hp pike, but I can't give anymore, not even fighting with a pikeman to raze that city. I've got a settler to replace it as soon as I can do that.

I check to see if the Vikes are willing to give up more for peace, but they're actually not as willing to give up Birka as before. So I just offer to bury the hatchet for all their 88g and their world map, to which they agree.

590 (4) - Iznik razed on the first battle, promoting a MI to elite. Tolosa immediately founded on its ruins.

600 (5) - Moving attackers. Gallics could reach Edrine next turn, but not reccomended with it being size 8 on a hill across a river with a pike defending (albeit regular). What are the odds on that one, Charis?

610 (6) - Interturn the Ottomans come begging for peace. I check to see what the offer: no tech, but a few of their far-flung cities and their world map. I tell them to buzz off. However, I just now notice that the city I'm about to attack is size 8 and across a river, so I won't attack it with the gallics or the army, instead i move most of my units across the river to sit on their iron while I leave a few pikes behind to sit on their irrigated grasslands.

Narjan's borders expand, it's now starved to 1 and in control of its full 21 so it should be a minimal flip risk from now on. I decide to turn the research machine on, but I don't want to be researching Invention. I buy it off of the Koreans for WM + 615g and start to work on our best-rate research without a defecit (40%) towards gunpowder (which only Arabia has right now), due in 8. Hopefully once Edrine is razed the Ottomans will cede us Education for peace. Verulamium changes from palace to Leo's, due in 18.

620 (7) - I know that against that pike, even using MIs, I'll be at a disadvantage by the numbers, but I've got the Powell Doctrine on my side. First order of business is to pillage that iron, we won't really need it later but it will ensure that even if I fail spectacularly, as long as i knock out the pike(s) in Edrine, we won't be seeing any more of them. Then I start attacking with MIs, losing one elite and leaving a few with only 1 health, but there was only the one regular pike and two regular spears in the town and I raze it to the ground. I then use a settler to found Lindum on Edrine's ashes. I check to see what he'll offer now, and he's now up to offering Education and a world map (but no gold) for a peace treaty. I think I can get him to go a little higher than that, maybe take one of his distant towns for peace, as well.

630 (8) - I definitely decide to continue with the war, as I notice Korea starting to really lay into the Ottomans, taking Izmit (their gems city) from them in the north, and with 3 MIs outside Bursa to the east of Istanbul. I have one gallic pillaging an irrigated grassland by Istanbul, and the gallic army standing on one of their furs (with the intention of pillaging one or the other and standing on that for a bit).

640 (9) - We bump up another stage of war weariness. The Arabs start Magellans :eek:. Interturn, the Koreans take Bursa, so I'm going to grab Istanbul or bust. I pillage one of the Ottomans' furs, the gallic army stands on top of the other one. Lots of troops ready to attack next turn. Istanbul drops from 8 to 7, it has only plain grass squares and no luxuries to keep it afloat.

650 (10) - Aha, Istanbul drops to 6. I start the attack. First attack is with a Vet MI vs their normal pike. The MI wins without a scratch and promotes. Next defender is a regular spear, so it's now safe to use our Gallics and fish for a leader. While I don't get one, I also don't kill any of our Gallics. We lose one MI during the fighting, but when it's done, Istanbul is ours. Now, my plan was to originally raze the city because of all the culture contained therein, but when my rushed settler turned out to be of Ottoman nationality (whoops), I decided just to keep the city. Now, we don't have Education yet, so the Great Library can still work for us, albeit for one turn. But that will be enough for us to get Education (useful) and Chivalry (useless) for free, so I can feel free to demand cities for peace from Osman, and not tech (all he's got is Education and that will disable our new Library).

So I decide to dial up Osman for peace. He's willing to give us Sinop (the island city to our SW), and Kafa (which I can't find on the map, probably another island), plus 6g, plus his WM for peace. I readily agree. He's now down to 2 cities on the main continent with some angry Koreans on their way. And yep, Kafa is an island city to the southwest of Sinop, and there's at least one more island down there that we could conceivably settle.

There are 10 units fortified in Istanbul now, hopefully that is enough by the formula to prevent it from flipping or at least make it really unlikely for one turn, the next turn we can have up to 15 in that city. We will get Education, Chivalry, and possibly (but not likely) one or two techs beyond Education, it all depends on if Arabia traded any of those techs away yet or not. But he's at least to Navigation, and I think that will justify my decision to build libraries and do our own research. He's the only one with most of those techs, and 1-beaker research wouldn't have given us Invention (well, the GL would have given us Invention but I wasn't planning on keeping the GL or even considering seriously taking Istanbul at the time I bought it) and gunpowder for 50 turns. We're still a few techs away from where we want to be, even if MIs are going to be our final offensive unit. We want at least Astronomy, Music Theory, Gunpowder, and maybe Banking, and I'm not sure if Abu will even have those techs on him when we start wearing him down for real. At the very least, we want gunpowder ourselves (due in 4) so that we can escort our attackers with Muskets (which stand a chance vs. Arabian MIs) instead of pikes (which have not had a good track record vs. MI).
Korea should be our next target, once we can take Seoul they'll fall apart, since that city is the home to their only horse and iron resources. I've kind of started assembling forces by Cadiz, but most of the units went up towards the Ottoman region instead.

Speaking of the Ottomans, they're all but done for. The Koreans will take care of whatever is left of them for us. I made peace when I did so that we could take those two island towns away from them before their capital moved to one of them.

Augustodurum can also build a worker every 2 turns, no MM needed.

Carbon_Copy

Nov 28, 2002, 04:15 PM

Whoops, I'm a bit sleepy from all the turkey today, I forgot to link to the save. If I were a little more awake I'd also post a shot of our map, but I'm not so I won't.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbp1-celts-650ad.zip

ToddMarshall

Nov 29, 2002, 11:29 AM

You guys are not going to like what we missed. I tried to post this yesterday morning but the forum kept eating it then I had to go. I didn't even realize how good this was, but I've checked now and its way better than I immagined. We could have done this on the saved turn.

1000g to Arabia for Invention
Invention and 40g to Korea for Education

Turn on research for Music Theory at slightly better than break even and gotten it in 10 ie. Carbon's last turn.
With that at monopoly, we probably could have swung this deal.

Music Theory and a few hundred gold to Arabia for Gunpowder

Gunpowder and a few hundred gold to Arabia (doubitful they even have slapeter in what they have left for land) for Astronomy.

We would no have almost full tech parity.....missing only Navigation I think. We would have basically every useful tech other than banking and ecconomics till the onset of the industrial age and could go back to cash accumulation for a few turns for the upgrades.

Sorry. *kicks himself* *kicks the forums*

The worst part of all this is this is the sort of thing that I'm usually good at and I screwd up royally on in this case.

Charis

Nov 29, 2002, 05:48 PM

Good turn, Carbon. I especially liked turning a deaf ear to the Ottomans 'begging' for peace.

Bad luck on the forums Marshall, although it won't matter. We have all the tech we need, and "Pointy Stick" research can get anything else! :hammer:

With Ottomans and Koreans gone we become on the verge of Domination, as far as I can tell. If when we see saltpeter the Arabs have one right at the front line, drop everything else and deny it, like we did horses. With no salt they're doomed.

falsfire <-- UP
Ozymandous <-- On Deck

Charis

PS If players could add their own "UP" and "On Deck", just like above, it would help others not to "not know" they're up

falsfire

Nov 29, 2002, 11:20 PM

sorry this weekend is gonna be crazy for me, it's my 26th so I've got plans from all quarters and won't be able to play til at least Tuesday evening. I'll pick up from whomever finishes there, if that's ok, or wait til my next time round, if the game's still going that long, that is! :)

ToddMarshall

Nov 30, 2002, 05:13 AM

Ahhhhhhh. Mostly doesn't matter anyway. I missed the point that we had just captured the library which will give us education and astronomy for free next turn.

As our wonder nears completion we have a choice. Do we want Bachs or Leos?? If we want Bachs we can get it by getting Music Theory after Gunpowder. It's doubitful any of the AI are researching Music and we'd probably get it first and could trade it for something like banking or navigation. It basically comes down to a choice between about 1500g savings for Leo's or 2 content faces in every city for the rest of the game for Bachs.

I suggest we get one more prebuild going somewhere in case the game is still in doubit by the time Ecconomics is discovered so we can get Smiths.

Korea is most likely ripe to be had now. They just on Carbons turn hooked up their horses so they wont have but a handfull of knights arround if any. We should probably group up our forces and attack before the end of the next players turn before they get knights out. This will also distract them from attacking those last 2 ottoman cities. We DONT want them to take the westernmost one, because when they do that horse tile will fall into Arab hands!!! Try to stop them taking that city from the Ottomans if at all possible. When WE attack it we'll want to raze and replace with a city right next to the horses so we will control them rather than Arabia.

ToddMarshall

Dec 01, 2002, 10:41 PM

Ozzy, did you go over the river and through the woods to grandma's for thanksgiving? I'm guessing that's whats up.

*looks at Charis*. If he doesn't "got it" by Monday should we just wait for Falsefire who said he could probably play Tuesday? Or maybe we should just wait for him now at this point as its late sunday now?

I'm one to be talking as my turn ran over about a day and a half last time :o . BTW, thank you to everyone for not getting on my case about that. You have no idea how much I appeciated that and how much I need a release like this in my life right now.

Charis

Dec 01, 2002, 10:56 PM

No problem if things take a detour for Thansgiving or other holidays, as long as they pick back up later :P I think most
folks here have had 'overloaded' spells, and the last thing I want is anyone in the SG game to feel too pressured for it.

I 'had it' too recently, so I'm going to let Ozy, falsfire, or Griselda, whoever has some play time, grab it - the order this week isn't so important. They can each get a turn in before I'll go next, unless someone is awol without posting.

Glad we could be a small glimmer of help and release for ya at this time, Marshall, np!

Charis

Griselda

Dec 02, 2002, 06:11 PM

I may not get a day with this much free time for a while, so I might as well enjoy this one. :) I'm pretty sure I can play and post by tonight, leaving the next turn open for whoever can grab it tomorrow.

Patching now...

-Griselda

XSin

Dec 02, 2002, 08:21 PM

I hope you know that patching your game won't affect this game... It only affects new saves.

Ozymandous

Dec 03, 2002, 07:22 AM

I couldn't play any earlier than tomorrow, so this is working out well. Sorry for the delay in responding.

Unless falsfire says otherwise I'll grab it next after Griselda.

falsfire

Dec 03, 2002, 03:19 PM

Ozy, you may have it next and I'll take it after you. Just as long as it doesn't reach up to Friday. My weekends are not good for me to be civving...too hectic.

EDIT: Too busy reading all the epic 18 reports...that's why I'm letting Ozy take it if he wants it :)

Griselda

Dec 03, 2002, 07:50 PM

RBP1 to 750 AD

(0) 650 AD - MM Barcelona and swap from med inf to cathedral to prevent riots.Move pike from Najran to Antalya to balance defenses. A few small tile changes.

BT- Arabs move a bunch of med inf in towards Najran! Koreans want to trade WM for WM, I can't see why not. From the library we get Chivalry, Education, and Astronomy.
Alesia library > Med Inf
Lugdunum kept making workers for all 10 turns. There are a bunch of mountains on size 12 cities that could use mines, and jungle up north. (I did remember to MM, though!)
Camulod pike > pike
Hippo med inf > med inf
Eboracum med inf > med inf

(1) 660 AD - Arabs have 7 med inf by Najran and Antalya. Ack! I'm not sure what their target is, but it doesn't seem to be Najran. The closest group of units I can move in is up by Istanbul, so I start sending those ones south as fast as possible. CC was worried about an Istanbul flip, and it's too remote to put any shields towards the temple and still starve, so I move most healed units out and rush the temple. My eastern units stil move towards Cadiz as planned, but I don't want to mount a Korean offensive until I know what the Arabs are planning. 2 of the catapults go to Cadiz, and one back to Antalya. The settler heads off NW towards Lindum, to resettle and deny the Arabs horses if that Ottoman town is razed. I don't want to buy anything from the Arabs for gpt because I want to keep my options open depending upon the saltpeter layout.

BT- Korea and the Ottomans make peace!
Entremont med inf > med inf
Istanbul temple > pike
Madrid med inf > med inf
Richborough library > market
Fustat spear > spear (road almost complete there)
Salmanca med inf > Aqueduct
Augustodurum WLTKD med inf > pike
Arabs start Bach's

(2) 670 AD - Arabs now have 13 med inf on the move towards us. I try to block them from moving Eastward with what units I have down there. Science to 30%, gunpowder in 2.

BT - Arabs move East
Utica pike > pike
Camulod something (d'oh!) > Copernicus (as aprebuild)
Cataractonum (what a name!) pike > aqueduct

(3) 680 AD - I have enough units by Antalya to form a bit of a blockade. It's still open a bit in the south, but I'll be able to get units there before they move through. With the blockade, they can only reach Najran without going through my units. Settler fortifies in Lindum for now. Najran, Antalya swapped to walls.

BT - gunpowder learned, start music theory.
Entremont med inf > med inf
Najran walls > med inf
Leptis Magna worker > med inf
Meptis Minor med inf > aqueduct
Koreans start Leo's

(4) 690 AD - Arabs have saltpeter between Mecca and Medina that's not hooked up :crazyeye: I'll check every turn to see if they have it.

We have 2 connected saltpeters and a few others that are unconnected. :D Korea has a single pike by Istanbul that I'll have to watch.

I do some upgrading. I realize that we may be getting Leo's but this Arab incursion has me a bit nervous, and I'd rather be safe. So, I upgrade in border towns. Najran (2), Antalya (1), Lindum (1), Istanbul (3), Leptis Magna (1), Adana (1), Cadiz (4), Utica (1), Carthage (1), Oea (1).

BT - Madrid med inf > musket
Carthage cathedral > market
Barcelona cathedral > musket (15 spt, yay!)
Alesia med inf > courthouse
Georgovia caravel > aqueduct
Santiago market > musket
Antalya walls > catapult

(5) 700 AD - Blockade around Arab units complete- they have to go through me to reach anything but Narjan (or go home). There are 21 Arab med inf there now :eek: , which is why I couldn't just tell them to leave and let a war begin. I swap Valencia from Caravel to musket.

BT - Arabs shift around a bit, backing away?
Mongolia archer comes out of Ulangar
Entremont med inf > med inf
Istanbul is now size 1
Toledo library > musket
Ottomans start Copernicus
Mongols start Leo's

(6) 710 AD - I'm not sure what the Mongols are up to, so I rush the barraks in Lapdurnum, but don't move any units. I upgrade 3 more pikes in Antalya, the situation down there is now critical. Ottomans have a couple units in our borders; I wonder if they will be foolish enough to attack? I load the caravel with all of Valencia's units to take them to our undefended island cities. The Arabs are close and even have Navigation. My galley sees a goody hut west of Kafa.

BT - Arabs look like they're now moving into position to target Najran- 13 med inf adjacent to Najran with the rest still right there in our border.
Hippo med inf > courthouse
Tolosa worker > catapult
Lapurdum barracks > med inf

(7) 720 AD - Misc blockade movement (moving units around to balance strength, moving my units west a bit if the Arabs give up a square). I also am able to move a couple units into Najran.

BT - Entremont med inf > med inf
Utica pike > musket
Eboracum med inf > aqueduct
Augustodurum pike > musket
Adana worker > worker (not starved all the way from the beginning, maybe we can build out the Celtics, then starve, then regrow?)
Burd. market > courthouse

(8) 730 AD - Misc. blockade movement. Science to 30%, Music Theory in 2.

BT - Arabia declares war on Mongolia! [dance] Did the blockade work? Arab units start moving away from Najran, back to Arabia.
Madrid musket > musket
Barcelona musket > musket
Cadiz pike > catapult
Oea worker > market (very vetoable)
Valencia musket > med inf

(9) 740 AD - Consolidate blockade just in case. I move west as the Arabs give up ground (not past our borders, though!). Also, with the Arab's threat lessening, I start to move units north out of Cadiz to the Korean border. I sent 1 musket towards Nora, where there's some Korean med inf vaguely in range. I realize that the Arab territory covers all of the sea tiles to the west. So, I start sending my boats back (maybe we can still get a unit to that goody hut, for example). I swap Toledo to caravel so that we can explore eastward from there.

BTW, Arabia has still not hooked up their saltpeter. They have Chemistry now.

BT - Arabs move out westward (still leaving some med inf behind, though). Then, the Koreans move a force towards Nora! :eek: That could be bad, because Nora is still not heavily defended, though I've been moving some units that way. Also, there's not a road straight from Cadiz to Nora yet. The Koreans have some med inf and 2 knights on the way. I'm sorry, I should have gathered more defensive forces in Nora knowing that we weren't going on the offensive as quickly as was originally planned. I did send 1 unit there, and another had been on the way.

(10) 750 AD - Misc movement.

I've been trying to group the workers into sensible stacks of 3-4 Celtic worker equivalents. At the very least, I've been trying to make sure that no stack has an odd number of foreign workers. Anyway, I think they're in better shape than they were 10 turns ago, but you might see some lone workers that are being moved towards one stack or another, and a few might need to be doublechecked.

The wonder situation- Verulamium could have Leo's or Bach's in 5. Camulod could have Copernicus in 27 or possibly Smith's?

It seems like Bach's would be more helpful vs. war weariness than Leo's, but Leo's is a tighter race right now. I didn't start another prebuild, but I'm guessing that we wouldn't be able to pull off Leo's, Bach's, and Smith's (but at least Arabia doesn't seem to have been moving towards economics). If we choose to skip Leo's, then it becomes even more essential to make sure that the Leo's owner doesn't have saltpeter (or horses, if that's even possible). The Mongols have saltpeter, fwiw but don't look likely for Leo's.

It seems like the next few turns are going to be critical, because the AI's are finally able to amass a decent army. If we are really as close to domination as Charis thinks (and who's to argue with Mr. Math?), it might make a lot of sense to veto all infrastructure and push hard for military, because we won't need to worry about long term growth if we can win in the short term.

But, the Arabs have figured out how to stack their units, which is a bit scary. The Koreans may well take Nora. Am I just too pessimistic? If I were going to play through the next few turns, I'd probably leave the western units over by Najran, but wait a few turns in hopes that the Arabs will load all their mad inf onto boats and send them to Mongolia (where they can bash each other, yay!). Then, we can swoop in and grab Mecca and Medina, making sure to take the saltpeter one way or another. All the newly produced units can go towards Korea, which could use some support.

Well, I'm interested to see what happens! Good luck!

Ozymandous <--- UP
falsfire <--- ON DECK
Charis <--- below deck (and then back to "normal", whatever that is, I guess)

-Griselda

PS - I'm having trouble getting my save file to appear in the uploads folder (yes, I'm using a lower case extension). I'm going to post this so I don't worry about losing the post, then try again.

Griselda

Dec 03, 2002, 08:18 PM

I still couldn't get the upload to work, and it's too big to attach, so I put the file up at RBD-

RBP1-Gris-750AD (http://www.realmsbeyond.net/gris/RBP1-Griselda-750AD.ZIP)

edit- fixed URL to one that *should* work

ToddMarshall

Dec 03, 2002, 11:27 PM

Nice going! I played a shadow turn of this because I was bored and you noticed right away by the way Arabia was acting that we werent the target.

I also switched to walls immediately and rushed some extra defenders over to help out the boarder citys, then asked the Arabs to leave whle they only had like 3 units that could that turn attack Narjan.........and they complied. That told me right away they were after that Mongol city. Then guess what? The Mongols tried to extort horses, I refused, they declared war :(. I won't go into it beyond that.

I haven't seen the save file yet, but, well, you got a firsthand look at why I wanted peace with Arabia so bad at the end of my turn. Unlike EVERY other civ we've fought so far, this civ has its act completely togeather. A big offensive army and a research powerhouse too.

BTW, is anyone else ALARMED that Arabia is pulling a tech every 5 turns or so...... They ARE going to reach the industrial age unless we can stop them soon. The problem with that plan is that they have enough of an army that a 2 front war against them and Korea is about impossible. If the Koreans declare war on us, it might be in our best interest to buy the Arabs as an ally at any non crippling cost.

I think their torrid tech pace virtually alone in research justifies our libraries now. As far as the wonder situation, you are right. We get Leos, or Bachs, but not both. We have to pick then hope that Arabia completes the other soon, killing anyone elses wonder techs before Ecconomics pops. I do think a prebuild would be the way to go for Smiths.

Hopefully we can manage to buy at least one friend here to stay out of a world vs us situation.

EDIT
Gris, I'm getting a corrupted file error on that download..... I tried it 3 times to make sure.

Griselda

Dec 04, 2002, 12:47 AM

Try this one then:

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/gris/RBP1-Griselda-750AD.ZIP

-Griselda

Carbon_Copy

Dec 04, 2002, 01:16 AM

Go for Bach's. That one will spare us the effects of at least one stage of war-weariness, and if we can stop the Arabian juggernaut right now, we probably won't be doing much in the way of upgrading besides pikes to muskets.

We need to start fighting somebody, either take out Korea and sweep by whatever Osman has left on the way to Arabia (provided we observe the 20 turn peace treaty, remember I accepted cities for peace on my turn :p), or ally all the remaining powers to fighting Mongolia so that they are all piling their units into ships and sending them away from our continent. And we could then poach some softer Mongolian lands instead of going for the full business on Arabia (we might have to resort to this anyhow if Abu gets to rifles).

Augustodurum can build a worker every other turn without micromanaging, it might be time to let Lugdunum grow up and pass over the worker camp duties to the fishing village.

I haven't checked, but is Arabia building more than one wonder? They seemed to flip-flop between building Leo's, building Magellan's, and building Copernicus on my turn. It might be possible to still get Leo's if they decide that they want Magellan's instead (unlikely, but stranger things have happened and this IS the AI we are talking about). City investigations may be in order.

ToddMarshall

Dec 04, 2002, 02:27 AM

I had considered the Mongolian idea as well, but wasn't sure that was wise yet because I didn't know how defensively prepared our big island was yet.

At the start of Gris's turn, Arabia was indeed building THREE wonders. Probably FOUR now having just started on Bachs (I'll look and edit this if I'm not correct on this). The one that should be farthest along, oddly, is COP. Don't forget, they got about 10 turns for GA production on those puppies too.

When I made peace with Arabia, I did it even though their offer sucked because from the massive ammount of stuff they kept sending my way it looked like I had only this choice: Keep sending everything twards Narjan and hope to hold on to it, slugging it out for a LOT of turns, and maybe in 15 turns or so we might be able to think about starting moving on to taking another of their cities, or be happy with denying them Ansars and go hit somone weak like Ottomans seemed to be (and were).

My gut feeling here is that we needn't take any more Arab land if we can buy them as friends. If we buy them vs Korea, then vs Mongolia, we should be able to get the tiles for domination. That Mongol iceball that serves as 2nd continent is probably defended with mostly spears. They still had no harbor on it at the start of Gris's turn, so any pikes there wont be home grown.

Alternatively, we could buy Arabia vs Korea, wipe the Koreans out, then just declare on them. Logistically, they would be easier to invade since we wouldn't have to boat people arround, but in practicality, these guys are one tough nut to crack.

Carbon_Copy

Dec 04, 2002, 03:30 AM

Looked at the save, and two things are obvious:

-If the arabs are moving back towards Arabia, then they're not a threat, the AI is not that sneaky.

-The Koreans are moving towards Nora, they ARE a threat and will likely sneak attack next turn.

So, to Ozy:

Take this turn to move as many of those western troops by Narjan towards Korea as you can. You won't get most of them very far because the bulk of them are not on roads, but that's the best we can do.

And if Arabia gets Copernicus and whichever one of Bach's and Leo's we don't build (build Bach's!), Camulodunum is still fine if we switch it back to palace and use that as our Smith's prebuild. The palace will take enough time to complete that we can research our way to Econ with time to spare. The city that Arabia has building Magellan's is pretty crappy looking though, I doubt it will finish that wonder for a long time, we might beat them out in one of our coastal towns if we start another prebuild.

Mining those mountains by Augustodurum messes up the auto-governor and it won't select the tiles necessary to build a worker every other turn without MM. If it were up to me, I'd just pillage the mountains to save the trouble and use that city for our worker farm and let Lugdunum grow. Oh, and merge one of those workers into Alesia so it won't have to grow to size 12 on the strength its food tiles.

Charis

Dec 04, 2002, 07:41 AM

You've got an odd schedule or a hard time sleeping, dear Carbon! :P

Agreed on the Arab and Korea threat assessment. Is there a tech or something we can buy from Korea for gpt and let them soil themselves?

If they sneak attack, they're putting up a red flag, "It's OUR turn for getting smacked down!! Hit us NOW!"

Question, by 'auto-governor' you mean the thing that chooses what tile will be picked when a city grows? You don't mean that we have the governor turned on in that city? (A big no-no for our SG's) Is there anyway to force/guide the AI to picking the tile you want on a growth turn? I've tried in testing turning on the gov and using different settings, but to no avail. If in fact pillaging the mountain makes no difference to shields and just means not having to MM, sounds good (although, rebuild the road after the pillage)

I tend to agree on Bach's. We really should be done soon without needing to upgrade if (cough) we stop making buildings and crank out more MDI's!! :hammer: (j/k, I've not looked at the map in quite a while, I'm sure y'all are choosing wisely!)

@Todd and Griselda - wow, the AI doing something coordinated, that brings fear to the player??!! (Is that a pig I see flying by my window?!) That must have been a nerve wracking turn Gris :lol:

Charis

Ozymandous

Dec 04, 2002, 08:32 AM

I'll try to play tonight but no promises since I'm tired.

CC: Will shoot for Bach's and will check out swapping our worker factory somewhere else.

Gris: Sounded like an interesting turn, should be fun.

Charis: More MDI? Ah, you DO know those suck on defense and upgrade *only* to Guerilla, which also suck? Of course since we're only doing infantry they are about as good as we get for a long time (which is sad! lol).

(I had forgotten we were doing infantry only for this game for a second, hence my MDI comment,:lol:)

This turn should be fun, I'll let everyone know what happens as soon as possible. :)

Carbon_Copy

Dec 04, 2002, 08:33 AM

I looked, but didn't see anything that we could really do. They hardly make any cash, don't have any tech that we don't, and I didn't see any workers in the capital. We may just have to end up eating this.

And yeah, by auto-governor I did mean the tile selecting algorithm, no governors were active. At the end of my turn, the tile selector for Augustodurum would choose all the avaialable grasslands plus the two fish tiles for slightly over 5 shields and food per turn. With the mountains mined, it will try to use those for an evil 9 shields and 2 food per turn (IIRC). As for how to force it to use specific tiles, the only thing I can think of is to pillage any tiles that it keeps wanting to use that you don't want it to, which may or may not work with your plans. With the mountains mined, you need to go back to the city screen and take all the laborers off the mountains and put them back on the grasslands to pop out a worker every other turn.

ToddMarshall

Dec 04, 2002, 08:55 AM

OK. I've looked at the save now too...... It's not pretty :(. There is about a 1 in 10,000 chance the Koreans are trying to pass through to attack the Mongols, the other 9,999 chances are they are going to sneak attack us.

@ Charis They have absolutely noting to gpt hose them for. We are ahead of them in tech thanks to those buildings we wisely decided to make =D.

Unfortunately we sorta.... over reacted to the Arab menace in this case. Which is ok. It's a LOT better than UNDER reacting to it would have been and a live and learn experience ;), so don't sweat it Gris. Moving our defensive forces to Narjan and that other boarder city north of it whos name I forget was a must, and getting the walls and musket upgrades was the absolute thing to do, but once we saw they weren't going to attack Narjan but rather wanted to attack the Mongols, we should have shuffled the offensive forces back to Korea.

Almost our entire field force is in the fields surrounding Narjan so we are unable to counter attack for at least 5-6 turns (I didn't bother to count exactly). The Koreans have the makngs of a rather impressive mini SOD compared to what we have available in the area. More than I'd have thought them capable as I expected them to be rather more gassed by now. Still, if we react RIGHT NOW by unfortifying the units around Narjan and get them headed for Korea, I think we should be fine, though it looks rather like a lot of casualties are about to rock the mean green machine for a couple turns.

One thing FOR SURE to do is to activate the Gallic in the city south of Nora and move him into Nora. While we don't really want to see him defending vs an MDI, it removes ALL chance the RNG will kill both the musket and MDI there to take the city on the sneak attack turn as they will only have 2 units available to attack it.

Consider buying the Arabs into the war when Korea attacks us. This removes the possibility of Korea buying them in on their side somehow. That would be a problem for us as we simply don't have the forces to fight a 2 front war where the Arabs = one of the fronts.

Unless we think we want to take on the Mongols in the next 20 turns (which I doubit since I see 0 chance Korea will be smashed in the next 15 turns) consider trading them lux for their wines. This will both make the Mongols unlikely to suddenly declare and land forces on our big isle before we are ready to go on the offensive there, and also it will be a powerful 7th lux. FOUR smileys in all market cities to fight the Korean war wearyness.

Once again @ Charis - I wouldn't call it FEAR exactly, but the Arabs are actually quite strong for an Emperor Civ, and thank God we denyed them Horses. Ordinarily, I wouldn't worry about them. We could run them over with Cavs in a normal game, but that isnt an option here :). My only concern here is that they are moving the tech pace along so rapidly that if we DONT smash Korea NOW, they might get Nationalisim before we could do much against them. MDI vs Rifles wont work very well I'm afraid.

I guess what I'm really saying is, Korea must die and asap. Once Korea is gone, even if we don't have the needed tiles for domination from just that, it is a completely and quickly won game.

I haven't crunched the #'s, but I'm inclined twards Bachs unless we have a LOT of pressing pike -> musket upgrades, which I doubit.

Todd shuts up now *g*

Charis

Dec 04, 2002, 09:21 AM

> Todd shuts up now *g*
Hey, great post!! Some very insightful stuff there!

> @ Charis They have absolutely noting to gpt hose them for. We
> are ahead of them in tech thanks to those buildings we wisely
> decided to make =D.
lol! "Chants something about pointy sticks!"

Too bad we can't extract anything from them before we get
sneak attacked. One thought on that -- if an AI gets a foe in range of its city, it usually recalls just about ALL offense units to counter attack THERE, rather than pressing forward with its own plans. If we can, as you say, avoid losing Nara THIS turn, and get something, anything, you know, one of those fast Gallics I begged us to keep on hand... up to a city of the Koreans, ANY city, and either just fortify or pillage, we might (??) be able to recall the stack of doom and define the field of battle??

> The Koreans have the makngs of a rather impressive mini SOD
> compared to what we have available in the area.

Uh... is it that late they have Metallurgy yet???? I would HATE to think we're going to get whacked with Hwatch'a?!

>I guess what I'm really saying is, Korea must die and asap.
Got THAT right!

> One thing FOR SURE to do is to activate the Gallic in the city
> south of Nora and move him into Nora. While we don't really
> want to see him defending vs an MDI, it removes ALL chance
> the RNG will kill both the musket and MDI there to take the city

Good call!! If after that turn he lives and the SOD is upon him, run away and let the city go :P

> Consider buying the Arabs into the war when Korea attacks us.
> This removes the possibility of Korea buying them in on their
> side somehow.
Another great idea!

> Unless we think we want to take on the Mongols in the next 20
> turns (which I doubit since I see 0 chance Korea will be
> smashed in the next 15 turns) consider trading them lux for
> their wines.
You're on a roll Marshall! :hammer:

> I wouldn't call it FEAR exactly, but the Arabs are actually quite
> strong for an Emperor Civ, and thank God we denyed them
> Horses.

My settler-whacking and extreme aggression to do this is vindicated!! :goodjob:

Once Korea is gone, even if we don't have the needed tiles for domination from just that, it is a completely and quickly won game.

Charis

ToddMarshall

Dec 04, 2002, 10:39 AM

If we can, as you say, avoid losing Nara THIS turn, and get something, anything, you know, one of those fast Gallics I begged us to keep on hand... up to a city of the Koreans, ANY city, and either just fortify or pillage, we might (??) be able to recall the stack of doom and define the field of battle??

Great idea. Unfortunately, unless I missed somethng, we dont have a Gallic anywhere useful for this purpose at the moment. Maybe we could rummage through the former Ottoman cities. Didn't look too hard at those. Perhaps there is one in the former Ottoman capital that could annoy the gems city Korea just took.

Uh... is it that late they have Metallurgy yet???? I would HATE to think we're going to get whacked with Hwatch'a?!

Nope. As yet, only the Arabs have made it to Chemistry. Korea doesn't have Music (I think is the one we are up on them) or Navigation yet either and are most likely playing follow the leader on Navigation or Music. No worries on rocket carts for at least 20 turns, probably more. By the end of 20 turns I'd like to think half their land will be our land :)

Good call!! If after that turn he lives and the SOD is upon him, run away and let the city go :P

Actually, that city may not even stay their main target if they dont get the musket and the MDI both whacked out of our city. I rather think they will SOD form on the mountian between it and our city west of there. From there they can probably knock out several of our MDI sitting out in the open with only a single cover musket. Thats good news/bad news. Bad news is we will likely lose several units. Good news is we will likely wound several of theirs, causing them to pause to heal. This should at least let the reinforcements trickle in in time to hold the fort. I hope anyway. That mountian is actually closer to another of our cities, and we need to make sure we protect it as well.

Final note, I did notice a lot of Carthage area infra going up. Maybe its time to veto some of this for walls in the 2 front line cities and Muskets in the others. I didn't look very closely at what specifically was going up, so I can't really say.

Griselda

Dec 04, 2002, 11:20 AM

I guess I was thinking that even if they weren't targeting Najran that they could just be headed for another one of our cities (don't they do that? they don't always attack the border town, do they?)

I sure as heck wasn't going to let 21 MDI wander through our lands no matter *what* they were targeting. OTOH, I see that having the Gallics split up would have been a good idea, and probably the last 10 or so MDI could have gone towards Korea.

-Griselda

Charis

Dec 04, 2002, 12:09 PM

No problem, a stack like that (21 MDI) deserves attention!!

The AI does in fact target the *weakest* city or objective it sees. That's usually but not always a border town. If you see an AI stack go PAST a town you can pretty much rest assured they will not target a better defended city. Their war vs no-war decision is already made, along with original reason for the war. But once the AI decides its going to sneak attack, it's going to pick the least defended city.

You know... if that's *REALLY* true, would pulling a defender out of a town BEHIND enemy lines, say in the direction of where our main forces are, pull them over there instead of Nara??! The question is, would they declare as planned and hit Nara first then go for empty town, or would they try to "preserve the surprise" (ha!) and march their mini-SOD deeper into our territory. (If you try to boot them out and they've made the decision to war, they'll just declare) It really wouldn't hurt to try pulling a defender, unless that would draw an attack from Arabia (unlikely), or be considered AI 'baiting' (since I really don't know what they would do I wouldn't see it as exploitative, but more of a legit ambush against someone bent on sneak attack)

Charis

Zed-F

Dec 04, 2002, 12:43 PM

Well, you are trying to manipulate the AI behaviour based on what you know about its decision making algorithms. We know that such moves have worked in the past, from reports by other players; the AI will often ignore a border town if there is a (significantly) more weakly defended target behind it. Moving units out of a behind-the-lines city purely for the purpose of baiting the AI into shifting its attack focus is probably exploitative, but I would consider moving behind-the-lines forces up to the front to be a perfectly reasonable move, if you expect a sneak attack, so this sort of thing is probably something akin to "puppet strings" -- it's not something you can avoid entirely, but it is something you can avoid consciously trying to abuse.

ToddMarshall

Dec 04, 2002, 03:47 PM

Gris, don't get me wrong, the blockade WAS a good idea, and once they had THAT many in a stack near Narjan, you correctly assessed that it would be a BAD idea to ask them to leave. It was MUCH better to do what you did than to have underestimated the threat and wound up with a horde of 21 MDI marching through our lands!!!! Plus, you gave priority attenton to the one and only civ that actually has and does pose some sort of menace which was the correct thing to do. You erred, and only slightly, on the side of caution.

And what are the effects of this decision? Korea only gets a POSTPONMENT of the inevitible. That "stack" is probably 1/2 or more of their "spare units". They only have TWO CITIES in their whole empire with expanded boarders. They were at war with Spain/Carthage on or before 550BC, and have had peace only one time since then: the few game turns on your watch between them peacing with the Ottomans and now. They are the classic looking allways war civ. We shouldn't have too much long term problem with these guys.

Getting a feel for what is going on in this sort of situation is something that can only be learned one way. Game experience. And even then, right about the time you are SURE you know whats going on, the AI will still surprise you in some game or other.

Honsetly, if we get a good RNG on the sneak attack at Nora, I don't think the Koreans will stand a whole lot of chance at even taking a city before we start menacing theirs. They'll probably spend their mini SOD trying to wipe out our units in the open giving us time to redeploy for the purposes of applying a proper but kicking to them :)

Griselda

Dec 04, 2002, 04:10 PM

Actually, I think that pulling a couple of defenders out of another city to try and divert the Koreans sounds like a fine idea, and I don't personally think it crosses the line into puppet strings if it's a one-time thing.

It would cross the line, IMO, if we continually moved defenders around so that the AI was going back and forth and not able to target any city. Also, when I was doing the blockade, it would have been exploitative to have moved on and off squares so that the AI were stuck constantly moving towards an opening that was never available by the time they arrived.

I see a difference between diverting their attention and forcing them into an endless loop. Otherwise, even Cy's move in Epic 18B of founding a city in a location he knew would be an AI target could be interpreted as exploitative.

At least, that's how I see it. :p

-Griselda

edit- I've been meaning to ask: what does SOD stand for? I know what it means, but I can't figure out the acronym.

I'm assuming it's not
Stack Of Dunces
Son Of a Ditch
crummy sod

but I can't think of anything else it could be!

JaxomCA

Dec 04, 2002, 04:31 PM

Sisters Of Darkness?
Simple One-way Detour?
Son of a Devil?
Stupid Oval Disk?
Steep Offbeat Dance?

:) that would be a Stack of Death I believe

Zed-F

Dec 04, 2002, 09:28 PM

Alternatively, Stack o' Doom. Same idea.

Gris: Yes, that's the idea, I think we are drawing the line at approximately the same place. Moving up guys from the back lines (and thereby emptying a city) would be fine. The key in my view is, to what purpose are you moving the units? If you are moving the units to some purpose other than simply baiting the AI, then it's not exploitative. If the ONLY reason you are moving the units is to bait the AI, then that's exploitative. In Cy's case in 18B, founding a city got him a beachhead on that island and resources, plus denied those resources to the AI. Cy knew that IF the AI were to attack, that would be a likely target, but he didn't know the AI WOULD attack for certain. The city was not a throwaway whose only purpose was to bait the AI, that was just one of its uses. :)

I don't think repetitiveness can be considered the right benchmark as to whether something is exploitative in this case, though it's certainly a bit of a red flag. Consider, however, an early game settler blockade with 3 warriors able to block off an enemy settler indefinitely by continuing to move in front of it and forcing it to move laterally. As far as repetitiveness goes, that is akin to your proposed exploitative behaviour of putting a vanishing hole in your blockade. Again, here you have to consider, what's the intent? With the settler blockade, even though the blockade is constantly in motion, the goal is usually just to keep the other guy OUT, without reference to where he might go afterwards. With a vanishing hole in a blockade, the only reason to do that is to jerk the AI's chains around and keep his forces tied up in that area, presumably while you set up a kill zone or beef up defenses elsewhere. So again, considering the motivations behind the action allows one to get a concept of how explotative it is.

Charis

Dec 04, 2002, 09:54 PM

Stack o' Doom.

Phrase first used in the SG realm by Cy on Feb 8, 2002 in the RBD5 French artillery game. It soon became a catch-phrase that caught on as we had monster stacks of artillery that most of us had never seen before.

In a later post Cy describes it as such:

Well, if the patch hadn't added the "J" key group move command, I would have had to have dropped this game long ago 8-).

As it is, you just haven't lived until you have moved a stack of around 100 arty with the group command over non-rail squares. You click, go feed the dogs, get something to eat, come back, and it is still moving--"squeak-rumble-squeak, squeak-rumble-squeak, squeak-rumble-squeak, squeak-rumble-squeak, squeak-rumble-squeak, squeak-rumble-squeak, squeak-rumble-squeak, squeak-rumble-squeak, squeak-rumble-squeak, squeak-rumble-squeak...).

Now a stack this size is pointless, as one 1/2 that size can take a city from 20+ to a size 1 with no improvements and every defender down to 1 hp, but you just have to move it once for the fun of it. It puts a whole new light on the phrase "stack-o-doom".

What a hoot.

The actual acronym "SOD" was coined by acronym lover Charis,
as he waxed philosophic over "Pepe," the world's most beloved musketeer...

Pepe is not far from there, on a hill with a mini-SOD (stack of Doom).
He's about ready to head to Samaria and lead the way to Rome.

(post link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14518&perpage=20&display=&highlight=stack%20of%20doom&pagenumber=13 on 3/23/02)

The "SOD" caught on quickly, seen in the contemporary 'Infantry' game, the Saxom menace, and EX1, and also RBD6. In games with large stacks it's used as often as "REX" (rapid expansion, in the opening stages of a game, btw)

Charis the Historian :hammer:

PS I see one time use of it as a legit "diversion" tactic - we make use of certain knowledge of AI acts all the time just as we would with humans. "Puppet strings" is when you take advantage that the AI can never "learn" from its actions to hose them badly. Yanking them first one direction then ping-ponging them backwards is puppet strings, and an 'exploit'. Pulling defenders is something that can backfire when they make a decisive change in target. Puppet strings, IF it works as effectively as some have suggested, would have no chance of failure and could halt an almost infinitely large stack dead in its tracks.

PS in EDIT - One of those cases where theres a page and a half of talking after the post, so I'll repost the upcoming order:

Ozymandous <--- UP, and has posted his "got it"
falsfire <--- ON DECK
Charis <--- below deck

Ozymandous

Dec 06, 2002, 11:01 AM

Sorry, was under the weather yesterday, but should be able to play tonight and post sometime tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.

Ozymandous

Dec 07, 2002, 07:12 PM

Preferences changes:

ALL ANIMATIONS EXCEPT BATTLES OFF! (Can we please keep it this way so the game doesn't take 2 hours showing all the unnecessary movements?)

750 AD (IT):

- Augustodurum swapped to worker. Tiles changed to produce a worker every two and grow in two. Workers stopped from finishing the mines on the nearby mountians.
- Verulamium changed to Bach's instead of Leo's.
- Fustat changed from musketman (already a spear and pikeman in the city) to courthouse to try to recover the 3/6 lost shields.
- Adana changed from worker (2 ottoman and 3 Celtic people, may as well start something else since the city wasn't starved down to begin with) to courthouse to try to recover 4/5 corrupt shields in the city.
- Nora changed from MDI to Musketman and rushed to help cover it's own defense. Hopefully it's two defenders will hold to allow the musketman to be produced otherwise this is a :smoke: move.
- Temple rushed in Lindum to push the Arabian borders back sooner rather than later.

(If Nemasus one square S then it would have exchanged a few ocean ocean tiles for two plains tiles.)

(Can we please leave at least ONE unit unfortified near a rally point so the next person won't miss a large group of our units until after 2-3 turns have passed? Thanks.)

760 AD (1):
- Mongols want out territory map, I get their world map and 13 gold in exchange.
- Korea and Arabia sign an alliance vs. the Mongols. Korea declares on Mongols.
- Korea moves more Knights onto the mountian near Nora then (as predicted) declares on us.
- Nora is attacked with one MDI and the musketman defending wins and promotes to Elite.
- A lone MDI is attacked and loses, Korea loses three MDI attacking our mini SOD near Nora and we lose an MDI and musket.
- Seville finishes market, swapped to MDI.
- Augustodurum builds worker, starts another. (This will continue every other turn with no micro.)
- The 'gamble' of rushing a defender at Nora pays off and the musketman finishes, MDI queued next.
- We expand the Palace!
- I figure "the more the merrier" and pull Arabia into the war vs. Korea (before Korea does it to us) for our WM, Spices & 370 gold.
- Re-activated all the fortified units over on the Arabian border to go where the real fight is. Since these units were all fortified (even the offensive oriented MDI) I missed them in the initial turn. Started all units to move to their 'rally' points (GOTO ending during my turn, not set gathering point from cities BTW).
- Decided to be bold and attack the Koreans. Caused a knight to flee, and our elite MM (Musketman) kills the MDI that killed our MDI at Nora.)
- Stopped the workers near August from irrigating a bonus grassland tile.
- Searched through all of our cities and moved all offensive units up near the warzone. The only cases where offensive units were let behind was as sole defender. As a result of this we're paper thin on our back-sides if we get attacked there, but with the Mongols already embroiled with Korea and Arabia that shouldn't happen before we build a few spare units to help protect our butt's, IMHO.

770 AD (2):

(IBT) Korea attacks and kills two MDI near 'hamburger hill'. Our elite MM kills two knights that attack it near Nora. Arabia and Ottoman sign an alliance vs. Korea. ottos declares on Korea. 90% of Arabian units near our border withdraw into the FoW.

- Lungadum produces MDI, set to MDI again.
-
- Najran produces cata, set for another cata.
- Toldeo produces Caravel, set to produce another.
- Richborough produces marketplace (?), set for MDI.
- Medina (Arabia) build's Cop's. Otto's swap to Leo's.
- Camulodunum swapped to Leo's instead of Cop's. Will set to palace if Leo's is built.
- An elite Gallic attacks a one HP MDI and then retreats to the defensive stack we have near 'hamburger hill'.

780 AD (3):

(IBT) Koreans move all but one MDI OFF 'hamburger hill' to attack a three deep stack of MDI. :lol: They kill one elite MDI, but now have their one HP knight and two other units off the hill on a plains tile. Time to take that hill. :)

- Madrid builds MM, starts MDI.
- Barcelona builts MM, starts another.
- Santiago builds MM, starts another.
- Valencia builds MDI, starts another.
- Kill three Korean units near 'hamburger hill' and move all units except out cata's to the top of the hill one square from Korea's only source of horses.

790 AD (4):

(IBT) Ottomans move a bunch of units across our lands heading for Korea. Korea does... nothing.

- Lung builds MDI, starts another.
- Verulamium builds Bach's, starts MDI.
- Cata builds aquaduct, starts harbor.
- Arab's swap to Magellan's.
- Units still moving into position (not much going on this turn.)
- Move our Gallic army to pillage the Korean's horse resource.

800 AD (5):

(IBT) Otto's and Korea fight it out with longbows. Korea attacks us with longbows, they must have no iron?

- Alesia builds MDI, starts MM.
- Santiago builds MDI, starts another.
- Rusicade builds catapult, starts aquaduct.
- Move units into position near Ulsan.
- Move clothes from dryer to basket and from washer to dryer.

810 AD (6):

(IBT) Otto moves a knight to go fight Korea. Otto loses a pikeman to Korea. Korea attacks our largish stack near Seoul and loses an MDI. A korean knight moves AROUND a gallic on an irrigated grassland near Seoul and attacks a MDI and flees. :)

Just noticed that Arabian culture has retaken the horse square near the Ottoman cities. I'll be sure to notify if I see any Arab horse units.

- Entremont finishes MDI, starts university.
- Madrid builds MDI, starts another.
- Utica builds cata, starts courthouse.
- Richborough finishes MDI, starts catapult.
- Burdigala builds courthouse, starts library.
- Still moving units.

820 AD (7):

(IBT) Korea knights attack our stacks and kill two MDI.

- Barcelona builds musket, starts MDI.
- Hippo builds courthouse, starts MDI.
- Toledo builds Caravel, starts cathedral.
- Santiago builds musket, starts MDI (can build every two turns).
- Veru builds MDI, starts another.
- Valencia builds MDI, starts another.
- Ratae Coritanorum buils harbor, starts aquaduct.
- Two MDI avenge their brothers and kill the two knights that attacked last turn. One MDI promotes.
- Banking due in one. I move science slider to maximize our income and after we move it to 10% check and see that Arabia just discovered banking! Argh! Change science to printing Press, due in 4 with a modest loss (-10) per turn.

830 AD (8):

(IBT) Otto's have taken the Korean city near them and launched a failed attempt on another Korean city. Arab's move a ton of units across our northern provence to attack Korea.

- Carthage builds market, begins MDI.
- Lugdunum builds courthouse, starts marketplace (since it has two gold hills in it's radius).
- Richborough builds catapult, starts another.
- Cataractonium builds harbor starts courthouse.
- Trade for an extra luxury from the Mongols (wine I believe) for one each of our FOUR extra luxuries. People hold parades and stagger drunkenly down the street.
- Ulsan and Bursa captured from the Koreans. Temples ordered up in both cities and citizens placed on a strict diet.

840 AD (9):

(IBT) Korean longbow attacks and kills a MDI.

- Alesia builds MM, starts another.
- Seville builds MDI, starts another.
- Leptis magna builds MDI, starts another.
- Santiago builds MDI, starts another.
- Bursa temple hurried (no resistance, former Ottoman city).
- Elite MDI shows the Korean longbow the blunt end of his mace.
- Ulsan resistance ends, temple rushed.

850 AD (10):

IBT Korea kills an elite Gallic who was pillaging. I killed the knight and longbow that attacked our Gallic.

(Sorry this is the latest save I had from my write up before my PC crashed. 850 we built a few things, and such, and I left the bulk of our units and workers waiting for orders. Have fun!)

(Oh, and the stupid "easy upload" on this forum sucks, so falsfire, or anyone else who wants the save, shoot me an email at Ozymandous@aol.com and I'll send you the save.)

Carbon_Copy

Dec 08, 2002, 03:21 AM

Interesting turn, Ozy.

I shadowed this one a couple days ago, and have been grinding my teeth and sitting on my hands waiting to talk about it. In mine I got a leader on the first combat (figures I get a leader when it doesn't count) using the gallic sword in that one town that can reach Nora in one turn, then rushed Bach's in one of our Carthaginian cities (it's as good there as it is anywhere else) while Leo's built out, Camulodunum switched to palace. I was crossing my fingers hoping that you'd have done the same thing and we could have had both of the wonders (we do have random seed preserved, right?), but we're certainly not doing bad as it is. One thing that surprised me that you alluded to in this report was how quickly Korea got gassed. It looks like they threw all they had at once, and then fell apart.

As for why they were building Longbows instead of Medieval Infantry, I think that's just some legacy AI routines that they haven't tweaked right for PTW, since Korea definitely has iron (it's under Seoul, so we'll never be able to disconnect it short of razing/capturing the city), and MI are as good or better than Longbows in every respect for the same shield cost.

ToddMarshall

Dec 08, 2002, 06:33 AM

I also shadowed the turn out of boredom and got the leader and was hoping the same thing you were Carbon! I was hoping we'd really take it to Korea. Id' managed to take all but 5 of their cities, with 1 more set to ceartianally fall on what would be the first turn for the next leader, and most likely the new capital on the following turn leaving them 3 tundra outposts basically.

I bought the Arabs as an ally immediately, and did not wind up with Korea vs the Mongols, nor did Arabia buy the Ottomans into the war. I believe i traded the mongols 3 lux and 1gpt for the wines right away also.

I was, in fact, doing so well against Korea I had allready begun bringing defensive troops back to the Arab front in every boarder city....... Aparently Arabia wasn't as strong as I'd thought, though I'm still glad we didnt 2 front war with them.

One alarming thing that happened is that Arabia has taken the culture lead on that horse tile up that the Ottomans had contorlled....... Not a good sign though in my game it hadn't been roaded up...... yet...... If so, we better finish Korea asap, then start taking it to the Arabs before Mil Trad if our next target is Arabia rather than Mongolia. If we don't, It's going to be brutal.

w/o seeing the save, I can't comment further other than to say looks like a good turn and falsefire should have fun moping up. :)

Ozymandous

Dec 08, 2002, 09:30 AM

Hrm, well I would have rather had that GL as well, but oh well..

To be honest I don't think I even saw that Gallic until the turn where I mentioned I went through all our cities and virtually emptied them of troops to use in our wars. So the Gallic you guys used probably had a different spot in the seed since it was used at a different time.

The first fight I had was an elite MDI vs. a vet MDI and when the elite lost, I figured I had beter take things slowly because I didn't want to be blamed for "getting personal" in the war and doing something rash! :p

Anywho, to be honest, I've been playing Medeival:Total War for the last few days and since doing the battle system there the Civ3 battle system is rather, erm, dull. :D

The biggest reason for my "slow" progress is that the cities are mostly size 8 that I was attacking and I was trying to shink them down to 6 by pillaging their irrigated tiles and/or standing on their good food tiles (why that Gallic was killed) before I attacked. Didn't want to repeat the "Carthage" episode and subsequent comments. :)

We have enough troops to take most (all?) of Korea once they all arrive so that shouldn't be a problem me thinks, and I COULD have taken Seoul during my turn but waited because 1) it was size 8 and had a river and I was having to move those slow stacks of troops essentially behind the city and 2) it was building Leo's and I thought maybe it would finish my turn so we'd not have to build that one either. ;)

Falsfire should have a fun turn I'd think, and yeah at the rate Korea was sending troops after the initial onslaught, they seem to be sending them as they are built so their standing army seems all but non-existant.

ToddMarshall

Dec 08, 2002, 10:06 AM

One question I forgot to ask. Printing Press?? We arent planing on trying to use Democracy are we? I assume thats a "lets get it first and trade it for buku stuff" gambit? Probably worth a try... Just wondering.

I was equally deflated by the same GRRRRRRRRRR they beat us by 1 turn thing on Banking, and Immediately went to slight defacit research on Ecconomics in hopes of getting that first, especially as I'd started a prebuild for Smiths on my first turn... an idea i somehow forgot to share heh. :(

Griselda

Dec 08, 2002, 11:18 AM

Originally posted by Ozymandous
Preferences changes:

ALL ANIMATIONS EXCEPT BATTLES OFF! (Can we please keep it this way so the game doesn't take 2 hours showing all the unnecessary movements?)

(Can we please leave at least ONE unit unfortified near a rally point so the next person won't miss a large group of our units until after 2-3 turns have passed? Thanks.)

- Re-activated all the fortified units over on the Arabian border to go where the real fight is. Since these units were all fortified (even the offensive oriented MDI) I missed them in the initial turn.

Well, as far as preferences go, I'm not sure that there's a general consensus about animations on/off. I personally feel like I need the animations on because I need that extra second or so to process what is moving where for both my units and the AIs. If I don't notice them moving into a tile, I'm much less likely to notice the fact that they're there.

Also, having animation off can cause some more problems- I've gotten a couple of saves with stacks of units on goto, and with animations off I couldn't see exactly which ones they were until I'd turned animations on the next turn.

Naturally, your preferences will vary, but IMO preference differences like this is par for the course in SG. :) I just wanted to point out that there are benefits to both sides of the animation on/off issue.

As far as fortified units, I will keep that in mind in the future. However, the presence of the particular units that you missed was the subject of most of my report and the discussion afterwards! The blockade, the 21 Arab MDI's, etc. If you didn't know they were there, I won't take the blame for that! :lol:

We definitely didn't want a 2-front war with the Arabs, so buying an alliance was probably the way to go. We should keep in mind that Arabia has that MDI SOD that probably didn't make it over to Mongolia yet, and they may turn it around to march on Korea. So, it's in our best interest now to take as much of Korea as we can before the AI's swallow it up. This is also important because we have the opportunity to close off our entire northern front and turn it into backlands instead.

-Griselda

Charis

Dec 08, 2002, 12:39 PM

Well done! I'm glad to see we survived the mini-onslaught, and that the rushed defender choice was fruitful.

General comments:

- Careful about 'shadowing' - I love to do that a fair bit as well but you need to be careful about gaining knowledge you should not in doing so. So playing just a few turns and not going for, OR waiting one or two player turns later for a more complete "what if we did this..."

- On preferences. User preferences are just that, feel free to change them how you like when you get the file. The only definite one: No governors. My own preference is typical to animate manual moves and enemy moves, not friend or automated, but that's just my own pref. There will be no 'set choice' for any of these games, it's up to each player.

The Arabian horses are a concern, good luck to the next player finishing Korean asap, definitely not letting Arabs get a bite, and getting some temples made there. No doubt the followup will be a (painful) attack against Arabia, starting with the horse town.

If it's possible to found a new city to steal the horse, do so!

Charis

falsfire

Dec 08, 2002, 01:01 PM

I rec'd Ozy's email in good order...playing now.

This will be a welcome relief to another game I'm playing right now, where I just got sneak-attacked by cavalry when I have only muskets and knights. Let's just say that I now know how the AI feels when the human player gets cavs and immediately begins a blitz campaign against one poor sod of an AI.

falsfire

Dec 08, 2002, 07:05 PM

850 AD [0] - I agree with all the city build orders that I can see, and don't change anything. I drop science to 40% (still get PP next turn, now at +76gpt) Then, I ponder long and hard whether to attack Pyongyang this turn, or surround it to starve them down to size 6. I decide to attack.

First vet MDI take a catapult hit, knocks a vet pike down to 1hp before dying.
Elite MDI thinks he can take a reg pike, knocks him down to 1hp before expiring.
Grrr...another vet MDI goes to the glue factory after knocking a reg pike down to 1hp. Best defender now is...a vet longbow! We can take the city this turn...
Elite MDI kills the longbow, losing 3hp in the process.
Another elite MDI kills off the 1hp reg pike after losing 4hp in a row...
Next elite MDI kills off a 1hp reg pike and...gets us another leader! Cunobelinus? What the heck kind of name is that? Sounds like a type of cloud!
Now, what to do with the leader? Do we *need* any more of the game's wonders or is it safe to say we've already got the game in the bag, militarily, without one? I think I'll build an army with him, but do we want another MDI offensive army, or maybe a defensive musket army? Or a mixed bag?
Next attack, a vet MDI vs. the last 1hp reg pike takes the city w/o a scratch.
I make an army with the leader, load one MDI into it this turn, more to join him next turn.
http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1-004.jpg

Now attacking Seoul:
Vet MDI vs. vet pike doesn't even dent him.
Next vet takes 1hp off him, then loses promoting the pike to elite.
Elite Marshall (MDI) decides to move onto one of Korea's food squares to deny them that food, in a starvation campaign, rather than bloody himself against that pike.

Inter-turn:
No Korean counter-attacks. Our people want to build the Pentagon...maybe we should, so we can make BIGGER BADDER ARMIES!!! :hammer: I set Entremont, our best producing city on it, due in 14 turns.

860 AD [1] - A bunch of MDI's built, more ordered. All our catapult attacks miss.

Vs. Pyongsang,
Our 3-MDI army attacks, losing 4hp and killing a reg pike.
That's it for attacks this round. Just doing starvation duty around Seoul.

Inter-turn:
A Korean vet longbow attacks one of our elite MDIs on starvation patrol, taking off 3hp before dying in the attempt.
The hall light burns out and all goes dark in the Celtic lands.

870 AD [2] - Carthage MDI->MDI. Hippo riots. It's size 11 and REALLY needs a marketplace, so I change it to that instead of the MDI it was building. Entertainer hired to keep the peace. Verulamium MDI->MDI. Oea riots. They must be rioting due to the darkness. That or 1st stage WW. Eboracum Aqueduct->Marketplace. Burdigala library->MDI. New lightbulb ordered up in the hallway, and rushed at the cost of 1 strained neck.

Catapults fire on Seoul: 4 shots, 1hp taken off the elite pike
Catapult fires on Pyongsang: spectacular miss

Attack on Pyongsang: our 8hp army dies in the attack! But a vet MDI finishes off the insolent pikeman. An elite gallic attacks the remaining reg spear, and...another leader! Dumnorix arises to recreate the lost army!
http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1-005.jpg

Continuing to starve Seoul down. It's size 8 now. Two more starvation turns and we can attack.

Inter-turn:
Another vet Korean longbow sends himself to the glue factory attacking a fortified vet musket of ours near Seoul. (did take 2hp off our musket)

880 AD [3] - Pyong'yang Temple(rushed)->Courthouse. Barcelona MDI->MDI. Alesia Musket->Musket. Seville MDI->MDI. Gergovia Aqueduct->Market. Santiago MDI->Musket.

Catapults fire on Seoul: 4 shots, barracks destroyed, 1hp off elite pike defender, & two misses. City is now size 7. Attack next turn.

890 AD [4] - Verulamium MDI->MDI. Salamanca aqueduct->market.

Attack on Seoul:
5 catapults all miss.
12hp MDI army tries valiantly to kill the elite pike defender, bringing it down to 1hp but dies!
Vet MDI dies taking 1hp off a vet pike defender.
Vet MDI kills a reg pike, losing 3hp and promoting to elite.
Another vet MDI kills a reg pike, losing 3hp but not promoting.
Vet MDI takes 2hp off a 3/4 vet pike, losing and promoting the pike to elite.
Vet MDI takes 1hp off the 4/5 elite pike that killed our army, dying.
Vet MDI takes 2hp off a 3/5 elite pike, then dies.
Elite MDI goes fishing, loses 1hp taking a 1/5 elite pike.
Another Elite MDI goes fishing, loses no hp and kills the last 1/5 elite pike. Seoul is ours.

Our (now 4/15) gallic army kills a reg Korean knight as we advance into the remnants of Korea.

Inter-turn:
Korea sends a vet longbow against our Gallic army, which retreats with 1/15hp left. This army badly needs to retreat to heal, I don't know if we'll ever have another 15hp gallic army.
They also land two MDI's by our island city of Sinop. It has no harbour, and has only a reg spear and a vet pike to defend. There is no way to reinforce it, and I don't want to have to island-kill Wang Kon when we're done with his mainland, so I gift the city to the Vikings, as we'll likely never have to war with them to get domination.

900 AD [5] - Utica riots. Set an entertainer and change courthouse build to marketplace. Richborough musket->musket. Valencia MDI->Aqueduct. Antalya catapult->courthouse.

910 AD [6] - Carthage MDI->MDI. Barcelona MDI->MDI. Seville MDI->MDI. Toledo Cathedral->MDI. Santiago musket->musket. Verulamium MDI->MDI. Burdigala MDI->MDI. Arabs build Leonardo's in Mecca.

IT: Mongols come and demand we remove our troops. I instead trade him Banking and Printing Press for an 8th luxury, dyes.
A Korean vet longbow kills one of our vet MDI's, and a regular Korean MDI dies against another vet MDI of ours.

920 AD [7] - Madrid university->MDI. Alesia musket->musket. Lugdunum market->MDI. Nemausus temple->musket. We get a palace expansion. Temples rushed in Seoul and Pyongsang.

A vet MDI kills the Korean killer longbowman. Otherwise, moving units into position. Vikings are down to only the island city I gifted them, Mongols are still brutalizing them.
I've been shifting some units over to our western front, where we may think of eradicating Ottomans (only has 3 cities, we can probably do it in 1-3 turns), or attacking Arabs.

930 AD [8] - Seoul temple->walls. Utica market->MDI. Verulamium MDI->MDI. Fustat courthouse->market. Pyongsang temple->walls. Cataractonium courthouse->market. Inch'on starves down from 10 to 9.

Five catapults bombard Inch'on: all miss.

Since we have a ton of units up there, and I'm sick of waiting for this city to starve down, his best defender is a regular pike so I attack:

Vet MDI vs. regular pike: loses 3hp kills reg pike.
Elite MDI vs. regular pike: loses 2hp kills pike.
Elite MDI vs. regular pike: takes 1hp off pike then dies.
Elite Marshall(MDI) vs vet spear: loses 4hp but kills spear.
12/12 MDI army vs 2/3 reg pike: loses 2hp kills pike. Best defender now is a vet longbow.
Elite Gallic vs. vet longbow: lose 4hp retreat, doing 2 dmg to longbow.
Elite Cloud boy (MDI) vs. 2/4 vet longbow: flawless victory, and the city is ours.

940 AD [9] - Madrid MDI->MDI. Barcelona MDI->MDI. Leptis Magna MDI->market. Toledo MDI->MDI. Santiago musket->musket. Richborough musket->musket. Kafa (island city) riots.

IT: Arabia and Mongols sign peace.

950AD [10] - Carthage MDI->MDI. Seville MDI->MDI. Verulamium MDI->MDI. Leptis Minor musket->musket. Ulsan walls->courthouse. Burdigala MDI->bank. Hurry temple in Inch'on.

Five catapults fire on Wonsan, destroying barracks.
Vet MDI vs. vet pike: lose 2hp and kill pike.
Vet MDI vs. vet pike: lose 3hp and kill pike.
Elite MDI vs. reg pike: flawless victory (for the pikeman...why is it my vets get good RNG rolls and the elites suck !#% ?
Elite MDI vs. reg pike take two: lose 3hp kill pike.
Vet MDI vs. vet spear: take 3hp off spear, then MDI loses 4 in a row and dies.
Elite gallic vs. 1hp vet spear: lose 3hp, kill spear, take city & 1 slave.
Elite gallic vs. 2/3 reg longbow on hill: lose 1hp kill longbow.
Elite falsfire(gallic) vs reg longbow in the open: flawless victory

At the end of this turn, I noticed something odd: there were a pike and two MDI's standing still in the middle of nowhere, not fortified, had moves left, yet it was saying end of turn. Selecting them allowed me to move them. This must be a bug, leaving unmoved units w/o orders lying around and giving you the end of your turn.

Notes for next leader:

Korea should be gone within a couple turns. They only have 3 small tundra fishing villages left. Next up could be Ottomans or Arabia. Ottomans have only 3 cities, and I've been moving units into position to attack.

To get to the Arab horses (now connected, sorry wasn't paying attention to it like I should've been), we'd need to move through Ottoman lands, so either kill him first, or get an RoP to get through to the Arabian horses.

Do NOT change the Pentagon build orders in Entremont. We no longer have four armies in the field, if you change the build orders we won't be able to build the Pentagon any longer. It has 5 turns left.

I was using goto's to get the MDI's/muskets to the western front for the upcoming war with Arabia/Ottomans. I think I got all the goto's cancelled so the next leader can control all units, but I might have missed a couple, so be aware of that.

Also, be prepared to invest alot of time to play this. I put in 4 1/2 hours to play these 10 turns. Managing 47 cities, 71 MDI's, 7 gallics, 2 armies, and a TON of workers makes the turns take a long, long time to play out.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbp1/rbp1_950AD.zip

Roster:
Charis-->UP
ToddMarshall-->On deck
Carbon-->below deck
Griselda, Ozy-->can sleep for a bit!

(I think that's the order)

Ozymandous

Dec 09, 2002, 12:01 AM

Originally posted by Griselda

Well, as far as preferences go, I'm not sure that there's a general consensus about animations on/off. I personally feel like I need the animations on because I need that extra second or so to process what is moving where for both my units and the AIs. If I don't notice them moving into a tile, I'm much less likely to notice the fact that they're there.

There is a difference between toggling off the "show movement" and "show animation". If you toggle animation only off then you'll STILL see movement, just not the cannons squeaking across the screen, cavalry galloping, etc. I'm all for keeping track of who moves where via watching the movement, but if I can more 30 units in 10 seconds without animations or the same 30 units take 60 seconds then why keep the animations on since all the demonstrate is the "cool" modeling that Firaxis did to make the sprites move. :)

I was just hoping we could keep movement on, but animations off as a general rule and if people want to watch the warriors actually walk as opposed to "slide" then they could turn those on, but whatever is best for everyone. :)

And, yes I had forgotten about the large stack, I remembered to swap to Bach's and that Korea would likely attack, but since none of those units were unfortified to get my attention I overlooked them. Oh well.

Ozymandous

Dec 09, 2002, 12:13 AM

Two great leaders? Outstanding! Only one question... Was Leo's still up for grabs when you used BOTH GL for armies? Not that it will matter much, but catapults and spearmen are a tad pricey to upgrade to infantry and artillery. :)

Glad all the slow-poke movement of units to the front was worth it, and yeah there is also a bug with the "J" command, sometimes it will not select all the units in a stack, even though it should.

Great turn, yeah my playing and write up took about 5 hours as well, which is why all those units were still available to move on my 10th turn, I was tired of sitting. :)

Charis

Dec 09, 2002, 07:26 AM

Ah, I'm not sure if you guys know this key stroke, but I use it all the time...

Hold down "shift" key during animations and they change to the much faster "show move". This may be why I never turn AI automations off - it's not uncommon for me to hold shift down during the AI's turn, or sometimes during the turn of everyone but the guy I think is going to attack me soon - so I can watch just him.

It works during your own 'automatic' move period too and is a ton faster.

"Got it" -- game looks quite interesting, good turn!
Charis

falsfire

Dec 09, 2002, 07:44 AM

Leo's was still available, I *think* for the first GL, but not the second.

I would have wanted to send the leader a little further back into a non-Korean city to rush it, as I'm not usually one for rushing a key GW in a frontline city.

Also, we would have been down to only the gallic army left if I had not made two armies like that. We had two armies when I took over, (gallic & MDI), I lost the MDI army and also one of the new MDI armies I'd made.

Re: infantry and artillery. I don't think the game will last to that point, we'll have obtained our domination long before that era comes around

Regarding the Vikings: The Mongols took all the viking mainland cities during my turn, if I hadn't gifted them that island city, they'd be dead! Yet he's still furious at us...imagine...last bone I throw HIM!!! :lol:

Charis

Dec 10, 2002, 12:58 AM

In an ironic twist of fate, the leader-made-army who ignored Leo's is on hand to capture it this round... but I get ahead of myself...

Once again the Celts have made glorious progress since last the line of
Charis sat upon the throne. The progress on the Pentagon and the prospect
of larger armies is delicious! The mini-map shows tremendous progress, and
actually, it's close enough to break down and count tiles (I wouldn't mind
if mapstat got updated for PtW :P ) Land+coast tiles as follows: (approx)

Celts: ~1010 (not sure if lost count in middle, could be off by 100)
Koreans: ~70
Ottomans: ~50
Mongols: ~440
Arabians: ~490
Vikigns: ~15
Unclaimed not counted above: ~25 and I hope no more in the big huge fog
Current percentage is roughly.. a smidge under 50%. If/when we capture Korea
and Ottomans, AND expand a few border cities, we'll be close to 55%.
Ack, ok, I was a bit off - that seems it will NOT be sufficient just to get
those two - we'll definitely need to chew up and spit out either Mongols or
Arabs. With the difficulty of sustained amphib action, that means we have to
carve out about... 231 tiles or half the space of Arabia or SIX-cities plus
rushed temples, or closer to nine-cities without said rushes.
(These numbers are very eyeball, and we need 66% population not just land!)

The very nice thing is that with Korea and Ottomans gone *ALL* our forces will
be on the one and only remaining front - Arabia.

I see those horses by Uskudar under Arab culture border, and we have to move
there FAST or face knights or (shudder) cavalry! There are 9 MDI nearby.
No active treaties with Osmon? Excellent!

There's probably six more rounds to finish Korea, most of which just trudging
through Arctic wastelands.

we have... oh my!... 237 units! With 49ish cities, we have about five times the
production of the Arabs. Even if they have 6 per city, unlikely, that would be
only 60 units to defeat for a wipeout.

** Minor bad news... I buy WM from Arabs and Mongols and... there is an island
at LEAST medium size, North of Mongolia. 20-70 tiles or more. 8-\

I notice we have a stack of 9 MDI near Ottoman border, and another ministack
near another Ottoman city. Time to get control of the horse city! There are four
Ottoman units in Korea - do we have any movement left to attack them? Alas, no. Next turn.
When to strike Arabs? Preferably just as the last Ottoman/Korean cities are falling,
while they still have a dozen units "in the open".

[0] 950 AD - I wake up 'extra' units on the backlines, 7 of them. In a solo
game I would pull several more and leave non-coastal cities empty, but
no need to do that here.

[1] 960 AD - We research Democracy, start Chemistry. For everything that completes
I start an MDI.

- I assume Democracy was to trade not to revolt to. We can't get two techs from
Arabs for it, but can get Chemistry. I forgo the 3gpt he would throw in, since
we'll be declaring long before 20 turns are up. He has Metallurgy, not Physics,
no trade. (Well, if we were dastards, he would sell for 161gpt)

After the trade, in which we get Arab WM, we see there *IS* a road to the
horses 8-\

- Battle vs Konya - We lose an MDI but defeat two pikes to take the city.
- Next we declare vs Ottomans, attack stack outside Konya. Starting with cat shots,
First attack is our elite MDi vs the hurt Knight, and out pops...

Vercingetorix!!!

What to use him for? MDI Army comes to mind. We have one of those, and one
Gallic, can't hurt to try a Musket Army. Hrm... or a mixed MM-MDI-MDI?

- After the knight we a spear, longbow, and warrior
- Way too many 'goto' moves by the way, from out last leader. Don't assume you
know where the next leader wants to send the troops!!

(IBT) Mongols and Korea come to peace. The Mongol ships head back home.
Our Spice trade with Arabs ends for the Korean alliance. We let it pass,
as we're not going to wait 20 turns for Arab war. The Arabs still move about
30 units toward Korea. Fortunately Arabs are broke, no horse upgrades.

[2] 970 AD - More war...

- Cheju of Korea, pike goes down to MDI, one more left, we get 'frisky' due to
the need for speed, and try to finish the town with a Musket. It works, although
I shouldn't try that one too often.
- At Iznit of Ottomans, just two spears, we take town with two elites.
- We move up next to last two Turk cities and last Korean city.
(IBT) Arabs tell us to remove forces near Baghdad. Er, ok. (They just now expanded
culture border there. Korea asks for peace, we decline.)

[3] 980 AD - More war...
- At Uskudar we defeat pike, lose to spear, beat spear, and elite vs last spear
takes city, shrinking the border even further. Our settler is nearby, and
when we're done, we'll either pillage or settle ON the horses.
- At Aydin, we beat a pike, then elite vs spear. We take the town, eliminating
the Ottomans! :hammer:
- At Hyangsan, pike and spear go down, and the Koreans are gone. Wow, the
"big picture" keeps getting smaller and smaller!!
- We now stop all starving and readjust newly taken cities. Temples for ALL -
we're going for domination victory.
- Arabia is in democracy (wow that was fast!) and Mongols are in Anarchy
- Turn 3 and both foes are gone, good deal! Let's focus now on Arabia

Loose in the field visible they have: 22 MDI, 4 spears, 1 pike, 1 longbow.
We want to catch THEM on defense, not let them swing first. But...
we really do want to pillage the horses on first turn of the war. Actually,
we can 'stand' on them immediately and pillage next.

We have 23 MDI's in immediate strike range of those units, but some need a
heal. Let's take 1-2 rounds, no more, to position, then go at 'em!!

[4] 990 AD - WLKD all over the place... the program must now 'know' what I want
to build. A dozen build-popups and all assumed I wanted an MDI! :P

The Arabs are out in the open, about to hit hills or forest. Their backs
are turns, and just as they stabbed us in the back earlier.... so now do they
feel hot steel where they don't expect it.

We declare war on the Arabs!! :hammer: I'm hoping/expecting a leader from all this...

May as well kick off the festivities with Elite MDI vs Reg MDI. Win, no leader.
Then we cover the horses. I hope he didn't have many in progress building.
- Tally on open units: 19 wins, 1 loss, 3 promotions
Not bad!! It's *SO* nice that we're purely vet and elite, they're almost all regs.

The only spot we're in trouble is Bursa, just not enough units in striking range
to kill a good sized MDI stack - 5reg MDI left. In the open even a few muskets get
wins vs hurt ones. We advance a few dozen troops toward Mecca and Medina!

One final action... we draw in the Mongols vs Arabs, for the knowledge of Chemistry.
Knowledge we learned, of course, from the Arabs last turn :naughty:
(I doubt they'll help much, but I don't want them drawn in vs us, or just as
bad, exporting horses to them) BTW the updated Mongol map shows he HAS settled
that almost hidden northern island.

(IBT) *NOTHING*

The Arabs do NOTHING. Why, you ask?? They had their ENTIRE offensive force out
in the field, and last turn we just slaughtered them in the open, with a 95%
win rate. That's why we declared THEN. :snicker:
That stack of 5MDI moved one square toward a lightly defending city instead of
counterattacking our MDI. Bad move. And they had no extra units back home at
Mecca or Medina to counter. :snorts: See??? You guys don't need to fear these
Arabs and their so called huge stacks, that's their WHOLE army! We have .
I put ALL build orders to troops now, enough of this sissy reading and banking
stuff!! :hammer:

[5] 1000 AD - First order of business is the stack-of-5 next to Bursa.
We take two losses, and barely kill them (as they were on a hill)
Our Maniac GS army blitzes for two kills itself. Only AFTER attacking do
I remember to add a fourth unit to all our armies!

- Attack on Medina, second cat shot crushes Barracks!
- Got too used to those 95% rates, we lose 4 in a row at Medina (size 10,
but not across river), then win a few. One promotion.
- Then we lose TWO MORE! We do NOT take the city!! But as if for compensation,
we get...

Orgetorix!! AKA "Medina Man"

It's very painful to see a city standing with only a 1hp elite musket left!

(IBT) The Arabs confirm what we've just used to our advantage - it's good
to be on OFFENSE. Three longbows cut down MDI's, then two lose to our
better spots - muskets or mountain MDI.
In other news, Ten mongol ships are seen en route to Arabia, and in the middle
of our turn (???) the Arabic city of Kufah completes the Magellan's voyage?!

[6] 1010 AD - Medina gets no reinforcements, and killing the last musket
takes the city!! It's home to Copernicus. Hrmm... I was planning to raze it.
The question is... do we plan to stop short in this war, or wipe out Arabs?
We may not even be able to hold it short-term, and a definite flip risk.
Still... for domination holding it is good. My own thought is to wipe these
guys out, and hope to his domination before the war's end, so I'll keep it.
Seven resisters, ow! Oh, it's got Hanging gardens too.

Back at Horsetown - Anjar, a cat shot wrecks the barracks. A good sign!
The rest of the turn not so good, but more reinforcements due next round.

(IBT) NO counterattack. Do you smell gas????

[7] 1020 AD - At Anjar we lose two MDI, defeat one pike. The city yet stands.

Next, loose units around Baghdad. Elite MDI vs longbow... hmm.. what's that?

Caractacus!! (This is why you don't save leaders, especially mil and with Epic)
He forms another army, this time all MDI. Below is a picture of our
recent Pentagon with the recent leader name snapshots pasted in...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP1-Pentagon990AD.jpg

[8] 1030 AD - Nothing (IBT). Arabs are *totally* gassed, not even a longbow to spare.
We start at Anjar and watch an elite MDI drop to 1hp. Then win.
Second elite, SAME pattern. Nervous, but still, effective. We capture the city!

Rush another temple and notice... I think every one that could be... has been!

(IBT) We lose our supply of wines? The trade with Mongols where we give
Spice, Ivory, Silk AND Furs all for his wine. Must be VERY FINE wine?!
Sheesh Genghis, I didn't mean to be stingy! By all means, have some incense TOO!

First tiny counterattack in a while, a longbow in Mecca beats a musket.
Resistance in Medina ends.

[9] 1040 AD - Quiet turn (compared to what came before and what's due next turn)
Just moving things into position.

*THREE* armies full of four each converge on Baghdad.
Something about... inspections?! We soften up Baghdad, killing 2, losing 3.

(IBT) Two more longbows, both lose to our muskets.
Mongols seem to have invaded the small viking island.

[10] 1050 AD - Should be some fireworks here...
- Baghdad starts off with the 4-MDI army beating down a vet musket.
Next the 4-GS army does the same. A lil old vet MDI defeats the third musket,
a reg, to take Baghdad.
- Mecca, lose two, win two, lose another, lose an elite... ow!! Then kill two
one hp muskets, and finally we need to use a musket vs a longbow.

Mecca is now ours, and along with it, Leo's workshop! Actually, the Great Wall
is captured too, and magically un-expires itself for us!! (We don't have Metallurgy)

There's a settler NW of Seoul, to plop in a gap if you like. Also SE of Uskudar.

14 turns left in the Mongol alliance. Next gold you'll have enough to upgrade
the remaining Pikes, if you need to (~630).
I used a lot of goto moves, especially back home to front, hopefully not too
many are ongoing at this point.

Here's our new map... (A few things were rushed after the screenshot btw)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP1-Celts1050adMap.jpg

** Keep in mind we're NOT too secure vs flips, especailly in larger cities
like Medina and Baghdad and Mecca. Don't hole up an army there or Gallic :P

No clue if the next player turn will be the last, with the island in
North hidden I can't see how much more we need for domination.
In any case, no reason to let the gassed Arabs survive your turn. Good luck!

MarshallManiac <-- UP
Carbon Copy <-- On Deck
falsfire, Ozymandous, Griselda <-- Below deck

Celts 1050AD Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP1-Celts-1050ad.zip)

Good luck!!
Charis

ToddMarshall

Dec 10, 2002, 01:26 AM

Got it. Heh. Awsome turn. I looked at the save you inherrited, and figured I'd do roughly what you did but not QUITE as fast hehe. That was one MAJOR benifit of getting the Arabs in vs Korea. The silly AI, as allways, sends every "spare" unit vs a target, and since they had no knights arround or muskets really, they were SO easy to slaughter hehe. Awsome job Charis.

Carbon_Copy

Dec 10, 2002, 02:07 AM

Nice to see us finally slamming the door shut on this game. :hammer: Especially nice on your bushwhacking the entire Arabian army while it was still over in Korea.

And as for no excuse for letting the next leader allowing the Arabs to survive...if I'm not mistaken, it looks like they managed to settle the one island to the very south, unless we rush a navy and get the invasion crew started at the beginning of Marshall's turn, they'll at least last to me, assuming we don't trigger domination. Having a "just in case" navy ready on our eastern shore if conquering Arabia isn't enough might also be a good idea.

This one looks to score higher than RBD2 at this pace (still #2 on my HoF behind the builder-game-that-wasn't, RBD3), only 1050 AD and we're in the domination endgame, and that's using only foot soldiers! Think about how much more of a rout this would have been if we had actually used knights.

ToddMarshall

Dec 11, 2002, 05:50 PM

I'm looking hard at it right now. Should play tonite sometime and post sometime tomorrow.

@ Charis, I'm not sure we can even quite finish off the Arabian homeland on my turn. Some of the cities are quite a long march for 1 move guys. We should have them down to just 1 or 2 cities though I'd think. Maybe I can muster an invasion of those 2 island cities this turn, but I'm doubitful I can take them.

Anyway, I'm more concerned with mustering an invasion force to take that iceball Mongolia calls a 2nd continent because I think we will need it for domination. Hopefully I can get a good force ready to invade the iceball so we can win (hopefully) on Carbon's turn.

One question to all. Why do we have workers up in korea and ottoman land MINING? Isn't this a complete waste of time? Those cities cant even reach 2 shields with WLTKD and a courthouse can they? Maybe I missed something, but this seems like :smoke: to me. I think we should be irrigating up there to boost the pop for domination threshold. Unless somone has a reason to keep mining up there, im switching all the nortern corruption wasteland workers to irrigation.

EDIT
Also, why are we researching Physics?? We have a Palace going up in Camul, which I'd assumed was a prebuild for Smiths (though its probably irrelevant now). If we bother to research at all at this point, shouldn't we be researching Ecconomics?

ToddMarshall

Dec 12, 2002, 08:54 PM

I'm not going into build orders on this turn, no sense gettin carpal tunnel typing MDI -> MDI 300 times :) I'm also not going into all the counter attacks BT, because for the most part, when they existed at all, they were either ineffectual, had no real bearing on the overal situation, or both. So, here we go with the important stuff only :)

[0]

Most stuff looks good - A few tiles are swaped here and there where we can get "magic number" spt from some cities. I change a couple zillion miles from the FP cities from courthouses to MDI, a cople closer in/may be salvagable cities do just the opposite. I figure I'll rush them soon and see (never happened, no need)

I spend a couple hours looking over the situation. I'm almost positive that Arabian lands alone wont cut it for domination. We will need some or all of the Mongol iceball to win. If I'm wrong, well, then I've wasted some of my time planing a naval invasion of it. If I'm right, well, then maybe I've saved Carbon and Ozzy a few hours of theit time by getting this game put to bed several turns faster.

TIME TO MAKE SOME BOATS BOYS AND GIRL :)

EVERY city with a harbor is swaped to Caravel. I plan to have at least a dozen of these things loaded with MDI ready to go for the next player.

Why in the world are we researching Physics at 10%? I've no clue. Perhaps we are trying to reach Magnetisim for Galleons?? BAH! That'll take to long and we don't need it anyway. Caravels will be sufficient for our needs, we'll just make a couple extra of them. Plus we have a huge palace prebuild going up, so why waste it. Research swaped to Economics at a rate that will get it 1 turn before the Palace completes.

OK, well, that was a fun couple hours, time to click this next turn button thingy....... oh, one more note, for the first few turns i tried to be really dilligent about what I was doing with the workers, then it occured to me at this point, that was a few extra hours of my time that would make absolutely no impact on the outcome of the game, so other than the stack of 18 workers i had roading up some front line mountians I pretty much slacked off and just irrigated anything in sight in the wasteland of corruption up north. They are all 1:1 citys no matter what we do anyway, so they might as well have pop in them for domination.

BT - We watch as the Mongols land 3 units on vike isle including a sword and a horsie. Ragnar, its been real fun knowing ya.

[1] The quiet before the storrm. We wipe out 2 Ansars that came out to counter attack last turn. The last 2 Ansars in the history of the world it would turn out. I begin moving newly produced MDI to the the coasts. Mostly the east one, but also a few to the west so we can invade pink isle and capture it these 10 turns. I notice they are size 1 unexpanded over there, so I'll also send 2 settlers to fill in the island. I'm going to land 6 MDI on our big island, hoping that will be sufficient to take 2 cities there. If the next player thinks it will take more, hes gona have plenty of divertable boats in the neighborhood.

BT -Ragnar Lodbrok RIP

[2] The battle for Kufah/Magellans begins.
Cats fire 3, miss 3. Hmmmm nice to see the RNG still loves me.
Vet MDI vs Unfortified Regular Musket loses 4-2
Eliete MDI vs Reg Spear wins 3-1
Eliete MDI vs Reg Spear wins 3-0
Vet MDI vs Reg Spear wins 3-3
Eliete Gallic leader fishes the 1hp Musket, finds none but wins 1-3.
The city is ours. It has Magellans, which will even out ship movement with the Mongols Lighthouse so we definately keep.
Starvation is ordered up
We have some excess settlers running arround so we found a couple gap cities pushing for the domination threshold.

BT - Longbow kills a musket... yawn. The people expand our palace by adding onto the west wing! Yea!

[3] Time to Take Damascus!!! - I could starve this thing down, but its size 11, and I have the Powell Docterine firmly in my grasp - at least I thought I did heh. Sicke-em boys.
MDI Army vs Vet Musket loses half its HP but wins
Fire Cats vs Reg musket. miss/miss
Vet MDI vs Reg musket dies leaving it unharmed
Vet MDI vs Reg musket wins 3-1
Vet MDI vs Reg Musket dies, does 0
Vet MDI vs Reg muskt does 1, dies, promotes it
Vet MDI vs Vet(3hp) musket, does 1, dies, promotes it.......
Gettin nervous now..... just 2 Eliete MDI left....
Eliete MDI vs Eliete(3hp) Musket drops to 1hp but wins! (whew)

Damascus is burned to the ground!! Its size 11, has no wonder, and we dont need the flip risk. I'll have a settler there in a couple turns to replace it

BT- Arabs pull Economics, decreasing our cost, Mongolia pulls Navigation. I plan to trade one for the other later.

[4] Nothing of note.

BT - Kufah and Magellans flip back to Arabia :mad: I probably should have left more garrison there.....

[5] Battle for Kufah, 2nd ed.
We have only a Gallic, Musket, and a 1HP MDI in striking range, but I don't want to go even 1 turn w/o Magellans if i can help it, plus the pike isnt fortified sooooooooo.
Eliete Gallic vs Regular Pike wins 3-3, the city is ours again.

Battle for Khursan
Cats fire and wow, actually hit, killing 2 citizens and destroying the barracks.
Vet MDI vs Reg Musket dies 0-4 and promotes the Musket......
Eliete MDI wins 4-4
Eliete MDI vs Reg Musket loses 0-5 *kill the RNG*
Eliete MDI vs Reg Musket wins 4-3.
The city is ours.

We drop off 6 MDI on big isle to prepare for the invasion of the mongol presence there.

To be continued......

ToddMarshall

Dec 13, 2002, 09:27 PM

Charis says

In any case, no reason to let the gassed Arabs survive your turn. Good luck!

Ummmmm, I'm sorwy, will you settle for, they have no cities left but have a settler boat out somewhere?

[6] It's clobering time :hammer:

Battle for Mansra (something like that, cant read my writing heh)
Vet MDI vs Vet Musket loses 4-2
Vet MDI vs Reg Musket loses 4-2
Vet MDI vs 2hp Musket wins 2-0
Eliete Gallic vs 1hp Musket wins 1-0
The city is ours.

Battle for Barsa
Vet MDI vs Reg Musket wins 3-3 Promotes
Vet MDI vs Reg Musket wins 3-0 Promotes
Vet MDI vs Reg MDI wins 4-0 Promotes
The City is ours

Battlle for Arden
MDI Army vs Vet Pike wins handily
Fire Cat vs Reg Musket, nada
Vet MDI vs Reg Musket loses 4-1
Vet MDI vs Reg Musket loses 4-1 Promotes it.
Eliete MDI vs Reg Musket wins 3-1
Eliete MDI vs Damaged Vet wins 3-4
Gallic vs Damaged 2HP musket wins 2-0
Arden, at size 8, has nothing to offer and is burned to the ground.

War wearyness has become oppressive, combined with the fact that we have lost our supply of Dyes....... Lux to 10% and some clowns appear all over the northern expanses.

[7] Quiet turn Move troops, prepare for the naval invasion of iceball. We have loaded Caravells just outside their boarders, and the 2 cities we can see have a spear and and MDI as best defender. Looks like this could be a blitzkrieg operation for the most part.

A couple more cities are founded. One to replace Arden, and annother in what I think would have been a gap. No biggie if it wasnt, I had nothing else to do with the settler.

[8] Battle for Yamara
Mixed Army vs Reg musket wins fairly easily
Eliete MDI vs Reg Musket wins 3-3
Eliete MDI vs Vet Spear wins 4-1
The city is ours.

I buy the Mongol WM. It's not good. I estimate that northern island at anywhere from 30 to FIFTY tiles.

[9] The southern Arabian City is autorazed with a little help from a Mongol Longbow. Nothing else special happens.

Tech slider adjusted up 10% to get Economics/Smiths in one instead of 2

[10] The Death of Arabia! (well, kinda)
Battle for Muscat
We have only one unit that can reach Muscat this turn. The Gallic Army. It's right next door, and judging by the way the AI operates, that city will have only 2 defenders, and since I can attack twice with the army, I decide to go for it and end the campaign if possible. Besides, what use are the army's now? They are to big for our boats anyhow. If it dies, it dies.

It takes out first a musket, then a spear and survives with 2hp left. The city is ours!

On pink isle, we go for the northern city now. Vet MDI vs Reg spear wins easily and autorazes their last city elimina........errrrrrrrr

:mad: They DON'T DIE. They have at least one settler boat out still :mad:

On the Tech Front, we trade Economics and 80g to Mongolia for Navigation. This will let our boats safely travel ocean squares, making boatmaking/naval invading from the west coast, where ALL our forces are pretty much, viable if we rush boats out of the corrupted Arabian cities :)

Palace prebuild swaped to Smiths, at a cost of 300 plus shields :lol:

I by the Mongol map again and its even worse. It is 40-50 tiles up there for sure.

I drop off settlers on the former Arabian Island. We should be able to get 2 cities up there next turn that will immediately claim all but one tile of that island, would be all if it wasnt for that fortified mongol archer.

I move a few units, then I think, nah, THIS is the point to stop my turn. I really think Carbon can bring home the bacon for us on his turn, so rather than move things arround myself, I'll let him have an extra half round of movement on most of the boats and units to decide exactly how and when he wants to begin the invasion.

We have 4 turns left on the Alliance vs Arabia. We have 8 turns left on the lux deals. It would be spectacular if we can find that boat and kill Arabia, but if we cant, I suggest just making peace with them when the Alliance runs out to eliminate the opressive wearyness we are under. Remember, when we start the war with Mongolia, we will lose the 4 smiley 7th lux, so happyness may become an issue.

Anyway, hope I did ok, and I'll get the save loaded up here in a few min. Good luck on your turn Carbon!

EDIT

Bah! The stupid uploads thing isnt working for me again. I'll give it till morning then mail it to Carbon and anyone else by request.

UP - Carbon
On Deck - I think its Ozzy or falsfire if we reverted to original. Doubit it matters ultimately.

Edited Edit

FINALLY

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP1-Celts-1150AD.sav

Carbon_Copy

Dec 13, 2002, 10:14 PM

I'll get it when the save comes up. I won't be able to play until Sunday anyhow. Expect it Sunday night or, barring that, Monday morning.

You mention that we will lose our 4-smiley wine lux once we go to war with Mongolia. What I'm wondering is how feasible it is to simply start off our Mongolian war with razing a wine city on the coast and resettle with one of ours. Is that something we could do without going to a lot of trouble? Depending on how many ships and troops I'll have to deal with, I'm going to try an exercise in my logistical abilities and will attempt one massive simultaneous invasion of Mongolia that hits as many coastal cities on the same turn as possible, just to see if I can do it. Then in addition to that, if I have enough cash I'll rush a bunch of settlers out of our northern corrupt cities and load them unescorted into some caravels and try to settle as much of that big island as possible, rushing defenders as they need them. On the subject of cash, now that we have Smith's in the bag, I think we can all agree that we have as much tech now as we will ever need so we can either just run one scientist or not even bother with tech anymore (the actual difference between the two IMO is negligible).

Anyhow, that's my initial plan, subject to change once I establish some idea of what really is going on. I post it so that if anyone sees a gaping hole that I am missing they have at least a full day to call me on it before I can get to playing my turn.

ToddMarshall

Dec 13, 2002, 10:38 PM

Not a bad plan. You'll need muskets if your planing to invade Mongolia proper.

I didn't plan for that, thinking Iceball would be enough land, now, I dono.

You have right now roughly 7-8 ships with 3MDI apeace in the vacinity of Iceball, except one that is carting a cat.

I started a ship west of Entermont to take that one island over there that we gifted to the vikes. Expect 3-4 units including swords defending that island so its likely a 2 hipo operation, though you have extra MDI from the pink isle campain you can send over there if needed, just rush muskets in the new cities and have 2 each there.

You have 6 MDI on big isle ready to take those 2 cities. I expect that to be enough. If you want more, rush some off big isle. They will be regulars, but surely 6 vets and 3 regulars can take 2 citties there heh.

There is alos one MDI ship en route to the tiny isle right above big island. Im guessing 3 MDI will take that no problem.

I completely agree on no more tech. You will find science at zero and Lux at 10%, science queued to magnetisim in case you felt you just HAD to have Galleons/Friggates.

I have a question too. Since we have an Alliance with the Mongols, are we even ALLOWED to declare war on them until it runs out? And what about the lux deals? Do we have to wait till those expire? If so, it will possibly be the next player after you finishing this game.

BTW. I did click next turn after i stoped/saved to make sure we hadn't hit domination yet lol. I didn't want you to get a save, spend 2 hours analizing, click next turn and see it was over :lol:

We have a god awful ammount of workers now, and no point in having them as far as i can see. What good are they doing us at this point? They are a drag on the economy more than anything. Everywhere that matters is set up the way it needs. Maybe we should start merging these guys in AFTER we make peace/kill Arabia. Otherwise you'll have a ton of size 12 cities with stacks of unhappy citizens.

EDIT

Upon review, Invading their main continent will be logistically much tougher than invading their big iceball island. My original plan was to go in with 3 MDI per city at the 5 costal cities on the 2nd continent, figuring they will all be lightly defended (2 have spears, 1 MDI as best defender, other 2 don't know yet.) and will have a serious lack of counter attakc units giving us a chance to rush muskets from the cities as we take them. This would be kinda standard procedure for an AI island that didnt have a harbor at all until they took the Viking city that had one about 10 turns ago. This should be our priority as it will cut off all connrction to the mainland for resourses etc.

Sending a Musket ship or 2 to distribute Muskets along the east coast of iceball would probably be a good idea. Just rip them off the coastal cities as you sail south and rebuild them.

AHHHHHHH just noticed. We can pillage a road in NEUTRAL territory in 2 turns which will eliminate the harbor connection to all of their cities so no chance they can upgrade those spears. This will NOT cut off our lux deal because we still have connection to the capital :)

If you want to invade the Mongolain mainland, I'd go for the 2 northern cities, which were Viking until just a few turns ago an should be light on resistors. They whold be keepers most likely as thye may not even go into resistance. You wont get wines there, but you'll get dyes which is just as good.

ToddMarshall

Dec 14, 2002, 06:27 PM

I noticed there are 3-4 units on goto, sorry about that. Also I think somone must have set a rally point. ive had guys that keep going to that ruins where theveste used to be, and i know I didnt send them there. And if you dont like seeing the units walk, go to the preferences and uncheck that option. Personally, I like watching them walk even if it takes longer.

Carbon_Copy

Dec 15, 2002, 09:56 PM

Okay, this is the endgame here. I take an assessment of our empire. Conclusion: It's big. I look at our troop situation. We have a lot of them. I look at our treasury, it's not as big as I'd like, strictly speaking, but we're still making big piles of cash every turn. I want lots of cash to do lots of rushing for my big plans. Our rep isn't going to matter anymore and it's not an exploit to break alliances so I make peace with Arabia 4 turns early to recoup the lux tax we're paying for war weariness. I get his world map in the negotiations, and there's a big stripe of busted fog leaving west from Arabia that wasn't there before. I drop luxury tax from 10% to 0 and make 415 per turn after turning the Arabian cities back onto food surplus. I rush two caravels out of western Arabian towns and move a bunch of troops and workers around. Now I'm ready for Turn 1

1160 (1) - Smith's Trading Company complete in Camulodunum, giving us an extra 30ish gpt for 440 after all the new troops arrive. WLTKD celebrated just about everywhere. Interturn the Arabians turn around and ask for an alliance (And a Right of Passage :lol: ) vs. the Mongols. I decline. More troops put in ships, more units moved around. I rush a few more caravels out west and a temple in Muscat, found the two cities on the one island, and pillage the Mongolian harbor road in neutral territory. I find myself agreeing that the best place to attack the Mongolian mainland is up in former Scandinavia, starting with Stockholm.

1170 (2) - I trade the Mongols WM for WM, and the island up north keeps getting bigger, but still, I'm eyeballing what we have and I don't think that island is going to matter on the cosmic scale of things. I take some of our northern cities and rush settlers out of them while rushing a caravel on the coast just to give us some more land tiles that we won't have to fight for.

1180 (3) - More units made, some borders expand on our west coast. And Domination victory.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp1domination.jpg

Domination already?!? I was just getting warmed up! :cry: And WOW, did we collectively spend a lot of time strategizing with the game window open, 123 hours? :eek:

Anyhow, the replay is very interesting, this being the first PTW game I've completed, I didn't know about all the shiny new information that it gives you like Golden Ages being triggered and Great Leaders. It looks like only three civs got golden ages in this game: Carthage, Arabia, and ourselves. There were only two leaders in the game that weren't ours (Carthage got one fighting Korea early, and Korea got one at Nora one turn before Carthage died). Interturn between 1170 and 1180 Arabia autorazed the Mongolian city on the half-obscured island and founded a city of their own, with two caravels of our troops ready to wipe out that pink spot in 1190 but didn't have a chance. I had ships of troops ready to hit 6 Mongolian cities simultaneously when we declared war, with more being built and trained and moved into place.

Final score: a MASSIVE 7171, Brennus the Magnificent.

Here's the 1170 autosave, there really isn't anything you need to do except next turn anyhow, the border expansion in Arabia is what triggers it.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp1-1170ad.zip