I noticed in my round that hitting "next turn" after turn 0 was a lot less scary when I'd moved a bunch of units around and gotten a feel for why stuff was in various places. I could pass it off like that in the future (only for a late-game always war situation like this, of course), or we could go back to normal.

I could count 4 citites that were in "teetering" mode when I handed it off, so I'm hoping you can make your "city quota" and make up for mine. :) There's that southern Greek city as well that's really on the edge.

I hope you have fun!

-Griselda

No not a problem. I just surprised to see that there were units that hadn't moved. It is fine either way but it was my longest "preturn" I have played :D.

With some many options and so many targets I had to spend a lot of time to survey the situation and make the best all the great things you left. My only concern was that I missed moving key units or wasted bombers that were sleeping on carrier or artillery in cities. It was a great way to get back into it !

Hotrod

One other question: Do we really need any more settlers??? There are a bunch idle and we are still making more. Should those cities be set to units or even wealth. The additional units are cutting our gold because of the upkeep.

Hotrod

I don't see how we could have too many settlers. Plunk them down anywhere on the battlefield they can gain us time. They will then actually start earning bits of money for us (1gpt, plus 2gpt in upkeep, plus 1gpt more in reduced unit costs). Of course, you do have to defend them, but you get the idea.

I can say that we should not be reducing cities in size, removing populace from working tiles, but if we are peeling settlers off the top of overpopulated cities, or out in the boonies, I really really have a hard time imagining that "we have too many". :)


- Sirian

Okay I will start using them: there are a few waiting in the wings ;)

Session 1: 1970 Preturns::: Bombing all around. capture Cattaraugus easily. Take radar tower

near Kyoto and produces a leader. Bomb and attack Heraklia killing 2 wounded infantry but losing

2 units trying to take the last. It will fall next turn. Reviewing our spy data on Iroquios

decide to land on there coast.

1971 (1): Greek tanks take out 2 marines foritfied on mtns but we manage to kill 2 tanks as

well. Japan counter kills 1 marine but we kill 1 guerilla.

Pi-Ram builds barracks starts walls. Bomb, capture and raze Japan city of Oka move a settler for

a new town next turn. Bomb and Raze the Greek City of Thessalonica. Move settler into position

for a new city. Capture and keep size 2 city of Herakleia. Kyoto will fall next turn. Bombing

coastal Japanese cities mount a small force to land NE of old English island.

1972 (2): Key points bomb and Raze kyoto. Fail to capture iroquios city of Caugnhawaga away from 3 redlined rifles :( next turn it will fall. Begin buildup to move on Iroquios capital city and continue to position troups to strike 2 Japan cities next turn with bombs and hope to redline units to capture Nagoya and Akwesasne

1973 (3): Destroy radar tower then destroy ephuse in the north, found New Ravena in its place. Marathon is destroyed. That lone redlined rifle continues to hold off 2 more infantry and will not fall :(. Found New Hispalis in place of Kyoto.

1974 (4): Learn Miniterization Rush Internet in Tokyo. Bomb Akwesanse and raze it. Bomb Nagoya take it next turn. found 2 new cities to fill in the gaps. Finally capture that lone Iroquois city to the North. Priority is to get rails to Greek lands the bombers are less effective and we need to get more artillery North.

1975 (5): Continue sending artillery north. Bombing at Corinth and Argos to the North. Bomb and raze Japan city of Nagoya. Mostly suffling artillery North continued bombing of the Japanese cities of Satsuma and Yokahama.

The iroquios are down to 15 riflemen and 7 guerillas. The Japanese have 39 infantry, 9 guerillas and 10 artillery. Still no spy in Greece, I haven't seen a tank in a few turns.

Research on Rocketry with a large surplus - wasn't sure what was the best course in that department.

Greece is down to 8 cities, 9 soon to be less for Japan and Iroquios have 5. And no one has computers Yet.

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-1975AD.zip

:( sorry if the report is too disjointed I found myself jumping back and forth from the multiple fronts an found it hard at times to keep track of extactly whats happening. Is there any way to make sure you use all the bombers or artillery? With so much going on I kept thinking that I missed using some and found myself looking at the same cities over and over to make sure all the bombs got dropped.

About bombers, there's no way to tell if they've used their turn or not. This is one of the few features in PTW that is WORSE than the original. The only solution I found was never to idle any of them. They will all eventually pop up in the AI's selection of what to use next. Problem with that may be that you forget about them or don't get to use them in the order you'd have liked.

Artillery are another story. You can see which ones of those have used their movement or not. Can be painful if the SoD is so large you'd have to scroll down and down, over and over again, to find some of the ones off the bottom of the list, but it may also be prudent to break the stacks up into more manageable stacks.

That's about the best I can offer. Civ3 does still have a few things that could be improved.


- Sirian

Thats what I thought :(. This morning I thought about one of the advanced buttons in PTW that I have never used. I think it is a scroll to like units button. I will try that next time.

Looks like you just about singlehandedly met all of our "quotas" for this round!

:hammer: :goodjob: [dance] [party] :soldier: :band: :beer: :jump: :thumbsup:

Thanks

You left plenty to work with :goodjob: !! It is much easier when Greece and Japan cant replace the tanks/infantry I killed.

Just for completeness

Sirian (on deck)
Griselda
Hotrod
Charis <----- playing now

Who knows if things continue maybe we will finish before the year 2000.

Just wondering..

How long does it take to complete 5 turns in a game like this?
On my comp (P3-500) it will probably take ages..

Lord Banzai

@Banzai: The length of 1 turn can be upto or more than 1 hour.

The length of the turn is more a function of the shear number of units that are required to move. Few stacks of 10-15 artillery, more bombers than I can count, countless paratroopers to be dropped, ships to be moved. etc, etc.

You get the idea. BTW I am playing on a AMD K6 and can run a standard or large map but I have to turn off the animations and sound to run smoothly.

@hotrod: Thanks for the quick reply!
No wonder some people get a civ burn-out when turns take more than one hour.

Good luck with the game! Although I haven't seen the map I think you can finish it before 2000 AD. The enemy is getting weaker every turn!

Hotrod,

I'm glad you added the 'for completeness' - I missed the
fact I was up. :P

Great turn it looks like! :hammer:

@Banzai - ONE hour for 5 of these turns? :rotfl:
I must be one of the slowest players on the forum. At THIS stage in the game it's been miniumum 12 hrs for me over the past set of 5 turns. With the nice job of recent players and (iirc) the cutting off of their ability to make tanks, maybe, just maybe, I'll only take 8-10 hrs. :lol: It's fun, as long as you're not mid-feast. (Which I'm not, except a RL-mini-feast, down to (gasp) one civ SG!)

"got it" but will take a while
Charis

PS in Edit@Hotrod -- that's 12 hrs total, not per turn :eek:

Nope at least 1 hour per turn ;) ! Your taking 10-12 hours per turn. :confused:

down to (gasp) one civ SG!)

Did FRFR get MOOOOOd utter completely?? :lol:

Or did I some how miss an Indian domination

FRFR is in hibernation, but it's not dead! Erm, as you say, it got MOOved aside for a little while, but it will be back.

- Sirian

Great to hear it! Looking forward to seeing the last towns here get painted red too.

Hotrod

Now we're cooking with gas! Hotrod did do a nice job. I've had this 'out' for a while
so lets see if I can my turn this eve...

[0] 1975 - I rush a few things on the front lines and finish moving the last few units.
(IBT) Our coal got exhausted but reappeared on Palm Isle.

[1] 1976 - RT outside Corinth bombed off the map. Oil Springs is bombed from size 13
to 6, Salamanca down to size 1. Knossos is hammered hard.

[2] 1977 - Oil Springs is captured. Then so is Salamanca. Iro's now have only
11 riflemen and 9 guerillas left. Japan has 34 infantry, and we're STILL trying to
get a spy re-planted in Greece. We have 217 infantry and about 50 marines, and a
total of 935 units (!) Satsuma is razed.
(IBT) Crud, darn invisible sub sunk an unprotected carrier. (How did it get that
way anyway?)

[3] 1978 - Outside Salamanca, a great leader 'Anthony'. Greece has fighters. We had
THREE fighters shot down by interceptors!? Where is their oil?
Corinth is razed! :P "Corinth Ruins" is immediately founded right on top of it.
Ah, now I see the oil. It was all blown out in the fog, now re-hooked up. We fix that.
(IBT) A TON of cultural expansions.

[4] 1979 - We finally have an agent in Athens! Here's their units: 30 infantry,
that's it! 6 Fighters, 3 Nuclear subs, 12 guerillas, NO other ground forces :P

Anthony makes it home! Our biggest beaker city is Pisae, home of Newton's, so
we rush SETI there.

A settler has snuck west of Grand River and now settles there, accelerating
our movement a bit -- Incense Outpost.

Shimonoseki is captured. Several barracks of big cities are destroyed.

Oil Spigot is founded near Corinth Ruins to take away Greece's oil for good!
Two other cities barely esacpe capture this round.

[5] 1980 - Thermopylae bombed to size 6. The sub we just rushed in New Ravenna
spots a Greek sub, and hands off coordinates to a nearby battleship. Splash!!
Sapporo is knocked down to size 6 and redlined. Three defenders later, it's razed.
Grand River is shelled from 18 to 9, Maunch Chunk gets knocked to 6.
Then it is captured. There are only three Iro cities left.
Knossos is razed, and "Knossos Ruins" is founded on its ashes.

Overall... this round was major carnage. Good job to those who
preceeded me. It was fast too, about five hours, so don't expect perfection with micromanagement (there wasn't any :P)

Greece has six cities, three of which are nearly surrounded, Japan has but
five cities. Yokohama is utter toast next turn, Osaka is surrounded by THREE armies,
Grand River will be shelled into the last century next turn. Iro have three, and
two of those won't last more than two turns.

To our next leader... you should come rather close to finishing this game off.
There are a fair number of fortified pieces near enemy cities, basically waiting
more bombardment before they wake up and attack, so be aware of sleepers.
I don't expect this to make it back to me :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Inf2-Status-1980ad.jpg

Save file 1980AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-Romans-1980ad.zip)

Sirian << UP
Griselda << ON Deck
Hotrod << In the dugout

Good luck!
Charicicero

:hammer: it continues.

I honestly don't recall the carrier being unescorted I am sure it must have been on my turn :blush: must have had some :smoke: or being playing too long at that point.

Have any of you guys been playing with combat animation turned on? I turned it back on to start my round, and I hit a crash bug with paratroop combat graphics that I have never seen before. My attacking paratroop "disappeared" and it showed only the hit point bar. That was "not good" when I lost, but at least the game kept going. When one of the units defeated an enemy in a city, the game hung, and I lost all my progress back to the start of the turn, which was about 20% of the time I had invested.

Argh. :sad:

That was a real wind-stealer. My sails went flat and I stopped playing for the moment. I would just like to find out when animations were turned off, how much paratroop combat you guys did under which animation setting, and whether any of you encountered a similar problem. If I can avoid this by nixing the animation, I guess that's what I'll just have to do.

Incredibly enough, it does not take much to send me packing back to MOO3 these days. Pretty much any momentum stopper while playing Civ3 will do it. :o I will check back here later, though, and try to finish what should be my final round in this game over the weekend.


- Sirian

I like to have animations on because I need the extra bit of screen time to process what's happening.

I can't remember too many specifics from my turn anymore, but I'm sure I fought with paratroppers, and I never got any hangs or crashes.

I hope the rest of your turn goes smoothly! I'm looking forward to some :hammer: !

-Griselda

I can't run with animations on. :(. My Machine has a hard time with the sound and animations so when things get too big I have to turn them off. I can't recall if I did or not when I started my last turns. Usually the first thing I do is set them to what I like before I play.

I too used troopers and had no problems.

Order I usually cut off animations:
Friendly units, automatic moves, manual moves, seldom enemy moves and almost never combat.

This was the first turn where I got it with combat animations 'off' (by Hotrod). At first I thought, ew, if nothing else I want to see battles. But then in bombarding a city, I got tired of this, turned them back off, and was happy with the great increase in speed.

I had battles with paratroops both with animations on, and off. I had no crashes or problems with either. I do think I may have seen (not seen?) one or two become invisible, but it was temporary and didn't cause a problem.

Sorry for the wasted time, I know that's frustrating. Use whatever setting you think is less likely to cause a problem and for this turn, save a little more often than usual.

Hang in there, let's bring this puppy home!! I think at this stage, save yourself a lot of time by ignoring the build queues and micromanaging - just do a good job on the battlefield and we'll win, and soon.

:D
Charis

Another paratroop graphic crash has ended my session for the night. No work lost this time, though, as I have been cautious, and I saved literally right before the crash. I've had numerous "missing paratroop graphics" and from different angles now, so it's not "one corrupted graphic file local to my machine" but something more sinister. The problem is not always causing crashes, though. I have survived about 3 out of 4 such problems, and sometimes the graphics actually work as they should, too.

Here's an example of "stealth troopers":

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-para.jpg


I'm about halfway through, and so is the enemy. Gris may not get a turn! If she does, it would be mopping one or two last Greek cities. There was an interesting side effect of playing without enemy animation on. I missed an invasion! As a result, the Iroquois captured one of our cities in Turkey! :lol: And that turned out to prolong their sovereignty for an extra turn! :rotfl:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-1982ad.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-1983ad.jpg

Now how sad is that? Wiped out by midieval infantry in 1983!

:rotfl:


- Sirian

Sorry if my turning off the animations caused problems. I had huge lags and for whatever reason can't play with sounds or music either on large maps with a whole lot going on. The music tends to skip like a broken record.

Looks like this is in the bag. The second game this week that will finish with a question of will we make it. Turns out neither were in any trouble at all. I guess we are all just too spoiled by the games that end in the 1500's or earlier. There are a lot of turns that never get played in most SG's.

Hotrod, I don't (and never did) believe that problems were CAUSED by turning off the animation. The problem is in the game, it's a bug. Charis believes he saw it, too, but did not crash. I wanted the info so that I could reduce risks to whatever degree possible.

Also, while we will finish with more than sixty turns to spare, I still consider this very close. We could have lost DOZENS of turns to logistical issues. The team also combined to deprive the enemy of resources more rapidly than I anticipated, shutting off the spigot of enemy tanks and planes and ships and even their ability to build more infantry, leaving them with pricey, less effective guerilla options.

Gassing the enemy was the hardest part. The plan to cross over Mixed Isle to land in Egypt, where we could minimize our frontage, was the right course of action. We were able to employ our 20-hp infantry armies on defense, several of them in one place, guarded by a massive artillery SoD, supported by barracks and walls for part of the fighting, in Dying For Dyes. I also decimated the Japanese cavalry there, literally cutting them to one tenth of their original strength. And though Gem Ha'Dar was a defeat for our forces, Gris managed to mobilize enough forces there so as to take out about half of Greece's force in that fight. That whole round, from Charis landing on the mainland, through the confrontation with the enemies' main forces, back to Charis on the following round declaring the enemy gassed, was the tipping point. We made it look easy, but without fast troops on the battlefield, the logistics of it all were massive, and any number of mistakes we didn't make could have put the outcome in doubt. You may recall, I pretty much declared victory there, so long as we maintained our focus on logistics. The enemy forces started to collapse, while our force flow continued to pour in. Once we had choppers and paratroops and SoDs of bombers and artillery in play, and enough workers to repair rails and build radar towers, our push became inexorable and we accelerated.

Lot of interesting subtleties in this game, vindicating lessons learned especially on the logistical front. I doubt any of us who played will ever view cavalry and armor the same again. Playing without them can lend a whole new appreciation for their capability, and perhaps even boost your eye as to how far you can push the advantages they bring, by seeing where you can employ other forces at your disposal and conserve the fast units for duty only they can handle.


- Sirian

I had one more paratroop crash on the final turn, lost some of the progress but not all, then pushed on through to the end.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-final-leader.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-japan-gone.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-1984ad.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-victory.jpg

Whoa. Check out that game length! We played almost 500 turns.


Here's a shot of our final force disposition:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-final-forces.jpg


At the end of the game, we had cultural control over more than two thousand tiles.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-score.jpg


Now for the map sequence. I noted on the replay that Iros lost a city very early, and that Egypt popped two leaders in BC times. The continent, as we might guess from what we saw when we got there, was apparently home to a lot of warring mid game.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-m1.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-m2.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-m3.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-m4.jpg


In 1800AD, we've still not bested our first opponent:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-m5.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-m6.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-m7.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-m8.jpg


Here's the situation I inherited on the final round:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-m9.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-final-map.jpg


Whew! What a ride. Lots of memories. Thanks to the team for playing, and thanks to everyone else for tuning in.


- Sirian

Oh, yeah, the save file. Duh. :o Oops.

Here it is! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/inf2-final-1984ad.zip)


- Sirian

Yay, finally! :P I saw that game time screen and gasped. Yet no doubt that was almost all real time, not just afk periods. It was an enlightening game, and the team functioned well, especially by the time we were finishing up our second opponent and had a firm grip on what we were doing.

Nice job finishing up, Sirian, and tnx for sticking with it despite the annoying crashes. Do you have a save or autosave at the end of the turn before victory? If so, please post, else mention the final score. (Was it 4106?)

:goodjob:
Charis

[dance] :band:

:goodjob:

That was great grueling fun!! :satan:

Hotrod

[party] Yay!

Thanks everyone for the game. I had a great time, and learned a *ton*.

I never would have guessed, when I passed it along last time, that it wouldn't make it back to me. I know who to call when I need mop-up experts. :lol:

Next up for me- see if I can win a solo always war, and try to get a Deity win in.

-Griselda

Congratulations to you all!
I enjoyed reading the reports and I'm looking forward to your next game!
:ar15:

Very well done, all of you. It most certainly did not appear you would finish this game in time back in 1800AD - certainly not before 2000AD! A well-deserved grueling victory. :goodjob:

I'd ask what succession game Sirian has planned next, but something (Moo!) tells me that I probably shouldn't expect to see too many more Civ3 SGs. :)

Congrats on an awesome game !
It was a daunting task and I did think you would not finish it in time at one point :(
but you turned this around really well ! :goodjob:

Great job, y'all. You made the map turn red with AI blood! :hammer: