Map settings will be:

Civ: Vikings
Map: Standard, Pelago, 80% Water,
Climate: Wet, Temperate, 4 billion years,
Opponents: Carthage, Ottomans, Spanish, Mongols, Koreans, Celts, Arabs
Victory: Any
Barbarians: Restless
Cultural Linked Start and Respawn AI Players OFF
Rules: Regular Deity rules

Roster:
Architect
Charis
JaxomCA
Arathorn
Falsfire
Iteean

I took the very first start as is tradition and this is what we got.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5start.jpg

4000BC I move our scout and decide to found Tronheim where we started. I begin construction of a second scout. I start 40 turns to alphabet in case we are alone and need Map Mapking fast.

3950BC I find two more cows, a game, and a whale

3850BC Still no sign of anyone nor any luxuries.

3800BC Our second scout is built and explores Mount Trondheim and discovers Arabia.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5arabdiscovery.jpg

Here's the great Abu Bakr

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5arabs.jpg

I trade Warrior code for Ceremonial Burial and 10gp. It looks like we are on a very small island isolated from others with no luxuries. I start construction of a granary as we won't need anymore scouts.

3750BC We discover gold in 3 mountains on our northern coast. We are definitly on a small island. We have no fresh water.

3300BC Arabia develops Bronze working but won't trade it for anything.

3100BC Our granary completes and I start a warrior for MP duty.

3000BC Our warrior completes and we will have a settler in 6 turns, growing in 5. Looks like Arabia is also isolated as they still just have bronze working.

2710BC Our first settler completes. We are going to have to do a pretty dense build to get a decent amount of core cities.

2670BC Arabia has Masonry now.

2630BC Bergen is founded.

2550BC Well this start couldn't have worked out better for those who wanted to really test the vikings. Some important points to remember:

1. You can't upgrade to a Berserk. We will have to build all of them from scratch.
2. We need mapmaking and fast and even trying to pre-build the lighthouse might be possible.
3. We could easily over-build and strain our economy.

I would suggest with this slow of a start that Charis and JaxomCA take 20 turns and then we start the 10 turn hand off after that.

Here's a dotmap. Opinions please.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5dotmap.jpg

And here's the save:

2550BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5-vikings-2550bc.zip)

Ohhhhh! This looks like fun :)

I am not sure how many cities are needed to be FP eligible on a standard map. If it is 7, then we might have to sacrifice the N wheat near the blue dot to put a city on it and put another on the hill SW of the blue dot.

We definitely want mapmaking ASAP. The Great Lighthouse would be a definite asset in this setup, Bergen should get on it after 1 or 2 warriors.

We cannot wait until the Berserker to expand, specially if FP needs more than 7 cities, so I believe an early war against Arabia is in order. We are Viking after all, once we have a couple of thatch up we will WANT blood :)

This truly is a *Viking* start! I'm glad at least our little island is fertile, not a frozen tundra!

I like the dense build in this case, especially since we have no fresh water! The only change I would make to the dot map would be to move the red square near the capital one square SE onto the plain. That eliminates sitting *in* Bergen's tiles directly, avoids wasting the grassland the red dot is on, and still catches the fish and can borrow the hill or cattle if it needs to.

The problem Jaxom is that on standard we need *8* cities for a FP. I can see a time where we find a continent with more room and more than one civ, where we find a good central and productive city, get a great leader, and rush the FP there. I would be more prone to found on the hill in the NW than the NE wheat, but 7 cities won't matter, so don't go THAT dense until we've got a look at Arab lands and/or captured them. The question is - do we have any iron or horses? If not, our only early offense would be archers.

On the plus side, city defense and barb camps will very quickly become non-issues.

Good start, I should be able to get it tonight.
Charis

At 8 city for FP then yeah, let's not waste the wheat. That makes it even more urgent to conquer Arabia early. I don't think we should wait on Iron working to prepare. Archers can upgrade to guerilla eventually, so that is what I would build from the start. If it turns out we have iron, then it will still be possible to deal with it.

Can you tell I am looking for blood? :) Just to set the record straight, this is not my play style. I am more of a builder. But in this case an early rush seems appropriate.

And let's not forget, we are Viking! :D

That Red dot is actually an error. I had intended to use the plains. I always do a much more cluttered "border" dotmap for myself and I just translated my dots poorly.

Good catch Charis.

Agreed on moving red dot one SE. I would also leave light dot where it is and still build a city on the hills by the gold mountains. We're gonna be commerce poor for quite a while and being able to work an extra gold mountain is worth 3 gpt under despotism, 4 gpt roaded under despotism and 5 gpt roaded under any other govt. A city on the hills won't have to steal squares to be very useful and we're gonna need every cent we can squeeze out of this land.

I suggest no military at all until we're ready to start building up for an assault on Arabia -- two scouts and our cities can keep the barbs away. We might want to "squeeze in" a barracks build or two, however.

As for an assault, here are some of my battle experiences in PTW:

Game 1:
Assaulted Iroquois with a horsemen stack in the ancient ages. First city I took was their capital. Defended by 6 spearmen (not too unusual to see a capital well-defended). Second city I took was defended by 5 spearmen and was NOT their new capital. Third city defended by 4 spearmen. Fourth city, I never got. I killed 5 spearmen and a warrior in there but they reinforced before I did. That was on emperor.

I fought more in the emperor game (a lot more actually) but was either fighting as part of a team and so couldn't get a feel for the actual fighting power of the opponent or was so far ahead that it didn't matter.

Game 2:
Allied against America during my ancient age. Took 3 cities, defended by 2 pikes/1 spear, 3 pikes, and 1 musket/2 pikes/1 spear/1 warrior (no capital).
Allied against America early in my middle age. Took 4 cities, defended by 1 musket/3 spears, 2 muskets/1 longbow, 6 muskets (capital), and 1 cavalry (recently captured).
Both of these times, I entered after most of the American offensive might had been spent elsewhere. I also know that some of their cities on the other front were defended by 5+ units (I got to see some of the battles occurring).
This was on deity (still going, but I just nationalism sling-shotted, along with a cheating the cheater to get myself into a very good situation).

I think we can expect to see at least 4 units defending each Arabian city, with 6 likely in their capital. My intuition says that 9-10 vet archers will give us a good chance of success against one city with 4 regular spearmen. That means 5 boatloads, plus another boatload for spears. For one city.

We might be better off questing for other lands (suicide galleys *20) and playing the trader role (sell at monopoly prices on both ends). 10 ships for an assault + 11 units @20 shields each is 520 shields. That would give us 17 ships, which might well do more good than even a successful assault.

As for the Great Lighthouse, anybody have pre-build suggestions? I have noticed (sample size 2) that the AI is a bit less aggressive about ancient wonders, so we might snag it, if we plan very carefully, but it's also very possible it will be built before we get the tech for it. We're about 90 turns out from map-making. If we had some prebuild in Trondheim, we'd need to start it in (90 - 300/9) 57 turns, assuming Trondheim is up to full size and cranking 9 spt. Maybe we can get Masonry from Abu by that time. But, that's an awfully big gamble.

Dunno, but I do like the initial dot-map (with the one addition and one change suggested above). DEFINITELY an interesting start.

Arathorn

Wow you've seen some nasty defense - were you playing "Elimination" mode or what??

The three PtW games I've seen, ancient era anyway, showed no such special defense. I only saw the 'usual' two defender for size 1-6, three for 7-12, with at best one more in the capital. These were on emperor. Dataset is too small to tell, but if the AI likes 4-6 defenders that would make a *huge* difference in the game.

In every case I was seeing 'regulars' unless there had been barb activity in the area to promote them.

As far as archers needed to take a city, I would say around 4 vets to take 2 regs, or 7-8 vets to take 4 regs. Nine would be overkill unless they had a rax or vets. But that's not strictly for 'one' city, as you'll have 5 survivors to go for the next one.

As for archers becoming guerillas - are you sure? I read that as well, but in game, could NOT upgrade Longbows to Med.Inf. Nor have I seen this in any game or Firaxis documentation, just as a rumor. (If no upgrade path, Med.Inf truly do make Longbows obsolete unless you're stuck with no iron)

For current plans, less units and more infrastructure now does sound good, until we are getting ready to invade. Two barracks for sure - we don't want to load transport with regulars! By the time we get zerkers I would think four cities with rax and decent shield production.

While going to be trade masters is a viable route (maybe even the smart route?!) I must say that playing RBD9 and seeing invasions postponed one after the other, and then winning a non-military victory, was HIGHLY dissatisfying for "Vikings". My own druthers (and take just as that) would be a bloodthristy domination game where the *bulk* of the action was with berzerkers and amphib invasions, slaughtering several civs before they even reached muskets. :hammer:

That also means owning the seas, and wiping any 'colony' not on a foes mainland whenever we sea such insolence.
Still, exploration and a suicide galley are good, for making contacts and perhaps being sole middlemen for techs and trades.

Charis

Well, my dataset is also too small to consider definitive. I was playing with the standard set of win conditions, so it's not that which is influencing things.

At the very least, I think we must be leery.

Of course, we don't have to make any decisions for the next 40 turns other than how to most quickly colonize our island and get it productive. And, in that time, things may change to change our mind.

As for upgrade paths, I *believe* (which means that I've seen reasonably convincing testimonies but have not verified) that the upgrade paths are:
archer -> longbow -> guerilla
warrior -> swordsman -> medieval infantry -> guerilla
berserk -> guerilla (?)
with the exact details of how they implement that unknown. The last is the one I feel least comfortable with.

What's your take on the city on a hill?

Arathorn

Archer upgrade to longbow upgrade to guerilla
Warrior upgrade to swordsman upgrade to med. inf. upgrade to guerilla. Or so I think.

I think Bergen is better to build the lighthouse. I will get 9spt after corruption maybe 10 at food deficit, but it has the option of prebuild via palace. And I think it should be started as soon as possible, it will be posible to slow down the build later via coast or unmined grassland.

My experience in deity PTW showed the same as you Arathorn. This simply means you can't aim to take a whole civ in 20 turns. In this case I see this scenario: 2 galleys, 5 spears and a settler, declare war, land on Mt Arabia and settle on incense. No matter what, from that point on that incense is ours. Next turn galleys returns to Trondheim. Next turn they bring back 6 archers, 6 more 2 turns later. Capture or raze the city we can see and hole up in there, making as much damage to his attacking troops as possible. When Abu is ready to talk, get whatever tech he managed to grab. Rinse and repeat 20 turns later, propably with swords or horseman.

Looking back at the map, I think an outpost should be established on Mt. Trondheim and another on the far north mountain. This might give us a contact before Abu get it for the cost of 2 pop. This is not urgent but it should be kept in mind.

Suicide galleys are a nice tool, but they depend too much on luck. I'd rather we make our own luck. If we sit there and wait until Berserker, they will be obsolete before seeing any action.

In any case, these are simply my thoughts on seeing the start position, I'll go along with whatever the team feels is best.

edit: oh and the city on the hill looks like a good idea, it will give a bit more commerce to play with.

Galleys hold 2 units, not 3, unless they changed this in PtW...

oops :o then make it 3 galleys :)

I like Bergen for the wonder due to the Palace placeholder as well.

As far as the city on the hill, my initial impression was that with so few shields around, it would be a poor choice to have a tiny village and use up the only hill. But on closer inspection, the food supply for the blue dot is grass, wheat and water. Long term that means an even amount of food and the ability to support one or both mountains easily, in 'production' mode. A single hill would be 'unstable' for food, one too much or one too little for steady size, and it's no better than the mountains, to be working. So we won't miss using the hill that badly, compared to having another size 12 good commerce city.

That whale is the key to being able to have an extra mountain tile in production, by adding the other city, and for a good chunk of the early game, that bonus commerce will be nice. Can we get Colossus there?! It would be a stretch, but quite a commerceful city. The downside - the yellow dot will be using the whale.

For priorities, it seems like: blue, yellow, red, green, optional hill.
The blue is at top because of the bonus food and because having visibility up there will do away with the barbarian threat quickly. Scouts do NOT count for scaring away barbs btw, unless that's a recent change. (Nor workers or settlers, just military units)

With decent food and no fresh water, and the need to settle-out quickly, I'm not particularly in favor of more granaries besides our settler-capital, and think workers will be more useful than MP-nonvet warriors.

Charis

Just reading along here, but wanted to comment (sorry for the intrusion).

Charis: RBD9 should have had an amphib attacker like now, that special "galley" seemed great at the time but doesn't seem to suit the vikings now as well as the Berserk. I played that game in Shadow and conquered the whole world after we failed to do it in the SG version. :D

Also scouts don't scare barbs away once they have formed but scouts can see quite a ways so one perchec on top of a mountain might keep them from even forming.

Question about the city placement. If the second city (forget the name) had bee moved one N (NE?) it would have gotten the whale and both cattle. What is the benefit of it being where it is now as opposed to being moved up? Other than having another city, that is.

Ozy,

One N doesn't do that. One NE ruins the game in the square there and makes the cows take longer to get into radius. Definitely a nice spot for city 2, IMO.

Arathorn

I would not settle the red spot until we have secured (or vetoed) the lighthouse. Bergen one E would have catch the whale and 2 cows eventually but would have removed the possibility of a city on the red spot. I like Bergen, I think I will make it my own little kingdom, if nobody objects :)

Wow, this one looks interesting. The dot map (with the red dot moved) looks good, I'd also add in the city on the hill as Arathorn suggested.

With regard to a military buildup: we only have 4 mountains and 2 hills (and 3 mountains are gold), so isn't there an excellent chance we will be without iron? I'll cross my fingers, but ...

I'm still a bit indecisive on the Lighthouse. If this were SP I probably wouldn't try for it, unless I were doing it just for the challenge. I would absolutely love for us to pull it off though! :)

Another thing we may want to keep in mind is that civs will now sell contact with you, so we might not have to go out and find them, or pay through the nose to talk to them. (edit: of course you don't get to broker either) This happened in my first PTW game and I couldn't figure out how in the world I could talk to Rome when I had no idea where it was.

Thanks for including me Architect, this is gonna be fun!


Iteean

[0] 2550 BC - We have a good position, lacking in fresh water, contact other
than Arabs, and a strong posibility of a lack of key resources (Iron??!)
The dotmap looks good with a red dot shift, and folks are looking for a
solid island settling, with an eye toward possibly the Lighthouse. We're
heading in research to Map Making.

At present Bergen is working towards a Barracks, and Trondheim toward Warrior.
The only thing I see I don't like is the worker building a road in the forest.
We want the forest cleared to get 3 food anyway, and it takes longer to build
road before clearing. The road in progress will take 4 turns to finish, but
only 3 to build from scratch. I stop him (sorry) and shift him to chopping.
I also retract my earlier comment about not needing granaries - not remembering
we have NO fresh water, and hence no irrigation until much much later in the game.
I also switch Trondheim to Settler.

[1-4] 2510, 2470, 2430, 2390

[5] 2350 BC - We notice that now on Diplo we can talk to the Celts, which means the
Arabs are NOT alone! They sold contact with us to the Celts. The two of them both
have Bronze Working and Masonry. Our Alphabet is due in 5, maybe we can sell that
for those two.

[6] 2310 BC - The settler is done and heads for Blue dot up North. Midturn is the
message the Arabs are building the Colossus.

[8] 2230 BC - The Celts are building the Pyramids.

[10] 2150 BC - Alphabet arrives, the forest is gone, and our worker starts to mine
the game spot he is on. Granary now due in just 5. Trondheim expects another settler
in two. The Celts are ahead of Arabia on the histogram, and will be sought to pay
the high price on Alphabet. On F11, Carthage, Madrid and Seoul are top three cities,
followed by our glorious capital, then Karakorum.

We get both Masonry and Bronze and 28 gold for our Alphabet, then see both have
Iron Working. We buy it from Arabia for Alphabet and have to pay 68 gold.
Three techs for 40 gold, a good round.

WOO!!! We *DO* have iron! It's right on the hill next to Trondheim!
We might get a warrior or two built before hooking up, but that's SUPER!

[12] 2070 BC - Celts start Colossus too. Our next settler arrives and heads to Yellow.

[13] 2030 BC - Arabs have Mysticism, but best not to come in @2nd civ.
Copenhagen is founded at blue and starts a worker. No barbs and until they have
a boat we need zero military.

[15] 1950 BC - Celts are building the Oracle. We have no need for the tech at present,
maybe we'll make more contacts and see the price drop.

[16] 1910 BC - They both have the wheel. Now that's one I would like, for option to make
Chariots and to see if we actually have horses or not! Besides, growing cash too high
would just make them jealous :P

Alas, it's not cheap at all, 109g+1gpt. GOOD NEWS!! We got horses!! It's on the
grass "errant red" spot, right near Bergen. When we DO get boats, boys, we'll have
some premium combined arms attack units! :hammer:

Reykjavik is founded at Yellow dot, but won't pull in the whale until it has
a temple. We start a temple, and can whip it to finish if needed. An early temple will
be good, both for culture and the whale. The Arabs already have a temple somewhere,
the Celts (despite being religious) do not.

[18] 1830 BC - Lack of MP making its presence felt, needing to run lux slider. But I would
rather pay a few pennies than slow down the settling curve (for now).

[19] 1790 BC - The worker heads up to start connecting our cities by road.
Trondheim is due to finish shields for settler next turn, but not grow to 3 until
two turns, and there would be wasted shields on top of that. Instead of throwing away
ten shields I insert the temple now.

[20] 1750 BC - Settler due from Bergen in 2 - after it comes out you can put back lux a
tad, stopping our small deficit, and do a temple in Bergen, followed by either a rax
or prebuild for wonder. Reykjavik may want to move a tile worker from grass to forest,
and consider temple whip. My, that was a fast 20 turns :P

JaxomCA <-- Up, 20 turns
Arathorn <-- On deck, 10 turns

Save game 1750BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5-vikings-1750bc.zip)

Charis

Roster Change:

Architect
Charis
JaxomCA <--UP
Arathorn
Falsfire
Iteean <--Added

Note: With this many players I will skip people who don't respond within 24 hours with a got it. If you get skipped, you can just pick up next time around.

nt

Preturn: I leave everything as it is, only MM Reykjavik to use forest tile. It will grow in 12 instead of 6 but even that will be too soon to whip the temple. We may not need a standing army but we have a serious need of MP. The proud Viking people are happier under a strong warrior eye :)

[list=1]

1725 BC ...

1700 BC
Settler finishes in Bergen, starts a warrior for MP. The settler is sent to the red spot to lock in the horse and the iron.
Luxury still at 50% because of remote Copenhagen.

1675 BC
Copenhagen finishes worker, starts another. Luxury dropped to 30%.

1650 BC
Oslo founded, starts a worker. That will make 4 workers, plus one for each new city, with our limited land that should be enough workers.

1625 BC
The Celts learned how to ride on a horse. A Viking warrior tried to imitate the Celts but he fell down a mountain near Copenhagen and is now missing. The towns people named the place Gronar's Folly.

1600 BC A few notable events this turn.
- Trondheim completes a temple and starts on a settler.
- Bergen completes a warrior and starts another.
- Carthage completes the Colossus, the Arabs will cascade to the pyramid.
- A new contact shows up, the cautious Wang Kon of Korea, who knows about writing but not about masonry or mysticism. He would trade if we throw in 4gpt and 14 golds, our whole treasury. Alternatively, he would buy masonry for 46 golds.
- Brennus and Abu Bakr know about writing too, either one of them want 11gpt for writing meaning our masonry is worth 6gpt to Wang Kon. Both of them want more than 5gpt for mysticism.
- I decide to wait on writing and gather some golds. Bergen could build the lighthouse in 38 turns if it started now and we can keep it happy.
- Man! This turn took me half an hour!

1575 BC
The Arabs cascade to pyramids, the Celts to Oracle.
I could buy mysticism for 5gpt and 26 golds. I do the deed and trade mysticism and masonry to Wang Kon for writing, who is now polite.
Treasury: 2 golds, 1gpt :(

This will be a tough 20 turns to come. Map making is ordered at best rate, 1 beaker.

1550 BC
The Arabs starts the Oracle.
Bergen finishes warrior and starts on a palace for the lighthouse.
The missing warrior came back to town with two broken legs. He lay in the town square and collects 1 gold to tell his story.

1525 BC
Korea begins the pyramids in Seoul. Horseback riding was passed around.

1500 BC
Korea begins the Oracle.

1475 BC
Trondheim trains a settler, starts another one.

1450 BC
Hire another taxman in Reykjavik. The Viking people are annoyed at us :)

1425 BC
Copenhagen trains a worker, starts a temple. The citizens are unhappy, they want a harbor to park their boats.

Interturn the Celts came to town with a barrel of a malted liquid that left most of Trondheim's citizens with a headache by the next day. A seemingly sober Celt informed Ragnar that this building was now an embassy. Free malted liquid will be served to Viking women every Friday night!

1400 BC
Word came that the Ottoman have built the Oracle. Some of Trondheim citizens ask if we can drink it. None of our neighbors have map making yet so we can't join the fest.
Oslo trains a worker, the population beg for a temple.
Stockholm founded in a forest, one of the citizens immediately enters the worker training program.
Judging by the cultural border, the pink city is probably the Arabs capitol.

1375 BC
Well, that didn't take long. Abu Bakr, Wang Kon and Brennus met somewhere near Entremont. Abu was offended by the new liquor and forbid its distribution over Arab territory. Wang and Brennus strongly disagreed and are now using force to insure a free flow of malted liquid. Rumor is, the people of Korea can't hold their malted liquid.

1350 BC
Bergen grows to size 5, luxury raised to 30%, palace in 37 turns, map making in 32.

1325 BC
Trondheim trains a settler and starts a military training program. The citizens are unhappy, they want a brewery.
The settler wants to see Gronar's Folly and heads that way.
The population of Copenhagen grows. They heard about the malted liquid and are unhappy they didn't have any. The next leader can decide whether a pair of strong arms or religion is best to deal with the unrest. For now, a taxman is hired.

1300 BC
The taxman in Reykjavik is fired after a warrior entered town and growled at the crowd who were discussing the unavailability of malted liquid.

1275 BC
Brennus and Wang Kon learned how to make a map. Rumors of ship loads of malted liquid are flying throughout the Kingdom. Talks of joining the Celt Empire have been heard. We need to send loyal warriors soon before our glorious Kingdom falls into anarchy.

1250 BC
Korea starts on the lighthouse in Cheju.
[/list=1]

It looks like the Celt are the most clever as they discovered all the new technology so far. And they know how to make malted liquid ;)

Bergen was set to finish the palace in 29 turns, we will know how to make maps in 28. If Bergen grows again, we may not be able to provide enough luxury to keep the citizens in check. It might be a good idea to keep the town at size 5 by working a mined plains at a food deficit. Damascus is on the coast as it cascaded from colossus to pyramids. Entremont is not on the coast so it is stuck with the pyramids or nothing. The biggest treat to the lighthouse is probably Carthage as they built the Colossus in their capitol. Wang Kon's map could be bought to determine if Cheju is a danger for the lighthouse.

The palace can be switch to a temple, loosing 16 shields in the process. Or we can keep our fingers crossed and hope we have literature before someone builds the lighthouse. I would go with keeping the palace prebuild.

The settler is almost ready to settle near Gronar's Folly.


The Viking kingdom in all its glory.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5_bc1250_minimap.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5_bc1250_fullview.jpg)

Click on the minimap to see a full view.

The save game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5_bc1250.zip)

This is the stuff that legends are made of - the Oracle foretells the Ancient "Malted War" brewing even now!?!

Alas, until then, the people are most discontent, knowing of this nectar, but unable to brew any themselves! They work hard, yet have no luxuries - sad! In fact, I dare say if this goes on long enough people will *literally* go Berzerk!! (Our generals wonder if they can use this to our advantage?)

It looks like we did a very good job of settling our little home more rapidly - we'll need those workers to get roads to improve income and mines to improve production asap. Oh that they could irrigate, but that's a tale for another day, how can one irrigate without malted beverage?!

I like continuing with the prebuild, and trying to save up some cash to buy another tech like Literature in case of cascade. Koreans, eh? So Abu is FAR from alone it seems. I'm not sure if the palace is more or less shields than the Lighthouse, but if less, we may want to buy map making on the turn before we have enough shields to finish the GLighthouse.

It's too bad the map made our expansionist trait 100% useless, unless of course the GL sets of our Golden Age. It would do so too early rather than at the right time by Berzerker victory, and 'exp' would then be literally a negative benefit to us, where sci or rel would come in handy about now :P Still, expansionist we shall be!

It sounds like one warr one spear is about the right MP/defense per city, with extra production going to spears and a horse or two, in prep for the "incense" settlement/war. The warrs can be regular, but we'll want to get to building rax for higher quality spears that will last the whole game via upgrade chain. We'll have the nasty burden in that time frame of building aqueducts in every city.

Charis

PS in Edit
- I'm wondering if Stockholm would be better off with a warrior than a worker, seeing our capital and other cities naked no with souls to dissuade malt dissatisfaction? Without extra food those hamlet cities aren't the best ones to bleed a worker from - we can snag more later when we hit size 6 and hit the growth cap. Usually a quick worker can pay for himself very quickly by doing one irrigation, not possible here.
Although... ya can never have enough workers - like the Iron Hill, all those gold, three more bonus grass, plus if we're stuck at size 6 for long, we may want to pop workers from high food spots and put them into fishing vilages when they have harbors - enough food to support themselves at any size but not enough to grow very fast. Just a thought, either warr or worker will work fine.
I'm also thinking that once we get engineering we can do a massive lumberjacking program to get as much as we can from this dry land.

If we get to the point where we have more units than allowed for gold, disband the scouts. (They're not free cost are they?)

Roster:

Architect
Charis
JaxomCA
Arathorn <-- UP
Falsfire
Iteean

Excellent start gentlemen. We now switch to 10 turn trade-offs.

Please try to avoid too much of this "malted liqour" during your turn as we do want to win this game right.. :)

Copenhagen can be changed back to worker duty at this time, it is the most corrupt city (I think Gronar is not declaring all the golds he is making). I have put the new cities on worker because I expected to build vet warriors in Trondheim for crowd control. Trondheim could be changed to warrior without loss on this turn, or it could continue with spear and train enough spears for each city.

I did not try to connect the iron since we might want to go for a warrior training program first. With our weak economy, it might be better to train swordsman right off the bat.

Maps can be bought for our whole treasury, our own WM was worth about 10 golds so I did not sell it.

I think the current palace size is the same as the lighthouse, base on the numbers of turns I calculated for the lighthouse but I was at the embassy party so I may have miscalculated :)

I like the idea of Copenhagen back on worker duty rather than the closer cities.

As for warriors, I'm not fully in "PtW" mode that even there will one day be guerillas. Then again, with the Berzerker, the chance it will be more than a warrior are slimmer than usual. Berzerkers come with invention, so the option to make Med.Inf out of them is weak, likewise with 6 attack and far earlier, Berzerkers outclass Guerillas. We will need spears and lots of them if we're planning to have one per town plus several for the incense, so I like Trondheim on spear duty. The chance of us getting invaded is so remote, and we would get 'first shot' to counterattack anway, we could probably use warriors literally for defense and never lose a city - so cheap regulars from low shield towns works for me as it frees up our bigger cities for 'real' production. (On Pangaea I like the warrior training then Sword route better)

At 'some' point before our first ship goes out we want to buy all the maps, but until then there is no rush.

> I think the current palace size is the same as the lighthouse,
> base on the numbers of turns I calculated for the lighthouse
> but I was at the embassy party so I may have miscalculated

So 28 turns until we actually GET the Lighthouse? Wouldn't that be lovely?
[EDIT @Jaxom - "Blinks eyes... checks difficulty... Deity, of *course*... tries to reset expectations of mauling the AI in the Middle Ages ]

Charis

I am not too hot for warriors either, but since Trondheim can get one out every other turn at size 2, possibly one every turn at size 4, Trondheim could quickly supply all the MP needs for now with 2 vet warriors for each city. These warriors would eventually become Med. Inf. then Guerilla. With 2 of these per city (possibly 3 later on) , I don't think we need to have defenders in the cities until Marines hit the scene. That way, these 'sober' warriors, supported by a couple of knights for greater range, can easily take care of homeland defense while our 'malted-enhanced' berserker are wreaking havoc oversea.

Once the local unrest is taken care of, Trondheim can start building the incense taskforce, with Bergen eventually helping build that force.

Buying maps now would help to determine if Damascus is a danger for the lighthouse. Other than that, there is nothing we can do about Carthage and whoever else is out there in the fog. A decent deity AI city can build two lighthouses in 28 turns :(

How hard do you think it will be to invade Arabia?

I figure someone else noticed, but hey, Arabia's power is comparable to ours and Brennus' is growing. And they are at war. If Damascus completes the lighthouse, we'll just have to borrow it. :hammer:

Actually, Arabia may be a non-issue, civ-wise, by the time we have Map Making.

Iteean

Got it.

Arathorn

(0) 1250 - Changed Trondheim to archer -- we can have non-vet MPs but our war units need to be vets. Cope to worker. Stockholm to barracks. Celts will give horseback riding for alliance vs. Arabs. WM + 23 gold gets us close to map-making.
(I) Celts start Lighthouse.

(1) 1225 - Science rate to zero.
(I) Celts and Arabs sign peace treaty. We missed an opportunity to play mercenary. Would've gotten us a tech for free. Sorry.

(2) 1200 - Birka founded on the hills. Warrior ordered.
(I) Cope worker -> worker.

(4) 1150 - Back to 10% science. Lux tax to 50% to keep Bergen happy. Actually, Bergen makes a scientist. Sci to 0%. Luxes to 30%. Celts have Philosophy. Arabs still lack map-making.

(5) 1125 - Trond archer -> warrior.

(7) 1075 - Horses online.
(I) Trond warrior -> spear. Stockholm barracks -> archer.

Save file
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5-1000bc.zip

Arathorn

Roster:

Architect
Charis
JaxomCA
Arathorn
Falsfire <-- UP
Iteean

Well we are moving ahead :)

I think there is an opportunity for a 2 for 1 trade, buying Map Making from Korean and trading it to Abu for Horseback riding. The next leader should keep an eye on that. If you feel bold and lucky, you might be able to pull a 3 for 1, buying maths@2nd civ from the Celts, trading it to Korea for Map Making, then trading this to Arabia for Horseback. But this will put a heavy load on our economy so it may not be a good idea. And it would give even more money to the Celt who are way too rich already, the maltd liquor probably has something to do with that :)

will play tomorrow afternoon/evening.

1000BC[0] - looking over our empire, things seem to be in order, I was at first skeptical about building archers, but then remembered that they u/g to Berserkers for us. I change nothing and go to next turn.

975BC[1] - Trondheim spearman-->spearman. Reykjavik temple-->rax.

950BC[2] - Birka warrior-->rax. Ottomans build Pyramids in Edrine. Carthage cascades to and builds lighthouse in Carthage :( Pooey. Now what to do with our Palace prebuild in Bergen. Great Library? Not sure. It's accumulated so many shields it'd be a waste to switch to anything we can build now, and we still *may* have a shot at G.L., as no wonders are being constructed by the AIs that we know about, we're the only ones with a prebuild. Our treasury (91g +9gpt) plus WM is "close to a deal" for MM from both Korea and Celts, Arabia still doesn't have it.

925BC[3] - Korea has Mathematics, so there goes the chances of a 3-for-1.

900BC[4] - Trondheim spear-->spear. I trade Korea 104g +9gpt +WM for Map Making (ouch), his attitude improves to Cautious. Then we get Horseback Riding, 3g, and WM from Abu for MM. Then back to Korea, who buys our revised WM for 3g. Then to Brennus who gives us his WM and 5g for our WM. He was about to know our WM anyways, as he's sailing a galley along our coastline now. Here's our revised knowledge of the world:
http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbe5/rbe5_wm_900BC.jpg
Then I change Stockholm from building an archer to building our first galley, due in 6.

875BC[5] - I trade our map around and make us 5g. Otherwise, zzzzz.

850BC[6] - zzzzz.

825BC[7] - zzzzz.

800BC[8] - Wang Kon and Brennus have met the Ottomans. Let's see if they sell contact with us to them :)

775BC[9] - zzzzz.

750BC[10] - zzzz.

Notes for next player: Trondheim can't grow any more unless it gets a harbour. It's current orders are horseman, but next player may want to change that to grow it one more to size 6. Our military consists of: 5 warriors, 2 archers, and 4 spears. One galley is constructed and heading down towards the crossing to Arabia. We're currently researching Polytheism at 1 scientist rate, and our treasury is 27g +2gpt. We have 14 turns left on our massive 9gpt payment to him for MM. I vetoed my own decisions of rax in Birka and Reykjavik to build warrior (Birka, for MP duty in various cities of our empire), and galley in Reykjavik (due in 3).
We only have 12 turns left on the Palace prebuild in Bergen, so if there is any possible way for us to get Lit off the AIs before then we must do so to swap it to GL.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/rbe5/rbe5_750BC.zip

Originally posted by falsfire
1000BC[0] - looking over our empire, things seem to be in order, I was at first skeptical about building archers, but then remembered that they u/g to Berserkers for us. I change nothing and go to next turn.



Uh, sorry to disapoint you, but Archers DON'T upgrade to Bezercks. If you look at the below picture:
archer - longbow
longbow - guerilla
berzerck - guerilla
The 2nd should have send bezerck to have a chance.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/LAK-208.jpg

Ouch, archipelago viking wins are tougher than they seem, eh? At least with a small land mass with no fresh water.

We're rather in a pickle about the wonder prebuild. Going deep into debt will either be seen as a stroke of brilliance or utter :smoke: :P

If we just get units over there to get Mecca and the chokepoint Damascus, then full speed ahead on Map Making purchase will get the yay award. If Arabia is already dead and gone by the time we get there, OR if we can't land sufficient forces to actually take anything, it will be seen as weed when we could have chosen Literature to research ourselves, going max research, and definitely landed the tech just before the prebuild expires.

As it stands now, SLOW DOWN THE BUILD, there's not enough time to assume the AI is researching Lit, *OR* that we can afford it if they are! Bergen can move a tile worker from cattle to the sea, and from the plains mine to the unimproved grass, to make it due in 20 turns, and still no growth. There can be an extra few rounds of low-starvation delay, and at best a few slim rounds purposefully going into disorder there! So we're talking no more than about 28 turns, max. IF we had the gpt still, we could switch even now to Literature and research it before 28. But we don't.

If I had to bet, I would say it doesn't score the 'yay' point -- I don't think we had the troops ready enough to the point where we HAD to have Map Making right then. "What can wait, should" But there is enough of a chance that the bold purchase was our last shot at Arabia before they go down, and "it can't wait" ringing true. Should be a fun next few player turns to watch!

As far as the invasion - we can stick to incense hill landing and settling, and ferry more troops to hold it then take Mecca, or if we had more troops (we don't ;P ) land South of Damascus and totally cut off reinforcements, then fight upward, taking Damascus and Mecca. I would expect this to need about 6 spears and 8 archers to work, which needs too many boats as well. The incense city has the advantage of needing less boats.

If our next player can slow the prebuild, scrimp for cash, and somehow pull out a wonder of Bergen, I would be impressed. Given our very rough start, the "other" GL would be very helpful to us this game!

Good luck,
Charis

Now I just have to see what we can do about that prebuild in Bergen. I can swap the tiles around a little bit to slow its progress (prob stretch it to 20-25 turns), but then we gamble on someone researching Lit and then us being able to afford it. Maybe build a harbor and trade away our horses if necesary, for extra income? :crazyeye:

Course, I could pillage one of our grass tiles and slow it even more. :)

I believe I'll think on this a bit.

Iteean

Edit: oops I see Charis posted before my "got it".

Okay, I've spent a while thinking about our situation. Bergen could be starved down to size 4 and micromanaged to min shields and the palace could be delayed around 40 turns. That is enough time to start a min research of Literature. Currently, we are 5 turns into Polytheism, so we could try to finish Poly first, and hope it could be bartered towards obtaining Literature. Since Lit is optional though, I'm not sure if I want to take that risk. If the AIs got Poly first, they could trade it around and make it useless to us. Which is the AI more likely to research first?

There are a few other things to consider too. We could try researching Lit at faster than min. That would require selling off horses and / or iron. This is bad because we want to have those available for our troops. Rather than sell immediately, we might be able to use them later as insurance in case we need to buy Lit when someone beats us to it. The risk there is that the civ that needs those resources might not have cash or Literature.

The other thing to consider is the Great Wall. The AIs should be picking up Construction soon. If I had to bet, I'd say they'll finish the Wall before anyone gets Lit, but we don't want to ignore the possibility of a cascade. Actually it isn't out of the realm of possibility that we could get the Wall. I don't think it is worth it though.

If the cascade ends at the Wall, I'd say we have a pretty good shot at the (other) GL. I'm going to play tomorrow, so anyone with a suggestion is welcome to speak up. :p

In case anyone has problems understanding my incoherent babbling: I want to starve Bergen, and then start min research on Lit. I think that hoping Lit will be discovered in under 28 turns is too risky.

Iteean

I would starve Bergen down to 5 pop and then delay production, but not too much. Keep at least 4-5 shields per turn on it. The Great Library is more shields than the Palace by a 100. That means 10 turns of production. I have seen many comments about what the AI usually research, my personnal experience say at least one AI will research what I research and get it shortly before I do. So I would switch to Literature now. Either we go all out for the other GL, or we cut our losses right away. With map making in our hands now, I would make sure we have at least 3-4 galleys exploring around our island. I believe it is worth 1 pop-rush each since we can barely keep our people happy without going broke. Those galleys will be helpful in 30 turns when we are ready to land in Arabia and they have a chance of finding a crossing and meeting some of the other 3 civs out there.

On the other hand, Arabia was (is still?) at war with the Celts and Korea, so they must be quite gassed out by now.

Our land is poor, we will not be able to buy or research techs in a timely fashion soon. At the current rate, it looks likely our berserkers will face rifleman when we finally get them. To avoid that, we either need the other GL, or we need to grab what is left of Arabia. I don't think we can pursue both objectives and it is a gambit either way.

In any case, do build a harbor as soon as possible, this will improve the flow of malted liquor :)

About losing a few turns on Polytheism, I would seriously consider dropping Poly now if you think you can get the Great Library. If you're planning for success, then you will automatically get Polytheism when the GL finishes anyway.

In 750 BC, Iteean, later to be known as the Thrifty, ascends to power over the Vikings. The harshness of the land has made his people a hardy if gloomy lot. The people chase off the tax collectors and spend their money on huge amounts of malted beverages. Iteean too loves these beverages, but realizes this waste must stop if the Vikings are to become a great people.

He is very unpopular with the people. He continues building a palace in Bergen within sight of Trondheim. As it approaches completion, the despot suddenly orders work to slow down to a fourth of what it was. Some call him mad, and wonder why he orders the palace remodeled with hundreds of empty shelves. To fund this project, Iteean decides to squash all the discontent with a little more military, and squeezes every G he can out of this barren land.

[0] 750 BC - Research switches from Polytheism to Literature. Configure Bergen for 2 spt at -1 fpt, which gets a palace in 40 turns. I'll switch that to 3 spt as soon as I get another road built. I don't know if that is slow enough. Move a warrior from Reykjavik to Stockholm for MP duty, switch Bergen scientist to an entertainer and Copenhagen's taxman to a scientist, which is enough for me to lower the lux rate to 20% and get an extra 3 GPT. This still only allows 4 beakers for science at 20%, so I'm going to risk a 40 turn Lit. We got such a late start on it, some AI will probably research it before then, and we want cash available when they do.

[1] 730 BC - Iron mine finishes, so I start a road. Juggle around the troops a little more on MP duty, which allows me to lower lux to 10%. I change my mind about the worker building at Copenhagen and switch it to a warrior.

[2] 710 BC - Galley completes in Reykjavik, starts a harbor. Temple completes in Oslo, start barracks since it is close to where the action will be soon. Warrior completes in Birka, starts harbor. Korea offers its WM for WM plus 30 G but I decline.

[3] 690 BC - Oslo borrows tiles from Trondheim to speed its barracks while Trondheim takes more ocean for extra cash, without slowing down anything. Horseman completes in Trondheim, starts Swordsman, which we can build every 3 turns. Warrior completes in Copenhagen, starts Harbor.

[4] 670 BC - Western galley crosses the sea and spots a yellow border, the Mongols. The Mongols have contact with Spain but no other Civs. I take a slight gamble and hold off on selling contact, hoping to find the Spanish myself. Stockholm has grown to size 4 and I can't keep it happy, so I switch to a scientist there, and swap tiles between Copenhagen and Birka to get Copenhagen growing again.

[5] 650 BC - Bad news for us, the Celts declare against the Arabs.

[6] 630 BC - Sword completes in Trondheim, starts another. Barracks completes
in Oslo, starts spear.

[7] 610 BC - Bergen's palace is currently due the same time as Literature at one beaker rate. I swap a sea tile to an unimproved plain to make it due in 22 turns. The Ottomans offer Mathematics for Writing plus 18 G. I decide to trade their WM plus Mathematics for Writing, our TM, and 31 G to get the maximum value out of our Writing tech. Stockholm completes a horseman, starts a spear.

[8] 590 BC - Galley finds the Spanish town of Vitoria. Spain is also lacking contact with our three neighbors. I hold off selling contact again since we seem to have a perfect opportunity to slow down the tech race. I notice the Ottomans lack Map Making and will give all their gold for it, but I think they can give more.

[9] 570 BC - Disband a scout in Birka to hurry the harbor, plus I don't want to pay 1 GPT when we hit 28 troops. The Mongols offer Philosophy plus TM plus 26 G for Mathematics, but I wait. Sword completes in Trondheim, starts another.

[10] 550 BC - Whip a harbor in Birka. Disband a scout in Copenhagen.

Notes for the next player:

We only have two galleys and they are far from home, so we'll need to build more or bring them home. I'd like to find the last civ though.

The Ottomans still lack Map Making, so you may want to sell it to them. This may speed them to finding the Spanish and ruin our brokering abilities though.

The Mongols will still buy Mathematics. We can probably get either Philosophy or Code of Laws for it. The Arabs lack Code of Laws but have Philosophy, so we might try for a 2-fer. I had held off trading with the Mongols to see if I could get a lux deal, but I just realized we won't be able to do that until Astronomy. Of course we could just gamble 100% on the GL and not make any trades. That's slightly risky though.

I believe keeping the AIs ignorant of each other is working to our advantage at the moment. Spain is the only civ with Currency, the Celts are the only ones with Construction, but are not building the Great Wall at the moment. Once they meet each other, the tech speed will of course take off, so we may want to think carefully about selling contact. I hope it was a good idea to not broker contact, but we can still do so if the team wants.

We are also making 9 GPT at the moment with 74 in the bank. When the current trade deal expires, we may want to speed up research on Literature. I'm afraid of a cascade off the Great Wall when someone finally gets around to starting it. I'm also afraid of no one getting Lit before our prebuild is done. Just some thoughts anyway. :)

Good luck!

Iteean

rbe5-vikings-550bc. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5-vikings-550bc.zip)

Way to go, the Thrifty, that's the spirit!

If another war started on Arabia, it might be a good idea to jump in, maybe we don't have enough military for an effective offense but we should have enough to land on the incense and keep it. I would go faster on the palace, there will always be time later on to slow it down to a single spt.

Roster:

Architect <-- UP
Charis
JaxomCA
Arathorn
Falsfire
Iteean

Got it.

We're frankly way behind, due to our dry small start. We've done well with what we had, but have a lot to go. The early prebuild was I think a good call, and I'm confident we can get the Great Library if we are careful and make it a prioriy!!




Way to go, the Thrifty, that's the spirit!

If another war started on Arabia, it might be a good idea to jump in, maybe we don't have enough military for an effective offense but we should have enough to land on the incense and keep it. I would go faster on the palace, there will always be time later on to slow it down to a single spt.

> -Jaxom- I would go faster on the palace, there will always be
> time later on to slow it down to a single spt.

:nono: No, slow now is correct! Even if the AI researches it we may not have cash to buy it. I wish we had not gone single beaker, but that's too late to change now. The reason is that with 'real' research spent, not just a single beaker, we would get a discount later and probably afford it. 40 instead of 30 turns of reseach might just mean the difference between getting and missing the GL. I don't think we'll be hit with a cascade problem. Once we do get Literature, don't give it up for ANY reason (perhaps until another AI has it too). There will be only a small window between when an AI learns Lit and between when we will finish it (unless they're heavy into researching it now)

Even with the current slow down, it's NOT enough! We will need to either slow it down further OR take about 3-6 cycles of putting the specialist to work and LETTING Bergen go into disorder (then fixing next round, and repeating). The reason you can't wait til later is simply because our food comes from the same tiles as the good shields. Waiting to later to slow would require starving it down to such a small size that it would take to long to finish the wonder once we have Lit!

We can do it! Stay focused on it and don't panic! :cool:

The benefit, if that is needed:
Philosophy, Code of Laws, Republic (revolt into this!), Monarchy, Currency, Construction, Horseback Riding, Monotheism, Theology and almost surely Feudalism and a few more, maybe five more. All for free due our prebuild and diligence! THAT is worth going for!

> We are also making 9 GPT at the moment with 74 in the bank.
> When the current trade deal expires, we may want to speed up
> research on Literature.
It'll be too late, I think, but if economics say it's good at the time, yes go for it.

> I'm afraid of a cascade off the Great Wall when someone finally
> gets around to starting it.
My F7 shows no one is working on it? Again, if they don't research/get Literature they CAN'T build GL. If they DO research lit, we can buy it and finish before them.

> I'm also afraid of no one getting Lit before our prebuild is done.
*WE* Will! You're right not to trust them! Go max slow speed on palace AND use the civil disorder cycling a couple of times.

--
On another matter, also quite Urgent...

Arabia.

The Celts are at war with them, and are THE killer civ of the ancient era. Arabia has Mecca and two size one cities left.

They are *TOAST*

If we don't get down there *ASAP* with our two swords, two horses and two spears, it will be Celt land and we'll have no invasion until we're amphibious! I don't expect Brennus to take too long to get them! Having BOTH galleys go exploring... that was NOT the point of mapmaking!! Kudos finding Spain, that's for sure :P But we need to switch Oslo or Trondheim or both, to galley *NOW*, and get our people down there QUICKLY!

If we can take Damascus, we can take Mecca at our leisure, as the Celts will be cut off! Mecca itself will be our incense town. Only if it looked like Mecca was about to fall next turn would it be good to settle ON the incense immediately. Stockholm can wait ONE turn, switch to settler, then whip it - to get a settler on that
hill fast enough.

Doing this we could have two galleys filled with two swords and spears within four rounds, one landing at the choke past Damascus two rounds after that, one immediately dumping a spear or two on the incense hill. The settler and two horse and two more spears can be immediately behind them.

Celts UU is double speed, fighting a "gassed" civ. Time really is short on Arabia!!

Gogogogogo!!! :hammer:
Charis

PS in Edit - more specifically on Bergen - it's due to shrink this turn. Next turn if you move a cattle worker to the plain grass, and put one scientist on, the city will be a happy no-grow size 5 handling all our reserach needs. Palace will be due in 25-27, and literature in 29, meaning 1 to 3 'disorder' cyles (each loses 2 turns) to slow it down to perfection!

Right there with you Charis. I took one look at the game and said to myself we need to attack the Arabs now.

I'm not sure we need both those harbors in Rey and Birka. First priority should be attacking arabia and getting her luxuries online. Harbors gains very little in those cities as they are still growing. I'll probably leave the harbor in Birka just to hook up the luxuries.

Should be a fun turn... wish me luck.

I took the time to open the save game and I see you point Charis. No need to go in disorder though. Pillaging the game tile and one other non bonus grassland will let us configure Bergen to 1spt at size 5. This will gives us about 60 turns until the palace is completed. Ideally it would complete the turn after we get to literature on our own. We can also set research to 50% and get literature in 22 turns at -5gpt for 4 turns and then at -1 gpt. That will leave us quite poor but with a good shot at getting the GL.

I agree with Architect about harbors, we need only one for now and Birka could really use it.

Have fun Architect and get us closer to the fabled malted liquor :)

Ouch, you are painfully correct about the urgency of attacking Arabia, Charis. I was focusing too hard on the GL. My explorations were a hedge against an AI stealing the wonder from us. In a recent game, an AI stole it from me with a leader and it made me too cautious perhaps. :) Didn't want to risk the whole game on the GL. Sorry for dropping the ball on that one.

We'll almost surely get a foothold though, since the culture of Mecca will shrink if the Celts get it. I had no idea they had such a good UU! :cry:

Good luck, Architect!

Iteean

550BC (0) Switch the harbor in Rey to a galley costs us a total of six sheilds. I go down to one MP in Bergen, Stockholm, and Rey and bump luxs to 30% in the process. More troops means more gains. I switch stockholm to swordsman will rush in a turn or two. I rush a second galley in Oslo. I trade Mathematics to the mongols for their wm and 87g. I'm going to assume we get all our techs from the GL. Gotta love those gambits. I also want cash in case we have to run at a deficit while our boys are invading.

530BC (1) The Koreans begin the great wall. Two archers land on incense hill. I discover that Arabia actually has four cities. One is over by Agedincum. I adjust Bergen to complete the palace in 26 turns. We are at +0gpt. I go ahead and trade map making to the ottomans for their WM and 27g.

510BC (2) Rey goes into disorder. Whoops... Spearman and horseman land on incense hill. Two swordsman load into galley which moves around the "backside" of mecca. Our second galley unloads two warriors into Trondhiem and boards a Horseman and spearman.

Here is our invasion forces:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5invasion.jpg

I veto my own galley in Trondheim and switch to swordsman. Abu insists we leave, we declare war!

490BC (3) We land two swordsman and move our remain forces off to incense hill. Next turn we attack Mecca. The Clets have destroyed the far flung Arabian city and Medina has already fallen too. its going to be a race for Damascas. Korea declares war on the celts. Hmmm..... I watch the AI move a spearman from Mecca to go defend Damascus..

470BC (4) I'm going to try to take Mecca with archers and horseman first and then move the swordsman right next to Damascas.

We kill two regular spearman and lose an archer. There is still an archer defending and I'm gonna have to attack with a swordman to ensure victory. We take mecca and gain control of the incense.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5mecca.jpg

I start a harbor in Mecca.

I move our remaining swordsman to the hill outside Damascus and the celts are on the outskirts and will attack next turn...

The celts are about to discover the Mongols so i decide to sell contact with everyone. I sell Contact with the Mongols and spanish to the celts for 458 gold and their world map. The GL gambit continues... I sell Contact with the ottomans, Arabs, and Koreans to the Spanish for their WM and 161 gold. I sell the remaining contacts around and we have 858gold now. We could run a -10gold deficit now getting the GL in 20 turns as opposed to 26. I decide against it. Gonna be interesting.

450BC (5) Damascus launches an offensive against the celts and defeats the horseman. The celts counter attack and now two spearman and 1 horseman will attack next turn. I move 2 swordsman, 2 horseman, and 1 spearman into position for an attack next turn. Stockholm produces a settler next turn. Let's hope I can get it over in time before the celts claim anymore land. Mecca starves next turn, we have no choice. The celts defeat the arabs.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5arabsdie.jpg

430BC (6) We didn't get the Dyes and now we find ourselves in a very interesting position. Our proximity to Damascus and the AI desire to "complete" continents suggests that while the Celts are currently polite with us, this will not last long. I think we need to press on with our offensive and attack the celts. If we don't, we will be attacked soon enough and have to defend mecca from a prepared AI vs. one that is right now attacking the koreans too. I establish and embassy with Korea. I attack the celts.

410BC (7) We take Damascus losing 2 swordsman in the process. We have 2 spearman, 2 horseman, and 1 swordsman defending Damascus. We are about to be attacked by 2 archers and a spearman. Damascus holds. There are now 3 horseman, an archer, and a spearman outside Damascus.

390BC (8) I upgrade two warriors to swordsman as there is a celt vessel approaching our homeland. I goes poorly in damascus. We lose 2 spearman and 2 swordsman. There are now 2 horseman defending.

370BC (9) I attack and kill a spearman and an archer. There are now 2 archers outside Damascus. I move a final archer to Damascus to try and hold it for one more turn. Spain has discovered the Carths. We hold Damascus for now!!!

350BC (10) I move 2 horseman from Damascus to Mecca to heal and move 2 swordsman into position holding Damascus for now. We need to get as many swordsman as we can over to the Celtic continent. I am producing spearman so our swordsman can be used right away and stop defending. If we can get Medina somehow we will control most of the Dyes. This could be huge later on. We are 20 turns from Lit, 17 from Palace. We now have 2 elite horseman. Let's try to get a leader. We maybe have 2 turns before the celts launch a counter attack with at least three horseman. Here is the great Viking Nation.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5350.jpg

Roster:

Architect
Charis <-- UP
JaxomCA
Arathorn
Falsfire
Iteean

Here's the save:

350BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5-vikings-350bc.zip)

The crowd cheers our great general Architect! Bar owners are already making shelf space to store the soon to be acquire fabled malted liquor. A Viking warrior got sick by drinking a mixture of incense and wheat and dropped his mug in a fire. Nearby women were quick to notice how good the incense smell is at masking the men's odors. Viking women are already discussing next season fashion, arguing over what color will be in, thanks to the new found dyes. The Viking army is praising our general, as in true Viking spirit, not only did he betray the Arabs but the powerful Celts too! We are not afraid, the drunken Gallic swordman can come running, we will destroy them!

On a more serious note, :goodjob: Architect, but was it necessary to do 2 ROP rapes? I am not sure how much of an impact it will have long term, but our short term reputation is definitely toast. Not that I mind too much, it makes for a better story that way :)

Did you check with Korea if they would have paid something for an alliance? Not that it matters much, we are in a very good position to grab the GL. I doubt the isolated Carthage will research and build the GL before we do.

850 golds? Nice war chest, that should pay for a few rounds of malted liquor :)

Overall, kudos, Songs will be written about your feat!

Oh MY!!!! Very well done on the capture of Mecca, ouch on the timing on Damascus,
and :eek: on the Celtic war! I was thinking Mecca was the foothold we needed,
while we ride the GL coattailas to Invention and Berzerkers, when we SWEEP through
the now-Celtic land with Berzerkers on offense and Pikes on defense. Instead it's
swords and spears vs Gallic Swords. If I can survive this turn with Damascus intact,
it will be a victory - that's my first impression.

[ I leave this next paragraph in, as it was written before something that
happened on my turn, which makes it quite ironic. Pay this no attention! :P ]
One comment on our war vs Arabia. Landing on their territory FIRST and then making
them tell us to leave and take the declaration of war this way was a totally
unneccessary hit to our reputation, a 'dastardly' act if you will. A small
one, but one with zero benefit over declaring with no one in their territory
then landing on the hill and moving our galleys in place. It shouldn't really
affect us, but I wanted to point out the small hit.

[0] 350 BC - Preturn
- I notice something which might be absolutely critical...
Celts have NO IRON!!! Gallic swords, their mainland vs our colony, would just
chew us up and spit us out. But that's why they're using just archers and horses!!
- Korea has 1 iron, no extra, same for Ottomans, Mongols (lux captial of the world)
has one extra, so does Spain (but unconnected)
- Histogram shows Mongols and Celts on top, Koreans so-so, Spain and Ottomans in trouble.
F11 shows Carthage (who we don't know yet) with top city. Trondheim number 5.
- The Great Wall in progress is in a fishing village in Korea, and a low-shields
spot in Celts land. NO COMPETITION for the wonder! Great!
- We can cut back to 20% lux with just a specialist in Burka, but that slows sword
production, and we're more dire for troops than cash right now. Keep at 30%.
In fact, a small troop difference could lose our whole island. We fire all entertainers
and push it to 50% at least for the next few turns! With higher lux I can cycle Bergen
workers to give +1 food for 2 round matched by moving a cattle to sea for a turn,
this will get the needed slowdown to exactly match our literature research.
- Given the war situation, Copenhagen switches from harbor to barracks. It will want
the harbor after the war, also a temple
- We buy Korea's world map, and see where Carthage is (deep South). Sell WM around
Good news is, Carthage has no strong 'shield' cities to speak of at all!
- We lack some embassies, and I need more options - we buy one in Mongolia
Karakorum has 7spt, a rax and temple, working on a catapult. Verified 2 irons.
Madrid 10spt, only a granary, making non-vet swordsman right now.
Istanbul, home of the Oracle is making... wealth! 12spt.
- Will the Mongols, sole civ with extra iron, ally vs the Celts? Yes, but for 500 gold!
That sounds expensive, but... having the two top civs angry at each other is a
Very Good Thing(TM) :P Lowering our sliders to raise our apparent income, I swing
it as a gpt deal - 20gpt and 152g. That would make Celts in THREE wars.
It's expensive, but I think the right move to keep us from ever seeing the Celtic UU.
With this 'support', it's conceivable that we might press down to Baghdad, a lower
chokepoint, that pulls in even more dyes and area. It could conceivable help Spain,
currently fighting the Mongols. I do it! Mongols are now gracious! We're locked
in for 20 turns vs the Celts (unless Mongols hurt their rep and take peace early)
* We'll be running a deficit during this war because of this alliance, until
the Mongols make peace with the Celts or for the next 20 turns.

[1] 330 BC - Two horse move up to Damascus, the wounded archer retreats.
Where now does the settler go? With Mecca in hand we don't need it, or
want it, on incense hill. Keep it in reserve? Or found a fishing village
west of Mecca? The problem with the village... it's SO close to our capital
that it would kick several core cities deeper down the ranked list of closest-
to the capital. Although I don't like to, I'm going to save the settler for now.

At Damascus, the first horse retreats, and we defeat the second but get hurt.
Our sword from the hill goes to hunt down the wounded horse.

Midturn - not good, they kill our exposed sword and move up more horses to Damascus!

[2] 310 BC - Sword in west kills horse and promotes to elite.
At Damascus, with our foes having 2 attack and 1 defense, we press the attack.
The first one is a nail-biter, elite vs elite and we start with early damage, but
prevail. With no other defender there, can't afford to have the last sword attack
though.

Expedience suggests a harbor whip now in Mecca. The incense will make the people
back home, who long for malted beverage, somewhat happier. And we can get to
making spears or even swords at Mecca, with imported iron.

Along with this we switch Damascus to warrior, so we can pay-upgrade him.

[3] 290 BC - Midturn we lost our sword and a horse, just one left! 8-\

Our spear and sword arrive via ship from Trondheim.

It's our stack of: warrior, sword, spear, wounded horse, vs SIX horse, and
more likely on the way! This just doesn't look good...

Midturn - Carthage contacts US! (Glad I waited) He wants our world map so bad
he'll give us Philosophy for free for it! If he had any cash I would take that
instead, but as a GL fallback, I won't turn down free tech.

Even better, Ottomans and Koreas ally vs Celts!

We hold vs the first two attacks, then lose our sword... and spear...
They leave us with the elite horse and very wounded sword left.
The other wounded sword walks into town.

[4] 270 BC - Celts sent a few wounded back to heal, but still a stack of SIX full hp,
units including two elite horses, and each round it seems four new ones come
storming out of Medina. We got all the defenders we could scrape together
quickly (including leaving Trondheim open one turn), but now... our
production is not such that we could get ONE unit per turn into position,
and even that after a two turn or so boat ride. If we lose Damascus,
Mecca falls, and our toehold is gone. We have only 9 DefPts*hp to stop them.
A 2hp sword, 1hp sword, and 1-defense horse. Oh btw, no defenders in Mecca.
None. Just our settler. We're about to get shredded.

I need to do something here that isn't nice. Seek peace with an ongoing alliance.
(I can now officially rate the alliance as weed on my part, I didn't expect THIS
many units coming at me)

But it's an "RBE" game, and I need to check the rules... This is not listed
as an exploit, nor is it in spirit an 'exploit'. The alliance was meant as
real, and I paid good money for it. The crushing Celtic response has changed the
situation to where we must take peace now. It is dastardly, and probably more
so than the "sneak attack" we already pulled. Our reputation is not going to
be in great shape after this. I hope now even more that we get the GL and don't
have to trade for the next 9 techs or so!! The fact that the Mongols are already
known to be backstabbers (so says our foreign advisor) makes this less painful.

Will Brennus even talk with us - it's been short war so far?
Yes, good. How much does he want? FREE???!
WTH - He'll give **US** our choice of one tech - Currency, Code of Laws, Construction?
Wowza! Brennus really doesn't even look mad in the animation... odd...
In fact, Currency and Code of Laws is 'close to a deal' and for a nominal one-time
cash fee, he'll throw us both. Tech and near-free tech... works for me!

If I thought we could make progress past Damascus I would continue. At least now
we have the choice of a 20 turn military build up and redeclaring. We take the
peace and the tribute of two techs.

Celts will take gpt from us, so it's NOT a "blackened" rep.
The Mongols are ticked, and will not accept any gpt from us.
Every other civ will! It seems only the Mongols were hurt by our move (true)
and so only they distrust us. (Still... I feel... dirty :P I guess I like
'reputable' rules. I almost want to give back the rest of the gpt for the alliance
that the mongols were to receive. Ironically, it's very likely he would have made
peace and screwed us before 20 turns.)

I give Temujin a free gift of our world map to ease my guilt, expecting derision.
He actually goes from Furious to Annoyed? Hmm... We sell the map around, Spain pays 2gpt.

[5-7] 250 BC through 210 BC - Delightfully quiet turns.

I notice Burka is making a non-vet sword and swap him to temple.

[8] 190 BC - Send down another sword, spear and worker to the island.

[9] 170 BC - Ok, I've got Bergen adjust to perfection. Literature due in 11 turns,
Palace in 12, growth in 19. Lux at 10%, sci at 10%.
No specialists anywhere, everyone is working.

[10] 150 BC - Worker en route to island

There are a few temples and harbors going, feel free to swap all those to
swords or spears to better barricade the island!

Phew! We survived, with three free techs and a little soot on us.

JaxomCA <-- Up, 20 turns
Arathorn <-- On deck, 10 turns

Save game 150BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5-vikings-150bc.zip)

Good luck!
Charis

Epilogue - there was a reason the Celts wiped the Arabs off the map, they have a large and effective army. We made out well, but I think we got lucky that the Celts sought peace so easily, likely due to being in about 4 wars. If they refused to see our envoy, we would be kicked off our colony right now, no question about it.

Those last 20 turns were one of the most exciting reads I had in the last weeks.
I guess it's your way of telling it with me imagining the whole situation and the fact that you were right on the edge there.

I imagine you feel sorry for the dastardly acts. But on deity sticking to the honorable rules is a gamble which sometimes is too much. I think it's good enough that you only use it when at maximum risk.

In my games I'm sticking to a modded honorable set of rules which gives me some more space while keeping the spirit of the game. I too had to break an ongoing alliance and felt ban but since i didn't plan it and don't intend to do it again I feel that the rep hit i took balances the action.

However, Architect's limited ROP betrayal was unnecessary.
Good luck

Taking the fight to the Celts? :lol: That's initiative! Quite an exciting few turns there.

As for breaking the military alliance, is it typical for only the civ you betrayed to refuse you gpt and such? I was under the impression everyone started treating you differently. New PTW behavior perhaps?

Iteean

None of my moves affect reputation in anyway that I am aware of. The only move that's affected our rep is the breaking of the alliance with the Mongols which I consider weed evening signing them up. The Celts were already as distracted as they were ever going to be attacking the koreans on a different island.

Since when is attacking a civ with no ROP in their territory a ROP rape guys? We did not have a Right of Passage. Does ROP stand for something else?

That's called a sneak attack its not exploitive and its not going to affect our reputation significantly. Maybe there is some weird Epic rule about this being unfair to the poor AI, but I know its not exploitive.

If RBE2 taught me anything is we will never hold onto our footholds without being more offensive. We should spend the next 20 turns building up military only and taking it to the celts. We should then march right up to Medina and attack them.

What was everyone thinking we were going to do with Beserks? I thought we were going to sail right up to their coastal cities and attack.

Architect, your move was not exploitative at all, but the AI does consider it a ROP rape if you declare war with any military unit inside their territory, even without any ROP in effect. Under RBE rules, it is simply dastard.

Now with Charis breaking an alliance, I guess the path is decided, we are the dastard Vikings, terror of the sea! None shall trust us and eventually, all shall fear us!

Shall we make it rule? Any wars will require one dastard act on our part. That would allow to check if there is any changes to how rep is handled.

Oh and consider this my got it.

Oh, and BTW, JaxomCA you should only play 10 turns.

Oppps, missed the mid-turn JaxomCA post about Epic rules...

So you are telling me if I sign an ROP, move my troops into position and attack in the same turn 10 cities the AI considers it the very same to walking up to one city, outside of an ROP and attacking?

Where's the proof for this? I think this is Civ III lore.

This game is not an Epic. We all agreed not to use exploitive tactics as defined by the Epic rules. Everything else is fair game. I'm able to control myself enough not to do anything outside of the rules and break the spirit of the game. The arab attack was just what I would expect viking attacks to be like. We just landed and took what is rightfully ours. The celt attack was completly opportunistic, another viking characteristic. Let's try to play the rest of the game without a bunch of rules lawyering going on.

Don't do anything that breaks the spirit of the game or is exploitive with-in the rules of the Epics. We also shouldn't foolishly break gpt deals and peace treaties either as that will just make it harder for us to deal with the AI. Play smart, have fun, quit worrying about if something is dastardly or not.

Umm...interesting turns to say the least. I like the fact that we have a toehold on the main continent and a second luxury. I don't like the implicit RoP rape (twice) as there was little to be gained from it [and, yes, it does cost rep. Or at least it did in Civ3, I've not verified in PTW.]. Peace now is, I think, a very good option.

I will be away starting tomorrow morning for slightly more than a week. I will not have any consistent access to the web or to Civ3, so consider me skipped. I will check the boards this evening, and if it's my turn, I'll take it and play. If I've not posted by about midnight (CST) tonight, I'm AWL (Absent With Leave) and will hopefully jump back into the rotation in a little over a week.

Did we get the FP message yet? Damascus as FP?

Arathorn

Sorry to sound rulemongerish here, but since I haven't played with you (Architect) before I just don't know what's in your normal 'set' of manuevers, and what you try to avoid. I don't want to see any 'rules' added to this game beyond 'no exploits'.

The declaration within AI territory is a "Sneak Attack", nothing more. Not an exploit, and in this game is fair game. It WILL have a reputation impact, but is just not in the same category as RoP rape. The fact that the Celts will take gpt from us suggests that Brennus thinks "I would sneak attack you too if we have the chance". My concern in bringing it up was twofold - i) unsure if you know that saying 'No' to 'Get out' is in fact a sneak attack, and ii) I didn't at all see the advantage gained by doing it, ie was it a 'needless' sullying? If it was important to get to his cities and attack one round earlier, than it was 'useful'.

It would be nice to know with some certainty the effects of the various non-reputable actions, and WHAT civs they effect. (Like Mongol alliance break, seeming to just affect them)

> Let's try to play the rest of the game without a bunch of rules
> lawyering going on.

Roger that.

I agree that signing the alliance was :smoke:
Taking peace when I did was not. The whole island was lost if I didn't. Of course, mil buildup and reconvene in 20 is still an option.

> Now with Charis breaking an alliance, I guess the path is
> decided, we are the dastard Vikings, terror of the sea! None
> shall trust us and eventually, all shall fear us!

The AI still trust us to a degree more than I would have expected, and I don't plan on doing these kinds of actions without need. Opportunistically? Maybe ;)

I'm not sure you caught the KEY point of the alliance in the first place, denial of Celts of Iron from Mongols. If Celts trade for Iron, we're also toast on that Island, pre-Invention. (Having played Gallic swords with devastating effect, from the other side of the fence)

> What was everyone thinking we were going to do with
> Beserks? I thought we were going to sail right up to their
> coastal cities and attack.

That was my impression, although if we have a foothold and an objective like Medina/Baghdad, they can walk too :P

Charis

PS If the Celts make peace with everyone, they WILL seek a military target. If we look vulnerable, ie not a huge garrison in Damascus and good defense in Mecca, the target will be us. It'll be better for us to choose the timing then them if that happens. And again I hope they have no iron at that time.

Charis, I think you're overestimating the value of the gallic swordsman since you ran it to such great effect. A gallic costs 50 shields, which is equivalent to one horse and one archer or one sword and one archer. That's quite a bit of money. The 6 horsemen stack you saw would've been 3 (or 4) gallics, which certainly doesn't have any MORE offensive potential than the horseman stack.

As for the alliance being :smoke:, I don't think so. Having the Mongols and Celts hate each other can only work to our advantage. Yeah, breaking the deal is probably gonna be an ouchie at a few points along the line, but everything was right (or at least very defensible) at the time it was done.

My $.02,
Arathorn

I have opened the save game and tested the waters about deals. Strangely enough, only the Celts and the Spanish will accept gpt from us, everybody else 'will never accept such a deal'. Playing around with ROP deals, they would all accept at the new outrageous PTW cost for ROP. It seems the only rep hit we have is about the broken alliance.

Isabella would give the Republic if we declare war on the mongols. It is tempting but the timing is a bit off. It may not be a good idea to revolt before we have a reasonable defense on Celtic lands.

I won't play my turn for a few hours, I'll check back before I do to see any inputs about Republic.

I do agree that ALL actions taken seemed right to the player at the time, and the result of each action has been quite good so far!

Jaxom I think you're incorrect about gpt on the save file. I looked after the break, and if I offer 2gpt for anyone's world map (except Mongols) they WILL take it, Celts included. Whether they value 1gpt as nearly 20gold or closer to 10 gold is another question!

I'll stick with my Gallic assessment Arathorn, although admit it's kind of early in PtW to be able to make good evaluations with any certainty. But with Deity production discounts, the *2* defense of the Gallics, their ability to retreat, to move up to Damascus and hit the same round, and 3 attack strength, I think four GS would walk all over us with four defenders, while six horse have closer to an even chance, or less. I'm not seeing the "it's cost is so high" having as big an impact in the RBP1 game as expected, and we get no Deity discount :P

Jaxom - wow, declaring war on Mongols, now we're REALLY getting into the ruthless Viking spirit, aren't we?! We'll get it free in ~20 turns from GL (if things go as planned) so don't stretch hard for it. But sheesh, they'll give us that tech JUST for an alliance?? I assume you have no intention of actually providing any REAL aid to them, right? Splitting our efforts would cost us the Mecca colony I would surely think. Now I happen to view even wars-in-name-only as beneficial for those who hire us, but I've read that if you have zero combats or pillage actions vs the allied-foe, your image or rep with the allying civ will take a hit (likely a small one, not sure?) Is it something that I think the Vikings would do in this game? In a heartbeat! Lets drag the whole world down into war, and slow the tech pace so our zerker advantage will last longer :P

Charis

Charis, try something bigger, like polytheism. Spain will accept a deal for 15 or so gpt, all others want only cash upfront. The Mongols won't offer anything for help against Spain, I wonder why?

Of course I have no intention of taking units to Mongolia, not that we are afraid, no sir, it just seems our army is more motivated when stirred toward Entremont. Now if it would turn out that the Mongols are growing plants with strange effects, this may change :)

In Civ 3 vanilla moving into and attacking without prior declaration is considered a broken ROP. It happened to me in Epic 11 when I moved into Zulu territory and attacked the next turn. Without declaring first. There was no ROP in place but on future negoiations with Japan I think they wouldn't even consider a ROP because I broke one with the Zulus. I was sure I never signed the ROP with the Zulus but the AI "believed" I did. A rep hit that really only effected how future ROP were handled.

This also came up when I did the same thing in LK34 vs. Japan. Lee got on it pretty quickly and I plead my case there as well. Dastardly yes, exploitive no, possibly a rep hit. In LK34 it didn't matter, we were so far ahead it was really a none issue, at deity I am not so sure.

Hotrod

just my 2 cents

Architect, I missed the edit to your post earlier. It appears I have annoyed you somehow, believe me it was not my intention. I was mostly pointing out the consequence to some of your moves. I realize now I have used too strong a term to describe them but there is no question about the consequence part. Just for the fun of it, I asked Brennus for a ROP after he asked me to remove our troops from his territory, here is his reply:

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

So this is not simply some CIV III lore. But I agree with you, this is in Viking spirit all the way.

Now, if my attempts at making a 'story' out of this game is annoying to any of the players on the roster, just say so and I'll shut up. Otherwise, just remember to read my posts in the 'spirit' of the Vikings and everything will be fine.

That's an interesting screen shot of Brennus, and he even uses the term "sneak attack" literally. Not wanting an RoP with you means that he doens't trust you to not sneak attack. It still isn't clear whether the anger generated is on par with if you had an RoP in place and sneak attacked.

> Charis, try something bigger, like polytheism. Spain will accept
> a deal for 15 or so gpt, all others want only cash upfront. The
> Mongols won't offer anything for help against Spain, I wonder
> why?

The Mongols just don't want to ally with us, simple.

For Polythesm, interesting indeed! Carthage won't take a gpt for that, but will take gpt for a map? Spain, and more interestingly, the CELTS will take gpt from us for tech. Could it be that... if you break a deal with someone's enemy, they LIKE it? Sorta like a nuke, those at war with who you nuke actually like you better rather than nuke you. In this game, Spain and Celts are at war with Mongols! Alternately, if when peace comes, Spain and Celts STOP taking gpt from us, it would mean that Temujin simply has not 'told' them of our 'betrayal' yet, and that when peace is made he will - should be interesting to see if that happens or not.
Ottomans don't have a tech to sell, so I'm unsure of their response.

Or perhaps there is a separate anger level for "we won't take your gpt for ANYTHING" vs "we won't take it for cash or tech upfront deals, but will do so for ongoing things like lux or resource purchase"

Charis

JaxomCA:

I know the sneak-attack affects our rep, but I was questioning if it was as bad as a real ROP violation. If it is then that's news to me. I not a big fan of ROP so I've probably just never come across the situation. Now it if affects our ability to trade for tech in GPT long term then I think that's silly. BTW, I wasn't frustrated or angry and you I was just reacting to everyone acting like I'd cheated or something throwing around the term ROP betrayal etc. I think the whole ROP thing is way overblown and the real deal is if you sign a ROP, move troops into a civ and attack, that's ROP rape. Anything else is just military tactics. If the epics have nit-picked what is and isn't ROP rape to death, no wonder Sirian's about to explode...

Charis:

Unfortunately we still have no good insite into reputation as evidenced by your speculation. Its too bad we had to break that deal with the mongols because now we'll not be able to determine the real impact a sneak-attack has in PTW.

Preturn: I take Isabella up on her offer and declare war on the Mongols for the Republic, because we are the Viking! (And it is hard to pass up on the most expansive tech of the Ancient Times.) With the Republic, she agrees to gives us her 21 golds and 2gpt.

Wang Kon expresses interest in our resources. He offers 17gpt for our horses and incense. He will not gives us his 93 golds at any price though. I change all town to train horseman (loosing 7 shields in Birka, I didn't feel the temple was needed there), except for Mecca and Damascus who trains spearman. Then I sell our horses and incense to Korea. The population immediately calls for my death but importing Korea's gem for 8gpt restore some form of order. Wang Kon wanted to hear nothing about our hard cash.

[list=1]
130 BC Ottoman and Celts are buddy again. Everybody is annoyed with us but Wang Kon who is cautious.

Interturn, Brennus tell the degenerate Viking to leave his territory, I ask him for a ROP and some liquor, see his reply in my previous post :)

110 BC ...

90 BC Oh oh, the Celts and Mongols made peace too. I ask Brennus to remove is smelly troops from our territory, he had this to say:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/brennus_insult.jpg

Wang Kon and Isabella know about Literature. MM Bergen to finish palace in 2 turns. On the next turn I will have to buy Literature. Oslo and Trondheim produce horseman and train swordsman.

70 BC Literature is bought from Isabella for 150 golds. Research is completely shut off. Carthage and Korea start on the Great Wall, Mongols start on the Hanging Gardens. Korea start on the Great Library in a low shield town. I could investigate the city but at this point there is nothing we can do about it. Our GL will complete in 14 turns or become the most expensive Forbidden palace ever built :)

50 BC Viking sailors stick their tongue out while sailing near a Mongol city, does that count as help to Isabella? Some good news and some bad news. The good news is, the Great wall completes and Korea cascade his GL in a one tile island. The bad news is, the Celts built the Great Wall.

30 BC Reykjavik trains a horseman, start on a marketplace for now.

10 BC The Mongols start the Great Library in a jungle town. There are many ruins in Spain, Isabella looks like she could use a drink.

10 AD Isabella and Gengis made up, the stain is on her. :) Gengis would talk peace if we throw in 100 golds, I refused, I don't feel threaten by the Mongols yet.

30 AD More swords hit the field. Viking sailors are still teasing Mongolian troops.

50 AD Korea starts on the Hanging Gardens.
[/list=1]

The Great Library will complete in 8 turns if all goes well. There are 7 swords, 4 horses and 4 spears in Damascus. 2 more spears will be ready soon on the big island, a couple of horses and swords were left behind for homeland defense. There is 4 turns left on our peace treaty with Brennus and we are free to make peace with the Mongols whenever is convenient.

Charis, I went back and checked the gpt status after the Mongolian wars stopped. Neither Isabella nor Brennus will take our gpt now. Also not that some of them won't give us cash or take our cash. We better get that GL :)

Oh and somebody should make Brennus eat his insults.

P.S.: You can drop the CA Architect, only the computer need to know that :)

Here is the save at the end of 50 AD. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5_vikings_50ad.zip)

Edit: I almost forgot, we have the Republic but didn't revolt yet. I wanted to get a decent military out first. I think we should wait until after the upcoming war with the Celts before revolting.

Roster:

Architect
Charis
Jaxom
Arathorn <-- Plays and posts tonight or is skipped by request.
Falsfire <-- On Deck
Iteean

I got it and there's a pretty good chance I'll be able to play tonight. My 10-turn goals:

- Become a Republic (even with war weariness, it's a much better cash miser than despotism. Plus, the fewer cities we have, the fewer turns of anarchy we'll see, on average).
- Take war to Brennus? We'll see.
- Finish the Great Library.

Arathorn

I'm not certain we want to switch to republic at all. If we are really going to take it to the world at the time of invention and we get the great library, I think Monarchy is a better choice.

I say we stay that way until our beserks are rendered ineffective. Not having to deal with war weariness and being able to slaughter our own troops without happiness consequences will be nice for an extended military campaign. Plus we will have luxury issues (with only 2 likely) and currently have no marketplaces and few temples. If we can keep most of the world at war we may just be able to slow everything down extending the life of our Beserks.

One other point I thought of on the way home today from work: Could the Mongols even trade Iron to the Celts? According to the save the Carths have the Great Lighthouse and the only path I see between the Mongols and the Celts requires the use of a sea square. No iron is going to the celts unless the Carths give it to them and even then do they have a path w/o ocean (haven't looked a Jaxom's save)? Something to consider for future wars for sure. I hope the celts are iron screwed until at least Astronomy. :D

(0) 50 - Arathorn wishes to revolt but is stopped by the actions of his advisors. They point out that a revolt might be disasterous for the completion of the Great L.... whatever of Bergen. Arathorn grudgingly agrees to postpone the revolt.

Put Reykjavik back on food -- can't grow but can build up some food for the eventual aqueduct. A current 1 gpt investment for the future. Damascus to temple to get dyes into range in our lifetime.

(1) 70 - Koreans start Hanging Gardens. Eh, what's this? Things built and I'm not asked what I want next. Preference change time, I guess.
(I) Cope horse->courthouse. Trond sword->sword.

(2) 90 - We're paying gold upkeep under despotism. That's not quite optimal. I tell the Celts to withdraw. He agrees, insolently.
(I) Mecca spear->sword. Birka revolts. I fix it. Whoops!

(3) 110 - Celts -- still can't order Brennen to leave. Why not? Anyway, he agrees again but will probably do nothing. Still 1 turn on peace treaty, so I delay again.
(I) Stockholm spear -> market. Eventually, we're gonna need cash.

(4) 130 - Declare war on Celts. Capture 3 workers. Troops into position. Fingers crossed. We'll see what their counter-attack is.
(I) Trond sword->horse. Mongols are approaching our western coast. Oslo sword->harbor. Carthiginians begin Library race -- a bit late. The Celts are very helpful, however, moving workers into Medina and a spear/archer pair OUT of Medina.

(5) 150 - Pay Mongols 120 gold for peace. That's better than a landing on our main island, possibly disrupting the Bergen build. It also lets us concentrate full on the Celts.

2 horsemen win their battles uphill and capture Medina. Good PRNG luck so far. Temple (for lack of anything better) begun. Archer, spear, and 2 random horsemen cleaned up. Gonna lose a horse to a spear/archer stack interturn, probably. We do lose a galley battle, though.

(I) Lose a horse and a spear to the counterattack, killing nothing but causing some horsies to retreat. Mongols & Koreans start Sun-Tzu.

(6) 170 - Counter-attack time. Kill two archers and retreat a horsie near Medina. Attack their main stack en masse and kill two spears, a retreated horse, an archer, and that's it for healed units. More on the way and more resting. Pretty good luck/skill so far.
(I) Lose spear covering wounded horse and the horse. Yuck. No good targets next turn, either.

(7) 190 - No attacks. Consolidating stacks and healing.
(I) Attacks luck holds as a horse charges uphill to defeat a fortified sword and a horsie defeats our spear with no damage.
Trond horse->spear. Bergen GL->barracks.

(8) 210 - Kill a horsie, and our luck changes. Full hp elite sword dies to defending archer. Full hp vet horsie dies to defending 2 hp horsie. Vet sword manages to finish off defending archer. Full hp elite horsie dies to 1 hp defending horsie, who promotes. AAAARGGGGGGHHHHHH! Finally, a 3 hp vet sword of ours kills the horsie, but Medina is defenseless. NOT a good turn. Best healing positions for other units.
(I)Lose horse and sword to kill archer and horse. GL time! Polytheism, Monarchy (revolt? Can't in the middle of this war!), Monotheism, Feudalism. And it's done for now.

(9) 230 - Kill 2 horsies and start a few upgrades. More swords left exposed. But it's almost always better to hit offensive units with your offensive troops. MDI and more horsies on the way before TOO long.
Damascus switched to MI, losing a couple shields.
(I) Spain and Korea ally vs. Celts. :) Not sure what Spain can do, but it can't hurt. Sword kills archer and horse on defense before dying.
Damascus MDI->pike.

(10) 250 - Move MDI to cover exposed Mecca. Upgrade to pike and MDI. Still very touch-and-go in the Medina area. The Celts have a couple catapults defended by spears that they use to good effect if you're out of the city. Be wary of that. Our forces should hold for another turn easily and before too long we can hopefully go on the offense again.

We're getting close to getting two cities (Richburough and Gergovia) in tribute for peace. It might be advantageous to take that deal, once we can get it (capturing both 'pults might well be enough) and then hit 'em again in 20 turns. But, that's up to the next leader.

Arathorn

Save file at http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5-250ad.zip

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone and I'll be back next Tuesday (12/2).

Roster:

Architect
Charis
Jaxom
Arathorn
Falsfire <-- Up
Iteean <-- On Deck

Great job everyone. Pulling off any ancient wonder in Deity is a tough task.

The new pride of Bergen, the Great Library, brings yet another reason to party. At the Library's opening it became obvious that the Viking people can't read. The curator quickly ordered picture books to fill the shelves. A particularly funny one depicts, based on Arathorn's own account, the Celt soldiers abandoning cities and fleeing from the almighty Viking army. There is still no reports of the fabled Gaelic Swordsman, some say they are fleeing even faster than the regular troops.

The Thrifty was seen with an Architect, passionately discussing plans to a new palace to be built in Entremont. Ragnar got wind of this and forbid the project but the Vikings being who they are, who will listen to him? There are strong rumors we will soon have another form of government and Ragnar may not even be a part of it.

The story of the Viking sailors reached the shore of Scandinavia. It was quickly determine that sticking your tongue out is not a very effective way to hurt the enemy. A freshly trained warrior, direct descendant of Gronar himself, jumped on a galley to demonstrate a more effective method. Unfortunately for him, his ball and chain pierced a hole in the hull and sent the galley to the bottom of the lagoon. After the hearty laughter subsided, the general consensus was that there had to be a better way. A group of yet untrained warriors argued that a bow would be much more effective. Unfortunately, the few bows we possess don't have enough range to be used from a galley and due to the massive deforestation, we lack the wood to produce better bows. So the untrained warriors were sent into the Arabian jungles to find the needed wood. Whether it is their courage or the promise of the Arabian Nights delight that made them go is unclear, but the future looks bright for the growing Viking nation!

From the 1.14 readme

Added Hwach'a and Berzerk to upgrade path.

So this probably means that archers now upgrade to berserks. What does everyone want to do?

I really can't see finishing this game off without upgrading. Especially if they have fixed the MP issues.

Thoughts?

If it doesn't affect the save game, I vote for the upgrade.

Whew, at least that gamble paid off. Way to go!

Upgrading PTW is fine by me. I've not learned enough about the current version to understand how much it'd change the game. IOW, I don't know what I'd be missing.

Iteean

No reason not to upgrade. Sort of ironic that we're just about at invention, in a Viking game :lol:

Charis

PS Yes, woohoo on the GL! :goodjob:
Jaxom, I loved your writeup on that, btw!

The patch comes just at the right time. If we had begun with that patch, we would probably have built archer instead of swordsman and might not have made the gains we did. Once the Celt front is pacified, I think it will be time to crank out archers and galleys so we can go on a rampage when we get invention. I wonder if getting all the sea-side towns will be enough for domination :)

I will be out of pocket until until Sunday due to Thanksgiving holidays.

Roster:

Charis <-- Only if its before Sunday/has time
Jaxom <-- Only if its before Sunday/has time.
Architect <-- Out until Sunday
Arathorn <-- Out until Monday
Falsfire <-- 24 hours is up - SKIPPED
Iteean <-- Up

If Iteean plays and then Falsfire wants to jump in afterwards that will be fine.

Please patch to 1.14.

sorry guys, my internet connection was down yesterday. I will pick up the game after Iteaen.

I'll play it this afternoon when I get home.

Iteean

Iteean ascends to power once again. My top priority is to get peace soon with the Celts so we can get out of despotism.

[0] 250 AD - Catapult stack disconnects one of our dyes, but we repel all attackers with no losses. Bergen completes Barracks, starts MI.

[1] 260 AD - Troops heal from previous battles. Celts bring a third catapult up to bombard us, but no damage done. I really want those things, they'd be useful to us.

Trondheim completes MI, starts MI. Oslo completes MI, starts Pike.

[2] 270 AD - Road is completed connecting Damascus, speeding up reinforcements to that city. Defeat the stack of two catapults and two spears, losing one horse. The captured catapults score two hits against their former owners. An MI finishes off their last spear and captures the third cat. Ship an MI and worker over to Mecca.

Whip the temple at Birka for 20 shields.

A bunch of horses gather to attack us. Birka starts Courthouse.

[3] 280 AD - MI chases off one horse near Medina. Celts will give Richburough and Gergovia for peace, but Gergovia is so far away it would be impossible to defend. I decide I really want Baghdad, since it has dyes and is a nice choke.

More fighting around the Medina area. A defending spear promotes to elite.

[4] 290 AD - Sword kills archer and promotes to elite. Two MIs attack horses and one promotes to elite.

We lose an elite MI to a horse.

[5] 300 AD - Kill a spear. Celts will now give Baghdad, Agedincu, and Gergovia for peace. I accept, getting his maps for good measure.

Trondheim completes MI, starts Horse. Bergen completes MI, starts MI. Reykjavik completes market, starts pike.

[6] 310 AD - Upgrade elite spears to pikes, and move troops toward Baghdad to block the chokepoint. Time to revolt: monarchy or republic? I'd like to do republic but am afraid we don't have the commerce to keep the populace happy. We revolt and draw 6
turns of anarchy, ouch.

[7] 320 AD - Trade Dyes plus 2 GPT to Wang for Gems. This helps stop the starving we would encounter during anarchy.

Carthage starts the Hanging Gardens.

[8] 330 AD - Deliver MI and a worker to Mecca. I explain to the Celts that a peace treaty is not the same thing as ROP, and tell them to get lost.

Korea and Celts sign a peace treaty. Mecca grows to size 5 and revolts, oops.

Carthage starts Sun Tzu.

[9] 340 AD - I trade iron to the Celts... Just kidding! :D

Celts and Spain sign a peace treaty. Spain starts the Hanging Gardens.

[10] 350 AD - All workers are temporarily moved to the new lands to speed improvements. There's a lot of jungle chopping to be done and we've improved every tile on our original land.

Notes to the next ruler:

We have a couple turns left of anarchy and 15 turns of peace with the Celts. We are also at a stage where we need to decide what the game plan is. Are we going for conquest / domination?

Oh, I didn't build any archer cause I'm still not sure if they upgrade for us. Good luck!

Iteean

rbe5-vikings-350ad (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe5-vikings-350ad.zip)

Oh well, peace was a good thing for us, THREE CITIES!!! Wow, we must've hurt him good in his opinion to give us three cities.

"Got it", will play and post tomorrow.

I will probably play the game at what I seem to be good at, consolidating our gains and ensuring adequate defense to either deter or crush a future attack against us.

I have patched PTW and started a new game as the Vikings, in that game it says the a