A few of the folks at Realms Beyond Civ got the Play the World
Expansion pack and were ready to test it out in a succession
game, so this threat will host...

RBP1 - Celtic Light Infantry :cool:

It's based on Sirian's "Infantry" game and rules, with the
difference that the Celtic UU and Mechanized Infantry, both
speed 2 infantry units, are allowed.

Rules:
- No cav can ever be made (chariot,horse,knight,cav,tank,modern armor)
- Any artillery or infantry is fine (including fast infantry and mechanized)

Enjoy the Celt UU, Medieval infantry and guerrillas. The mech inf are
there to avoid an endgame slog, but let's not wait that long to see
major action! (We'll save always war or "speed 1 infantry" for another time)

Civilization: Celts (UU-Gallic Swordsmen)
Opponents: The other 7 new civs
Map: Standard Map (8 civ) 50% Continents Restless barbarians
Victory condition: Conquest, Domination
Difficulty: Emperor
Other: Turned off AI respawn, kept culture flip and preserve rnd seed
Focus: the new Gallic Swordsmen, Medieval Infantry and Guerillas

A strategic thought would be to deny foes horses, rubber, and oil, as
far as it's expediently possible, to keep them away from
knights/cav/infantry/tanks. (That's not a rule, just an idea)
Celts are militaristic and religious, with Warrior Code and Burial

First player: 40 turns, then 20, then 10 for each thereafter.
You have 48hrs to play and post your turn, quite preferably
with a "got it" within 24 hrs if your post is coming second day.

Roster (and order):
Charis
Maniac Marshall
Carbon Copy
falsfire
Ozymandous
Griselda

Our starting location is shown below... (*Lake* to our north)

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

Enjoy! :goodjob:
Charis

PS To my old Civ Fanatics friends... it's good to be back!! :hammer:

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

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

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.

>> 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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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:

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.

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

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

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...

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)

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.

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!

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. :(

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

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

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

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

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.

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...

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!)

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

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.

-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.

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

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

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 :)

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

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.

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

-Griselda

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)

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

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... :)

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.

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

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 warri