The pile of ideas in line to be used as RBCiv Epics is growing. Here is one of those ideas that has been on hold for a while now and isn't going to make it into the first batch of the new season. I don't want to wait around that long to give it a spin, however.

My infantry variant is an old idea: no fast military units. When it was first tried, we had to avoid building horse units and avoid getting computers (which would cause the game to stop allowing us to build non-mech infantry). Since then, the editor has been improved to where the rules can be modded into the game.

This second installment of Sirian's Infantry will also be played as an Always War game. We must declare war on all opponents on the turn we make contact. Special Rule for this game: we may not acquire map information from the AI's and we may not found embassies. We may acquire tech or contacts prior to declaring war, but we must pay up front: no deals involving any kind of per-turn payments. We may never, ever make peace with any opponent. Until we control all of the earth or are wiped from the earth, there will always be war without end.

Version: PLAY THE WORLD 1.14f
Civilization: Rome
Difficulty: Monarch
Map Size: Large
Opponents: Seven
Map Type: Continents, 80% water
Terrain: Rugged
Climate: Standard
Barbarians: Raging
Victory Conditions: Conquest (no sissy shortcut options, this is WAR!)

Here's the start. Looks... challenging. :lol:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-start.jpg

The game's on Monarch, though, so I hope to assemble a pack of general's up to the task. Professionals will always overcome amateurs, and who are the professionals? The Roman Legions.

This is an old-style large map (140x140) for an old style smack down.


ROSTER:

Sirian
Falsfire
Griselda
Hotrod


:hammer: :king: :shotgun:

always war infantry only. sounds fun.

I'm up for it, I haven't played an always-war yet, due to lack of time, but since you've read my other RB epic reports, I'm guessing you have an understanding of my skill level?

I know that an always war has to be played differently, building military FAST and first, in case of early contact, but not neglecting infrastructure like the AI does. I also read your report on the incredibly effective park-n-pillage tactics with hoplites, I'm sure legionaries will do that just as well :)

So, let me be the first to sign up, if you'll take me.

I would be volunteering for this, except I don't have PtW. Ah well. Will be watching with interest though. Gogo Roman legions!

With the red carpet rolled out already, how can I refuse? :D

Sounds like fun, especially since I've been kicking myself for skipping that last always war Epic.

Sign me up!

-Griselda

135 views, 2 applicants, 1 interested party minus PTW who will be watching closely. ... :undecide: ... Alrighty then. We'll go with a short roster.

I'll play an initial batch of turns, then ten turns per player. We may shift to five turns per player in the late game if things are bogging, but no sooner than 1750AD for that.

Our available ground units are going to be:

1-1-1 Warrior
1-2-1 Spearman
3-3-1 Legionary (Iron)
1-3-1 Pikeman (Iron)
4-2-1 MedInf (Iron)
4-1-1 Longbow
2-4-1 Muskrat (Saltpeter)
0-0-2 Explorer
4-6-1 Rifleman
6-6-1 Guerilla
6-10-1 Infantry (Rubber)
8-6-1 Marines (Rubber)
6-8-1 Paratroopers (Rubber)

We also have access to all artillery, naval and air units.

Units not available include: Chariots, Horsemen, Knights, Cavalry, Tanks, MechInf, and Modern Armor.

Always War, the government of choice is Monarchy: cash rush available, no despotism penalty, no weariness. We also have to do our own research, except for a few trade possibilities on first contact, immediately before the war declarations. I recommend a strategy of following the AI's up the tech tree, researching most things at a discount, and using the cash surplus for rushjobs and/or saving for deficit research when we do want to be doing research @1st.

What to do with our great leaders is always of concern. This is a large map, meaning higher tech prices for everyone and lower corruption, requiring more cities and a larger core to keep up in the tech race. We'll have to see how much jungle we have on hand and who our neighbors are and what the land and tactical situation looks like before we can make long term plans. The value of the Great Library will be very very high, increased in value because of the map size. The Pyramids will depend on our continental size, but may be more urgent (and depending on how soon our first leader pops). Of course, a legionary army would be a force to be reckoned with, so we'll have to play it by ear. The Great Wall and Great Lighthouse may be of added importance, too, or maybe not, depending on the situation. I should hope that by the time we reach the middle ages, the leader spigot opens and we have our pick of most wonders, but we'll see. My last always war, I got a leader in 2000BC and did not see another for almost 3000 years. :eek: So whatever else may be uncertain, this much is certain: our plans will not survive contact with the enemy. :lol:


- Sirian

I settle where we started. No sense moving onto the cow or away from the fresh water, and no sense wandering aimlessly in the vague hope of, erm, less-green pastures. Besides, all these mountains and jungle tiles will be a Very Good Thing(TM) in the distant future.

First order of business is to pick a research path. My usual plan for non-expansionist civs is to research pottery at max rate so a granary can be built quickly. That won't work well in this case. We, um, have exactly one good tile. ONE. The lake is the only other tile with two food, until we clear some of this jungle. There is one spice on hand. That will be the first tile to clear, right after irrigating the cattle. Now... irrigating the cattle means 1 shield there, 1 from the center tile, none from the lake. Um, at size 2 that means 2 spt? This is going to be a hard start. I'll play about forty turns, I think. And as I was saying, no use going for the granary and a high early population for settler pumping, when we don't have the tiles to work. We need more workers, and yet with raging barbarians we can't do farmer's gambit (especially not with mischeivous PTW barbs) so we MUST get more settlers out without waiting on a granary! Then factor in the lack of river trade bonuses and the best bet for research is to run along on minsci from the get-go, then come back and use deficit research later to clean up the cheap techs. Since we are commercial, we start with alphabet, so I set out for writing with one beaker.

Ooh, check out the F11 opponent list! What is this? Sickly orange-yellow-green day? Sheesh! :lol:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-opponents.jpg

OK, there's a goody hut near the capital. I start training a warrior, which at 2spt completes in 3750BC. Off I go to pop the hut! It's only Monarch level, so I figure even worst case, it being on a mountain and all, we'll end up with our first elite warrior!

Egads, out come a bevy of yokels... well, at least we'll get this out of the way quickly. I brace for the attack, then watch in dismay as all the barbarians scatter to the winds, running off in different directions instead of attacking! :eek:

One of them is beelining for Rome and is now standing right next to it... on a mountain! I do NOT want to move our worker and disrupt his work if I can avoid it, and since this one barb is next to both Rome and the worker, I couldn't even move the worker into the empty city. Oh my goodness what a mess this is. Knowing that it's monarch (not Deity -- I'd NEVER pop a hut like that on Deity) I go ahead and attack the offending barb unit. We lose a hp, they lose a hp, we lose another hp, then they are beaten. Whew! Then one of the two other barbs comes back into view and I retreat our wounded heroes into the city.

Using one of two hills in range, instead of using the lake at size 2, I am able to pull 3spt for two rounds and complete our second warriors a turn early, at cost of growing a turn slower, which will provide cover for our battered unit and also protect our now-finished cattle. I move our worker onto the spices. Here you see the results after the diciest opening eight turns I have ever played.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-3600bc.jpg

With the situation now, um, half-reasonably secure, I train a second worker, wait for our wounded unit to heal, then set out to eliminate the other two pests. This is achieved quickly, seeing one of our units promote to vet status.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-3450bc.jpg

Hmm, that's a lot of jungle. That river to the south looks promising, though. Might be some better land down that way. More spices to the east. (I must say, one of the worst things to have happen in Always War is to get shut out of the lux trade. My only attempt at AW on Emperor saw me with only ONE lux until the industrial age, which left my happiness situation hurting all game long). Perhaps we'll have a monopoly on the spices here, which will at least deny any of them to the AI's. We'll see.

I sent our vet warrior (after healing) northward. Our regular I sent westward. Not planning to scout too far (don't want to meet our neighbors just yet) but if there were any neighbors close I wanted to know about it. Also need to survey the land to see where to put our settler. After training a second worker, I start on the settler.

Our northward scout finds coast just a few more tiles to the north. Hmm, that's not good. We have coast on two sides of Rome? This looks like we're on the northwest corner of our home landmass. Our north scout turns east and follows the coast, sure is a lot of jungle out here. Our westward scout reaches the west coast and follows it south. He finds another goody hut, pops it, out come more yokels and these also scatter to the winds. Eek! Rome is undefended, and our settler has no escort! I end up sending the settler north. (Maybe shouldn't have popped the hut, but... if it had been something good... Oh well, too late now). I manage to get all the barbs in the south to attack our warrior down there, but it takes a few rounds. During that time, our north scout has followed the coast on around to an EAST coast and is now following that south. Um... no sign of neighbors yet, we may be alone on this rock.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-2750bc.jpg

That is the third and final barb warrior in the south. He did not attack this turn, but he did the next, clearing the way for the next settler to check out the river. In the mean time, I vow to pop no more huts! Our warriors scout out what turns out to be the rest of our small jungle continent (Epic 20 Deja vu!) and find there is one patch of fertile land in the south along the river, including another cow and some gold deposits. I send our second settler southeast to meet up with our units down there. The veteran heads north, back up toward the other spices. There's a lake in the area, where I believe we ought to found our fourth city. With no AI's around, we need to spread out over our land mass quickly, to prevent barb camps (raging barbs!) from popping up all over and these new more intelligent barbs from killing workers, settlers, or disrupting our jungle-clearing progress.

After training our third settler and sending him out, he spots barbs in the north, two tiles away, from a mountain position. The settler is unescorted, but our vet is on his way, and now I train a third warrior out of Rome. This... is the most odd "always war" game start I've played. We're in always war mode with the freakin barbarians! (What is it about playing Rome that just gives me fits with barbarians?? Anybody remember Epic Four?!) I mean, yeah, I knew I picked raging barbs, but I didn't think we'd pull nothing but barb hostiles out of all the huts we found! Oh well.

I manage to keep our settler away from the wandering barbarian, as our vet kills a second wanderer, then finds and clears the camp.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1950bc.jpg

Our vet then tracks down that last wandering pest and finishes him off, as our fourth city is founded and pottery almost done researching. (Writing came in at min sci). After pottery, we need to research bronze working and ceremonial burial, then apparently we need mapmaking to get off this rock and find some opponents. (If we don't get into any ancient action, we won't get any ancient leaders, if you know what I mean. And then what?? Sheesh).

With barbs raging all over, unescorted settlers hurring to spread out and reduce barb activity (and make something decent out of our pathetic start position) I went ahead and played fifty turns. That's the same amount I played to start the last Infantry game, so I guess everything is on track.

Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that popping that second hut turned out hostiles, causing me to send our first new settler north. He ended up in a good spot on the coast with whales in range, plus has already trained two workers and is churning out more. (We need at least four packs of three workers each clearing these jungles in our core), as the delay on the south city let me scout the area first, thus allowing me to pick the ideal spot for Antium, instead of stumbling into the fog and settling a poor location just to protect the settler.

I took time to plot and draw up a dotmap. This was a tough exercise, as the lands did not lend to easy planning. I came up with a scheme to maximize use of our coast. With no fast units, poor starting lands, and a large map, um, this game is likely to last into the modern age, which will mean putting those new commercial docks into use, and perhaps even benefitting from offshore platforms. We may have to make the most of this rock to win.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-dotmap.jpg

In my scouting pattern, I assumed that was all coast north of Rome, but I see now there's a chance it may not be. The tile directly north of the gray dot could be a choke point leading to more land. Next player or two needs to get a unit up there to find out (don't use a worker, so wait until we have a unit to spare).

Assuming for the moment that we are alone on a small continent (this thing isn't big enough for an FP, not on a large map) then we have some planning to do. If we are alone, I think we should spread out with max settlers asap, and high worker count, run a bit of a farmer situation until we have our core on the move.

I am training a regular archer at Antium. There are two possibilities with the barbarians: 1) They will NOT have camps appear within two tiles of visible borders, meaning the only spot left on the map where a camp might pop up is the light blue dot. 2) They can have their camps appear within two tiles of visible borders, meaning they have many spots left where they could appear. Now I tend to think it's the former, which means a camp WILL pop up on light blue dot and soon (could even be there already), and we'll have to deal with it. But as soon as we settle red dot or light blue dot, then that would end the threat of barbs appearing anywhere on our homeland, IF case 1 is correct. In any event, Antium is the most exposed city, so use it for any immediate military needs while Rome finishes its granary and starts churning settlers.

Now here's a concept about escorting settlers. The only threat at the moment is barbs, so have the escorts out in front of the settlers. In these jungles, no barb horsies could run around and nab a settler by surprise. Remember that camps cannot pop up in revealed lands, and will not pop up in any lands being watched by military units. So even if Case 2 is the situation, we can end the barb threat with some more settlements, plus garrison units in unsettled areas to keep watch. (Don't waste our workers on outposts in our homeland!) DO NOT let settlers get ambushed, but manage that in a way that is also not timid about delaying the growth curve to be overly protective. Our Cumae settler was almost pestered by wandering barbs, but I had a unit in the general area who took care of it, for example. Also, we do NOT want to let any towns get raided, as we would lose huge amounts of gold at this point, so do be cautious about protecting our towns until the barb menace is contained.

Until we get more jungles cleared, we want to prioritize sites that will have at least one two-food tile on hand, to train their own workers every ten turns. This means pink dot in the north is a high priority, with that fish, and the ability to combine workers with Cumae to clear out all the spices. Light blue dot also has a fish, and may be the TOP priority, especially if Case 1 is correct about the barbs, as that would end the barb threat. Red, green and white dots should be last, as those have only single-food tiles in range. Gray dot may also be in that category, but we don't know.

Our isolation, lack of early battle, and nasty terrain could all be handicaps and detriments, but we ought to be able to make some lemon juice here. There are some advantages, too, like the need for AI's to have mapmaking before they can even threaten us at all, plus their inability to "send their whole force" at us. They will only be able to send trickles at first. That gives us a window of opportunity to run light on military -- heh, in an always war game! My decision to run minsci from the outset has us in a decent position. I suggest we research bronze and ceremonial at max sci, then mapmaking at min sci, then iron working at max. We may want to self-build the Lighthouse, possibly at Veii once it has a temple (to pull in those whales). Normally, researching the wheel would be an urgent priority, but not in this case. (We can't use the horses!) Once we get a little further along, we can revisit the research plan. In the mean time, priorities include containing the barbarians, training workers, and training settlers.

Has there ever been an always war game played with NO opponents on the starting landmass?? I don't recall seeing one. Our leader situation in the early game may be... desperate. We will just have to make the best of it. :)


Inf2 - 1750BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1750bc.zip)

ROSTER:

Sirian
Falsfire <<< UP NOW
Griselda << On Deck
Hotrod

Good luck!


- Sirian

What a nice piece of rock you have :lol:. I realize that making early contacts is not the priority in AW but how will having to wait until Maps to get first contact and then have to use Galleys to shuttle your troops around affect your plans? I would be interested Sirian but expected your roster to fill with more experienced players first. With a bit of guidance perhaps I could help.

Do you still want to go with a fourth?

Hotrod

If you need another player, let me know. I missed this thread on Friday apparently (if it was posted after 4 PM on weekdays I miss them till the next working day) or else I would have volunteered then.

Infantry only can be a tad dull, but the added component of having to move forces via naval with the added war issue makes this game very interesting. :)

(Forgot to add)

I am surprised at the Monarch difficulty rating but I guess Emperor+ is a tad too stressful with infantry only combined with always war? (Namely that the AI has too many extra units to start with.)

Good luck guys!!

Hotrod, I dare say some of the experienced are staying away because of the difficulty level, and any Monarch diff players should be jumping at this -- it should be quite a good game!
I expect to be in AW and/or warmongering games shortly after the holidays or would probably be in too. (Looking at the first turn though, this is NOT your avg AW game :P )

Regarding the FP - you can make one after 12 cities, so you do have the 'option' - I guess Sirian meant it's not a good option as no room for two rings. With an AW game you can expect at some point, maybe not til much later, having a second whole core on another continent. Hopefully one with a river ;P

I haven't seen an AW with solo on island - you will have the benefit of having a FAR easier time defending your core and expanding in peace, but a really tough/fun time invading another continent - you'll need to literally fill ship after ship with troops and land en masse with enough force to take and hold one or more cities and defend against all attacks from all civs on that continent.

At least you can trade on the turn of contact before making war - it would be extra ugly to have that restriction here! With an alphabet-writing start especially, I would be VERY prone to go for the Great Library. On this difficulty you're a very good bet for it.

Charis

PS Yes, it was quite ironic that good old Rome drew massive barbs just again, as in Epics and other Rome games :lol:

PPS Ran across this in a quiet time this morning, it seems rather applicable to Civ 3 in general and this game in particular!

Woe to the city of blood, full of lies,
full of plunder, never without victims!
The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels,
galloping horses and jolting chariots!
Charging cavalry, flashing swords
and glittering spears!
Many casualties, piles of dead,
bodies without number,
people stumbling over the corpses-

Nahum 3:1-3

Hotrod, welcome aboard. I hope you understand what we're in for here! :)

Ozy, sorry you missed the thread. I let it sit around for a few days, but I may have missed you by mere minutes on Friday. We have a full team now, but I'll keep you in mind if we should need an alternate.


I dare say some of the experienced are staying away because of the difficulty level - Charis

Then I dare say they overestimate their understanding of what makes for difficult game play in Civ3. :) Always War by itself is worth a level and a half of added difficulty. I expect this game to be harder to play out and take more grit than RBE1. How much harder, I don't yet know. Just playing a STANDARD Always War game on Emperor was more than I could handle. That Urug has made a go of it on Deity is because of his civ choice and tailoring the situation wholly to his advantage, in addition to his talent. The talent alone would not be enough in a typical situation.

Have you played any Always War yet, Charis? I don't get the sense that you have. It's a dragon of another color.

Monarch diff players should be jumping at this

If they are ready for Deity level challenge, sure!

Hotrod may not be ready, but I know he has the energy to give it his best. For that matter, Gris probably isn't ready either! :) But what the hey. Fortune favors the bold. :lol:

Defending an island is not as easy as it may appear, not under unrelenting pressure. The very first Always War game saw us torn up time and again by seaborne invaders until we started taking them more seriously. The land invaders beeline for your cities or resource tiles, they are at least somewhat predictable, tending to target the weakest points in your empire. Seaborne invaders do tend to land in the same spots over and over, but they are also known to prowl around and bide their time until the AI sees a true opening. This situation is going to be different, because the AI's will have to go by sea to come at us, and while we still have only roads, we're going to have a lot of exposed coastline and coastal cities. That will only make success on other landmasses that much harder. Sure our core might be safe, but a key mistake here or there might wipe out whole centuries of gains away from the core. Since this situation hasn't been done before, it could pull surprises on all of us, including me. How much different it will be, we'll have to wait and see. Once we get to rails, defending the homeland should be easy enough, but that's true in any game of Always War, once you get to rails. I just hope we're only one transport length away from other continents.

-- it should be quite a good game!

I hope so! :D

I expect to be in AW and/or warmongering games shortly after the holidays or would probably be in too.

The ship has sailed a little early. You chose to pass, so Gris and I will be sure to send you some postcards. :king: :queen: :hammer:


As for Falsfire's comments about pillage-n-park, that ship too has already sailed. We're going to have do this one the hard way. :shotgun:


- Sirian

True AW is a breed of a different color. My victory in Epic 14 was a 20K cultural victory, very much aided by the hops and a great number of leaders. It is the idea of conquest, not necessarily the infantry variant that got my interest, and the chance to play along with Sirian ;) again.

Hotrod

Looks like I missed out! Oh well, I'll probably play shadow (no spoilers this time) because the game looks so interesting.

One question about the FP... Would it be better to build the "red-dot" and found the FP there to later move the Palace onto another continent via a leader or build the FP later? The main reason I ask is that I don't think the palace city can flip while a FP city CAN flip due to culture, and once the home-island is defended well I doubt there would be much chance of losing a city to culture (assuming all the city spots are settled by the human players.)

Of course this question stems mainly on the assumption that the grey dot area is more coastline and not a link to another land mass.

Just thought I'd ask. There is probably a reason why this is a bad idea, but if I didn't ask it would gnaw at me. :)

I had a successful AW game on Emperor, playing on a 20% land 'pelago...as Rome. I did NOT have a completely barren island, but I shared it with England, who died rather early.

I was a bit fortunate in having a narrow front on the next island over for a LONG time, but I did have difficulties with landing parties (a couple times) on my home continent. My biggest difficulty was keeping up in tech, because I lost both GL races early and found out how well legionaries do versus muskets (for a little while).

Mid-game, I didn't have many military fears....there was one minor island (2-3 cities worth) I kept gaining and losing and gaining, but I feared a launch or a 20,000 cultural loss, as the Americans had built Pyramids, Oracle, Great Library, Sistine, Leo's, Bach's, and Newton's in their capital (the only really GOOD starting location in the game)....and I couldn't reach them FOREVER because of my tech pace.

I picked up a few new strats in that game (which I did eventually win). My first, failed, landing on America's shores was an even dozen caravels filled with knights and muskets (36 troops). I took zero cities with that force. It took 15 galleons (60 troops) with regular reinforcements to finally make any headway.

Good luck to all participants in this.

Arathorn

My Emperor AW game was Pangaea. I met a neighbor's scout in 3700BC and barely survived the rush of their starting units (me with warriors). I got the Pyramids very early but met another scout before 3000BC and then had to fight off a second wave of starting units in the 2000 millenium, followed by a wave of swordsmen that, um, never let up, as well as a slower stream of warriors from the first civ. I met two more civs by 2000BC and had to fend off four AI's from a very early point. I considered myself lucky to have five cities and a defined front by 1000BC.

I missed the great library, but one of my two closest neighbors got it, and I poured EVERYTHING I HAD into taking it, eventually, and failed by one hp on the last unit. I reloaded several times just to see, and all of the reloads captured the city, so I got really unlucky with the way the seeds fell the first time, apparently, but thems the breaks when you bring "just enough" units to get the job done. That was all I had, though, and running out of time before they went obsolete. I continued from one of the reloads, turning the game into a shadow, as I was so far behind in tech without the library capture that I would have lost. The pressure was bad enough already, but the rest of the civs found me at about the same time shortly after that and I made no gains at all for the next 1000 years, other than internal gains in improving my lands and cities. I finally got horses, and my golden age, just after 750AD.

Hmm. I might as well upload a few pics and show them off. At this point, I can't see myself going back to finish it.


- Sirian

got it, will play shortly (just have to dash out to an appointment then i'm back home to play it)

Here's a shot of my first great leader. Note the date!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/aw1-leader1.jpg

My second leader came after I researched Iron Working, giving me a chance to form a sword army.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/aw1-leader2.jpg

My third leader was used to rush the Epic in Tsingtao. Note that I am about to found my sixth and seventh cities, one to the north with a settler pair, the other to the east, unescorted and almost in position. My fourth leader would be used to rush the FP in Tsingtao, but that wouldn't come until early AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/aw1-leader3.jpg

I would have used my fourth leader on a great wonder, but they were all gone by that time! (And I didn't have the tech for the great library when my third leader popped, or I would have delayed the Epic). My fifth leader was used on a second sword army, which anchored my all-out assault to capture the great library. Here you see that fifth leader emerging, with the attack against Moscow to follow as soon as I could gather my units and send them up there. My other sword army was needed for fending off the endless onslaught from the west.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/aw1-leader5.jpg

With muskets and longbows, I was able to make some modest gains vs my weak neighbors in the immediate wake of the great library capture, but it still took me forty turns to advance two city lengths to reach the closest horses. Then, finally...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/aw1-golden-start.jpg

I caught up in tech enough from this boost to start nabbing a couple of wonders: Bach, Magellan, Smith. I lost Newton to Germany by two turns and never did catch Germany in tech, though I passed all the others. Here's my 41st great leader in 1750AD, me still lacking replaceable parts but now only eight turns away. From there, I should have a winning position, but I got caught up in various Epics and RBE games and never did finish. Still a LONG way to go, too, with 200 turns left in the game and me just barely inching forward. I also reloaded a couple of other times after making significant tactical mistakes, so this was a true shadow game, which proved beyond my ability to win on the first try.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/aw1-leader41.jpg


But... if Charis wants to think that folks are shying away because my setup here has the difficulty TOO LOW... :eek: :lol:

The biggest problem with Emperor AW was the AI tech pace. I couldn't get any wonders after the Pyramids because the AI's finished building them from scratch even before I learned the techs. Even leaders sitting around waiting don't help you in that case.


- Sirian

I don't think it's the difficulty level that's scaring folks away so much as the very busy season at this time of year. I wasn't even able to play the first 20 turns of my OWN game, RBP4, until today - and I had the game fully set up almost a week ago! Everyone is busy seeing friends and family, rushing out to get last minute gifts (or in my case, just starting Christmas shopping :satan: ) and so on. I certainly wouldn't take it as any knock on this game, which looks very interesting, or the Always War concept itself.

And as for anyone who thinks that Monarch difficulty is too "low" for Always War... :smoke: I encourage you to read the thread for LOTR1 where some of the best players here were pushed to their limit trying to defend a large front against 5 Monarch AI opponents. Or better yet, try your hand at Emperor Always War yourself and see how it goes. :p

That'd be LotR2 (LotR1 was deity) and can be found at

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19001&highlight=Zealous

Still probably the game that's kept me on the edge of my seat the longest.

And, I basically gave up hope of getting wonders in my emperor AW game. I finally caught up partway through the Industrial Age, but it was brutal. Maybe not "starting on your own island and no fast units" brutal but brutal enough.

Arathorn

Sulla, you're right about the holidays. That's why I arranged for the RBCiv tourney to take a hiatus. I didn't mean to emphasize the "why they aren't joining" aspect of Charis's comment. I don't even think he meant to emphasize that, either. We were just commenting on our separate evaluations of the challenge level. I wonder if he thought I was sandbagging here? :) I'm happy to have a full roster, considering the feast of games that started recently. I just have this thing for pulling Charis's chain after he has ignored the cows and irrigated the desert. :mischief: Those moments are rare and must be savored while in season, as he will quickly find his footing the moment he starts gaining experience in any given area. :hammer:

- Sirian

Note 1 to self - Beware if you put your foot in your mouth around here, it might get lodged rather deeply [punch]

Note 2 to self - Don't reply in a Sirian thread with a msg where you type faster than you think. :crazyeye:

Actually I was *not* making any real comments on the difficulty of Always War games, on this or any other setting - and grasped for straws simply at the game diff. All I was trying to do was write an encouraging short note, to both Sirian and hotrod, and I came across all wrong. Sorry :( I was sad to see the game find few responses, and moreso, the sad face by Sirian.

I've only tried AW once, on emperor, and got slaughtered early on. That was a long time ago and I'm trying again now, but with a recipe so piquant I think I'll end up hurling before the soup is done. If by some chance it turns out interesting I'll post it.

Good luck here, it should be quite a challening game,
Charis

As so much of nothing happened in the first ten turns, I hope you guys don't mind if I played 20 turns. I looked and didn't say a hard & fast "set in stone" #of turns rule in this thread, so...

1750 BC [0] - Gee, not much to do so I don't do much aside from pressing "Next Turn..."

1675 BC [3] - Archer from Antium heads to scout out the area around light blue dot.

1650 BC [4] - Workers near Veii begin work on a mine. Drop science to 90%, gaining 1gpt and still getting B.W. next turn.

1625 BC [5] - Set research to CB, due in 4 at max science.

1600 BC [6] - Workers from Veii & Antium begin work, Veii worker on jungle-clearing duty Antium worker to feed the cows some water. Antium to build settler, Veii set to spear. B/C of the lost pop point at Antium, CB will still take another 4 turns to research.

1575 BC [7] - There is no barb camp at light blue dot. Our archer takes up station on the adjacent hill. Cumae worker->worker.

1550 BC [8] - Drop science to 50% to still get C.B. in 2 turns, but make +5gpt now. Kinda weedy not noticing this earlier.

1500BC [10] - C.B. comes in. Switch research to Map Making, due in 26 at 100%, -1gpt.

1425BC [13] - Settler from Rome begins the trek southward to light blue dot. Rome's warrior doesn't need to escort/scout, as the archer from Cumae has the area well supervised from his hilltop perch.

1325BC [17] - First spear completes in Veii, set to build temple to get the whales online for more workers faster. Settler from Antium heads out to Yellow Dot (why not pink dot? Cause Rome's next settler will pop next turn and can be there *alot* quicker)

1300BC [18] - Neapolis founded on light blue dot. Roman settler strikes out towards pink dot.

IT: A barbarian camp has formed on green dot, and a barb warrior heads out of the fog.Still no indication of where he's headed, our military from Antium or Cumae can react accordingly.

1275BC [19] - Pompeii founded on yellow dot. Ack. That barb camp is close, and Pompeii needs ten turns to grow *or* build a defender. I think I'll send the warrior from Antium to 'attempt' to disperse the camp. Our archer is now way up north checking if that's a chokepoint or the corner of our island. (Hey, he was the first free unit...)

1250BC [20] - Uhh...the yokels are back. And by the appearance of a horseman, at least one of the AIs knows Horseback Riding. Depending how my combat luck goes, I could either be leaving this game in great shape for the next leader, or terrible shape.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/inf2/inf2-001.jpg

I win against the horse, but lose 2hp in the process, and get no promotion. I swap Antium production to spear. Next leader can decide whether to rush it or not, you could rush it and have a spear defender, making that city virtually impregnable to the barb warrior nearby. I also move out the Cumae warrior towards the barb camp, to help with sacking it.

In other news, our archer in the north discovers this *is* only us on a ball of rock & jungle, there's no pathway to another land up there. Or probably not. There might be one of them REALLY skinny isthmus's, it might be worth another move just to make sure...I've seen really thin isthmus's of land from a setup like this before.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/inf2/inf2-002.jpg

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/inf2/inf2_1250BC.zip

We're making some good headway. :)

The turns are strict ten turns per player from here out.

I suggest whipping an archer instead of a spearman out of Antium. These PTW barbs are apt to ignore defended cities and wreak havoc in the countryside. I'd get the wounded unit back to town for MP and go after the camp with the archer after it takes out the enemy warrior. (What is our only archer doing on scout duty? :hmm: The spear up there could have done that. That archer was intended to remain in the Antium area to deal with barbs! Now we have to whip our people to replace the slackers.) The one place where Monarch difficulty makes life truly easier is vs barbs, with a large bonus vs them. Even attacking across the river with an archer should be no problem. (And if it is, well, thems the breaks, we'll just eat the setbacks).

Obviously, Case 2 is the reality. Camps won't appear next to land lit by borders, but they will appear two spaces away. Once pink dot is settled, that will leave the north and west secure. There will be four locations left where new camps could form: dark blue dot, green dot, orange dot and purple dot. If we park units in each of those areas (until settlers arrive) we would prevent any more camps from appearing. Then we could go with a higher emphasis on workers for a while.

Veii looks secure from barbs to me. I suggest getting that spear (and archer) onto barb duty, train a regular warrior there for mp, and try to coordinate Veii training a ship with when the tech comes available (to have a ship out there as quickly as possible, and preferably to take a warrior with it for possible hut popping).

One more note: the worker stack in the north is on the only wasted jungle tile of the dotmap, so don't automatically start chopping away. :smoke: :D

Good luck, Gris.


- Sirian

Question about the dot map. What would be the drawback of moving the "grey dot" one tile SE? If it were moved one then that jungle spot where the workers are wouldn't be wasted.

Just thought I'd ask. :) Oh, and yes I found case 2 to be true as well in my shadow as well, but training a few warriors (to later upgrade to legions!) out of Antium helped clear fog out quickly and cheaply. :)

Heh, I'm probably not ready, but where would I be without Sirian to prod me out of my comfort zone? :hammer:

1250 BC - Cicero III takes control of the Empire. She orders Veii to use the temple materials to train a warrior instead, claiming that a warrior could be completed quickly with no waste. She then orders the workers in Antium to "string" that spear, making an Archer. The people, left to their own devices, would slack off and allow themselves to be pillaged by the Barbarian Menace, so Cicero is forced to whip them for their own good. The people fail to see how this will benefit them, and become unhappy. Cicero must have been at the :smoke:, however, and raises taxes across the civilization rather than simply throwing a party in Antium.

She instructs Neapolis to build a worker, and tells the people of Veii to look after themselves as she sends their Spearman towards the purple dot. The people of Veii have no idea what this "purple dot" might be, but they've heard rumors of the Whip, so they don't complain.

BT- Veii warrior -> worker
Antium archer -> settler

(1) 1225 BC - The civ-wide party is over as Cicero wises up. She instructs the people of Antium to look into mapmaking this turn, even though that means they can't prepare their settler. Our wounded warrior should arrive soon, ensuring that the people will be able to prepare their settler while the warrior keeps things in order.

Veii is all set to complete its worker in 4, grow a turn later, and have a galley ready the turn after map making. :D

Our archer attacks the barbarian from Antium and wins handily, taking no hits. Cumae's warrior heads towards the blue dot for bar duty. The northern archer heads towards the orange dot for bar duty (with the standard graphics installed, it looks pretty clear that there is no more land up there).

Cicero III ponders her worker situation. She considers ordering the three idle workers to begin a road on that wasted jungle tile, because this may be the best way to connect the northern and southern areas of her Empire. However, the people are still preparing many workers and settlers, and don't need the spices just yet. She decides to send the workers to Veii. Road-building is a priority, but it can wait.

(2) 1200 BC - Pisae founded at the pink dot and begins a worker. Our wounded warrior arrives in Antium while the archer moves towards the camp. Pompeii swap to worker.

BT - Rome set -> set

(3) 1175 BC - Our new settler is ordered to head towards the blue dot, although he's never heard of "blue" or "dot", he knows better than to argue with the Emperor. Cicero III believes that the blue dot site is most likely to be free from barbarians by the time the settler arrives.

BT- The barbarian camp has build a galley. This could be bad, because an AI has mapmaking and could be headed our way, but also means that our bar camp hasn't made any more warriors.

(4) 1150 BC - Our archer dispatches the bar camp, losing 1 hp.

BT - Veii completes worker and starts temple as prebuild for galley.

(5) 1125 BC - The new worker heads south to join Rome's stack (when he gets there, the other two workers are 1 turn from completing the jungle clear, so he starts a road on that tile. This is why the road is completed before the mine on that tile). The spices by Cumae are cleared, and the workers start a mine.


(6) 1100 BC - Antium is now size 2, meaning it now has access to food *and* shields. :lol:

BT- Cumae worker -> barracks (maybe not the best spot in the world, but we might as well start one somewhere)
(7) 1075 BC - Cumae worker joins stack. Our spear sees that there are no barbarians by the purple dot.

BT - Rome settler -> settler
Neapolis worker -> worker

Cicero III may even be a more ravenous worker builder than Cicero I! But, the barbarians are no longer much of an issue, and she is concerned with improving tiles and with building a road network to help move troops and supplies around inland. If we can avoid contact for a bit longer, she believes that this will pay off.

(8) 1050 BC - The purple dot spear is ordered to check for barbarian activity near the orange dot, and the archer is diverted to cover the purple dot area. This will keep fog from returning to the purple dot, and uncover the orange dot a bit sooner.

Rome's settler heads for the purple dot. The orange dot site is better, but Antium's settler can cover that one.

BT - Pompeii worker -> worker (the madness continues!)

(9) 1025 BC - Ravenna founded at the blue dot, and starts worker. Ravenna will need a temple soonish to have access to the jungle tile to the south.

(10) 1000 BC - Our spear sends word that there are no barbarians on the orange dot. The days of the barbarian menace are over.

Map making is due in 4 at a small deficit. Veii can then swap to a galley and complete it one turn later.

This is probably the only time I'll play such a peaceful 10 turns of always war! As it was, this was a very nice, relaxing way to spend Christmas eve. Now, back to the hustle and bustle of RL! :santa:

-Griselda

inf2-gris-1000bc (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-gris-1000bc.zip)

Got it but dont expect it tonight :santa:

Hotrod

Cicero III the Conqueress! :whipped: Whipped them barb tribes right off the continent.

Hotrod, make sure to follow Gris's plan for our first ship at Veii. Looks like you'll get to do the first naval explorations. No accidental sinkings in deep water, plz. :) High priorities for techs include Iron Working (legions), Masonry (Walls, Outposts, Pyramids/placeholder), Mathematics ('pults), Literature (Libraries), and Monarchy! Yep, nothing to it. You'll be fine, I tell ya. :)

:santa:


- Sirian

1000 BC (0): With his marching orders Cicero IV takes the lead of the his great great grandfather, " horses we don't need no horses!" and the saga continues. With only a few things to consider, okay a bunch, we begin. Nothing to change..

975 BC (1): Southern Archer moves 1 SW to the purple dot and spots fish!!! There must be a coast to the SW! The settler continues south. Hire scientist in Antium to avoid a riot, they got whipped and still feal the effects. Settler will be due in 3 turns, now but Maps will still be completed in 2 turns. If I used the lux slider 20% was required and 80% research only gets Maps in 3 turns. Opted for the scientist. Antium will be back to size 1 in 3 turns anyway.

950 BC (2): Pisae builds worker starts another. Slider remains at 90% to get Maps next turn.

925 BC (3): Learn Map Making, start on Masonry due in 6 at 90%. Switch Veii to Galley due in 2 with no waste :D. Change Antium to a taxman, +1 gpt now, still 6 turns at 90.

900 BC (4): Rome builds settler starts another, Antium builds settler starts granary. It is the only other city on a river with a food bonus and the granary will push its growth more quickly. Rome settler is heading north, peal off the warrior in Veii to do some "fore" scouting and see land across the shallows! Masonry in 5 with -1 gpt.

875 BC (5): Veii builds galley starts warrior. Galley heads north, picks up the warrior on the way, spies a hut across the coastal waterway. Hispalis is founded to the south start a galley, worker by Antium finished the mine and is heading to work the bonus grassland shared by Antium and Hispalis.

850 BC (6): Pompeii mine completed, have to switch from worker to warrior to avoid building worker too soon. Warrior is dropped on the Northern territory and popped the hut, we got maps :(, there is a small land to the NW and another hut, other than that mostly mountains.

825 BC (7): Pompeii builds warrior starts worker. Virconium founded on the Northern tip. Galley exploring further north, sees a cattle in the plains along with desert. Cumae builds barracks starts spearman.

800 BC (8): Veii builds warrior starts another galley. Neapolis builds worker starts another. Found Lugdunum to the South, starts worker. Masonry in 1 with +17 gold. From the looks of it the Northern lands is another rock hard island.

775 BC (9): Ravenna builds worker starts another. Iron working in 7 at 90%, and -1gpt.

750 BC (10): Rome builds settler starts another, popped the second hut and got skunked. A third hut is spotted on a different land mass to the north, will pickup the warrior and shuttle over. IW due in 6 at 90% and -1 gpt.

NO Contacts made: built many workers started many more, all can be changed if Sirian believes we have enough for now. A settler is in route to found another city, only 2 remain from the original dot map but a few sites may be possible to the north. Rome is still building settlers, switched Antium to granary but that too can be changed. The barracks completed in Cumae so we will get a few vets built.

All yours Sirian ;)

Good luck

Hotrod

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_750BC.zip

It's a beautiful Christmas morning in western Pennsylvania. We have a nice steady snowfall. "And since there's no place to go, let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!"

Actually, I'm about to head down the road a couple of miles to my mom's house for Christmas dinner. But I enjoyed the view for a while this morning, so peaceful. The quiet crunch of freshly fallen powder underfoot, the whispering hiss -- almost silent -- of tens of thousands of flakes gently landing. White, everything so white, the air brisk and fresh, the sky quiet gray. Life is good. :)


IT 750BC: We need to get some culture going. I swap Rome and Veii to temples, let them build up some population now that they have a few good tiles to work. A few other towns that can muster more than one shield at size 1 are also swapped to temples.

Early turns, settled the last western town at white dot. (White dot! How appropriate!) With our cities building infra this round, there will be no more settlers for me to play with. I decide I'm going to whip out two more galleys from towns in the south not building infra, to do some more scouting, especially to check out those coastal fish Hotrod spotted.

Middle turns, pop the goody hut on the small island, got a conscript warrior and spotted a golden border.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-690bc.jpg

Hmm, Mongols. Made contact the next turn. They have Iron Working, Wheel, and Mysticism, which we do not, plus ~200g reserve. They lack Writing and of course Mapmaking. They have contact with no other civs, which must surely mean they are also alone on their landmass. I decide NOT to trade them writing and declare war. They have more score, power, and culture than us.

I send our first vet spear to Rome to work MP duty for now. A warrior not needed for barb watching duty was sent to Antium for MP there, and I stuck with no lux taxes all round. (That may have to change, I'm not advocating that as future policy).

Late turns, whipped partial progress on temples at gray and purple dots, and whipped the two galleys I talked about at orange and light blue. I only got to move them twice. Falsfire should have fun explorations ahead. There is indeed land to the south, land we can easily reach. We need to find out, quickly, how much land is there and whether or not it is inhabited, isolated, etc. We do NOT want to postpone contacts, because contacts will lower our research costs, and we appear to be behind in research already! If the land to the south is inhabited, we have a close front and may end up in combat soon. If not, then we may want to send settlers.

Japan finished the Oracle. The Pyramids cannot be far behind. I fear we don't even have much chance to get the Great Library, as the only city with any shot at it would be Rome. We may have to train some legions to send at our closest enemy and pray for a quick leader pop, or else we are going to be in for a really long haul!

Our galley with the two warriors was attacked by a barb galley in the north and barely survived, but did promote!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-570bc.jpg

I have been using the warriors to land, then immediately reboard ship, to get more scouting done, harass the Mongols a bit (pull their strings and get them into war mode), and also been looking for chances to pillage. Don't just waste these units! The Mongols have spears in all their towns, so no use attacking. Keep the units alive if you can, but go ahead and harass Temujin if you think you see a good opportunity. We need to get our wounded ship back home after circumnavigating his continent, I think.

As for research, we need Literature, both for libraries in our best cities and to have a chance to nab the Great Library if we do get a leader. A four-pack of vet legions could probably harass the Mongols pretty well. We DO have iron, one near Rome and one on the small island to our north. I do not believe we have any horses, but I didn't look closely. We could stand a few more workers, but we do need to shift gears now, get some basic infra built and get some units going. Any town without at least a couple of good tiles to work can be training more workers until there are good tiles available, but towns with improved lands need to move on to other projects now.

One thing to keep in mind, researching techs known by other civs is cheaper. Especially if we miss out on the Great Library, but even in general, we want to follow, not lead, in the tech race, unless there is an urgent priority on hand. I researched all the techs the Mongols have. Once they will talk to us again, see if they have picked up anything else we don't have yet. It also looks like their land mass is at least as large as ours and probably larger. (Since they have more score than us). There are three islands between our two continents (at least), so we may end up getting a Pelago feel out of this game on our end, with us spread across a number of small land masses, and who knows what for the AI's. As quickly as SOMEBODY got to horseback riding and then mapmaking, seems likely there's a pack of AI's on a large continent somewhere. ... We need more intel!

Inf2 - 550BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-550bc.zip)


- Sirian

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-550bc-a.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-550bc-b.jpg

We don't often get snow out here, and when we do it's not enough to provide that silent white blanket effect. Thanks for bringing back memories. :)

Everyone else here is, oddly, still asleep. I suppose I should let them sleep for a while longer.

Merry Christmas, everyone! :santa:

Wow, all four players took their turns in just over 48 hours! We're off to a great start! :goodjob:

-Griselda

Merry Christmas ! :santa:

We DO have iron, one near Rome and one on the small island to our north. I do not believe we have any horses, but I didn't look closely.

"Horses, we don't need no stinking horses!" That being said is there a benifit to us if we do have horses? We aren't building any horse units?

Hotrod

got it.

No snow for xmas? I can't imagine such a thing...although we did just about get it this year. It was still just under freezing and totally dry, with exposed grass and all just a week before xmas. Then as is VERY typical of Winterpeg, we got all our snow at once. 40cm of the fluffy white stuff in 48 hrs, with temperatures plumetting down to the christmas-time norm of about -25 C.

So I *still* have not experienced a non-white christmas! But hey, that's the way christmas is supposed to be, right? Just like every New Years eve is supposed to be -40C, eh? :) (minus forty is, coincidentally, the one temperature where both celsius and fahrenheit are exactly the same...-40F = -40C...little bit of winter trivia for y'all!)

Merry xmas to all. I will probably play my ten turns of glory tomorrow (the 26th).

Are horses worth anything? Well, sure, one extra unit of trade in the tile in question. Any horses we have are horses somebody else does not have.

On the other hand, the reason I couldn't find any horses may have something to do with the fact that we don't have the wheel yet. :o

Winterpeg? Haha! Our official Royal Canadian Mounted Popsicle. :lol: I visited Canada once (in the winter) with a friend who was getting his dual citizenship. Guelph, west of Toronto. That was almost as far south as Canada goes, but it was far enough north for me! I was surprised at how many things were different about Canada, starting with the complete lack of anything tall, the whole country just sprawled and sprawled. Metric signs were different, and so were some of the phrases people used most often. Bagged milk, that was different. (Eh?) The oddest thing of all, though, was how incredibly HOT HOT HOT everybody kept their homes. Sheeeesh! Like body temperature, almost. How could they stand it? It was almost less miserable outside. :lol: I was polite and didn't say anything to anybody, but my friend and I sure did complain to each other. :) Is it like that all over Canada? I keep my home here in the states between 65F and 73F (some rooms stay warmer than others), and wear an extra layer of clothes in the winter. I don't have central heat and don't use a thermostat, so I have to watch the weather forecasts and dial my heat setting appropriately. That's a fine art and occasionally requires, um, additional adjustments. :lol: That's better than many of my neighbors, though. Here in coal country, most homes are (still) heated with coal -- it's very cheap fuel, even some of the more well-to-do folks use it and make their own fires, but I could go on and on blabbering about stuff like that, so I'll stop now and wish you good luck on your turn. :)


- Sirian

I don't think it's typical of Canadians. Most people that I know keep their houses between 20 and 23 C, which would work out to 68-73 F. Now, my wife likes it hotter in the winter and cooler in the summer than I do, but she has poor circulation. I guess the people you were visiting like their houses a bit hotter as well, but most people I know don't; if anything, they like it cooler. Many Canadians take a kind of perverse pride in how much cold they can tolerate. :)

Originally posted by Zed-F
Many Canadians take a kind of perverse pride in how much cold they can tolerate. :)

Hehe...yup. And how much heat we can tolerate too. It's too bad some of you don't get to visit Canada in the summer to see that we're not always eskimo-ville. Come up in July or August and see that we're no longer -40C, more like +35C to +40C (that's in the nineties or low 100's F)

That's one thing I like about Wpg, we get to experience EVERY range of the temperature dial, from extreme heat to extreme cold. Setting the temperature in your home? Must be nice. I've always lived in hot-water based heating homes, and my current appartment doesn't even have a thermostat. You simply make do with what temperature it is, winter temps in my appartment vary from about 55F to 85F, depending on the mood the heating system is in that day. I really hate the 85 degree days tho, it just seems wrong having all the windows open and running around in shorts when it's -25 outside.

As for metric signs, well, even I'm confused by them sometimes. It's odd that we're a place that measures highway distance in kilometres, but most Canadians measure shorter distances like the height of a person or length of a wall on their house in feet and inches. Ask me what I weigh in kilograms and I'll stare back with a blank look, but in pounds I know it.

Anyways, enough idle chit-chat, time to get down to playing my ten turns and post a turn report... :beer:

550 BC [0] - change nothing

IT: An elite Mongol warrior attacks our landed reg warrior near Darhan, we win, losing only 1hp and promote to vet!

530 BC [1] - Cumae builds spear, starts spear. South galley explores round a small 4-tile island with three fishes around it.

510 BC [2] - Antium granary->rax. Pisae warrior->rax. Galleys continue to explore around. Mongolia will listen to us now. He has only the Wheel up on us, and still lacks Map Making. It won't be long though, so we'll soon have to make sure we have our northern cities defended by spears, plus have an archer (or legion) or two ready to attack any units he lands.

490 BC [3] - The Wheel discovered. As if it matters to us, we do have horses on our mainland, already connected to boot. Literature in 9 at 90%, 0gpt. Veii temple->rax. With the uploads server offline, I cannot view Sirian's dotmap, so the settler from Rome will go to where I *think* a dot was. I land our two warriors onto two separate hills on Mongolia, only to discover that the conscript is adjacent to an archer, even though he's on a hill the odds are not in our favour when the vet archer attacks us.

IT: we do lose the conscript, taking only 1hp off the attacking archer.

470 BC [4] - vet warrior re-enters the galley alone, continue to circumnavigate Mongolia. Southern galley has found that the isles to the south appear very fertile, and so far uninhabited.

450 BC [5] - more seaborne exploration.

IT: Japanese finish Colossus in Tokyo.

430 BC [6] - We debark our vet warrior again for yet another harassment campaign against Mongolia. Ghengis still lacks MM.

IT: Mongols send a couple swords towards our warrior, but can't attack this round. Mongols start building the Pyramids.

410 BC [7] - warrior retreats into our boats. Our southern galley continues to reveal more and more fertile uninhabited lands to the south. I start Pyramids as a slight prebuild on G.L. in Rome.

390 BC [8] - more exploring.

370 BC [9] - Byzantium founded in what I hope was the right spot.

350BC [10] - zzzz.

Here is a bit of what I've seen of the southern continent:

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/inf2/inf2-003.jpg

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/inf2/inf2_350BC.zip

I was hoping to play my 10 this afternoon, but it looks like we're far enough along that I spent most of the time looking around and fiddling at turn 0, and only had a chance to play a few turns. I should be able to finish it up later tonight.

Western Oregon doesn't often get below freezing. Winter days are typically in the 40's, but it rains pretty much constantly.

-Griselda

Cicero III returns to the throne to tackle the case of the missing AI.

(0) 350 BC - Vesuvius! Vesuvius is erupting! Wait, that's just the silly people of Pompeii rioting. Cicero III notes that Cicero II has already taken care of Pompeii by hiring a taxman.

Tech check- Mongols have code of laws and horseback riding, and still lack map making.

Antium is about to riot; it needs an entertainer.

I'm thinking that we probably have no chance on the great library, since we do seem to be behind on tech. Rome has 40 shields in the box already, so I can't swap to anything now. I'll swap it to a library when lit comes in (sorry, falsfire, if this was major :smoke:, I would just hate to see the shields go to waste, and we could use the library).

With map making done or immenent for most AI's, I'd like to focus on defense and defense infrastructure this round. Most cities are guarded with just a warrior, a few have spears. Virconium, Lutetia, and Pompeii are unguarded. Byzantium and Hispalis have only archers, and they could be riding around on the galleys if we got some other units in there.

I send the vet spear at Pisae towards Viroconium. Pisae will have a barracks complete soon, and will be able to make another spear. Also, Viro could very well become a target city since it's way up north. One Antium warrior moves towards Pompeii.

Science to 80%, literature in 2 @ 2gpt.

Antium is still so miserable. It already needs an entertainer, and will grow again before its temple is complete. I swap it to a settler, which will be due next turn with 3 shields wasted (including next turn's production). Then, I can start again in the temple, but at a more manageable size.

Swap Neapolis to worker. MM Ravenna so that it grows. Swap Lugdunum to barracks from temple. It doesn't have an urgent need for any of the second ring tiles, so I might as well get the rax in first, then the temple. MM Cumae so that I won't forget when the workers finish on the hill (no difference really now, so might as well). MM Lutetia for more food.

Cicero III hopes that she didn't overuse the veto pen, so that Cicero II will continue to be kind to her. :p


BT- Barbarian galley moves next to our wounded one. Veii spear -> spear. Antium settler -> temple

(1) 330 BC - New settler heads for red dot. Spear arrives in Viro. Veii warrior moves towards Lutetia. I whip the temple at Ravanna- 20 off exactly and needs to exapand to get that south jungle tile.

Unload the warrior from the galley, and then attack the bar galley. I win, taking no hits. I can complete my move and still pick up the war next turn.

Our NW galley sees coast and land to the NW. I wish I had units on board, but it would take too long to go back for them now. Onward!

Science to 70%.

BT - Literature comes in. The Mongols still have only code of laws and horseback riding, so I start code of laws.

Pisae rax -> spear
Ravenna temple -> worker
Lutetia temple -> worker

(2) 310 BC - Warrior arrives in Lutetia. NW galley arries by the new landmass (looks empty so far). I put science at 70%, our best surplus rate. SE galley sees goody hut, bg, fish. We'll have to get some units down here! Rome swaps to regular library. GL would have been in 38, if we want to do any "what could have been" comparisons (not counting future growth).

BT - Hispalis expands

(3) 290 BC - MM Veii and Viro. They have 2 bg tiles, and they had been using one each. Veii can work regular grasslands and still get its spear in 2, and Viro can complete its barracks faster. Antium has grown again, and I hire a taxman.

BT - Virconium expands.

(4) 270 BC - wounded galley arrives in Pisae. Brundisium founded at red dot, and starts a worker.

BT - Rome library -> rax.
Veii spear -> worker
Cumae spear -> spear
Pompeii temple -> galley

(5) 250 BC Cumae spear heads S. Veii spear heads E.

BT - Ravenna expands.
Virconium rax -> spear
Lutetia worker -> rax (expands also)
Iron hooked up :band: (sorry, had to try new smilies)

(6) 230 BC - Upgrade two warriors at Pisae (one vet). Veii hires taxman, and gets one bg tile back.

Note- every turn is revealing more and more good tiles on that south continent!

BT- Veii worker -> library

(7) 210 BC - Load both legions into galley, which heads for Viro. Swap Viro to Legionary.


Ack, I mined the grass by Rome that i've been letting Brundisium use, and now it can't grow before it completes a worker. I could swap it to a spear, but I might as well make a rax instead. This looks like it could be a nice little city with just a bit of clearing.

BT - Rome rax -> spear

(8) 190 BC - Cumae spear arrives in Byzantium. Send Byzantium archer to Pompeii (where soon it can hop on a galley).

BT - Neapolis worker -> worker
Pompeii expands.
Hispalis rax -> spear
Byzantium warrior -> worker

(9) 170 BC - Byzantium warrior heads south. Rome grows to size 7, so I turn on 10% lux tax. Even Antium can fire its taxman now, without having a place to :worshp:

BT - Code of laws comes in. The Mongols are a bunch of slackers, and the only other tech they have is horseback riding. So, I start on horseback riding, since we'll need it in the long run. We haven't yet put any beakers to it, so Cicero IV may choose a different area of research if he chooses. Science goes to 60% to run at a surplus with the 10% lux.

Rome spear -> spear

(10) 150 BC - Rome spear towards Lutetia. There's a lone Ravenna worker that's headed for that Ravenna/Byzantium jungle tile that needs clearing badly. He could build a road on his way, though.

The Mongols *still* don't have map making, and haven't learned any new techs!

I check F11. We're number 1 in land area, population, and GNP, and Rome is the #3 city. We're also #1 in literacy @ 8% (heh, maybe we could have gotten the great library).

I have not cracked the case of the missing AI's, but I do have a hypothesis. It seems like they did all start on one cramped little continent, and I'm wondering if they ran out of room before they hit map making. They could even be having their own little always war game on their own little rock. That would be the best possible scenario for us, because at this point we have a solid base, we're starting to work on infra, and we can easily stop them from getting strong cities build on other islands *if* they haven't yet started to island-hop themselves.

We also have a HUGE growth opportunity if the southern continent turns out to be uninhabited. Just look at that food! Those grasslands! That river! That looks like prime FP land down there, IMO:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-southisland.jpg

Pompeii is working on a galley, and Lugdunum could swap to a settler to be picked up on the way down there. Plus, there's a warrior and archer headed for Pompeii.

The galley by Viro has 2 legions on it, and hasn't moved this turn. It could wait 5 for a 3rd legion to complete, that's up to Cicero IV.

Antium will need a tax collector at turn one!

Cicero III steps aside, leaving the Empire in the hands of Cicero IV.

-Griselda

inf2-gris-150bc (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-gris-150bc.zip)

Will grab the game tonight!

Scoping things out and realize a Golden age is imminent with Legionary on the loose. Any thing I should or shouldn't do this round. Will try to post later tonight.

Hotrod

Our fate is in your hands, Hotrod. Lead us to glory. :king:

Cicero IV is called to power in the year 150 BC: Sending the full galley north.

130 BC (1): Cumae builds a spear and starts another. Pisae builds spear starts galley. Ravenna completes worker, starts Barracks. The galleys continue exploring. Hire taxman in Antium, temple is due in 2 turns. Change Lugdunum to settler from Barracks, due in 7 growth in 7.

110 BC (2): Rome builds spear starts legionary. Ottomans complete the Pyramids. Mongols cascade to the Great Lighthouse and build it in the southern city of Kazan, they must now have maps. Still no new contacts.

90 BC (3): Antium builds temple, starts settler, taxman back to work. Lutetia builds barracks starts spearman.

70 BC (4): 2 Legionary, pestering Mongols. HBR next turn +36 gold.

50 BC (5): Learn HBR, start Polytheism at 70% -4gpt due in 9 turns. Virconium builds Legionary, starts archer. Rome builds Legionary starts another. Brundisium build barracks starts spearman. Pompeii builds galley starts another. Pillage silk mines on Mongol soil.

IBTN: Mongols attack our Legionary will full force, we kill 3 swords, promote one to elite and enter the golden Age.

30 BC (6): Hispalis builds spearman, starts spearmand. Cumae builds spear starts legionary. Change Virconium to Legionary. The legionary retreat to the awaiting galley.

10 BC (7): Antium builds settler starts barracks. Lutetia builds spear starts Legionary. 2 settlers will be looking for homes on that southern island.

10 AD (8): Rome builds Legionary, starts another. The mongols are coming the mongols are coming. Veii builds library starts Legionary. Pisae builds galley starts legionary. Lugdunum builds settler starts temple.

30 AD (9): Neapolis builds worker starts temple.Byzantium builds worker starts barracks. Brundisium builds spear starts another.

50 AD (10): Founded Syracus on the southern island. Start Harbor. Rome builds Legionary, starts Legionary. Antium builds barracks starts settler. Settler/spear pair board the southern galley. Polytheism due next turn +48 at 20%. Mongols now have Philosophy but lack Lit. 3 galleys with 2 legionary each await orders. Not enough to do any damage to an enemy so far away I fear.

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_50AD.zip

Edit: Fixed the upload

Cicero III nods approvingly at the state of the Empire. :)


To find out what techs the AI have, I believe it's OK to put peace on the table and peek in their tech section, as long as we don't actually make peace. They have philosophy now, but polytheism was probably a better choice for us anyway, if we want to get out of despotism soonish. :)

There seems to be an extra .zip in your upload, but I was able to find it easily enough that it shouldn't be a big deal.

-Griselda

A snapshot of the Roman Empire as of 50AD:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-50AD.JPG

Actually, we don't want to move out of despotism too quickly. The problem? Units. We get four unit support per town under despotism, and we are OVER that limit already by a few. (Lot of workers). Under monarchy, we get only TWO unit support out of towns under size 7. :eek: We have only two towns over size 7 as I write this, with a couple others on fresh water that could get there without 100 shields into an aqueduct. If we flipped governments right now, we'd LOSE ~32 gpt in unit maintenance and pick up only a fraction of that from reduced corruption. We need to get courthouses built, tiles improved, aqueducts built. Thus, for this situation, we need to limit the number of our units for the time being (not choke our economy with too much unit maintenance), research currency and construction BEFORE monarchy, get some 'ducts and markets built at least in our best cities, then try to make the switch. As urgent as it will be to produce units, for a while yet here, it will be more urgent NOT to produce them. If you understand me. We can't afford to lose militarily, or let cities fall to invaders, but if you all paid attention to Arathorn, you'll realize that it will be a massive effort to invade other lands. We're not going to be able to carry the fight to the AI's in more than a harassing way for... a long time to come. We might raze a few cities, and we might even try to wipe out the Mongols in the middle ages, but mainly we'll be fishing for leaders, leaders to rush wonders, to rush an FP. If we don't get more contacts soon, we're going to be in some trouble. We could actually LOSE this game by way of falling too far behind in tech, so again, the hardest part of this game could be managing the economy correctly.

And not being religious, we can't swap back to despotism quickly, either. Could... get... ugly...


IT 50AD: Except for Rome, all cities swapped to infrastructure. We are already over the unit limit and don't want to go too much higher than this for a while.

Early: That Mongol galley splashing around? They land an archer next to one of our southwest cities. Our patrolling legion in the area dispatches these fools, but players beware! We need to keep a few "floating legions" around the island to reinforce where the AI's decide to land. The legions from Rome this round will go to that purpose, while our galleys set sail northward, with six legions onboard.

Middle: Infrastructure and more infrastructure. We land a settler on the south island and find... a barb camp??? :eek: Sheesh. We're going to have a real mess with those down there, going to need to send some legions to patrol down there. When we can spare a couple. We disperse the camp with our settlement, but I had landed the spear in a different spot to scout a bit before meeting up with the settlement, so we lose about 65g to raids.

Late: our six legions land in Mongolia. One is slain, two enemy swords killed. Then another is slain, but an archer and three more swords die. Then finally, two more swords perish and this happens:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-leader1.jpg

Note that all you have to do to heal wounded units is to get them out of enemy territory and then give them some time. That island southwest of Mongolia is perfect for this. I board our wounded units onto the ships. Our last unwounded unit was the one elite. (We have had a second promote to elite, plus the regular has promoted to vet). That last unit popped the leader on the last attack on my watch. I boarded our leader on the WEAKER ship, as the stronger one would be attacked first. You must keep the two together on the way south. In the mean time, unload the Champions unit onto that island. There is a ship with a legion and slot for a settler. Our next settlement will be on that island just off the coast of Mongolia, our forward operating base (and to deny them the island). Then we can land, draw their fire, then exit wounded units back to be healed. We're going to make a front up here, rather than sit back and only deal with them on the AI's terms. There's a hill on the river directly north of Tabriz. That is where I first landed, and that's where we want to build our foothold settlement on their mainland some day. We'll need a big force to do it, but once we can found a city on their land and build walls and offload a batch of cata's and defenders, then keep the place stocked, we can get a true always war situation brewing.

That's going to take a while. Let's start with the island and see how it goes.

This leader should be used on the Great Library, if possible. If that disappears before we can get the leader home, then take him all the way south to the other continent and rush the FP (taking along applicable escorts, of course).

One thing to remember, we need galleons to move full armies from land mass to land mass. Thus we only really want an army on enemy landmasses, and that will require us to have a foothold city there first. Any leaders we get at this stage should go to wonders. And if we have a leader sitting around at any point, we can't get another, so emphasize promoting vets at those times, trying to increase our number of elites (and preserving them, within reason).

Galleys are needed for support of landing forces, to pick up wounded units and let them heal. We researched Polytheism, then Philosophy, then Math, on my turn, and started on Currency. There are market PREBUILDS being built now in Rome and Veii. Keep the research rate up and get us some markets going quickly. Markets are actually more urgent than libraries in some cases, since we are likely to be running more cash than research just to pay for all our units under Monarchy. And once again, it's going to be a tough balancing act. If we overdo the units, we can fall behind in unit techs and start losing our grasp on the game. If we let the AI's get to the Industrial age while we're still trying to get to Education, for instance, well, that situation gets ugly in a hurry. Then it won't matter how many spears we have, as cavs and rifles start landing. No need to panic, we're doing fine, but the game gets markedly harder when doing all your own research and doing WITHOUT any other forms of trade, as well.

Definitely use the rest of our golden age for economic infrastructure at home. We also want library and market at Antium soonish. As for when to go to Monarchy... get currency and construction first, and by then, we might be ready. Also no more workers in the core. We should have enough now to clear out the jungles at a decent enough pace.

Oh yeah, one more thing: WALLS. Walls, dammit. Walls. Not a wall in sight! I built them in many of our towns, and a few inland cities don't need them. Everywhere else, build those cheap, helpful walls. Also keep in mind, the AI is likely to target the weakest links in our chain: cities without good defenders, without walls. Always War AI's will shift their targets around purely on the numbers, so having a defender promote may change the numbers and cause them to shift targeting. Be observant, and in leaving notes to the next player, indicate which enemy ships have unloaded or not. For instance, the Mongol ship in the deep south is no longer loaded. The one up by Veii is incoming, probably loaded.

I'll offer a dotmap in the next post.


- Sirian

Two new dotmaps, two new settlement plans. The north first. The pink dot on the hilly island is top priority. We also need to get it some walls built and then a temple to push back the cultural pressure. A couple of units in the city wouldn't hurt, either. I do NOT expect the Mongols to target this city (on a hill with walls, the math isn't to its liking), but then again, it does have a horse there, so who knows. Leaving all the legions up there. Then when we bring more, we can reinforce the new ones quickly. Leave the Champions to guard the new city and take other units leader fishing next time.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-250ad-a.jpg

White dot is the next priority in the north. We must secure that second iron in case our home source dries up. Green and Yellow dots are medium priority, and lands to the west are catch as catch can. We can PROBABLY get away with skipping orange dot, and should if we can, as it would hurt corruption at all cities farther out.


In the south we have a second continent worthy of our FP. I have determined that Caesaraugusta is probably the best FP site, as it is central to all the fertile lands, and all the good cities would be less than two rings away. An alternative is to put the FP at yellow dot. That is more central to the whole island and would make more out of the dry northwest, at some cost to the fertile south coast. We can decide later. There's a LOT of work to do to get a second core operating down there, including the must-have leader for FP. You folks new to Always War are going to have to figure out how to fish effectively for leaders. :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-250ad-b.jpg

With Raging barbs, we could get ALL of the camps popping up down on this continent (if the AI's have filled in all their lands), and that could become a real mess. No unescorted settlers down there, and we need to get some legions down there, too.

The colored dots represent fertile lands. The gray dot would be a canal crossing, in case that would be useful. Of course, since there are no AI's here yet, I must presume that we and the Mongols are separated from all other AI's by ocean, and since the Mongols got the Lighthouse (arg) we may not see any others until Astronomy. Maybe the Mongols will make contacts with the Lighthouse, and sell contact with us to the other AI's. PTW seems to be doing that. We'll just have to play it by ear. I don't know that we can sit on the Great Library, though. We've got to do at least what was done in RBD SG7: research our own way up to the middle ages, at least, unless we get a second contact.

A final reminder, there is a settler north of Rome ready to board ship heading northward next round. Pink dot. Also, get our leader southward, with both ships but minus the heroic legion. What to do from there (send more trips, buckle down, expand, build, etc) I leave to my successors. Good luck!

Inf2 - 250AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-250ad.zip)


- Sirian

please pass me in all upcoming turns until further notice. i just found out i lost two close friends this christmas season and gaming is just not something i can do right now

falsfire,

I'm very sorry to hear about your loss. My thoughts will be with you and with the families of your friends.

Take all the time you need, but know that we will be looking forward to playing with you again when you're ready.

-Griselda

Falsfire: I echo Griselda's sentiments. I wish you comfort in this difficult time.

We'll go on here with three players for the time being. I would invite Ozy to substitute but he went ahead with a shadow game, and I think it best not to mix two games. Gris, you're up. Good luck.

- Sirian

Cicero was woken from her late-December haze to take control of the empire.

"But I'm not ready yet!"
"Oh, you'll do fine. Come on!"

Cicero pored over the extensive records that had been left by Cicero I, and began

Oh, first a question- when the science advisor says, "We are technically advanced!" I should assume he's only comparing us to the civs we know?

(0) 250 AD - Everything seems to be in order.
BT - Mongol galley in the deep south unloads an archer and a warrior. :lol:
Lutitia granary -> library

(1) 260 AD - I have a warrior next to the Mongol units, but he'd have to attack their hill from his grassland. Instead, the warrior moves one north. I also move a legion that's near Neapolis south towards the new Mongol units.

Champions is unloaded. Back home, my settler moves into the galley, but the galley moves into Pisae this turn, because I'm not sure what that nearby Mongol ship is up to.

BT - Ottomans complete great wall. Viro galley -> settler (this is major weed, since it's the closest g. library city, and every turn counts, but oh well).

(2) 270 AD - Swap Lutetia to spear (for settler duty). Warrior moves into Antium, making 3 total. My legion moves into place to be able to attack next turn.

BT - Mongols attack Antium. First their warrior, who loses, promoting ours to vet. Then the archer, who wins vs. our reg, taking only one hit.
Brundisium library -> granary
Palace gets a second floor.

(3) 280 AD - A fullMongol galley moved adjacent to the Byzantium workers just as they complete what they're doing. The move inland, by Cumae. Our vet legion handily dispatches the Mongol archer.

BT - Lutetia spear -> library

(4) 290 AD - Our leader is in Viro, and currency is due in 1 (otherwise I'd have nothing to swap Rome to).

BT - Currency in; start construction. Pisae temple -> settler.

(5) 300 AD - Veii, Rome to markets. Great Library rushed in Viro. I though about moving it inland for defense, but didn't want to risk losing it during that time. Science off this turn, , fingers crossed as I press next turn...

BT - Our golden age ends! The Mongols unload on the same hill in the south. Rome and Antium riot. They were fine before I hit next turn, so I assume this is an end-of-golden-age effect?

Pompeii courthouse -> market
Viro -> Great Library! [dance] -> spearman. I also give viro a food tile, instead of that gold tile, so that it can grow (and take the gold tile with new citizen!)

(6) 310 AD - zzz

BT - Mongols land settler pair on Champions island. :crazyeye:
They also move away from Antium (heh, silly me moved my Legion into the city, so that I could attack them next turn from the city, but of course that drove them off). Caesaraugustum walls (just in time for a bar that's coming) -> harbor

(7) 320 AD - It seems odd that no techs have popped out of our library yet, so I check the Civilopaedia. D'oh! The techs have to be known by two AI's that we know! I hope we meet some AI soon! In the mean time, I lost a couple of turns of research. :splat: I turn construction on to 90% (well, I meant to do this, I even wrote down that I did this, but I somehow didn't do it. I have no idea how this was missed, because I remember being at the slider when I wrote down that I turned it up. I noticed finally just after "next turn" in 340 AD, and decided to reload. My notes were detailed enough that I figured I could do everything again in order, and the combats all went the same, so I think I did OK).

There are now two Mongol galleys within range of Champion Island, so I unload the legion and the settler, where I think they'll be safer. I move our legions one tile towards the Mongol settler pair.

BT - Mongol archer kills our legion, only taking one hit :aargh: I'm sure noticing that there is a finesse to using infantry only that really shows up when dealing with AI units that are higher in attack than defense. Hopefully I'm learning how to deal with this, though! The other Mongol unit pillages.

Mongols found Erdenet on Champion Island, guarded by a regular spear, surrounded by the Roman Legions! What are they smoking?

Rome market -> settler

(8) 330 AD - I move settler onto the pink dot, with Champions for cover for the time being. All other legions move adjacent to Erdenet.

I'm a little concerned about Antium, and try to upgrade its veteran warrior. That's when I notice that it's not connected to the core, and has no access to iron! There are some workers on a newly cleared tile by Brundisium that can start on a road before a mine to remedy this. I move our other SW area legion to Gold Hill. He may be needed if things go badly here. The newly cleared tile reminds me that Brundisium can work that tile and give Rome back its grassland, so Rome can now grow.

BT - Vet archer attacks Antium and loses. Other archer heads for Lugdunum.

(9) 340 AD - The Battle of Erdenet is on! My legions are ona hill, vs their single spear. Time to go fishing? Our elite legion wins, taking 3 hits, and razes the new city. I settle Palmyra and start walls. I sloppily sent 2 units to cover our wonded Elite, leaving 2 units to fortify Palmyra. I'm not thinking about the Mongols, I'm thinking about sending most of the legions to the mainland. I even move a galley across to pick them up.

In our SW, I move the archer out of Hispalis. That's got a legion for defense, and is on a hill, and we could use an offensive unit in the area.

BT - Long live the Lugdunum fighters! Well, fighter. He held off the archer's attack, and has one hit point left.

Mongols unload two swords near Palmyra (this is the last thing that happens before I reloaded, and the only difference. In the other one, I'd moved three units into Palmyra and two onto the razed city tile, and they hadn't landed. It was unintentional, I'd honestly paid far too little attention to the galleys up here). They also sink one of our unloaded galleys (OK, that didn't happen last time, either. I guess I deserved that for being a space case, but you guys didn't!)

Veii market -> walls
Antium library -> market
Hispalis courthouse -> market

(10) 350 AD - I move our last NE galley behind Palmyra to hide from the mean Mongol galley. I debate attacking the Mongol swords this turn, but decide to fortify the two defenders. Next turn, three more units will move in, though one is wounded.

With no active Mongol units in our land, but two incoming galleys, I fortify our legion and our archer on the hill where they've been unloading. I wonder if they will still target Antium and Lugdunum, and unload their units into this much more dangerour unloading spot?

Iron is now connected to our SW. We may want to upgrade some warriors, especially the veteran in Antium. Of course, now we're ready for an attack on Antium and Lugdunum, so I almost hesitate to add any defense there.

With the new city, we're (barely) under the unit cap, but will be over with the new settlers/spears that are coming up. Of course, the settlers are their own solution to that problem! To go north, we have a settler and spear at Pisae (that's where the S galleys are). Also, Rome is making a settler and Viro a spear. Both Mongol galleys near our lands are full, I believe. They've been coming in down our east coast, landing in the SW, and returning up the west coast.

We don't have a legion in the SE zone for defense. Having one over there would be helpful, when it's convenient.

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-gris-350ad.zip

falsfire: My condolances on your loss. :(

Sirian: I don't think I ever made it to BC in my shadow game because I would think of some place I messed up, or didn't plan correctly for, so you guys are actually ahead of me! :lol:

One teeny comment: After having seen the map (as posted here) you might had been beter off to rush the leader down for the FP to make that area at least start supporting itself and have the main area for the Mongol war, but oh well. :)

I will say it was possible to build both GL's on the main island (I did at least manage that) but it had to go almost exactly as you suggested, temple in Veii as soon as CB came in and then starting immediately on the GL.

Keep up the great work, FWIW you are actually handling the Mongol war better than I did the first time! :)

Under Always War with a militaristic civ, we ought to get more leaders. If a leader pops on the south side of our continent and we don't have a new wonder ready to rush (Gardens, SunTzu, Sistine) then we should (carefully!) transport him over to the south continent and rush the FP. We have to watch out for barb galleys, though, and Mongol galleys, and not get the leader killed by barbs on land either! AND we have to be sure not to have the city get raided on the same turn and its shields wiped out by a barb raging horde. I'm very glad we got the great library. IF it should happen that we don't make contact with any more civs, we'll shut research down after early middle ages and catch up to Astronomy and more when the contacts are made.

Those Ottomans sound fearsome! Pyramdis and Great Wall? I was hoping to get the Great Wall, it's very useful for defending a scattered island empire. Ah well. We're doing all right, I believe. Gris had a good round! And so did I, with the first leader. I'm actually glad the Mongols are shipping a lot of troops, that keeps them from building too much infra, and gives us more chances at leaders.

Hotrod, our fate is once again in your hands. :)


- Sirian

Will pick up the game tonight. With 3 it will turn over very fast.

Hotrod

Well it was a rather uneventful 10 rounds.

My log has been erased unintentionally by a little person who shall remain nameless (my 2 year old shut the computer off while I went to check on dinner) Thankfully I had just saved the game but not my log (Dohh).

Here is Summary of events:

The Mongols continue to bring death to themselves at Palmyra. The walls completed and a temple started, 5 Legionary including our Champion, 2 elites and 2 vets, with 2 galleys. There was a lot of galley activity out of Tabriz but I only saw 2 or 3 anywhere near our main continent, (where are they going).

Founded 4 cities on the large island to the North. All are fortified with spears and are working on walls.

Moved 2 legionary and an archer to the southern island, right about the time of the uprisings! I see at least 5 different barb camps sending huge amounts of horsemen :(. The entire southern island is barbs.

Built mostly infrastructure, walls, temples, libraries and started more of the same, with minimal military build up. There are 3 legionary on "patrol" one to the West, 1 to the East and 1 SE. An elite is stationed in Cumae and should be relived with a spear soon to go on a hunting spree.

Consctruction was completed running at a rather sizeable loss. We enter the Middle ages without a government to switch to and start on Feudalism. The way I figured it SunZu was the next Wonder we may need, and pikes and MDI won't hurt. Running a small loss of -3gpt, it is due in 11 turns.

My biggest concern was the amount of Mongol galleys I saw. They attacked an empty galley and lost and from then on I was reluctant to move much in the way of troops north and because of our cashflow woes I didn't build much military at all and really only fought 2 battles. One set of archers approached Cumae, forcing me to move a legion to Cumae. They attacked and the legionary promoted and still remains in the city. The other was just watching the Mongol swords and archers attack Palymra in waves. This was all before the walls completed.

My only regret was not getting any troops to the Mongol mainland. (And lossing my entire log, I had only 2 turns left to play)

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-450AD.zip

PS: sorry for the poor report, I will pay more attention to saving my log as I do with my games :blush:

"I know how to get your attention when you're on the computer" trick! For what it's worth, the trick seems to lose its appeal with age- my four year old has only turned the computer off once this year, and that was by accident.

It's good that the AI has turned their attention, for the most part, to Palmyra, and perhaps to the northern isle. :) I wonder if there's another resource there? Also, I believe that an uprising happens when a second civ reaches a new era, so that means we're only the second or perhaps third civ to the middle ages, and not as horribly behind (yet) as we'd feared.

With the 2.1 archers, it's better to attack them than to let them attack. Of course, this is not always possible, especially with infantry units!

-Griselda

The archers were in the jungle and a 3.3 legionary was no match for them. I seem to have terrible luck attacking units in the jungle. A fortified legionary did the trick.

Not sure about our research track. Feudalism made sense when I went for it bypassing Monarchy. The Mongols are horribly behind us in tech. They lack just about everything, lit, poly, etc. That must be what happens when the AI goes all or nothing into a war :lol:.

Hotrod

IT 450AD: We have one unit in Caesaraugusta? One unit? And nothing on the south side of our empire to spare. Oh boy. I change Antium to colesseum. Rome is size 5?? Well, OK. I check for whipping possibilities. Some slacker towns feel the lash. :whipped:

Early: I board our two elites in the north and set sail for Mongolia. The escort ship is attacked, loses 2hp and prevails vs a Mongol galley. Um... the fleet limps back to port at Palmyra. OK, let's try this another way. I move the Champs out of Palmyra. OK, there! Now we can get a leader on defense right there in the city. (Don't hold your breath! But it's possible). Our mop-up units in the southwest all promote to elite from heavy fighting.

Middle: The elite spear at Caesaraugusta goes down in battle. The barbs destroy the walls. :eek: I swap our project to a warrior, wasting a few shields. Meanwhile, our units in the west are being whittled down. They can only heal 1hp per turn, out in the open, and they are dropping. Now they are dying. Took a lot o those swarming bastards with them (like about twenty, plus another five at Caesaraugusta, and three more with the warrior before it perished). And there are still WAY MORE LEFT than have been killed. Hotrod was not joking! This is about eight times worse than the worse raging hordes of barbs that I have ever seen. There are literally OVER A HUNDRED of them on the island. Some of you wanting to see this, grab Hotrod's save game file and BE AMAZED at the teeming hordes.

Well, hmm. Seems they muddle around when towns are defended, but beeline to any undefended town. I went ahead and used up our cash reserve (the 2/3rds of it we had left) on upgrading warriors. Might as well, as the cash is history either way. The animations play FOR MINUTES as barbs ride into Caesaraugusta and hold the biggest, uh... never mind.

Temu sure is up in arms about Palmyra! Seems that that turned out to be a great plan, as it has kept ALL the heat off the mainland for my whole go-round. We're going to have a new ballgame on our hands up there when he gets to midieval infantry. We need to build a few more vet ships and haul some cats (WHERE ARE OUR CATS? Mreow. Fisk! Fisk!) up there, along with a couple of pikes. If he's content to beat his head on that wall all game long, I'll be content to let him do it. Reminds me of the Great Library island I had in Epic 14, complete with its big stacks of 1hp spears "guarding" the landing zones. :lol:

Late: After the barb hordes in the east pretty much exhaust themselves (I'd say ~70 of them) and get sick of mistreating those poor Roman colonists, I get a legion down there to disperse the camp on the north shore, then land a settler and found one of our dots. We're in "minimal cash" mode now, needing to absorb rather than fight the barbs for the time being. I have another settler onboard ship with a ship scouting ahead of them for next player to figure out which dot to grab. There ARE still loose barbs in the west (could be a dozen or more) so be careful.

Pisae needs MM attention, to go 2-2-3-3 on food. Worker from Viro is intended to cross north and start connecting the island towns. Don't use Rome or Antium for settlers. Plenty of other good candidates. When those finish infra, have them crank the troops. Try to get a few cats up to Palmyra (carefully) and make sure to whip its temple when its down to needing 20 shields. The fishing town in the south got whipped twice to build its temple, so wait until it's down to 20 shields to go on the harbor to whip that.

In the north, don't use cats to attack the swords, they'll just park like the spears, we don't want that. Use the cats to bomb any spears, that will cause them to SEND MORE SPEARS :lol: and use any leftover shots on passing galleys. (Even use our galleys to sink enemy ships in the red). And otherwise, just having them on defense is the same as one extra HP for our units, making it less likely a streak will take one of them out. Streaks are what tore down our elites from the barbs. Enough action, a bad streak will show up eventually.

I moved a cat across to the island at orange dot, to bomb passing ships, and they stopped passing. No sense leaving that cat there, make it one of the ones that gets sent north. Take escort ships! Tamu is really hot for naval warfare these days.

Uh... I hope that covered everything. 1) Reinforce Palymyra and whip its temple. 2) Champs out of the city to give more chance for leaders on defense. 3) Epic Four "settle our way to conquest over the barbs" plan in effect in the south. 4) Might as well research monarchy after feudalism and get ready for the switch. Then perhaps it will be time to shut OFF research until more contact is made, use our cash to upgrade spears to pikes and to rush some key items in well-defended frontier/corrupt locations (especially Palmyra). Cash-rushing with the great library money, if done wisely, will make up for us not using it on the FP earlier. 5) If we get another leader, now that the barb horde has happened, we might want to use the next one for FP, as it is getting late and we barely have a foothold in the south. 6) Good luck.

INF2 - 550AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-550ad.zip)


- Sirian

On the south island, the bars continued to have their way with the cities, happily killing themselves for 1 gold apiece. Once I got Artaxata founded on the yellow dot (610 AD), I went fishing down there with the two legions. No leaders, but the vet did promote to Elite, and I killed some of the bars. Only Caesaraugustus and Artaxata are regularly getting pillaged now, so I suppose it's an improvement.

The Mongols still pretended I didn't have a mainland, so I started a lot of aqueducts in cities that could benefit from them, and tried to stick to pike, cats, or needed infra in others. There wasn't much available to whip this round, but next round should see a lot of temples and harbors make it down to 20 shields. Palmyra whipped its temple at 650 AD.

I forgot to MM at Pisae, so it's a turn behind on growth. I remembered one turn too late, so I left it @ 2 food. Sorry!

We only had one galley near Viro at the start of my turn, and I didn't want to wait for a second to sent the cats. I started another galley, and in the mean time I used the middle island to lessen the sea travel. I used the one galley to bring a worker, a legion, and two cats to Tarentum. The worker started on an inland-tile road to Caesarea, and the legion escorted the cats to Caesarea, then was going to stay on the island for zone defense. This turned out to be very helpful, because late in the round the Mongols landed a sword and a horse on that island, by Caesaerea. This was just after the cats had arrived there, so I held them up one turn to bombard the landed Mongol units. Then, I sent the cats on ahead to Palmyra (they just arrived on turn 10), and sent the Legion after the wounded Mongol units.

There are a *ton* of Mongol galleys just south of Palmyra, and they may go after our galleys. We have one loaded galley up there, with a cat and a pike, underneath a vet.

The AI have continued to suicide units at Palmyra, mostly swords but even an archer. It would be nice if we were able to also cause some trouble at their mainland once the pikes and cats are settled in Palmyra.

In the south, the bar galleys have been somewhat annoying. I've attacked them when I have a free vet galley, and I *think* the waters are a bit safer now. Both of our galleys in the far south have a settler and a legion in them. I was going to let both settlers off at the dark blue dot; I think the second one will be safe walking inland with a legion (the bars went right by me earlier when I did this). The now-elite galley on the bottom is wounded, but doesn't appear to be in immediate danger, and should be able to drop off safely at the very least.

Needless to say, we got Feudalism and are working on Monarchy. I had to move lux up to 20% mid-turn when Rome grew, but I've moved it back to 10% now that the colosseum is done. The only town that needs a specialist is Antium, which is just looking so nice these days after its rocky start! :)

This is an experiment in a more streamlined report format. I'm hoping that it will save time for me and for readers, and make more sense because it looks at the big picture. I could go back to the turn-by-turn if that seems better.

-Griselda

edit- Sorry for the bad proofreading, guys!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-gris-650ad.zip

I grabbed the game but will not get to it until tomorrow night. :(.

As far as the report I got the overall picture of your turns. I generally prefer the turn by turn just for myself because it helps me keep track of turns. But I don't think it is required I am sure if I see the game itself I will be able to see which way is up.

Hotrod

Turn by turn reports events, but tends not to connect the dots. I don't avoid it, but I often don't feel the need to report every specific event. Instead, as you know, I often try to paint a picture instead, revealing the flow of the game and what I was thinking in my strategy. I really liked your report this round, Gris. I thought you did a good job explaining, and I got a better sense of what happened than I get from the typical turn-by-turn. :goodjob:

Oh, and leaders can't pop from barbarian combat. The barbs are a good way to promote some extra elites, but they won't ever provide us with leaders. Think about it, with the combat bonuses vs them and their weak units, there'd be an endless cheap leader farm running. It's best this way. So plan for having to pull leaders from combat with other civs.

Also don't get too cocky with the barbs. I think that if every city on the landmass had a defender, even a weak one, their behavior would return to "normal" for PTW, whereas they behave old style and beeline for those city raids when a city has no defense. That is also a way to bait them into doing what you want, and may rise in its effectiveness toward exploit levels. We will have to wait and see what the full play balance of this factor is, and whether or not Soren makes any more changes to the barb AI.


- Sirian

It did almost seem too easy, when I had two legions on the mountains outside of Artaxata, and all the bars were presenting their heads on silver platters. We were sill getting raided enough that I couldn't feel *too* bad about it! It makes sense that you can't pop a leader from barbarian battles, I just didn't know until now.

I keep the turn-by-turn on paper, so it's easy enough to type them up any which way afterwards. Alt-tabbing out is harder when you're as forgetful as I am :crazyeye:.

Has anybody else noticed the nice always war infantry game in the PTW movie? Too bad they have to ruin it with that silly spaceship. ;)

-Griselda

Very exciting game guys and gals. I will be following closely with interest.

Cicero the IV is back and checks out the scene. So much has changed yet stayed the same.

650 AD (0): Hire taxman at Lugdunum, can whip it but will take 2 citizens. Decide to wait for now.

IBTN: Mongols land on the large island to the north with a spear/sword pair. Looks like Caesarea is the target. More land out side Palymra.

660 AD (1): Move the pike and cat to Casearea to contend with the New spear/sword. Cats attack the spear stack and miss. Load up two vet legionary to go hunting on the Mongol island to the west. The settlers land at the south island.

670 AD (2): Mongols counter with horse at Casearea and die, another sword attacks Palymra and dies. Veii builds pike starts another. Antium builds cat starts pike. Found Aurealianorum on the southern island. Start walls.

680 AD (3): 2 legionary attack and destroy the city of Baruun-Urt on the West Island, and liberate 12 gold. Kill 2 camps on the southern island. Rome builds a pike and starts our first MDI. Spent some gold to upgrade a few spear to pikes,try to get one pike per city.

690 AD (4): Hurry temple in Lugdunum. Move some units around.

700 AD (5): Ravenna builds courthouse starts aqueduct. Cumae builds market starts cat. Hispalis builds pike starts market. Brundisium builds pike starts cat. Found Hippo Regius.

710 aD (6): Veii revolts, missed it :(, hire tax man and starts collesseum. Lutetia builds markeplace starts settler. Caesaraugusta builds walls starts spear.

720 aD (7): Whipped syracus harbor. Moved some troops across the island for transport to Palymra. Our cultural expansion has pushed to damaged spears off the hill to the north.

730 AD (8): Learn Monarchy and start Monotheism but don't revolt yet, four cities will complete units or other things next turn. Continue moving troops towards Palymra. 2 mongol galleys kill an empty galley off the coast. But 2 mongol galley are destroyed.

740 aD (9): Rome builds MDI starts another. Pisae builds aqueduct, starts library. LUtetia builds settler starts pike. Moving some more troops around. Get some troops in Caesarea ready to cross once the galleys arrive. Sending two more ships with settlers and legionary to the south. Revolution begins, drew 6 turns.

750 AD (10): With 5 turns of revolution remaing not much to do :(. 2 legionary are out side of the second Mongol city on the Western Island.



Overall not too much happened. Barbs hit Ceasaragust again :(. Took out 3 camps. Razed 1 Mongol city and got another cat to Palymra. Mongols keep dieing on the legionary swords but no leaders emerged. Killed a couple troops that landed on the island and the legionary got promoted but not much else. Very cautious about moving galleys around. Tried to use the new roads to get troops off the galley in Tarentum and back on in Caesara. Didn't want to lose a pike or cat to a galley.

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-750AD.zip


I was very cautious and not sure about using the whip. A whip that would claim 3 lives didn't seem worth it. Tried to whip sparingly, too gentle?? I am not sure?

The only other question I had as I played was when to revolt, with some many things coming on the next turn I decided to wait.

IT 750AD: Some cities have to run negative food. This can be reduced without danger with on-again off-again civil disorder. No food is gained or lost under civil disorder. If you let rioting persist for more than one turn, there is danger of severe riots that destroy city improvements. Thus, on-again, off-again. One turn of disorder, one turn of order, continuously until the anarchy period ends, will cut the food loss in half. This sounds like a hassle, but once you know what you're doing with it, it only takes a few seconds to manage. Finally, I made sure we had a lone scientist running.

The Anarchy Years: Blah. A streak killed one of our three elite legionaries at Palmyra. The AI just got lucky on the attack. We had bad luck all around, too. Both legions on the western desert island were killed off by a single swordsman. The luck was also bad in the south. A barb horse slew the regular spear at Yellow Dot, leaving that city in a mess. It's got whip memory but nothing to show for it, as the walls were destroyed when the barbs entered the city. The only good news is that after I transferred a pike and regular legion from Caesarea to Palmyra, a Mongol galley attacked our ship at sea and lost, us with 1 hp left. We even almost lost an elite legion to a single barb horse in the south, but he won two in a row with 1hp left to survive, and this was right after he had dispersed a camp.

This wasn't quite as bad as my horrendously poor streak in the first attack in RBE2, but this was up there in terms of bad luck.

Well, fooey. The anarchy ate half my turn, plus what little I could control all went badly on me anyway. I decided to write all that off and play ten turns (five extra) once I got to Monarchy.


Middle Turns: Our economy is now in GOOD shape under Monarchy. We are paying ~25gpt on unit maintenance, but that is to be expected. We're running extra workers because we had a massive jungle to clear. The last of that ought to be gone by the time the game comes back around to me. We can now use up to three units per city on MP duty, and that is where a lot of extra unit support is going. Figure that if a unit parked in a core city allows another tile to be used and that tile brings in at least one commerce, then the unit is "paying for itself". That is to say, if we got rid of essential units to try to "reduce costs", our income would drop anyway. Not good. Yet we must also be careful not to have so many units that we choke our economy. It's a delicate balance. We also have to limit infrastructure in towns that are too corrupt to pay for it. We don't need settlements loaded down with goodies that are actually doing us harm.

With Monarchy now in play, the tile penalties are gone. Rome and Antium can get to size 12, while some other core cities start on colesseums. Rome and Antium are training all the troops, at the moment. At this stage, I was getting a pike out of Rome every other turn and an Infantry out of Antium every three turns.

The Mongols continued to land units at Palmyra, and they were not landing anywhere else this round. Other than the one elite lost to a streak early on, things here have been status quo. No new leaders. I went fishing once or twice vs retreated horses or battered spears, but no leaders. I managed to bombard a galley that got too close down to 1hp and then sank it with one of our vet galleys. We had only 1hp left, so that was almost a disaster, but it worked out OK.

Progress was made on the roads on Iron Isle. We now have three towns connected, a harbor importing materials and lux, and an elite legion parked at the fork in the road, able to reach any of the three towns AND still attack or fortify, if needed.

While the biggest cities grew to size 12 and trained troops, the other core cities built colesseums. Smaller cities finished aqueducts or trained settlers. I inherited two settlers from Hotrod, aboard ships. One crossed the southern continent to the south shore, the other settled on the north shore. I settled a third town on the northwest tip.

Meanwhile, near the end of the middle turns, a Mongol galley sailed past Londinium and vanished along the sea currents, to the west. I thought nothing of it at the time, but a late-game F8 check showed that Temujin had gone through an anarchy. I checked, found he had Republic tech AND contact with the Ottomans. Only with the Ottomans, so I guess they are like us two, isolated on their own landmass. F6 is still saying we're technologically advanced, which means we ARE among the world's tech leaders. Either all the AI's are isolated, or any that are together have been warring heavily. I can't think of any other explanation. This IS a continents map, not pelago, but if you guys remember Epic Nine, there were some isolated civs on that continent map, too. Plus larger maps do better for the map generator. (That's one reason I personally prefer large maps, as the map quality on average is better. Epic Fourteen was a notable exception to this tendency).

If the Ottomans are across those sea currents, they won't be able to reach us until Astronomy, so the Mongols will remain our only active foes for a while yet. We need to push all the bars off the south continent, though, and get a leader ASAP for the FP, as we don't have 200 turns to wait for it to self-build. Eventually we WILL pull more leaders, I just hope it isn't too far away. Yet even though we can afford to take our time with the south continent, we do need to divert resources to it regularly. Or else we won't be ABLE to catch up later.

I ran us all cash with lone scientist, 10% lux. I used the income to rush projects: temples in key colonies, a harbor or two, a barracks in Palmyra. As our population grew under better food with Monarchy and larger core MP stacks, our income went up by about 30gpt, and only some of that was consumed by more unit support. Right now our gpt income at 90% taxes is ~100gpt, maybe a little less.

Late turns: I sent an Inf and Legion to the desert isle, razed the southern city (the northern was replanted). The same sword that killed the first two legions there got a third, but then our Inf took him out finally. Those were some heroic Mongols. Our wounded inf parked to heal up, and along came a Mongol replacement settler pair, the guard an archer. An archer! :smoke: We secured our first two slave workers on the last turn of my round. They are ready to be picked up and taken to Iron Isle. It might not be a bad idea to park a pike and a couple of inf over there and get us a steady stream of new slaves as the Mongols send more and more settlers to the island. We have to be in position to hit them before they settle, though. We want the slaves. Workers that don't require pay!

Late in my round, I sent three more settlers down to the south continent. They are destined for the pink, green and light blue dots in the new dotmap below. (There was a game on one of my dots that had been under fog, so I reworked the plan). Please note that our military down there is on the thinnish side. I was trying to push the Epic Four strategy, to settle the barbs off the continent. I cleared out three or four camps and had only the one major setback, but these last three settlers went down there unescorted. I picked up escort from Artaxata in the case of green dot, and escort from the far east coast in case of pink dot. There is a NEW CAMP in the cattle area, so be careful. Once these three settlers are in place and settled, that should end the camps in the south and east. That may mean more of them in the last bits of the west, though. Green and Pink have escorts. Light blue might be able to go unescorted, there are no barbs over to the east right now, the legion just came from there. It all depends on what that lone barb horsie does. If it beelines for the empty city, I say make a run for the blue dot. If it moves eastward, then don't take a chance, wait for a better opportunity.

Since the tech pace seems to be going slowly, I thought about dedicating one city to a palace prebuild and going for a self-built wonder: the gardens if the AI's are that sad, or else our palace needs 700+ shields so it could sit and wait and wait and wait as long as we wanted. I thought about Veii, but Cumae might be better. Veii can barely get to 10spt if MM'ed to its best with the shared tiles from Viro. 10spt could be a galley every three turns, or any other unit we like.

Rome needs one of its tiles irrigated. Then it can sit on break even food, running our lone scientist, with 20spt net. That's an inf every other turn, and a mere eight turns to build a cathedral to put that last citizen to work. Meanwhile, Antium is now up to 15spt so it has taken over the pike duty. We are now effective training a new state of the art unit every turn from this pair of towns. And for the moment, ALL of these units need to head south. We need to secure our insecure cities down there, as well as make way for settling the remaining four dots. (That means we need four more settlers, and use the cities under size 6 or at size 7 with little or no food accumulated, for this duty). We might also think about settling that far western island now, while we have only one opponent to fight, but this should only be started once the rest of south continent is settled and the barbs gone from there for good.

Use the cash to rush projects in corrupt yet secured areas: temples, harbors, and especially courthouses in any city that is not sitting on 1/1 shields/trade. Use good sense, we don't want barbs running over and destroying these paid-for improvements, but better to use this cash now to improve our economy than have it sitting around. (I'm glad Charis isn't here for this, he's the most infamous "spend it all on the colonies" player :lol: ;) :hammer: that I ever saw).

A good dozen pikes/infantry added to the south continent over Gris's next round ought to bring that area up to speed quite nicely. Then Hotrod can go on a crusade to take over the desert isle once and for all, opening the way for us to that western isle. We will need more ships, and that's just for hauling. We need even more than that for escorts and combat purposes.

Finally, workers. We should ship some of the homeland workers to the south continent once the homeland is fully improved. Leave half behind to work on the mountains, and don't move workers south until the barb menace is fully cleaned out. Maybe a couple to the east once that whole side is secure, even if some threats remain in the west. Top priorty: a good road network. Second priority, lots of improvements around Caesaraugusta to have it ready to rockola once we do get a leader to rush the FP there. And in the north, it would help to get some roads going east out of Palmyra, so that we can roll our cats out onto the peninsula on quiet turns to bomb their ships passing by. A couple of combat galleys up there, we might sink loaded ships or at least force them to build more ships, which is something else they won't be building.


Well... that was a long report. :) I hope it made sense.

INF2 - 900AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-900ad.zip)


- Sirian

Now for the new dotmap in the south:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-dotmap-900ad.jpg

I feel as if we've turned the tide down there now. Just a little more work and we'll have complete control. If Gris makes beefing up our military there a priority, she should be able to accomplish a lot. Never know if the AI will wreck this plan with its own moves, though. May have to deal with contingencies. Good luck!


PS: need to keep an eye on the Ottoman contact. If Temu sells contact with us to them, we must declare war before clicking "next turn" again. Also remember no map buys or embassies this game.

Aha!! I knew you were a splurge-on-the-colonies guy down deep!! :hammer:

Actual, by now I know the distinction between throwing cash down a hole on colonies that can't pay their own way and spending money wisely now for a gain later - it was good to get the :whipped: for that earlier.

I'll also :whipped: myself (so others, cough, don't have to) and say this is turning out to be an extremely nice game, and the actual difficulty quite tough (and of course you ain't seen nuthin' yet as far as heavy fighting with AI)

:goodjob:
Charis

Wow, 1000 AD, and we're just at the beginning of the middle ages. :lol:

Up north, Palmyra was business as usual, with units landing every 2-3 turns. Swords would kill themselves on the walls, spears would join the stack, and horses would attack and retreat. I chased the retreated horses down and killed them with Elites, but to no avail. I was also able to sink a Mongol galley by bombarding it down to 1 hp and then killing it with our Palmyra galley.

I didn't make getting workers up there a priority, but being able to move our catapults would help a lot. During this turn, Veii built two galleys (one's in Veii, the other in Viro). There are now two free workers in Rome who could head to Veii and then to Palmyra.

I sent a second med inf up to the island with Ereen. I think it's guarded by a single spear (but not 100% sure), and both units are up by the city and ready to attack soonish. They haven't landed any other units on the island lately.

The other north island is cruising along merrily. They didn't land any units there at all. Jerusalem and Tarentum are not hopelessly corrupt, so they're now working on courthouses. I didn't start Nicomedia on a courthouse just because it won't really have access to shield tiles for a long time unless we want to actually abandon growth there. I sent the captured workers over to that island to contribute to the road building cause.

The mainland was also peaceful. Lugdunum and Lutetia built settlers. Rome got the spice tile irrigated, and is pumping a med inf every two turns. Antium is also size 12, and it's at 15 spt, a pike every 2 turns. I did give Veii the two bonus grass tiles, so it's built the two galleys, and has started on a pike, but Viro's still working on that library. Cumae completed the colosseum and started a palace prebuild. Most other towns I have on marketplaces. Almost all the jungle is cleared on the mainland, though the south island is not *quite* ready for them yet.

On the south island, the bar horsie did try to beeline for Artaxata. But, Artaxata completed a warrior on turn one, and I wasn't sure if the bar horse would turn around and beeline for the unescorted settler. I counted- the settler could reach the light blue dot in three turns, and so could the barb horse. I wasn't sure the bar was going to turn around and go for the settler, though, so I decided to go for it. To reach the settler in three turns, they'd have to move next to Caesaraugusta, so I figured I'd attack it with my MP unit there if I had to. The horse actually continued west, so the settler made the unescorted journey uneventfully.

I settled blue, pink, and light blue dots this round. I should have rushed a warrior the first turn after settling light blue, but I didn't. Agrippina (light blue) was founded in 940 AD, and in 950 I realized that there were two bar horsies that would pillage it on the next turn. I rushed harbors in Seleucia, Aurelianorum, and Caesaraugusta that turn, so we only lost a total of four gold from the pillaging. A few bars also did suicide themselves at Arretium (blue), most of the rest spent their time trying to look scary while waiting for the med inf to come kill them.

I sent the legion who had been healing in the south to take care of the new camp by the cattle that Sirian mentioned. I also dispersed two camps in the west. I used the galley that Ravenna built, plus the two that were already in the south, to ferry units between Hispalis and the south islands. I have most of the tiles down there lit up now, but a few might have some camps that developed earlier.

There's an escorted settler down there that I had been sending toward the green dot. Ironically, this is the only area that's not yet well lit, although I have two units in range. If it looks bad down there when they get there, I suppose the settler could be diverted. But, I really do doubt it would be something they couldn't mop up right away.

There are two more settlers on the mainland, headed for the Hispalis galley station. There are also assorted pikes and med inf headed that way.

The only real surprise down there was that a Mongol galley appeared out of the fog. All the bar galleys but one have been to the far south, and my south continent galleys only fought once (won and promoted). The Mongol galley popped up in the south, surrounded by that pack of bar galleys. They battered the Mongol galley down to one hit point, though, and it's trying to flee. It's west of Nicopolis right now. If we keep an eye on it, we may be able to sink it on its way back.

I did stupidly lose a pike attacking a bar horsie. I have no idea why I would have been :smoke: like that, but it happened.

We're definitely past "turn the tide" down there, which is nice.

The Mongols are still our only contact.

Cicero III salutes Cicero IV, and hands over the keys to the Empire.

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-gris-1000ad.zip

PS- Charis, please, stop whipping yourself! We don't want to have to hire you a clown! :p

Cicero IV from 1000 AD

1000 AD (0): Not much to do just press enter :)

1010 AD (1): Rome builds MI starts MI. Can get HG in 15 turns :hmmm:. Brundisium builds market starts colosseum. Moving settlers toward pickup to the south.

1020 AD (2): Veii builds pike starts another. Antium builds pike starts another. Caesarea builsd harbor starts courthouse. Load up the two settlers from the mainlands. The southern Island is clear of barb activity will begin moving workers.

1030 AD (3): Rome builds MI starts another. Pisae builds market starts pike. Arretium buids walls starts temple. The mongols have found our southern island with a wounded galley, no troops landed. Lose a vet MI to a reg spear on the desert island :(. Elite MI managed to kill one without a leader. Hurry a couple improvements on the mainland for ~230 gold total.

1040 AD (4): 2 new MI land on Desert Island. Continue moving settlers toward city sites to the south and moving MI around to head to the galleys in the North.


Japan finished the SunZu. A sword and new settler arrive on the desert island. Sending MI to dispatch. Settlers on the move. Sending a new settler to galleys in the north to go the other island.

1050 AD (5): Hurry barracks at Caesaraugusta, look to hurry other projects and decide to rush the temple at Nicopolis. Our first 2 workers are loaded and will head south next turn.

Many projects complete and continue on infrastructure.

Greeks builds Hanging Gardens.

1060 AD (6): Spen 200 gold on a temple at Hippo Regina. only a wouned horseman remain on the Palymra island. Kill a vet sword but it took 2 MI to do it :(. Gain 2 new Mongol servents.

1070 AD (7): Found 3 new cities in the south. start moving settler to Western island to the north. sending servents with the settlers. Workers will arrive at casearagusta soon. Hurry temple at arretium for 224 gold will riot after next growth due in 2 turns.

1080 AD (8): 2 new MI are arriveing at Palymra, the island is clear for the moment. 2 MI remaing on the desert island will move on Ereen soon. workers in transport to the south.

1090 AD (9): Continue moving workers south and MI north. Sending on settler/pike pair to the western island.

1100 AD (10): first 2 workers arrive at Caesaraugusta. A settler/pike is loaded and ready to go to the last site on the southern island. Palymra is free of mongols for now. 2 MI failed to kill 2 spears at Ereen again :(. Had hoped to take the city and then send 1 to the western island after the galley drops off the settlers and workers/slaves. The southern cities need troop for MP duty and many have specialist. Rushed temples in cities that would revolt in the next few turns without a temple. Still no new leaders even though elites killed almost 10 units overall :(. Moved MI northward for a future land fall on Mongol territory. Rome stayed on MI duty, Antium stayed on Pikes to add MP strength to growing mainland cities as well as cover for southern cities. The workers are ready to be sent southward from Hisplais. A few new galleys are online, sunk a couple mongol galleys along the way. In terms of losses, lost 2 MI to spears at Ereen and 1 to a sword landing at desert isle. Continued building infrastructure at most mainland cities and pealed of a couple settlers from the size 6 and 7 cities on the West coast.

Monotheism is due in 4 at +140gpt. Still no new contacts :(.

here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1100AD.zip

I'm back to playing now. I'll step in and take the next ten if that's ok.

"got it"

Welcome back, Falsfire! We're glad to see you again. :)

Adjusting the roster to reflect your new location in the order:

Sirian <<< On Deck
Griselda
Hotrod
Faslfire << UP NOW

1100 AD [0] - Pisae will riot in it's current situation, so I hire a taxman. Caesaraugusta entertainer changed to taxman, still keeping the people content. Veii scientist changed to taxman. One extra scientist didn't help our research speed any, anyhow. Pompeii taxman fired, city still happy. Hispalis gets a tax collector to keep the peace. Sleeping galley in Tarentum wakes up, heads back towards mainland to pick up an MI or two in case assistance is needed to sack the Mongol city of Erdenet on Desert Isle.

1110 AD [1] - Rome MI-->MI. Brundisium Coloseum-->MI. Shuffling workers and galleys around. Load up a galley near Veii to send two more MI to the Desert Isle.

IBT: Mongol galley returns to their homeland.

1120 AD [2] - Veii galley-->MI. Antium pikeman-->MI. More troop & unit shuffling. I'm sending one galley of MDI to the NW island to help deter AI attacks there, as there's only a pike guarding the settler and two workers I just landed there.

IBT: Mongols land an archer & spear near Palmyra. We've been introduced to Ottomans. He shows up wanting to give us Republic for Literature & 520g. I don't think so. The only techs he has that we lack is Monotheism & Republic. We're only two turns from Monotheism, so I don't do any trades, I just declare war. We then gain Republic from the Great Library.

1130 AD [3] - Corfinium founded on NW isle, walls ordered. I catapult-bomb the two landed Mongol units, knocking the spear down to 1hp. The 4/5 MI attacks the vet archer, fishes but gets no leader. Then our elite legionary attacks the 1hp spear, also netting no leader. I hurry the courthouse in Jerusalem at a cost of 188g. Caesarea also gets it courthouse faster at a cost of 157g. Cumae swaps temporarily to FP, I'll switch to Cathedral next turn with Monotheism coming in, as I just plain don't like Coloseums compared to Cathedrals. Nicopolis & Gordion both get tax collectors, Byzantium's tax collector starts a new juggling career.

IBT: Mongols land another spear/archer pair near Palmyra. Monotheism comes in, I select Engineering-->Gunpowder as our next 40-turn path.

1140 AD [4] - Hispalis market-->Cathedral. Jerusalem courthouse-->rax. Caesarea courthouse-->worker. Agrepina walls-->worker. It also gains a tax collector. Our vet MDI near Palmyra dispatches the Mongol spear, promoting to elite. Why does Temujin keep sending REGULAR spears, and vet archers? Our vet MDI attacks Ereen, knocking 2hp off the vet spear, but dies. Galley from Seleucia dispatches a barb galley, losing 1hp and promoting to elite. The elite legion from Palmyra dispatches the Mongol archer, again without a scratch and again without a leader.

1150 AD [5] - Rome MI-->MI. Antium MI-->MI. Byzantium library-->Cathedral. Brundisium MI-->MI.

IBT: Mongols land a lone vet sword by Palmyra.

1160 AD [6] - We kill the sword with a cat strike and a vet MDI, who's now elite. The vast majority of our elites are now on Palmyra isle, hopefully we can get a leader here soon! One vet MDI dies attacking the vet spear at Ereen, but knocks it down to 1hp. The other MDI loses only 1hp knocking out a reg spear, and the 1hp vet is now the top defender.

IBT: Mongols land a spear and sword.

1170 AD [7] - I only thought the Mongols landed a sword. It was only a spear. I bomb their galley down 2hp, attack & kill it with our galley from Palmyra, and dispatch their vet spear with an elite legionary who again, yields no leader. Our 3/4 MDI takes out Ereen's 3/4 spear without a scratch, and sinks a Mongol galley.

1190 AD [9] - I've deposited two more MDI on Desert Isle, to help sack any replacement Mongol cities that spring up. Two MDI are exploring the island Corfinium is on, to sack any barbs/camps they find. There's a settler/pike pair on a boat there, next leader can decide whether to found a city on desert isle or on Corfinium isle. Mediolanum founded on the last dot on south island. I've never seen these city names, it's been so long since I've seen Rome grow so large on self-built cities.

1200AD [10] - zzzz...

Turn summary: I started shipping workers to the south island, which is now fully settled. I've also diverted a couple MDI's down there, to help in case the AI lands any units. I settled Corfinium on NW isle, and burned down yet another Mongol city on Desert Isle. About a half-dozen Mongol military sent to the meat grinder at Palmyra. There's a settler headed towards our northern mainland port-city of Veii, along with a pike escort, to head to new lands. There's also the unmoved settler/pike boat right beside Desert Isle. Next leader can decide whether to found another city there, or send the boat over to NW Isle. We *have* to meet the other civs before Mongolia & Ottomans learn Education, which will annull our Great Library. The others may all be together, and if they have a huge tech lead when we meet them we want our Great Library to still be active. Still pursuing 1-science research, now headed up the bottom of the tech tree towards Invention & Gunpowder. Only 5 turns invested into that so far, in case the next leader cares to switch off. We're running 11 taxmen, not sure if we should up lux, as many of the cities running taxmen are far-flung and corrupt and even if the citizens go back to work, any extra commerce over the +1g may be lost to corruption anyways. We now have Cathedrals as a happiness-helping build choice.

I've never, ever seen a game where tech crawled so much as to be still in the early Middle Ages in 1200AD. We may have a hard time achieving conquest before the histographic end of the world in 2050 :) This is also a surprising leader drought, we *need* that FP down south and at 1 shield only being produced in Caesarugusta, it'll take forever to build. We've a fair number of elites at and around Palmyra, leave at least one tile open for Mongolia to land troops on so we can leader fish. I've moved two cats to the northern hill tile, so they can bomb Mongol ships that drop off troops on the one free tile, then our boat in Palmyra can sally forth to destroy the Mongol ship. There should be enough units up there so we can destroy his troops without having to bomb them. There's also a worker starting to work on Palmyra's island, get some roads built to ease our troop movements on the island if necessary.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/inf2/inf2_1200AD.zip

IT: Rushed about five courthouses, spending most of our reserve. We're in this one for the long haul, though, so I anticipate an eventual return off this investment. I sent the unmoved galley to the West Isle and offloaded there.

Early: No word from the Mongols. They have stopped attacking Palmyra. :( I ordered up cathedrals in Rome and Antium and a few other core spots. Results from the courthouses are mixed. Several towns are now up to four or five spt, but a couple of others will need more improved tiles to see the full benefit. I rushed a couple of temples in secure sites to fill in our borders. There was also one dot missed in the south, I had Artaxata switch to settler.

Middle: No word from the Mongols. AT ALL. Nothing moving in our direction. What is going on? A couple of barracks completed in the south, and I started spearmen. I rushed a couple of these to improve defense at our eastern second-core cities that had only a regular warrior. No troops were coming from the mainland because I had cathedrals being built. Japan complete Leo's, and then England completed Sistine Chapel. Still no new contacts, and no tech progress for the two civs we do know.

Late: Temu sends one galley in our direction. One. It skips Palmyra and Iron Isle and heads down our east coast. When it still didn't land by the end of my round, I sank it on the last turn. I also decided to scout their shores a bit, and their land was literally teeming with units. Like ten units moved in and out of the four tiles I could see at any given time. If it is like that all over the island, from an always-war unit-building craze that has been frustrated by an inability to ship these units out to attack us, we may need dozens of units to have any hope of establishing any kind of foothold at all. We, uh, may indeed lose this game! :eek:

The leader drought is dragging on and on. By this point, whatever gains we get out of the Great Library will not make up for what we lost from not having an FP all this time. But truly, with Palmyra and continuous action, and action on desert isle, I really thought we'd get at least ONE more leader by now. I guess thems the breaks.

With Sistine and Leo completed, however, it can't be that long before astronomy and navigation. Thus, more beefing of forces on south continent may be in order, at least around the future second core. At this point, that seems to me like a better plan than gearing up to land on the Mongols. Because once we do make contact, we're going to NEED to divert our core production to universities and banks for a while, as well as give up the all-cash bonanza we've been enjoying thanks to knowing the Great Library will catch us up eventually. That will be a one-time bonus, though, and after that we're going to have to watch the AI tech progress and follow them up the tree, I think.

Here's a dotmap for West Isle. I think only the two towns in need of reaching out to whales should bother with temples at all.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-dotmap-west-isle.jpg

Also, once we do get to navigation, we have to do our own scouting. We may actually want to send out a caravel pack with five or six pikes/muskets and a few explorers who can scope out the inland areas of enemy lands. We'll also need scout ships for a while, maybe lots of them, until we figure out what's where. Not having AI maps will be... a difficult handicap, I expect. We'll want to figure out where resources are, especially any kinds we may lack!

Here's the current world map and our unit roster.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1275ad.jpg


Griselda is up, Hotrod on deck. Good luck, guys. The game is dragging a bit now, but don't get cozy. Like RBD SG7, at some point this thing is going to explode on us.

Infantry - 1275AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1275ad.zip)


- Sirian

Sirian, I've been studying you dotmaps, but Ive been confused in this game. On you latest map in the post above what is the reasoning behind yellow dot? It will cause immense overlap with Corfinium and green dot. Is it to have several small cities capable of minor production or is it in the hope to later get miniaturization and then utilize all of the sea? I wouldn't have bothered with a city there myself.

About the dot map...

This island is quite distant from the capital, and the cities being founded will be founded some time after 1300AD. Despite the slow tech pace here, that's very far along in the game. We have about 300 turns left before we run out of time. And none of these towns has a prayer of seeing a courthouse, harbor, and aqueduct built any time soon. Without the aqueducts, they are each stuck at size 6.

The potential value of these cities lies in minor support. Each one will add 2 gpt in unit upkeep, and will require about two units to defend. Then we get 1gpt from the one commerce not lost to corruption. If we have a temple or harbor, that eats that up. If we run wealth, we can get 1gpt extra. If not, we get 1spt which can become a minor unit every few dozen turns. If we run some specialists (out of the ones with more food) we can get an extra 1 commerce value out of each of those.

Really, until we have about four or five luxuries and nav tech to ship them anywhere, these kind of cities can't get to WLTKD and will be hopelessly corrupt.

There's a fish here, a whale there, then the corners of the island. Cramming the cities in on all the coastal corners keeps them three tiles apart. That's a very dense build, but NONE of these cities will ever get above size 12, and I doubt any will pass size six before 1750AD.

If there was just a little more land there, I'd spread them out a bit more. Dotmapping is an art, not a science. There are the extremes of packing them in there ICS, or being so adverse to overlap that you waste a lot of tiles. Then there is a happier middle ground. I usually average 14-20 tiles per city. That is, I have no hesitation about sticking a city where it may have six overlap, if other factors (especially fresh water) are in play. I will not pack them in JUST to increase density, though. Although in this case, higher density makes sense, because of the low potential of this land. Leaving all of these cities 16 tiles each, when their corruption level will never let them get past 12 at best (some may not pass 6) would be like using 28 tiles per city when the max land they can use is 20. No sense wasting the land.

The problem with ICS is a balance issue. For most games, hospitals arrive on scene after the point at which the game has already been won or lost. Having your cities average closer to the capital means less distance-based corruption and fewer tiles going unused in the early game. That's a huge, HUGE advantage the AI won't ever use. Using it can be like lowering the difficulty of the game setting. But the REASON it's strong is the normally-late nature of hospitals. You do sacrifice something in packing the cities in, but that cost is only paid in the post-industrial era, and by then the extra advantage has already helped you to an easier win. It is not something for nothing, but if the cost never really "comes due" in any meaningful way, then it might as well be something for nothing.

This is a different situation. If these cities are going to be forever too corrupt to justify cash-rushed investments, then at 1spt, they are not going anywhere for a long time. This is an oddball landmass that spaced out the coastal sites about three or four tiles apart all the way around. It could be done differently, but the main limiter is the lack of luxuries. When you have 6-8 lux and enough happy faces that with specialists and irrigated lands, you can get to WLTKD, maybe you can make something of cities like this. I'm afraid it's going to be a LONG time before we have more than a couple of lux at best, and that bodes ill for anything outside the third ring from the FP or the capital, even on a large map.

Anyway, that was some of my thought process. Internally, I ran over all these variables in a few seconds and reached a judgement call quickly, but it takes longer than that to explain it all. :) There are also other ways it could have been done.


- Sirian

OK, I have to type it turn-by-turn this time. See if you can avoid peeking ahead! ;)

(0) 1275 AD
BT - Mongols request peace :rotfl:
Neapolis cathedral -> market
unit building cities continue as usual (won't mention them)

(1) 1280 AD - I'm sending a few pikes north to Veii, everything else south. Warrior in galley go to Nicopolis for MP. It needs a tax collector, and is still starving without a harbor, so I rush the harbor.
BT - Jerusalem settler -> settler
Nicopolis harbor -> rax

(2) 1285 AD - I keep the galleys scouting the Mongol continent, and so far haven't seen any of their units moving. Hispalis now needs two specialists.
BT - OK, now I see a Mongol stack of 4, half of it loads a galley that departs. I decide to follow the Mongol galleys if I can to await an opportunity or just pester them.
Byzantium cathedral -> pike
Terntum temple -> market

(3) 1290 AD - Trapezus founded @ light blue dot.
BT - Mongols unload at Palmyra and already get their galley back to safety.
Veii cathedral -> med inf (I remember to move the scientist to Cumae two turns later).
Pompeii cathedral -> harbor
Caesarea settler -> settler
Artaxata riots -> hire taxman -> swap to temple
Agrippina worker -> temple
Treveri walls -> rax

(4) 1295 - Offensive vs. Mongol sword and horse. The three catapults hit, taking two off the sword, and one off the horse. I then take out both units with vet MDI. When the second unit dies, this happens:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-hadrian.jpg

[dance] The dry spell has been broken! [dance] (On a completely unrelated note, couldn't they have chosen another leader name for the list instead of Hadrian?)

There's still those Mongol galleys nearby (none in range), and I start to wonder if the AI can "see" what's on your galleys the way they can "see" map information. Suddenly, the seas look very dangerous! I send Hadrian to Viro with an escorted galley, but decide to send him south by land through our core. That seemed much safer. I did one very silly thing- I swapped Viro to a pike for escort (it could build in 1 with no wate). This was ridiculous because Hadrian can move fast, and the important thing is to make sure he's not exposed, not to force him to slow down. Viro restarts its cathedral next turn.

End turn-by-turn reporting, begin summary (it's late, but I want to get this up!)

Hadrian made it south, and is now in a veteran galley one west of the Seleucia exit (the galley under the Elite). Both galleys are full with other units, too. I was thinking Caesaraugusta for the FP, and I tried to get the land ready with that in mind. Hadrian can get off at Seleucia nest turn, then the turn after that he can be in the FP site. Nearby towns have had granaries rushed and are working on infra rather than cheap units now.

I worked mostly on the road network in the south, but did do some improvements, especially around the FP site. There has been a backlog of units by Hispalis, but I started some more galleys, which will also help once we want to attack.

The mainland is all improved, and I moved six workers to Rome, in case of pillaging or something they are at least on the island. The rest are headed south.
Up north I worked on promoting vets, and did pretty well. The Mongols were back to landing at Palmyra every few turns, which was nice of them. They also landed a settler/horseman :crazyeye: on the desert isle, so we now have two new slaves.

On the last turn, I did lose a vet MDI at Palmyra, attacking a vet archer (who promoted). I then had champions take him out. We may want to move up another vet MDI or two to Palmyra.

The new * MDI is called Champion's Return.

BTW, one Mongol galley did follow the galley with Hadrian in it, and then turned around and headed straight home after Hadrian was unloaded. It *did* seem like they could see him in it.

There are two more escorted settlers on the west isle, and some more that are ready to be picked up. Veii should have some pike ready to head up there.

I built a few catapults along the eastern coast of our core. I want to be able to take pot shots if they do send galleys by there.

There are a ton of core cities that have nothing to build but units now, and with no infrastructure techs in sight! We are way over the limit now, but still making good money, and it will only get better with the FP. :D

I can't wait to see the south isle on my next turn. I hope you enjoy Hadrian's company, Cicero IV!

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-gris-1325ad.zip

Wow this is moving fast it feels like I just played! Will try to get to it tonight and post. Looking forward to seeing what the FP will do for us in the south. ;)

Hotrod

GRIS! :jump: [party] :band: [dance] :jump: :rotfl:

Cicerio IV returns

1325 (0): Unload the leader from the galley along with all the units. Rush courthouse at Nicomedia. Need to find a home for the two new settlers on Iron Isle. Will move them to western island soon.

1330 AD (1): Of note the Ottomans have theology but the Mongols are still behind in tech.
Rome continues to build MI, Neapolis builds market, starts galley. Nicromedia builds courthouse, starts aqueduct. Move hero to FP city. Load up the settlers, move settlers on the western island toward 2 more city sites. Kill a mongol galley off the coast of Palymra. Change Caesaraugusta to galley and rush for 68 gold. Next turn will start FP and rush with the leader. Looking to replace all the MI and Legionary on MP duty with Pikes, to move the MI toward the North and south. And scatter around the Mainland for any mongols landing parties.

1335 AD (2): Veii builds MI starts pike. Antium builds pike starts pike. Pisae builds cat starts pike. Caesaragusta builds galley starts FP! Due in 200 turns :D. Activate Hadrian and rush it. Load up 3 more galleys for transport of units south. FYI: Pre FP, +137 gpt.

1340 AD (3): Mongols land at Palymra again, leader hunt to begin again! Lugdunum builds galley starts marketplace. Lutetia builds galley starts cat. And the thing we have waited for The FP in Caesaragusta.

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/fpcaesar.JPG

Start cathedral. Palymra builds aqueduct start library. Verona builds barracks starts aqueduct. Trapezus builds walls start harbor. Kill a sword and spear at Palymra, no leaders :(. Found Bagacum on Western isle. After all is said and done the new gpt is +188.

1345 AD (4): Move a few units around, found Lauriacum on the Western Island.

1350 AD (5): Take out another Mongols ship. Rush a temple at Agrippina and a library at Hippo Regius. Various project finish start on primarily pikemen to free up some of the MI and Legionary from MP duty. Another elite galley, thanks to 3 well traded catapults :lol:. A quick diplocheck and ottomons are still up by theology but mongols still lack monotheism, looks like we may miss theo from the GL enless they trade and soonish.

1355 AD (6): Very little in terms of Mongol ship activity now. Many more pikes are in the works to be sent south for protection, without iron down there the best we can do is spears :(.

1360 AD (7): Continue shuffling workers and pikes to the south.

1365 AD (8): 2 settlers land on desert isle, Teurnia is founded on the western isle. Try something this round, send 4 elites to land at Tabriz.

1370 AD (9): Land 4 elites on Tabriz. 2 pikes are following. See what they counter with, :mutant: hide and wait for the :smoke: to rise.

INBTW: 4 swords and an archer die at the hands of the 3 MI and 1 legionary. Only 3 successful hits on the legion over all the volleys.

1375 AD (10): Tabriz falls!! :D

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/tabriz.JPG

The question I have is do we want to keep it. 2 swords approach now but many more are heading that direction, 2 pikes have just arrived from a galley off the coast and will fortify next turn. Found Teurnia and NEW ROME on the western island, and Curia on the desert island.

Hurried a few projects in the south, but we still have 827 gold and +183 gpt. The question is can we hold Tabriz??
There are many units enroute to the southern colonies and most mainland cities are on pikes to fill in down south but if there are enough to provide cover and MP duty then the offisive MI could be sent North in force before the Mongols get to many MI and pikes built. They have caught up in tech and the Ottomons are ahead by Theology.


Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1375AD.zip

Falsfire << UP NOW
Sirian << On Deck
Griselda
Hotrod

got it

Early: I look at the situation at Tabriz, and realize that we're going to need a *much* larger force if we're to hope at holding on to it. However, we don't want to empty too many troops off of Palmyra isle, as then if we were to, say, lose Tabriz to a flip along with all those troops, we'd be in for a world of hurtin'.

IBT: The Mongols kill our only two pikes at Tabriz, and the exposed MDI. They move up a stack of eight swords, 4 spears, and an archer.

5 swords will attack Tabriz this turn. We have: 5/5 legion, 2x 4/4 MDI, 4/5 MDI, 1/5 MDI, 2/5 legion, 1 cat. So it won't fall this turn, but they could really hurt us. This is more of a toenail-hold than a toe-hold.
I've got 5 more units in boats that should be able to make it there next turn...
*We lose one MDI, that's it, that's all. It sure helps having a barracks in this city to auto-heal each round...

Round 3 of Mongols counterattack:
6 swords, 1 archer, 1 horse vs. our defenders:
2x 5/5 legions, 2/5 legion, 3x 4/4 pikes, 4/4 MDI, 4/5 MDI, 2/5 MDI, 1/4 MDI, 1 catapult.
*We lose 1 pike, and our non-championed elite legion.

Round 4 of Mongols counterattack:
1 vet archer, 1 2/4 sword who'll probably retreat (didn't want to try and take him out cuz he's on a hill across a river, and even if we won that'd leave our unit exposed, and we *NEED* to preserve our units in Tabriz if we want a shot at holding out.)
Our defenders:
Elite pike, vet pike, 3/4 pike, elite legion*, 2/5 legion, elite MDI, 2/5 MDI, 3/5 MDI, vet MDI, 3/4 MDI, 1/4 MDI, and our cat. Plus one galley who got stuck in port after running to max moves to drop off the vet MDI & elite MDI.
One more MDI will arrive next turn, and then it's another 4 or 5 turns for any more reinforcements to arrive. If we can get enough defenders over to Tabriz, it could be a military-buster for Mongolia if they keep throwing their troops at it, but at this point, it's defense is still shaky...although if you look at the sheer number of attackers he's thrown at us, we've sent 2 archers, EIGHTEEN swords and a horse to the glue factory. All at the loss of only two MDI, three pikes, and one legion.
*his archer goes to the glue factory, his sword retreats as expected, and a REG MDI steps up. Uh-oh...these guys we've GOT to take down before they get the chance to attack. It'd be nice to sally out and perhaps pillage his iron supply, but right now that's just a pipe dream. By the time we're ready for that, he'll be folding like the proverbial house of cards anyways.

Round 5: This time, he'll have no counter-attack against the city of Tabriz, but we have a 5/5 legion covering a 1/5 MDI out in the field, he will likely attack them. I didn't want to lose the elite MDI if I could help it, and at 1hp, 2def, he'd never hold his own. Risking one 3-def 5hp unit to try and cover him seemed a good idea, since the town itself is under *no* danger of attack this round, he couldn't even slip a horse past as we'd already see it with our legion/MDI pair.
Our situation at Tabriz:
http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/inf2/inf2-004.jpg
*IBT, he steps up *one* vet archer onto the hill as his next attack force. Egads...is he already out of gas?!? The time to strike may be sooner than we think! His production ability must be *dismal* if that's all he can muster as his standing army.

End: 1400 AD

I only played 5 turns, I hope nobody minds but that's really all the time I have to spare at the moment It took me a good 3 hours, and it's now bedtime! I'm already up in RBE5 which I can't play til tomorrow! Not to mention an itching to start my game of Epic21 :)

The time to strike into Mongolia may be sooner than we think...it may be now! He seems gassed, by the sever lack of units he's sending at us. It's down to one at a time. I think we burned up all his offensive troops that he had roaming around his mainland. There are quite a few boatloads of troops slowly swimming their way up northwards. Nobody has Chivalry yet, and we know Ghengis has both horses and iron, so we do want to take him out before he gets it, if possible. He's down Engineering on us, and Osman is down Engineering, up Theology. I just started 40-turn research on Invention, one turn put into it so far. I'm REALLY wondering how the rest of the world is faring, no new wonders have been built, could we all be hopelessly isolated, unable to meet each other til, perhaps, *MAGNETISM* comes along? :) And what year will that be in with everybody pretty much doing their own research, 1900AD? :snicker:

Next leader should have fun, maybe invading the rest of Mongolia proper.

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~devin/civ3/inf2/inf2_1400AD.zip

Excellent work, Falsfire! By holding on to that Mongol city, you have indeed opened the way to the destruction of our eternal foes. :goodjob:


IT 1400AD: Remanagement of the south. Emphasis on courthouses, granaries, aqueducts and cathedrals, in that order. Some extra workers also peeled off, with worker emphasis on roads first, irrigation trails to dry areas second, mining third. Also changed some orders around on West Isle, because that place is going to remain too corrupt to treat normally. We should let those towns build their one or two needs on their own, the long way, one shield at a time. Then we should put most of them on wealth and hire as many taxmen over there as the food will support.


Early: Mongolia is indeed gassed. They still have the trickles of new production, though. I hunker down, wait for more reinforcements, but I do fight dilligently to preserve the last road connecting the city to the rest of the continent. That road will be crucial! I also continue to produce new troops and ship them north as quickly as they are produced.


Middle: Took a major SoD, including all our cats, all but one infantry, and half our pikes, and head inland. Oh, what's this? The Mongol capital is RIGHT THERE, just under the fog. Well, check it out. I'm already in attack range, and they are still defended only by spears. We lose two vet infantry in the assault, but three others are promoted. We have gained thirteen new slaves.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1425ad.jpg

That was almost painless. I have enough troops left over to wipe out the four Mongolian infantry north of our SoD. (You can't see the SoD in the screen, it does that when you take pics in the middle of combat resolutions). I shipped two boatloads of slaves off the continent, kept the other nine to restore damaged roads around our base. Oh, and I rushed a temple already. Going to rush a harbor once the pop is down to 1 and the borders have expanded. Then we will have a second lux online, as these slaves will make reconnected it, then building a fort on top of it, my top priority. Finally, I also decide to try a couple of suicide galleys to try to scout out Ottoman lands.


Late: I tried to "hold the ground" we had gained, but it is not working as planned. They are training new infantry of their own, and those are winning more than they are losing, killing our old units as fast as reinforcements arrive, bringing our progress to a halt. We need a new plan here. Time to gather all but our city defenders into a new SoD and go for more of their cities. Just bring a really big stack and ignore their newly-produced roaming units.

I send the two suicide galleys across. One makes it, the other does not. We have spotted Ottoman shores! Our brave sailors sink one attacking Ottoman galley (the first slain Ottoman unit! :hammer: :lol: ) then almost kills a second before it is sunk. I think this was worth it, we now have better intelligence about the Ottomans. I also saw both horsemen and swords, so they have iron and horses both.

In Mongolia, I tried to take a strategic mountain position, but they fought hard to prevent me planting roots there. They fought me to a stalemate, but it being inside their borders, my wounded units cannot recover. I decide to abandon this attempt. However, on the second-to-last turn as I counterattack some of the infantry they were using to assault our mountain position, Maximus rises to lead a heroic attack!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-leader3.jpg

He then heads back to base to form up an elite army: two infantry, and one legion for defensive purposes. This army attacks on the last turn and wins. Rome starts on the Heroic Epic, which we hope will open the leader spigot in time for us to grab most if not all of the wonders, post-contact. (We can hope, right?)

Great progress was made in the second core. The place is now well defended, capable of defending itself if invaded, and soon will be up to full strength.

I SLOWED the palace prebuild as much as I could. 26 turns left, although we might squeeze out more if we go to irrigate over some of its mines. I expect contact before 26 turns, but with this tech crawl, you never know. Players stay on top of this. We CANNOT allow the palace to be moved. If worse comes to worst, turn that into the most expensive cathedral ever built.

I woke the six workers in Rome and used them to irrigate at cities that needed more food, and to mine at ones sitting at size 12 with big food surpluses. They can go back to sleep here, soon.

Amazingly, Brundisium is now our second best city, just behind Rome, capaple of 20+ spt. The FP city is only at 17 spt, though not all its tiles are improved yet.

Mongols have a second iron source, deep in the heart of their land. Our SoD, led by the new army, is heading in that direction. If we raze that city, then move from there down to capture Kazan and the Great Lighthouse, we can then travel by sea and explore a bit more, and perhaps start harassing the Ottomans. The SoD should disconnect the iron near its first target before moving on to Kazan. If we send a galley or two with pikes around the west coast to the north to pillage their other iron, once they have no iron left, we'll own them.

Much glory to be won by Gris on her turn! We are finally in the thick of some action, and full contact is just ready to burst soon. I can feel it. Here's a shot of our world map after my turn:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1450ad.jpg

The turns were pretty long, falsfire is right about that. With Gris starting a new job, it might take her a little extra time to get through her turn. Should be worth the wait, though!

INF2 - 1450AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1450ad.zip)


- Sirian

A fort has been built on the silks. Need to keep those pikes there to guard it, as well as give us a landing zone foothold should Tabriz flip on us. And speaking of that, I'd prefer at this point that we keep a garrison of six to eight there, at least, on most turns. I depleted the garrison on my last turn to guard workers and move out a full SoD with the army, but reinforcements will arrive to bring the city back up to strength on the next turn.

- Sirian

I should be able to play sometime tomorrow.

-Griselda

edit- still plugging away at it, but it should indeed be worth the wait; the next player will have an interesting round! ;)

Gris any plans to post tonight?? I am away for the weekend and wouldn't want to hold up the progression?

Hotrod

It's hard to even believe this has only been ten turns; so much has happened!

(0) 1450 AD - Gordion hires a tax collector.
BT- wounded pike attacked, but kills the Mongol MDI and promotes.
Hispalis colosseum -> pike
Aurelianorum granary -> aqueduct
Nico courthouse -> market

(1) 1455 AD - Almost all the AI's know us this turn! :eek:

I take a peek at what they have at the table:

Greece has wines, incense, and gems. They do NOT have iron. They have 15 cities (including the capitol), and 51 gold.

England has ivory. They do NOT have horses. She has 9 cities and 2 gold.

Japan, as expected, looks like the AI powerhouse. They have dyes and incense, and are not lacking iron or horses. He has 18 cities, suspiciously including Grand River and Oil Springs, and 234 gold.

The Iroquois have wines and incense. They do NOT have iron. Hi has 8 cities and 20 gold.

All these AI know Egypt, and have theology, chivalry, and invention showing. Also, we apparently could trade with Japan, England, and Greece. I assume that means that they must have astronomy? Guess we'll find out!

It's WAR! :shotgun:
BT- Cleopatra introduces herself, wanting to trade some tech. No thanks, Cleo, but I will take this opportunity to declare war on you! :lol:

Cleo has wines and dyes, and lacks invention and engineering. She only has 4 cities and 30 gold.

From the Great Library, we get
theology
chivalry
invention
printing press
music theory
education
gunpowder
banking
astronomy
chemistry
navigation
metallurgy

Not a bad haul!

(2) 1460 AD - I swap Cumae to Bach's (I'm thinking I could have done this mid turn when Jerusalem finished its granary, but I didn't think to, since I've never used any scroll ahead).
I start physics @ 20% tech (highest non-deficit, ack!)

But, mid-turn, I rethink this. The Mongols have a wounded vet MDI on the iron, and I attack with a fresh MDI. The result- a new leader- Germanicus! I consider making another army, but I could also grab economics quickly, since nobody has it, and make Smith's. So, Germanicus starts home, and I start economics at 90% (a huge deficit, but I want to shave a few turns off, then I'll turn it down).

I send two galleys with a defeder for Teurnia and for that west isle. Who knows where the AI might come from now?

BT- Complete Bach's! :cooool: Cumae starts a bank, although I'm not sure what priority to give banks yet in PTW. We could still use the cash, though, even if we can't start wall street now.

The AI cascade to Magellan's.

(3) 1465 AD - I turn science down a tad, to 80%. I swap some core cities to universities, since we'll have to do research and don't want to fall behind. But, I want to keep some cities on units, too.

Our SOD arrives on Mongolia's iron mountain. I sent two galleys that seemed handy over towards the northern iron. They happened to have 3 MDI and an archer in them. This is an ill-fated trip, though. More on that later, and next time, I wait until I have pikes handy!

Lux can go to 0% now with Bach's, plus I can fire some taxmen.


(4) 1470 AD - 8 catapults attack the iron city of Ta-Tu, and they all miss. I completely forget to starve the city down, perhaps because I was expecting some of the catapults to do something useful.

I attack:
Army goes to 3/15 vs. one vet pike.
One vet MDI takes a second Mongol pike to 1.
Second vet MDI kills a pike, leaving the wounded one on top.
One more MDI takes the city, and razes it, capturing three slaves.

Science to 30%, econ in 6.

BT- Lose several units in Mongol counter attack.
Japan completes Copernicus.

(5) 1475 AD - Oh yeah, I have astronomy *and* navigation! I've filled a caravel at Neapolis, and it sails towards the Ottomans. I also send some other free galleys out exploring. I don't bring any units in them because I need the units and want the lay of the land.

BT - English finish Magellan's in Coventry. Well, at least it wasn't the Japanese, and I believe that this kills the cascade.

I see a Greek caravel north of the Mongols' island (threatening my would-be iron pillagers).

(6) 1480 AD - I'll admit, I really screwed up the naval combat this round. When I see loaded AI ships, I get a sort of tunnel vision and just want to sink them. I figure they're loaded, so if I attack them with unloaded ones, I have less to lose. After these turns, I've learned my lesson, but it took me a while to figure it out. This turn, I unloaded one of my galleys and attacked the Greek caravel, figuring they'd just attack me next turn. Naturally, I lose, forcing me to unload the other galley in hostile territory.

BT - The Greek caravel does attack us, and we win! If I would have unloaded one and waited for the attack, we'd still have both galleys.
Rome completes the Heroic Epic, and starts cannon (just time to do this before leader arrives for Smith's).

(7) 1485 AD - Germanicus unloads on the mainland.

BT- Mongols attack with Keshiks now. I spot a Japanese caravel by New Rome!

(8) 1490 AD - I unload the two med inf by the northern iron, but end up losing both to longbowmen who come out of the city. There's a pike coming out of Tabriz, and another one who was guarding the other iron who could march across land and maybe make it there.

I found New Antium so that the AI won't have a landing/healing tile on the desert isle.

BT - Foreign galleys everywhere! Japan has a caravel by NW Island. English are just south of our core. Japan is by Palmyra.
Economics comes in, and I start physics at 40% (a small profit).


(9) 1495 AD - New Rome swaps to walls, wasting shields but who wants to pay for a temple up there anyway? There's a galley close to it.

Rome starts Smith's, and the leader rushes it.

I attack the English galley south of the mainland, utterly ridiculous because we need map info more than we need to worry about incoming ships. Take it to 1, so it retreats next turn.

BT - I should have stopped at 5 turns and had a great round, because I've clearly been :smoke: today. Our SOD has taken forever to re-form itself and head south, and now it's in 2 stacks. The back stack had one pike guardnig 3 cats, what was I thinking? A longbow pops out of the city and kills the pike, taking the cats home.

Japan lands at Tabriz.

Smith's complete at Rome.

We're attacked all over the place by ships popping out of the fog. :mad:

(10) 1500 AD - I kill the Japanese longbow at Tabriz. I decide that the Mongols can keep Kazan; we don't want their stinking lighthouse anyway now, and I don't want to feel those cats. Their capitol is more of a threat, because it gives Tabriz a flip risk. I retreat the SOD, forgetting that I'd bombarded a longbow. So, we have an unguarded cat there [pimp]. Shoot, I was doing so well earlier!

Our army will take forever to heal just by standing in neutral territory, so I send it to the Tabriz barracks for a bit.

That's about it. One leader, two new wonders (plus the Heoric Epic) completed, lots of new contact, and I'm ready to pass this baby on. It should be an exciting turn!

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1500ad.zip

GOOD JOB :goodjob: Gris! You got Smith's, which is a big big wonder in PTW. :love: You also got Bach's. Cop's we can live without. Magellan's will hurt, but at least that went to a smaller AI, right? And you razed a Mongol city and started uni's. Also made the right move to abandon the Lighthouse plan. Maybe you goofed a couple of moves, but you got the big things right. Well done! Now the game is going to start feeling like Always War. :D

Good luck, Hotrod and Falsfire. :hammer:


- Sirian

WoW!!! I got it but from the sounds of things 10 may be a while with all the activity going on. I will play some tonight and see how things are going and try to give an update tomorrow.

Hotrod

Sometimes we all need a little :love:

-Griselda

Infantry continues

1500 AD (0): The lone MI with move remaining easily kills the longbow that was out in the open. Checking out the situation, looking for galleys to upgrade move galley into veii and upgrade to caravel for 20 gold. Rush a couple muskets for 60 gold each.

Lose 2 MI to advancing Mongols, there Keski retreat with wounds.

1505 AD (1): Mediolanum builds barracks starts aqueduct. Caesaraugusta buils library. Start university. Eburacum market start library. Agrippina aqueducts, start library. Upgrading various galleys to caravels. Take out a Keshik and a long bow and cooridinate to bring the SoDs together.

Lose 1 MI and a pike, on the Iron Mountains :( another LB and Keshik die to MIs.

1510 AD (2): Virconium builds courthouse starts bank. Seleucia builds barracks starts musket. Continue alining troops to join and go after Mandalgovi. Continuing to shuffle troop to bring north. Galleys are out looking for the rest of the world. The caravel due west of the southern islands finds the Ottomans.

1515 AD (3): LB of the Mongols create another elite pikeman. Cumae builds bank starts university. Japan starts Shakespeare's

1520 aD (4): Moving more troops nothing of note.

1525 AD (5): Raze the size 8 city of Mandalgovia, kill off 4 pikes 2 longbows, 2 keshik and lose 5 MI :( in the process. Go leader hunting killind 1/4 longbow with a 4/5 pike and get a great leader Cladius - he heads immediately toward Tabriz and is met by a pike for safe keeping. Moving the very wounded stack out back toward Tabriz. Another stack is forming to the north to go for the capital. Increase research to 60% to get physics in 2 turns then be able to start on Theory of gravity. By the time that is done we should have newton's.

1530 AD (6): Trying to move out of Mongol territory to rest, kill 2 Keshiks. 2 MIs kill an english landing party to the south. Begin moving the hero home.

1535 AD (7): Attempt to attack the capital, miss with 2 cats, lose 3 MI and almost an army just killing 1 pike and wounding a musket :(. Need reinforcements. The wounded Slightly smaller SoD is recouperating in neutral territory. A sammy, MI and LB land in the southern part of our mainland. It took 3 MI from the area to wound the group in battle, a pike to kill the MI in defense and a 4th MI to finish Sammy off.

1540 AD (8): Continue to be pestered by Keshiks, they manage to kill another forified pike :(. The Wounded army is moving home.

1545 AD (9): The Very damaged SoD in middle MOngolia is almost fully healed. Looking to move north and take out their second horse. I think that is the only resource they need for the pesky UU.

1550 AD (10): Continue sea exploration as well throughout the round. Found a small island to the North, so has England. Began circling the Ottomans looking for a safe place to land with the troops - there is none :(. More reinforcements are on the way north. Couple cities are continuing to build MI or Muskets while the main focus has been on getting universities and banks either finished or well underway.

Upgrade a few pikes to muskets along the way, didn't want to over do it will no real threats, did upgrade a few galley to caravels, we should have plenty of ships for right now. On the Military front did manage to raze one city with some pretty hefty losses but did get a leader, he is now in Rome ready for ToG to complete in 4 turns. All the strong AI have started Shakespeare's. Newtons is ours in 5 turns. Falsfire can pike the city ;).

The first attack on the Mongol capital was a bust, the cats missed and 3 MI died, the army got ambushed on the ride home, my :smoke: for not protecting them better.

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1550AD.zip

Need to build a pack of cannon so we don't keep spending "several" units dealing with each landing on our core land masses.

Where should the cannons be placed?? and how many??

Once we get rails, it won't matter. Then we can shift them around to wherever they are needed. Until then, the AI's will tend to pick a couple of specific target tiles for landings. If those are blocked or occupied they will select others. They will almost always try to land directly next to a city. We'll want to occupy hills/mountains they might choose, and especially those they have chosen, so as to have them landing in tiles without a defense bonus.

The cannon can be kept in cities that have been and are being targetting by AI landings, and can also be kept "between cities" where they can reach either of two nearby cities with two-thirds of their movement along the roads, and still fire.

Thus, it will be important to note which cities the AI has targetted with its landings, and which specific tiles it is choosing. We will also need the discipline to leave fortified defenders on the shoreline high ground.

It might also help to have some cannon located out on any peninsulas or points of land where AI's ships pass by frequently.

We're eventually going to need a lot of artillery anyway, so the only danger is making so many we choke off our economy.

Without Leo's, we're going to be better off to train new rifles than to pay to upgrade the current ones, by and large. We can then use up the old pikes no longer useful for MP duty by shipping them out to pillage/harass AI lands or add to SoDs on the offensive in Mongolia or wherever our current offensives are taking place. We have already reached a point at which shields are cheaper and more expendable than cash, so be aware. Be very stingy with the coinage. Every coin spent is one beaker we don't produce.


- Sirian

Falsfire, we're coming up on sixty hours since the last save was posted. Do you have the game in progress? I know the turns are about to go very long, and we're coming up on the point where I initially said we might start taking five turns per round. I don't want the game to start dragging, though. Especially now that the fun part is here. :)

If you have been playing, please let us know you've got it and give us some idea of ETA for your result.


- Sirian

I'm sorry I haven't looked at it yet. I can try to play&post 5 turns tomorrow night, if I can't squeeze it in I will make every effort to post a pass.

this is my pass, sorry, i just won't have the time for this tonight.

I've got it. Falsfire, I hope everything is OK.

What's a BOSOF? I'll get to that in a minute. :lol:


IT 1550AD: Hmm. Checking F1, Rome is not the highest commerce city we have. It's close, with help from a few river tiles, one fresh water, one spice. However, Pisae looks better, and will be stronger yet with Commercial Docks. It also has full capacity for 21 tiles, unlike Veii. I decide to rush Newton's in Pisae, and time its current projects to complete on the same turn the tech comes in so no shields are wasted.

Most of our core cities are doing banks and uni. That's good, but it means few reinforcements to the Mongol front in the short term. That is NOT good, as we have a stack of five cats up there that is cut off and about to be killed. Just four units guarding them, and enemy territory has closed ranks behind them. I don't think they're going to make it out of there.

1555AD: Ottomans attacked our loaded caravel looking for a place to land our troops, dropping it into the red. :eek: I panic and land the troops on the nearest hill, instead of on a mountain, and they are hopelessly slaughtered. Then, in a great fit of irony, other Ottoman galleys pass up the chance to attack this ship and it limps home safely and heals by the end of the round. Go figure. Forget sending MedInfs out to enemy lands. Defensive units only, as nothing else will get a chance to do anything.

In Mongolia, our beleaguered stack kills two units, loses two of its four units and the other two are wounded. Um, not good. I use one of the cats scout east, then disband it. Then I fire the others at the wounded Keshiks nearby, then attack and kill one. Two of the 1hp Keshiks then attack our fortified elite 1hp pike and both die, before one with 3hps kills our pike and captures four of our cats. All I can say is, six Keshiks died killing four of our units and capturing four cats. "They got their value".

Sadly, in always war, we need to get more than our value out of most units, as we're one vs seven. Still, at least they paid for it.

We need more defensive troops in Mongolia! Tabriz is actually rather thin and I will have to scramble just to keep our foothold.

Early: Three turns of bombing the Mongol capital sees one pop killed, no other gains. I decide to scrap that useless undermanned assault and move the minisod past the city to disconnect their horses. Infrstructure and workers in the south. Some enemy ships looking for a place to land. Also, I have priorities naval scouting for the moment. Seeing as how the units in the Ottoman scouting ship only went to waste, we need shoreline intelligence first, then later we can plan inland raids, etc.

Middle: Newton's completed on schedule. I start us on MilTrad, as we need that to get the Academy, and we need the academy to have any chance to win this game. The Academy MUST go into Rome, best rushed with a leader at some point. England lands one longbow on our SE mainland. Then Japan lands two sams and an inf. We take no losses, but I played it defensively and a sam did pillage two tiles before I had the cannon in place and took him out. I saw that coming though and had the workers from Rome on the move, so they will be in place to repair the tiles by the end of my round. While they are down there, mine that one irrigation at the coastal city on the SE tip, it's up to size 12 now.

I put heavy emphasis at this point on building coastal forts. We'll soon have enemy frigates harassing our shores, and we need to prepare. Iro's landed one trio of units on the north central shore of the southern continent. (???) Yes, they sailed into the bay to do that. Long trip for them. One of our inf died in the counterattack, but he has already been replaced.

Late: England completed Shakespeares. Our scout ships have located enemy lands in several directions. Can you believe there is a large island whose seas were just ONE tile out of range for the Mongols to cross with the Lighthouse? It's amazing. The AI's have been painfully close all along. Their mainlands are further away, though, which is both good and bad news. Good that their ships make longer round trips. Bad that ours will, too. I think we will be lucky to make headway vs the Ottomans and Mongols prior to flight and airlifting. We're going to need to land FULL ARMIES of infantry (and need the pentagon to get there), multiple ones, with a settler, make our own city and get an airport there, vs the main AI continents, to win the game.

A lot of infrastructure completed. Our economy has improved. I also got additional cities up to size 7, adding unit support, while the loss of that minisod up north relieved us of 9gpt of units. I had to swap Tabriz to musket and rush it. Also promoted a pike there and shipped in a few cannon. Tabriz is stable, but pressed. I did disconnect their horses and get them to expend their remaining Keshiks. The SoD that undid the horses, that's how we need to go on the offensive. We need a stack of half a dozen rifles, covering half a dozen explorers, and simply march across the hills and mountains of AI terrain and pillage everything. (If you remember my Epic Thirteen game plan, that may be how win here: with SoDs of pillage units to weaken the AI cores, disconnect their trade, etc, then simply outproduce them to the finish line).

Final Turn: The Iro's landed a few weak units on a mountain over a city on the south continent, in the east. We MUST park a unit here, no way we can let the AI's land on mountains.

Also, the Big Three AI's have made it to the middle ages. We have three turns left on Magnetism. Their frigates will be coming very shortly now. That's why we need BOSOF's!

BOSOF = Big Ole Stack O' Frigates (TM). We must keep our navy in stacks, use several like artillery to bombard, then finish with high odds. I'm talking half a dozen ships for starters, a full dozen preferred, then sit on the shipping lanes and give AI ships an up close encounter with the coral reefs. Of course, we want to go to ironclads once we can, but we absolutely must obtain dominance of the seas, starting right here on Gris's next turn. Also, Greece will have Nationalism for free, so we want to research that next, and then start peeling off draftees from any size 12 cities sitting on full food boxes. It is also OK to upgrade some muskets in beleaguered areas. Just realize that as soon as you upgrade the units in one town, the AI's will change targets to another town with weaker defenders. Eventually, if we have all good troops on the mainland, they'd go heavy at our islands. This is going to be a real slogfest. It won't kill us if some ships slip through, but we can't let them all land, or they will do to us what we plan to do to them: pillage us back to the stone age. Once we get rails this will calm down a bit, too, as we can mass our response.

The stack of workers on Iron Isle have nothing left to do. They are fortified, for the moment. We need to increase our defensive troop load now. Especially on the Mongol front, lacking defenders to go out and cover the attackers meant losing a number of attackers going after incoming longbows and retreating wounded Keshiks. Oh, and on the very last turn, Temujin had horses again, he must have bought some from somebody. That means more Keshiks will be coming for us eventually. I do have some reinforcements about to arrive, but we will need more than I sent.

Forget the cities in the hills. Go after the easier targets, or else just leave the SOD parked for now and bomb (pillage with the artillery) all the nearby tiles. Could take a while, that's a slow process with ancient artillery.


There are probably things I forgot. Gris can handle them, though. Just need to get her to play while she's fully wide awake. ;)

Here's the current world map. You can see I made a lot of scouting headway. We've found the Egyptian capital and the Greek Homeland. The rest is still blurry, need to uncover more of the puzzle.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1600ad.jpg

INF2 - 1600AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1600ad.zip)

Sirian
Gris << UP NOW
Hotrod << On Deck
Falsfire

Good luck.


- Sirian

Though if you want awake, you got to stop passing this to me on Tuesday. :lol:

I think I'll be able to do 5 today and 5 tomorrow, and I'll edit this if the ETA changes.

-Griselda

edit- I waited a bit while considering the fate of our settlers, so I have a couple of turns that I'll need to finish up tomorrow (Thursday).

There's one on the caravel, and one on the mainland, and I must confess I have *no* idea what to do with them.

-Griselda

The settlers are for Mongolia. They may require more defensive units before they can be used, but I took the chance to pop a few out while I had the opportunity to do it painlessly. The way to push our front forward is with more cultural control, that means more cities. Cities are also better for defensive stacks to park in, as they can have walls and barracks for improved defense and healing. We're out to conquer the world, but domination is not active, so there's no reason not to settle every corner of the planet. Settlers are the means by which we consolidate and incorporate our territorial gains. If you don't know what to do with them, just let them sit. At some point, we'll NEED them, and won't want to be waiting ten turns for some core city to churn one out and send it forth.

There is also a settler on the south continent. What to do with it, I don't know yet. What if some islands turn up, where the AI's are not yet deeply entrenched? Just one possibility. We don't want to overproduce settlers, but our economy can afford to pay for one or two to sit around so they're ready and waiting when we need them. We need some very soon up in Mongolia, before the Mongols fill in the gaps we razed. In fact, the north shore might be a good location, as we have a SoD up there already. Just get some more troops up there, raze Hovd or some other target, and fill in the gap. We can't just raze, we must also replace. Our troops have, to this point, been more offensive. That is about to reverse. With Muskets and all later units, our advantage will be on defense, with artillery our best offensive tool. We will have to make the most of that. Does this make sense?


- Sirian

I see. Parking muskets with a stack of artillery to wear down the city and all there improvemtent before we use the few offensive units to attack already weakened units protecting their cities. Raze the city, build a new one, rush barracks, walls then move on.

Right??

Hotrod

Well, we're never going to have any blitz capacity. So if we can't use speed, we have to use strength: instead of lightning war, it's lumbering, rolling boulders of immense size that slowly and inevitably crush all that is too stupid to move out of the way. :)

Yeah, something like that. :lol:

- Sirian

One (maybe two) BOSoF's, coming right up! There were so many competing priorities this turn- frigates, sea exploration, defending the homeland, infrastructure, and the Mongol front. I couldn't do everything, of course, so I hope I struck a good balance. I can see that getting the Frigates in place will take a lot of the pressure off of homeland defense, because most of this round I couldn't really do anything about the incoming vessels until they landed. Hopefully, that's about to change.

Early: Identified a few frigate prebuild cities, mostly not vetoing infrastructure, but starting a prebuild after a building was completed.

I can see that Tabriz is pressed! On turn one, the Mongols had 5 units withing range! I could wound all the units and get them to retreat, but I didn't go after the wounded units as I didn't have defensive cover for them. Our artillery pillaged the cattle tile by the Mongol capitol.

I was able to kill that Iroquois rider on the south coast, and I set about getting units and roads on those mountains. Meanwhile, the English landed a cav, a pike, and a something else on the south island (they have a new stack there in the current save file that shows their favorite tile). I rushed two muskets down there to help the defenses, and was able to take them out with no casualties, although it took a few turns.

A legionary from the south island battle produced a leader, who was sent back to the mainland and made the Academy in Rome (this was a bit tricky, the waters were crawling with enemy ships and even Hispalis was somewhat pressed the turn the leader's boat arrived).

Magnetism came in, and I started nationalism.

Middle: The Iroquois unloaded a stack on the hill just north of Hispalis. They had a spear, a mounted warrior, and a longbowman. I attacked the spear with a MDI who was either on a hill or in Hispalis (can't remember), and the spear won. :mad: I made a mini-SOD down there with units fro Pompeii- 2 pikes, 2 MDI, and 2 cannons. They wouldn't be there until next turn, though.

The Ottomans also landed on Hispalis a turn later with a knight and a horse. They used the hill 1E and 1NE of Hispalis. One or two tiles were pillaged while I tried to deal with the attackers safely.

I was able to kill everything on the mainland without losing another unit, but it took some time because of course their horses retreated. Once they were wounded, though, they were toast. I was even able to use our archer to kill a 1hp unit down there. :)

The English, not to be outdone, landed a single MDI on the NW isle, and their regular MDI managed to kill a vet MDI of ours, but we killed it with a second.

Meanwhile, Greece landed a musket and two longbowmen at Tabriz!

I was feeling a bit ineffective up there because the Mongols kept retreating units right under the nose of the parked SOD, and now Tabriz was even harder pressed. So, I moved our little SOD off the mountain, planning to send it to the mountain in neutral territory to heal up, then to pillage the silks and hopefully make lairs out of the Mongols. This might have worked, but of course there was no road on that mountain, so I coudn't take the cats. It did take the pressure off of Tabriz, and the Mongols killed off a ton of units going for the SOD, but I was losing a few hitpoints each round, and eventually they started killing the muskets. Things were not looking good for our little SOD.

Our first frigate was completed in Ravenna at the end of turn 4, and it headed south.

Late: The boats keep coming at our mainland! Japan brought a frigate and caravel, and the English had a galleon. As our frigates completed, I moved them together, temporarily to a central spot between our continents that allows us to start bombarding a bit while the other frigates are arriving. There is also one frigate complete up north, and another one up there soon. I have a bunch more in the works, and honestly I haven't counted how many. We may want to swap a few of those out to units for Mongolia. I kept trying to build them all turn, but I had to swap to offensive units to defend our mainland. I got one additional boatload up to Tabriz late-turn, which helped a lot, and there's a partial boatload now at Viro, but that's it. The frigates have started to bombard incoming boats, but haven't had an opening to sink one.

The reinforcements at Tabriz allowed me to send some muskets out to rescue what was left of our SOD (one wounded MDI and the cats the turn the muskets arrived, yuk!). It might be better to send everything back to Tabriz to regroup. We can set out again with a better boulder.

Exploration went pretty smoothly. I lost a caravel when two frigates popped out of a Japanese city, but I was able to sink one and wound another in the process.

Greece landed a cav on the hill two tiles NW of Cumae. This was especially scary because that area didn't have a lot of offensive units to respond (the AI do a good job of finding those holes, don't they?). I had a pike and mdi together that were on the way, plus a couple from another direction. Between turns Alex attacked the pike/mdi stack and lost, which was a huge relief! I wanted to leave some units up there, but not leave Hispalis light, which is why there really wasn't much available to send north.

On the last turn an English galleon dropped 3 knights and a longbow on the south isle. I was able to kill one of the knights, and I sent some other units over that should be able to help.

It's safe to assume that all of the boats except for that English galleon, and the Greek galleon NE of our mainland are loaded. The Greek one just dropped off that one cav, though.
Science was just turned down to 30, with nationalism due in 1.

Have fun!
-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1650ad.zip

Good work, Gris. Nothing fell, and that's important. You had a lot of invading units, sounds like you responded well. We probably need to send some more units to West Isle. The AI's aren't targetting it heavily, but it is the most vulnerable. One good SoD could wipe out half our holdings there. That wouldn't be any great loss, but if a few units can stop that happening, it would be worth it.

Hotrod, remember to draft once out of every city sitting on full food at size 12. Check happiness afterwards. Also realize, draftees autopromote with any victory, so using them to attack 1hp invaders with weak defense values will promote many. A few might die off. Minimize that by only doing this when odds are the best, and definitely only vs 1hp units or defense 1 units.

And keep the BOSOF's together! :) Good luck.


- Sirian

I got it and will try to play by tomorrow night the latest. Are we still on 10 turns or shall I play only 5??

Hotrod

You can always choose to play ten if you have the time. You can also drop it to five on any given round at this point if you don't have enough time to play ten.

Early Turns: Focus on building Frigates and Protecting the homeland from invaders. Dispatch the landed English in the South with some ease, no loses. A Japanese Landing Party consisting of 2 Cavs and a MI are killed on the Mainland. After learning nationalism the draft began, drafted 17 conscript rifles, only 2 had opportunities to promote and they were sucessful. Very few of the cities, all on the southern continent, were affected by 11% unhappiness due to the draft. Started research on Steam Power due in 10 turns with a modest income. Upgraded many muskets/pikes in most cities to rifles, most inland cities were set to builds rifles or cannons and most coastal cities frigates. No advances in Mongol territory, managed to get the cats back home, but did lose a musket on the trip back.

Middle Turns: Continued exploring with caravels and galleys that were out and about. Can see the entire English Island most of the greece coastline. Some exploring ships were met by frigates and were lost but not without taking a ship or 2 in some cases with them. Objective in Mongol territory was to maintain the status quo until more troops could arrive. Did try for a few leaders in Mongol territory but only served to loss a couple Elite MI to wounded Keshiks :(. A fortified elite musket in a fort did manage to kill an 11/12 Keshik Army :).

Middle continued: As far as the other AI, England tried to return but was met with a few Frigates (no new landings). The Ottomans landed on the Mainland but were met with rifles, no Roman loses. Japan landed 1 more time on the southern Continent with 3 cavs and were killed in 2 turns. We lost 1 Legionary but did get Octavious, he was sent North and produced our first rifle army. Japan continued to send ships but all died at the hands of the Frigates.

Late: Ships wound then kill approaching vessels, the Ottomans get a galley through from the Western side of the territory. Our Frigate in the area Misses. The Iroquios have 2 caravels approaching, 2 frigates wait for them. The East is protected well by frigates. In 1695 we learn Steam and I am happy to note we have coal [dance]. But only 2 and the second is on the Far Western island. Rails have started but not to any great extent, have loaded up a galleon with 4 workers going north. Four rifles are on a galleon heading toward Tabriz, the army following. Inter mixed with all the rifle/frigate production a few universities, libraries, banks and coastal forts were built. After Steam was learned started Industrialization at a small loss per turn but it is due in only 7 more turns.

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1700AD.zip

sorry guys i have to pull out of this one. no time to commit to it right now.

best of luck. if it's any consolation, i haven't even started, and likely will not, my epic 21 game from RBCiv

How is that any consolation, falsfire? :crazyeye:

We miss you, but it's good that you're taking care of RL. :goodjob:

-Griselda

Falsfire, thanks for playing. We had a good time with you onboard. Sorry you didn't get in on the hot action, but you did set me up nicely for our first real aggression on the Mongol continent. I hope we'll see you in on some Epics when you have time.

Charis is going to step in to the empty roster spot. The order now looks like this:

Sirian <<< On Deck
Griselda
Hotrod
Charis << UP NOW

Charis's first-ever turn of Always War, he's going to tossed right into the thick of it. If he runs into any serious troubles, our veteran warlords Griselda and Hotrod will be there to save his bacon. :D


- Sirian

Something tells me that Charis First Time on Regent is going so well that AW on Monarch will not be a problem :rotfl:

Hotrod

May his reign be victorious!

-Griselda

Charisicero joins the team of generals. Alas, he's but
a green 2nd Lieutenant, up from the league of 'Regents'.
He missed the ship sailing off, but managed to get to a port
and meet up with the military leaders in the year 1700AD.

[0] 1700AD - Everything is so fresh and new for Lt. Charisicero,
and he takes a while to survey. Histogram looks in good shape.
Japan and Greece come to mind as needing some attention.
Wonders? Not a single civ is working on anything. The F4 screen
cracks me up. Military? 294 units? Oh my my! Strong military
vs all but Japan, there avg. So we'll need to defeat 300 Japanese
units? I sure don't want to see 300 *infantry*. It was looking like
we were way too defensive until I remembered the variant. Those
rifles are out most potent offense! In fact we won't get much better,
while the opponents' defense will go from 6 to 18.

How are we doing with science? Apart from useless optionals, Greece
is at parity (and lacks iron), Egypt and Mongols are WAY behind,
Egypt is behind, England at parity (lacks saltpeter!), Japan at parity.

It strongly behooves us to get monopolies on rubber and oil.

It also appears that we need to be building, holding the fort, speeding
in research and slowing them down, until we get a differential advantage.
Here are the present and upcoming 'matchups':

MDI/Longbow/Rifle vs Rifle: 4 vs 6
Guerilla/Inf vs Rifle if we get there first: 6 vs 6
Guerilla/Inf vs Infantry: 6 vs 10
Marines vs Infantry: 8 vs 10
After that if they have rubber and oil, 8 vs 18 is not pretty!
So we have two disconnected 'openings', with the best one very brief.

As far as them attacking us, they have cav vs rifles now, 6-fast vs 4-slow.
Then they get 6 on 10, and *if* they get tanks, 16 on 10.

We need to get to Replaceable Parts *fast*. Industrialization first
will let us get factories ready to produce them at least.

First turn action: wake our workers on Palmyra island to start railroads,
and use other forces to keep foes off the shores. (When the workers finish
actually working, they'll need replacement by mil units if you want to blockade)
(Speaking of blockade, it would take about 87 mil units for our Southern island,
19 for Jerusalem island, 19 for Curia island, 26 for new Rome island, too many
for the mainland. That's a total of 151, which we have plus 30 for our homeland
and Tabriz and offense. Just a thought, I'm not suggesting it)

A few rifles are switched to banks and university. A few extra turns with Rep Parts
is worth more than a few rifles.

Good grief, why are there 14 workers asleep in Aurelianorum?!
Are they on a :smoke: break?! :P

(IBT) Three naval battles, we win a frigate, lose a caravel, and then, an
*UN*stacked frigate ( *U*LSF, not a BOSOF) was slaughtered by a
second attacker! :nono: (There was another ULSF next to him)

[1] 1705AD - There's a galleon between mainland and South island full of
workers - where is it heading?? Yay, the notes tell us! North! :goodjob:
We win several naval battles.

At Tabriz several Keshek and Longbow come. Our cannons chew them up and our
other units spit them out. Cannons are good. We could use even more :P
We get a promotion to an elite rifle.

[2] 1710AD - No real IBT, other than a pair of units moving toward Brundisium.
Again cannons help out and we get them on a hill with elites, no losses or ldrs.
(IBT) Japan wants to talk and tells US to pay for peace! Ha! They then sink a ship
on a BOSOF.

[3] 1715AD - It's evident that once the homelands get railnet, we can shift several
defenders over to the front lines for offense, and worry less at home as well.
The Lt. sees his first naval defeat, frigate vs a damaged galley. Bah!
To the SE we find a veritable Japanese armada, 3 Frigate. But they are not arranged
BOSOFally!!

(IBT) Our BOSOFiness (BOSOFitude??) wins the day! First two Japanese Friggedups
die vs our fleet, and the others, with no weak targets to hit, turn tail and run!

[4] 1720AD - The rifle army moves up to Batshireet.
(IBT) More BOSOForic goodness, a 1hp frigate in a BOSOFS hits a charging Japanese
Frigate, and our other Frigate wins, dropping down to 1hp itself. Time for them to port!
We also trade a Keshik and a rifle outside the city.

[5] 1725AD - A miniBOSOF patrolling the Antarctic caps runs into a Japanese Frig-Galley
pair and we bombard-ram the galley. (IBT) Yet another victory vs the Japanese armada!

[6] 1730AD - Rome finishes a second army, starts another (for infantry :P )
We BOSOF a Japanese Frig-Gall pair, hurting and killing them. Down south however,
a miniBOSOF sees two English Ironclads (traitors don't even trust their own UU!)
That doesn't bode well!

(IBT) English clad kills a Frigate. We trade a musket and longbow with Mongols.
Ottomans get a ship near Lucetia.

[7] 1735AD - Industrialization arrives, we head to Electricity in 9 or 10.
Any city getting near 20spt swaps to factory. (Most of these swaps come off
university, so consider getting back to those when done!) I peel off about 4 workers.

Greeks are building Suffrage, meaning that we discounted the tech for them.
(If we knew they would do Electricity next, we could slow down a notch or two)

The stranded frigate, incensed at the loss of his friend (and thus his BOSOFness)
takes on the wounded clad... and wins :P

We lose two MDI but autoraze Batshireet.

Let's stop here. This is really slow going already, I can't imagine when we
invade Japan :P

Overall, a real mixture of infrastructure, naval and land this round. We now
have over 300 total units, which is getting to be quite taxing on the economy.
At least income has increased with railroading.

Save file http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1735ad-Romans.zip

Good luck,
Charisicero

Inherited Turn: Hmm. Half a dozen elements leave me blinking at the screen wondering what we're doing. Whatever fleets we had are now in tatters. No progress at all on the Mongol front, and the settler is just sitting there in Tabriz. The one thing that gave me the urge to bang my head on the desk :wallbash: was looking at coastal cities that are running a taxman and no shields because somehow they were allowed to grow TOO LARGE. :smoke: The worst part of all on this was that they were all in the middle of long projects, so I couldn't even peel off a worker from any of them. Drafting wouldn't help, the cities would still need the taxman. Some, I found, could be fixed by adding another MP, but mostly not. *sigh*

I had to remind myself to count our blessings as well. No cities have been lost, even temporarily, to raids. Our rails in the south are in good shape. On the homeland, we had only a few workers left and those have been increased. Good progress on factories, and a tech beeline to replaceable parts will serve us well. Still, with just over 200 turns left, we've advanced only as far as a solid foothold in Mongolia. I put our odds of victory at less than 50-50, but of course we're going to go as far as we can, and perhaps we can still make it.


Early: I recall almost all our scattered ships. About a third don't make it back, though we did sink one English ironclad in the process.

I send the settler out to meet the army, then scream at the monitor as I find no cannon at all left in the city to fight off a Mongol landing. They are all out with the army?? Doing what?

:help:

OK, time to go back to football watching for a while.


Still Early: OK, I'm back to the game. I've calmed down. Just keep my head low and plug on through. Part of the frustration of this turn is that, with everything on factory construction, I have to make do on existing resources. I know this is for the best, long term, but it almost feels like I'm in anarchy here, with no access to production.

Popped a leader, used him to rush Suffrage in Tabriz.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/civ3/pix/inf2-1740ad.jpg

I founded a new city in Mongolia, our first real progress there in so long I can't remember. It now seems clear to me that we won't have the resources to fight on multiple fronts, so the first order of business will be to throw our factory-backed might from the homeland at Mongolia, with the aim of completely eliminating one foe and one front as soon as possible, while second continent deals with the naval aspect. Or something along those lines.


Middle: What remains of our ships are gathered. We have one pack of frigates off the southeast coast of the mainland, 6 strong. There are two ironclads and a few frigates off the southwest coast, scattered. I sank several ships over here, lost one of the clads, the remnants are gathered near Cyrene. And um, that's it. That's what remains of our fleet. There are a couple stragglers or explorers out and about, but not many. I limp some of them homeward, and manage to gather about three south of second continent, but then these are attacked by Japanese frigates, and I think there are just one or two walking wounded left at the end of the round.

England is accumulating clads off the far southeast coast to pillage our shores. There is absolutely nothing we can do about this for the moment.


Late: Japan now also accumulating ships in the southeast. There is a real nasty mess down there, now so many that they are doing real damage and we may even need artillery before we can do much about it. Certainly not worth it to send just a few clads over and have them wiped out. Just keep rebuilding the roads they destroy, keep units parked on important tiles, and wait until we have large enough stack of ships to make real headway. KEEP OUR SHIPS TOGETHER, and keep them near our shores for easy repairs. Naval combat is where our losses are the least efficient, and I don't like the fact that we've essentially gained no ground at all on the seas. We may do better to let them land more. Heh. Oh, and we have just one cannon on the whole south continent? Sheesh. Not sure that we should build many more, with artillery on the way, but a couple might be needed. Each ship we wound has to make a long trek home, repair, then return. That actually makes things WORSE for later, but we'll worry about later, um, later.

I don't agree with the blockade of the shore plan. We don't have the time to think that way. Besides, in Always War, an effective offense is the only hope. Defense to try to hold your ground is important, but at best that is stalemate. So again, we need to have only as much defense as we truly need (maybe a little extra to spare) and put as much as we can into offense vs the Mongols. Forget the cannon stacks on offense, though. Forget that idea completely. We'll need artillery with its increased range and power for that. Use the cannon and rails to weaken all counterattackers, then take them out once wounded. No more loss of ground on letting them pillage our roads up there.

Sadly, we lost a loaded galleon in the north sea. And it had our other settler onboard! I overlooked the Magellan effect and an English clad reached out and smacked one of our ships. Our frigate took revenge, but that was too late for the settler. :( My bad. We should probably run escorts with our reinforcement ships from now on, and prioritize the next naval stack for the north sea area. I did sink a Greek clad up there on the last turn.

Also popped another leader on the last turn. I used him to make an empty army sitting in Tabriz. We should wait for infantry to fill this army (and it might be a good idea to fill it with ELITES, especially those who have popped leaders, as we want the max hitpoints on our armies we can get. They will be our only assault units capable of taking down strong defenders).

http://sirian.warpcore.org/civ3/pix/inf2-1760ad.jpg

I made a mistake in the south, built a clad out of a city with no harbor. (No harbor??) Oops. I have it set to correct that. We also have another issue. Hoover can only fit on one of our two continents, so the other should concentrate on coal plants (and later, hydro and solar plants). We should go for replaceable parts next, then corporation (stock exchanges, wall street) then for hospitals and ToE-Hoover. After all of that, not sure if we want radio, mass production and amphibious, or flight next. Our needs at that point may dictate. We're still growing our economy though, and might as well stick to that until we max production and income, because we'll need stock markets and commercial docks to pay for the endless units our factories will produce for the coming offensives.

Finally, now that we've hit 1750AD, I think we should just go to standard five turn rounds. That will spread things out more, and I definitely don't want any more seven-turn rounds. :) I took eight to even out the numbers, let's keep them even now.

Gris, your round is going to be pretty much like mine was: waiting on factories, not much you can do. Just keep us on track.


Save File Emailed to Griselda because the CF file server is misbehaving.

- Sirian

SNAFU with the upload server. Twice it has confirmed my uploads, twice all the files on its end are blank. Nothing wrong with the files on my end, so nothing I can do about it for now. I'll come back later and try again.

- Sirian

Wow, you need a bottle of Tylenol near your desk!!! :lol:

If it helps, I had the same feeling on inherited turn, unsure what you guys were up to. The turn reports are good, but a little lacking on thoughts for future directions.

As far as naval progress, the ships *seemed* to be deployed for guarding shores from incoming invasions, and I did what I could to continue that. We killed almost three-fold what we lost, but there were losses, and the arrival of ironclads instantly obsoleted the entire fleet.

No cannon left in Tabriz was an oops. They were used to minimize losses as an assault force went east and razed their city. The Mongols came out with Kesheks and such which needed to be bombarded to 1hp to not allow them to retreat. And with us being so slow, why NOT move artillery out with our assault force? You can't dislike lack of progress on the Mongol front and then say not to bring artillery with it. (You can headbang on leaving NONE behind though :P )


> Part of the frustration of this turn is that, with everything on
> factory construction, I have to make do on existing resources. I
> know this is for the best, long term, but it almost feels like I'm
> in anarchy here, with no access to production.

Aye, that's a good description. It's hard to "think long term" :P

> It now seems clear to me that we won't have the resources to
> fight on multiple fronts, so the first order of business will be to
> throw our factory-backed might from the homeland at Mongolia,
> with the aim of completely eliminating one foe and one front as
> soon as possible

Good idea

> I don't agree with the blockade of the shore plan.
I don't either, I was just mentioning it as an option, and counting the cost. Cost too high.

> Sadly, we lost a loaded galleon in the north sea. And it had our
> other settler onboard!
Where's MY Tylenol??! :D

> Finally, now that we've hit 1750AD, I think we should just go to
> standard five turn rounds.

Phew, definitely. I was planning ten but four hours into the game my wife called an end to gaming for the eve so I passed it off.

Charicicero the Cannonshuffler :p

Sorry about focus?? :blush: not sure what the best direction was for the future. Navy warfare is not my strong suit and it has become apparent that I really heavily on fast units.

As far as the settler I actually pulled him out of the city and was ready to settle but realized it would be a "culture push" into Mongol territory, didn't want to do an exploit. Is that an exploit??

If you see :smoke: Charis call it out. As far as the workers they were waiting for ships to arrive to head north.

Hotrod :blush:

Hotrod- there is no such thing as cultural push in this game- during war, we have a free hand. :)

I must say I'm looking forward to a 5-turn round as well. :love:

-Griselda

edit- oops, forgot I couldn't "get it" without the file! No problem, I'll grab it when I can.

No real weed hotrod, I just had a hard time coming in cold to the game. I wasn't sure in general what you guys were aiming to do, or at what rate. It's a tough situation trying to balance offense, defense, artillery, naval units, sci bldgs, and now factories! Oh ya, and be viligant on both land and sea :p

The sleeping workers were especially tough. Having gotten Steam and with dire railroad needs, they shouldn't have been sleeping. And if they were 'headed' anywhere, I had no clue. It's worse in that I don't have a feel for how many units we have or where.

I'm not sure if you or I let the coastal cities grow too big, I don't remember doing much there.

By lack of focus I meant that in the past several pages all reports end in "late: this is what happened" but I couldn't tell what 'the plan' was. If I weren't coming in cold this may not have been an issue.

One general comment... somewhere along the line, weed or :smoke: took on too broad a meaning, with several 'fine points' getting this term in some games. Plus, poor Sirian... back in the old days we had things like flagrant shredding of reputation, moving workers off cows so they could irrigate desert tiles that wouldn't be used for 1400 years, folks leaving an unprotected *army* in a town for barbarian to slaughter, automated workers, hideous great leader rushes, buying junk techs at monopoly prices and then not even brokering, horrendous choices for FP sites, massive vetoing of his granaries and courthouses, people switching into communism and seeing our income DROP by 500gpt, moving off a river to found our capital somewhere else, founding of cities in spots where they can't even grow past size 2 when there are cow sites waiting... you get the picture, true jawdropping moves that cause involuntary muttering or screaming (many of the moves above were ones I made, btw :P )

Now he, and many others, have gotten good enough so that things that would never even be noticed by most players or in other SG's, like letting a city grow one more than it 'optimally' should earns a :wallbang: :P

Maybe the wallbang is the right symbol for the worst moves, and the weed symbol more for 'playing under the influence' where judgement was just mildly impaired. :lol:

Charis

Nothing wrong with raising the standards a bit, it's just means that us newbs have more catching up to do. :lol:

I know it was me that let one of those coastal cities grow. I looked at it for the longest time trying to figure out why it would be intentionally not growing, and now I know!

Here I was thinking I'd get to enjoy that BOSOF on my turn! :cry:

-Griselda

If I let is grow it wasn't intentional, with drafting if anything they all went to 11 but not to say that didn't grow again in a few turns. What is the "optimal size"? or is it more of getting the optimal shield production??

Hotrod

I think he's talking about cities like "white dot" on the south continent (ack, have we never posted a screenie of that since it was settled?). At least, that's the one I'll confess to having allowed to grow. That city has no available non-coastal food tiles, and it would either cost a fortune or take forever to build enough improvements to keep it happy at a large size. So, the only way to get more than one shield per turn out of it would be to keep it small enough that it doesn't need a specialist so it can have one laborer on the hills.

I was thinking more "long term" with that city, like the one on the north isle that's finally coming around, but that's probably a waste considering the date.

Charis, I think the last few turns have had a feeling of "hold the fort, since we just made contact and don't really know what's coming". Now, we vaguely know what's coming, so you're right to ask where we expect to make progress. I hope that we can pull it off!

-Griselda

I know it was me that let one of those coastal cities grow. I looked at it for the longest time trying to figure out why it would be intentionally not growing, and now I know!

The reason this particular point frustrates is that it is so darn hard to fix. These cities work so hard to grow in the first place, but they are not standard cities. As pets, they require a special diet. They don't thrive on typical pet food. It doesn't take much energy or attention to manage them, but it does take some.

I've always been a huge advocate of high food rates. Never run entertainers in the capital, get those granaries built, get those harbors, get those cities up. "Population is power!" However, like everything else in this game, there are exceptions.

Say we've got a fishing village. It's got two happy people (we have two lux) and five content people. It can only support two unhappy people. 2+5+2 = size 9. Any higher, and it means specialists, or else civ-wide increases in lux. Well, that latter is not going to happen for one fishing village. So there's a choice: run the thing at size 9, with break-even food, and pull in 8spt, or run it at size 10, also with break-even food thanks to one specialist, and 2spt. And at 2spt it's going to be FOREVER before more improvements are built that would increase happiness. It is a ruthless catch-22.

Now see, I make this mistake myself. Getting IN to the problem is not really the issue. As soon as I've slipped and let it happen once, I pay more attention and it doesn't happen again. Having one such city is an oops. Having five or six is a deeper tactical problem: not paying enough attention, or not understanding how best to manage these lower yield cities. The whole reason they can't support more happy people is lack of shields to build improvements fast enough. So the worst thing to do to them is lock them into specialists. You can't even afford to STARVE them, as the food comes so hard in the first place. It may actually save shields to swap to some smaller project and get it over with, then peel a worker, then stick with the high shields after that. However, in this case, most of these cities were half-way or two-thirds done with markets or other large projects. I spent about five minutes looking at ways to get them back on track and then just gave up.

In a game less close than this one looks to be, it just wouldn't matter. I wouldn't even mention it. That's why I say these always war games can be like Deity play. There is less room for error. We need every shield, every trade, that we can spare, and trading shields for a couple of food to support specialists is not worth it. The large fertile core cities can support a specialist without blinking. Not so the fishing villages.

I did manage to fix a few of them, but some are still broken. I SERIOUSLY thought about drafting anyway. That would leave them screwed up, but allow them to be fixed back to their max shield output after 20 turns and the draft anger wears off. 20 turns! That's a long time. I decided not to do it. Part of the reason I decided that is that these cities could end up right back in the same situation anyway! I know it's a lot of work to manage larger maps, but that is what you guys signed on for here. :)

With electricity and rails, that might also fix some of them. Get water to some of the dry sites, enough new added food to feed the specialist and still run enough spt to build stuff. That's the other reason I decided not to draft as a solution.


OK, Charis is right. This isn't "irrigate the desert, ignore the cows" and it isn't "building cities that can't grow past size 2 while ignoring food bonuses". Perhaps it was the natural way of things for the BOSOF's to disappear once enemy clads came on scene.

What are we doing here? Well, Charis, in Always War, there is The Plan, then there is what you can ACTUALLY accomplish. You will soon note, that the actual possibilities always come up short of The Plan, no matter what The Plan may entail. Taking on the whole world at the same time with no possibility of rest is a bit of an Ironman challenge of sorts. :)

The naval aspect may have been worth it, but I no longer see it as our best bet medium term. So two priorities: 1) Hold the status quo on our soil, the actual cities, and not allow any AI's to actually capture anything from us, while we continue to press through this intense early-industrial period building factories, power plants, stock markets, hospitals, and commercial docks, plus a heavy emphasis on artillery production post-rubber. This includes letting the AI's bomb our shores in some places, and simplying dedicating a portion of our workforce to rebuilding the roads (so they will shoot the same plots of land over and over, and not actually make progress on pillaging us). 2) Whatever we can spare from the first priority, going into offensive action vs the Mongols. And by this, I mostly mean defensive game play: settling right up to their cities, leading with our army, but always making sure to have enough garrison in our cities to protect our supply line and not be making gains in one area and losing ground in another. Push forward yes, but never relinquishing ground once taken. Once we have cities within two or three tiles of their cities, we'll be close enough that we can send out a sortie of many cannon and rifles and some MidInf to attack. Raze the enemy city, pick up more cost-free workers, and use our own settlers to fill in the gaps and push forward again. See, the reason our attacks have been failing is that our logistics suck. Too far from home base to the front. Plus without using settlers, the Mongols just come and reclaim what we destroy. That's no good. To achieve lasting gains, we need to be heavy on defensive troops, and may even need to build some forts on high ground and keep them manned, to give us a place from which we control the fighting, get some free shots on passing units, and can retreat our wounded.

I think we should put Hoover on the home continent, as the strong cities in second continent look better equipped to build their own power plants. That means start building the power plants down there as we can. Perhaps build some in some cities while others do units, then swap.

If I can't get the file server to work properly in the next few minutes, I'll email the save to Gris.


If anybody has questions, now's a good time. :)

- Sirian

OK, the save has been emailed. I used my own webspace to host the two leader pics. They also show the progress made on the Mongol front during my turn. Additional cities can be pushed farther inland in the remaining gaps, with more defensive troops on hand (and more settlers, maybe even send up the ones from the south continent). A shorter haul home to heal for wounded troops, and a faster more secure supply line to add reinforcements, are essential elements of further advancement.

Hotrod, cultural push is a peacetime-only exploit. The exploit is that such settlements are an act of war, but the game doesn't realize it and lets you stay in peace. While at war, there is NO limit on where and when you can settle. Right next to, or even inside, enemy borders, is completely OK. Clear now? :)


- Sirian

Yep, I see it!! I was ready to settle to the East of Tabriz and decided not to last minute because of their boarders [pimp], I didn't want to act in a culturally aggressive manner without discussing it first. It was actually something I thought about late in my turn after some reinforcements arrived.

Sorry for all the hand holding :blush: these games are still a learning curve for me and is a different animal for me due to the starting location and the necessity to protect against constant naval invasion. LK37 is a different game all together, cavs make a huge difference and not having to rely on galleys to ship units 2 by 2 toward enemy lines. I am finding that much easier for whatever reason.

It has become clearer why I had a 20,000 cultural victory in Epic 14, protect the homeland and rush those wonders is a whole lot easier.

Sorry if I have bitten off more than I can chew :(. I clearly don't want to risk the entire game on the poor play of an inexperienced player.

Hotrod

If anybody has questions, now's a good time.

If I may be so bold.......

I have played a number of AW games (one of my favorite variants). I would suggest that once you have rails laid 6-10 cannon on each secure landmass to nail any ships coming close. These cannon (and asap arty) will keep a lot of the ships away. Combine them with 6-10 of your best attackers and you can keep most of the ships from landing units, and those that do land don't last till the next turn.
The AI will build up to a certain level of ships and stop building them as much after that. They do count the 2/3s of their fleet that is in transit (back for repair or on the way to your island). It is a losing proposition to try and secure the seas. There are only brief periods were you can gain a advantage and after that you lose if you are going in even battles. Plus, while the shore bombardments are frustrating at best, the really don't have as big an impact on you as the loss of shields to the bottom of the sea. It really is no worse thatn early pollution and usually takes no longer to repair.
Once your defnese is set, you will find that the AI picks one spot they think to be the weakest (just like they do in land battles) aand you can put your defenders/work crews in that area and keep the damage to a minimum over all. Or if you like to play push the AI buttons, you can use the same exploits here that you do on land, move troops out let them approach, move troops in watch them go back to were they were. An exploit I have heard some praise but do not recommend. I don't fell bad though about letting them land next to/bombard around a less than usefull city if they are so inclined.
This said, I think the flight is the big answer. I would go for this and just wave at the silly AI navies as you fly overhead to conquer their cities. The only problem your really face is the initial invasion force. The AI will not ralley its fleet when it sees a large force coming and will for the most part ignore it. That is all the Navy you need. Once airports are in place your shipping problems are over. Beings able to shift units from island to island with only 1 trun delay outeighs the rule of the seas. I have seen many a story on Poly about the glorious fights for control of the shipping lanes, but have found it less than useful (as I believe most have, you don't hear much about naval battles in the SGs). The only problem with this is that armies have to travel the old fashion way. But if they are included in the original invasion, it is not too much of a problem.
Somethings about the defense forces against invaders. Station them on any high ground near the shore. Once they are in place the inner cities can pull most of their defenders and send them to the front. Even coastal cities don't need as many as all troop landings should be eliminated before they can move. Horsemen/Knights/Cav make great coastal watch units early due to the extra movement, but after rails your best offensive unit will do.
Concentrate on taking out one AI at a time. Fight only to a standstill for the rest. If you put all the pressure on one AI it will collapse and you can sweep in to pick up the pieces. If you try to make headway agianst more than you, you are going to find yourself getting bogged down and you will be putting your fortunes in the hands of the Odd Gods of the RnG. The more fronts you have the more the AI wins.

So in summary: Give up the seas, take to the air. Cull and eliminate.
Once you get flight and tanks, the longest part will just be getting the first troops ashore.

Good luck. 200 turns is more than enough time. I would put the chances at better than 90%, especially now that you have the "Charis Veto Stamp" (TM) to offset the "Prod of Sirian" (TM). I would guess you are somewhere in the range of 80-100 turns from victory if you don't have any major weed.

[EDIT] All new cities should have library and temple rushs to push out the borders. It gets rid of the free movement areas outside of your control. My favorite recipe is plant city, rush worker/library, then rush worker/temple. 3 turns to first push and 21 to second (if you don't add anything else).

[Double Edit] Strike the comments about the mobile units, I forgot you put on the extra toppings of Infantry. Still think you can slug it out, it will just take an extra 50 turns!!!!

If only we could use cavs and tanks.....

Hotrod

You're doing fine, Hotrod. We'll win or lose as a team. This is new ground for everybody, although Charis and I both have experience with the Infantry variant. As far as "hand holding", I don't recall any SG's where I didn't have to explain what I was thinking. RBE1, Sulla vetoed my first dotmap and rushed to hook up the incense. :) He didn't see why I had laid it out like that and thought I must have overlooked something -- which happens. Then there was RBD1... I had to explain why irrigating cattle is a good idea in that one. ;) :p

Sometimes moves I see as chancy work out well. Sometimes moves I think are safe... aren't. Civ is about balancing priorities and risks. I believe SG teams are most effective when they are on the same strategic page, working toward the same victory conditions for example, or the same medium and long range goals. Tactical matters will vary based on the priorities, experiences and habits of given players.

I'm only ranting about a few things because I believe they can be improved upon. Contrast that to my rather quiet participation in RBP3. It's one or the other: some rants, or no rants (left on your own to sink or swim). :)


- Sirian

Some great clarifications there, and a choice discourse on optimal fishing village size!

If I had to choose between comment-style here or comment-style in RBP3, I'll choose these, even if I'm at the receiving end of a :whipped:

Thanks too for the AW tips Meldor! I think your assessment sounds pretty good. And as for the 'Prod' and the 'Stamp' - we just need to be careful not to poke out any eyes :crazyeye:

Hotrod you're doing fine - trust me, if you live through the prod you're VERY likely to learn from it and improve your play, it's a "Good Thing"!

Charis

I would like to stick my nose in for one last thought.

With the use of ground troops, armies will be very important if you don't want to lose a lot of troops on offense. You probably won't be able to have too many. Have you gotten enough armies in the field to get the pentagon up and running yet? That extra unit can be the difference between a victiry and a dead army. Of course large amounts of bombardment will help as well.

OK, 5 turns is short as far as carrying out a plan on your turn, but it's quite nice, time-wise. :)

(0) 1760 AD - Kill English archer on NW isle and promote.
BT - For a second I think the AI is doing their cute little border shuffle, then I realize that's *our* border they're shuffling in! :eek:

We could build the pentagon now if we want to. I waited since we didn't have any armies that need to be filled ASAP, and I was hoping for a leader. It turned out to be a combat-light round, so it hasn't been built yet.

Syracuse library -> coastal fortress
Artaxata factory -> rifle (can RR a tile this turn to put it over 20 spt from 19 where it is now)Gordion rifle -> rifle
I think I flaked on writing a few cities' production here.

I'm cranking units and I hope that doesn't kill our economy, but I didn't feel like we were prepared to mount much more of a Mongol offensive, so I want to crank units. It should pay off in the medium-term, I think.

(1) 1762 AD -
BT - ack, left an exposed MDI at Mongolia who is attacked and loses. They also attack our exposed rifle and we win.
Electricity comes in and we start replaceable parts @ 50% (10 turns). I didn't irrigate any of the dry islands because I was still in RR mode for the time being.
Rome factory -> rifle
Pisae factory -> rifle
Lugdunum worker -> library
Selucia factory -> coastal fort
Caesaraugusta cathedral -> rifle (or should I call them firearm legionaries now? ;)
Caesarea cathedral -> rifle (hmm, seeing a pattern here?)
Agrippina factory -> barracks (!)

The Greeks unload a cav at Tabriz.

(2) 1764 AD - I kill the Greek cav, a fresh Mongol longbow, and the wounded Keshik at Mongolia. I'm also able to safely sink a Japanese frigate with our BOSOF action.

BT - A lonely ironclad that was making a run to join some friend was sunk by the treacherous English. At least it sunk one and took the second to 1 in the process. Too bad there's no unit close enough to finish off that second English ironclad!

Antium factory -> rifle
Palmyra market -> colosseum
Tarentum library -> rax
Eburacum factory -> coal plant
Gordion rifle -> rifle
Agrippina rax -> coal plant
Cyrene ironclad -> rifle
Curia coastal fort -> rifle

(3) 1766 AD - Here's what our science advisor has to say:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-carrot.jpg

Settler takes off from the south coast with a few other units, bound for Mongolia.

BT - Mongols land Keshik at Palmyra.
Seleucia c fort -> cathedral
Brund factory -> rifle
Syracuse c fort -> factory
Caesar rifle -> rifle
Arretium factory -> rifle
Nico uni -> coal plant

(4) 1768 AD - Send vet MDI at Palmyra after vet Keshik. We attack from a hill and lose! I have to wake the legion to kill the Keshik. I then put the pike from the Mongol mainland in a galleon for Palmyra.

I move Cyrene's cannon to be with the other two down on that continent so that it won't be forgotten.

I bombard an English galleon and ironclad that has the nerve to sail next to Viro.

Two BOSOF's are healed and stacked, and looking for openings that won't get them killed.

BT - I haven't mentioned that the bombardment on the south continent is much heavier than what we can casually handle with workers. I didn't want to build a bunch of cannons with artillery so close, so I bombarded with what I had. I also didn't make many naval units. The Japanese and English have unstacked units that are close enough they could attack together and just be really annoying to fight.

In the midst of all this, the English get a galleon pair into our bay. We probably can't prevent a landing, but those two boats are now isolated, and not too far from some of our frigates, depending upon what the RNG wants to roll us.

Egypt lands 2 pikes and a MDI at Tabriz. I bombarded them all, so the pikes are still on top. I didn't attack this turn, so the next leader may want to doublecheck the situation up there.

I also killed a Keshik by the other city, which is why not all of our cannons are at Tabriz this turn.

Rome rifle -> rifle
Cumae factory -> rifle
Tabriz explorer -> cathedral (?)
Pompeii factory -> ironclad
Pisae rifle -> bank
Artaxxata rifle -> colosseum
Gordion rifle -> coal plant
Treveri courthouse -> cannon (future artillery?)

(5) 1770 AD - Our cannon destroy's Almarikh's library. We sink a 1 hp Greek galleon with an ironclad by Tabriz. I was pretty sure there were no enemy boats nearby, so I moved it a few tiles at once, and briefly caught a glimpse of another ironclad. Hopefully we don't get attacked between turns, or if we do, hopefully we win.

There's a caravel full and a galleon partway full of units (including that settler) headed north under a frigate. Perhaps I shouldn't have sent them partway full like that, but sometimes I think I'd never move any units at all if I always waited for the perfect moment.
I think there's two galleons on the north mainland still, though there's not an escort nearby unless only one of those boats was filled.

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1770ad.zip

Another solid round from General Griselda. :goodjob:

The bad news is that the enemy bombardments in the SE are getting out of control. The good news is... the enemy bombardments in the southeast are still shooting at tile improvements and not cities! :eek: Because with that many ships in the area, if they attacked the cities, we could see some of our core sites in the area losing their improvements and becoming worth less. Hotrod, build more cannon if you can. We can always disband them in low-shield cities later if we get too many units, and we need to chase off more of those ships until we can get a grip on the situation.

It will be the start of Charis's turn before we can train artillery, but as soon as we have the option, we need to crank some on all fronts. Don't upgrade the old cannon, though! Too gold-intense for the value. If we get to where we don't need the old units, we'll disband them for shields in choice locations. (Four can rush a whole harbor, for instance, one can build an instant wall by itself, and two can rush a barracks, in fully corrupt locations. Even just one... could give some immediate initial shields in a new city, allowing us to cashrush the rest of the project and have something built on the first turn).


- Sirian

Get read to cash rush coal plants and mass upgrade the cannons to artillery... roger!!


:wallbash:

j/k

Good turn Gris!!! I love the sci advisor screenie :lol:

Regarding the bombardment... what I've done when shores are getting wailed on is to sit some troops there. They absorb the damage rather than the improvements, and the AI keeps pounding at them. I rotate 1hp units out and swap them with fresh vet or elite units from the nearest town with barracks. This seemed to cut WAY down on needed workers for repairs. Would this work in our SE, or did I just have a game where they MEANT to target my troops and not improvements? In other words would they switch targets if their improvement targets got troops on them. (Any old troop will do, but the more hp the merrier)

Charis

PS Cranking more troops sounds like just the ticket Gris. I wanted more but thought factories would be smarter. And wow, many are coming online already, that was quick.

Units to absorb shoreline punishment? I used that to good effect to tie up the Persian Clad SoDs in GOTM14, but it's not working in PTW -- not just this game, but other games I've played too. They ignore the units and move on to other open tiles. So I'm afraid that's not going to help us, since we can't blockade the entire coast. Thus, the advice I posted.

- Sirian

got it and will try to play tonight.

What does the Mongol front look like these day I haven't seen it in a while?

I've been reading this thread with interest and enjoyment. I'm just stepping out of my lurker role to confirm what Sirian said above. It has been my experience that in PTW, the AI tends to skip unit-guarded improved terrain and moves to other, unguarded ground for its bombardment pleasure. The AI is getting smarter? What's the world coming to?! :crazyeye:

One thing to try with rails in place, is to set up radar and slide units alng the coast to block their intended target. I haven't tried this (I am at work) but thought I would throw it out for you to ponder.

1770 AD: (0): Search the southern continent for some cities to builds a few cannons. Change Syracuse from just started factory to cannon, due in 4 turns. Change Caesaragusta to cannon from rifle, waste 2 shields. Change to a cannon in Eburacum. Change Nicopolis to a cannon. Hurry barracks in New Cumae for future upgrades and hit recovery.

1772 AD (1): AI counter was uneventful until our lone ironclad out side of Mongol territory was sunk by the Greeks. Other bombardments were unsuccessful except the destroyed some improvements at Hippo Regius. Move a stack of riflemen in the army with an explorer and cannos to disconnect the mongol horses. Build a few cannons and start a few ironclads. Loadup an army of riflemen to send to Tabriz on the Galley in Virconinum. Started Pentagon in Antium. AI continues to bomb we continue to rebuild.

1774 AD (2): pillage compaign continues with a stack in Mongol territory. Heading toward Kazan.

1776 aD (3): Pillage Silks in Mongol land. Kill 1 cav and wound another. City hop to get army closer to Mongol territory. Greeks have shown sudden interest in our Mongol territories, no iron clads or frigates in the area :(. Cannons damage the iron clad but nothing to take it out. Lose an ironclad in the west to a wounded Ottoman galleon. :(.

1778 AD (4): Kill 2 greek Cavs that land on the island just north of the Mainland. Damage 3 English Ironclads, and 1 japanese ironclad in the East of the Southern continent. Continue moving Units toward Tabriz, with Greek Ironclads in the area need to go slowily from city to city. Japan is showing some interest in bombing the Western Island, and Ravenna is still a favorite target.

1780 AD (5): Clean up remaining Ironclads in the south East :). Bombing will stop for a while anyway. Continue pillage routine with the explore outside Kazan. A settler is in New Cumae and can move and be settled. New rifles have arrived. A second settler is in Caesarea awaiting pickup and future transport.

I tried to cleanup the wounded Ironclads but even an elite frigate vs. a 1/4 ironclad is a tough win. Did manage to eliminate the ironclad force that was pummilling the Southern Continents East coast with 2 BSOF. They are lossing or should I say have lost there effectiveness vs. ironclads even wounded ones. The Greeks are now the prominent naval force and caused a careful crossing from the MainContinent to Mongol territory. My favorite new technique is a stack of rifles and a lone explorer moving about freely pillage and return to the stack, Kazan is almost disconnected :). Haven't made any attacks, the explore is pillaging everything.

Did manage to build a few more cannons for the southern territory, focused primarily on rebuilding the bombed lands with the workers, and moving more rifles up north. There is an empty army ready for infantry :). A second rifle army just landed on the Mongol lands. Killed a few wayward cavalry with rifles and went leader hunting several times with elite units vs. 1 hp cavs the retreated, all were unsuccessful. Antium is building the pentagon but can be changed to a coal plant or a palace prebuild for ToE or Hoovers. Replaceable parts is due in 2 turns at a loss of -20 gpt. Did not draft any new units with Infantry on the way.
There are a few new Ironclads out and about but they are scattered and haven't had a chance to make BSOICs. Contemplated the best spot to settle with the settler in New Cumae but think Charis should make the call. Good Luck, have fun with the Infantry :).

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1780AD.zip

PS. There are a few rifles building but I don't know if you want them to finish or switch to something else and wait for RP to complete. Can finish RP this turn for a modest -400+ hit!

ROSTER:

Sirian << On Deck
Griselda
Hotrod
Charis << UP NOW

Charisicero II comes to power in the year 1780AD...

The last reign, of the Rod of Heat, went pretty well with nothting too drastic
going on, good or bad. There's a settler ready to go somewhere as well.
We're REAL close to Replaceable Parts, a biggie.

[0] 1780 AD - Military railnet just about complete, good. Pentagon due in 9, great!
Histograph looks good except for power as Greece is on the rise.
I check techs. Greece has Democ, Med, Comm, Espio, The Corp. The Ottomans the 1st 3.
Mongols? They lack Theory of Gravity??? Ha!! They can't even get rifles anytime soon!
That will increase my speed in pushing this! Egypt has Med but lacks Steam and
Nationalism. England has 4. So does Japan, but they lack Electricity. Iro lacks steam.
So Alex is definitely our biggest threat for now. Wow, look at Athens!!! It's size
6 and divides the nation in two. If we land there in the mountains he's in trouble!
I know we want to avoid diluting our forces, but one transport of infantry and artillery
there would be quite disruptive. In fact, the whole world is just not distracted enough,
as they are ALL in democracy!

Things look very smoke-free, with one small but noticeable exception.
Rome, size 12 and stuck, is set to 39 spt and excess two food!
Building a rifle, which it is, will waste 37 shields every three turns. Move
one laborer from grass to mountain and poof, perfect 40spt. Rather than eat that
waste right now, I swap to Coal Plant. I adjust Antium too for a quicker Pentagon.

Looking at Southern continent, their shields and income are pretty poor. We need
scads more workers that to get rails done much quicker. Nicopolis is one with good
shields, so it gets put on coal plant. So does Arretium. I see what seems to me too
many ironclads, in an era not far from battleships and flight. Several get swapped to
banks or factories.

On the Mongol front... we have armies next to towns and many others asleep? odd...
I go after the two hurt units in the open, two rifles promote to elite.


[1] 1782 AD - Lots of raililng, a little bombarding, a little army attacking.
We slide down sci as RP due next turn. (IBT) More ironclad bombing, a cav landing,
and cav out of Kazan kills a rifle, then ends turn next to our brand new army.

[2] 1784 AD - Rubber is here, and in abundance. We have 3. We start Medicine, towards
Sci Meth and ToE. Mongols and Ottomans have none. Other civs, too much fog.
We hit the Japanese cavs on Corfinium island, they retreat, then are hunted and killed.

[3] 1786 AD - Finally the cannons smack down Kazan and our two armies defeat the
town. It has the Great Lighthouse. Tis expired and useless, and should be razed.
The city is too big too keep right now. Alas, I'm only 98% sure not 100% that
the extra movement aspect expires too, so I kept it. :smoke: If we kill the Mongols
quickly that's fine, but we won't, and I'm not going to garrison an army there
to prevent a flip. Let's just see if 3:1 culture can help us.

Four Iro knights have landed, same spot, same result. Except we lost two MDI.
(IBT) Greece (!) lands four troops next to Kazan.

[4] 1788 AD - Quiet on our turn, killing most of the Greek landers.
(IBT) We BARELY hold off two cav with a rifle protecting two cannon, as he hits 1hp.
Another landing at Corfinium. We need more attackers there. Another MDI lost.

[5] 1790 AD - Kick off both sets of invaders. Medicine due next turn. New Cumae
settler untouched. We have a few infantry awake on main islands, these and other
inf and artil due soon need to get shipped over to Mongolia.

To next leader... go easy on me, I'm very sleepy as I finish up here :P

Infantry 1790AD Save File (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1790AD.zip)

Sirian << UP
Griselda << ON Deck
Hotrod
Charis

Good luck!
Charis

[/lurking] The Great Lighthouse's extra movement expires with Magnetism, Charisicero II. [lurking]

Charis was tired? Oh, OK, that explains a few things. :p

I'm still obliged to poke and prod a bit, though. :whipped:


IT 1790AD: I spent over an hour poring over the kingdom, changing many things, figuring out what we needed to see happen, figure out what tiny portion of that I might be able to accomplish in five turns, and double-checking the details.

* Additional Coal plants on Hoover Homeland vetoed. The two I ordered up originally were for the purpose of speeding Hoover if we have to self-build it. They will only have to be sold later.

* Still no harbor at Gordium? :lol: Sheesh.

* Top priority to support logistics for the Mongolian front. (Our supply line is in COMPLETE DISARRAY and I will fix it. I don't expect to ever see it broken again, after this. I will explain what I'm setting up, why it works, and how to maintain and use it).

* The AI's are significantly ahead of us on tech. I'd LIKE to get both Sanitation and Corporation before SciMeth, but I don't trust it. So it will be one or the other, but not both.

* I scream at my monitor to find... ALL THE ARTILLERY OUT IN THE FIELD AGAIN in Mongolia. One token cannon left behind does not qualify for rant avoidance. :p Sheesh. OK, I round up all but the cats at Kazan and send them homeward (still on the inherited turn) guarded by one elite rifle and the most wounded of the two armies. (BTW... complete :smoke: to have loaded up a second army with rifles, on the same round infantry becomes available, JUST to be able to go on the direct offensive and take a city on your turn, Charis. Or did someone else load up the army ahead of you?) What's worse, our foothold is guarded by cutouts. CUTOUTS. The absolute worst thing that was done in the original Always War game, LOTR2, was players going nuts on their turns with offense, only to see all their gains wiped out when the AI counterattack came. We gained and lost ground over and over and over because too many risks were taken, and not enough units were gathered. That is almost the case here now. No units at all available to do anything in Mongolia, and one brave AI attack plus streak luck away from losing our whole investment.

* I upgrade several rifles to infantry, cost 20g apiece. This in Mongolia (yes, I even upgraded some elite rifles) and on the isles with units moving in the right direction.

* Changed New Cumae to worker. This will add 33% to our current Mongolian workforce (of six slaves).

* I get the settler from Iron Isle to Palm Isle, with the galleon fortified out in the middle of the water. :confused: (What? That supposed to be a lure? With a "Kick Me" sign on it? OK, OK, enough teasing. Time to get on with this thing.)


1792AD: Heavy Greek clad activity south of Tabriz. They are also targetting Palm isle a bit.

I get our clad stack in the SW back together and send them a bit closer to home. Homeland workers are all cleaning pollution, as we got hit with two more units this round. Medicine discovered, Sanitation in four @50%, running cash deficit. That's the only tech Egypt has that we lack, besides Democracy. (When did we get Printing Press??? Came free out of the great library?)

I order up a galleon out of Pisae. I wake the galleon east of there and send it westward also. These will be the two shuttle ships from Home to Iron Isle.

I order a galleon built out of the town south of Antium. We have NO TRANSPORTS between the two main continents! I can't even fix this this round, but I'll apply a bandage.

Palm Isle Military Port founded on the one wasted hill tile on the north end. This site is three tiles due west of Tabriz. All ships from Tabriz moved to Port. Caravel and Galley from Palmyra moved around the west side of the island, toward Port. More units moved from Iron Isle to Palm Isle via the one galleon there. Galleon returns to Iron Isle.

Our 2hp army makes it safely back to Tabriz. Oh, and I had left the silk fort empty last round, promoting its rifle, and no less than five Greek clads all beelined to it to target it. All missed. (Sometimes its better to be lucky than good! I won't leave that tile empty ever again).

Woke our settler in Tabriz and sent him with one infantry northward into the soft underbelly of unoccupied Mongolia.

Inland Irrigation started on West and Desert Isles.

Hospital prebuilds started in cities with less than 40 shields.


1794AD: Mongols land a cav next to Palmyra. Our complete lack of cannons on the island is a problem. I end up losing TWO VET INFANTRY, which cost 40g to promote from rifles, taking this thing out. That ought not to have happened, but sometimes the luck just sucks. This further delays the arrival of reinforcements to Mongolia. However, I do now have the supply line set up. We can get four units from the home continent to Mongolia on the same turn, every turn, henceforth unto eternity.

The idea is simple: no movement is spent loading and unloading in port. Therefore, you load a ship in Port A, travel across to city on different landmass, arrive the same turn, unload the same turn. A PAIR of such ships at every such location ensure travel BOTH WAYS on the same turn, if you wish. (Why would we want to send anything BACK down the supply line? Leaders, mostly, though later, could also be slaves, settlers, spare units, or redeployment after crushing the Mongols). One pair of ships at each crossing allows virtual rails for a couple of units all the way to the front, with careful use of the supply line.

We did lose the caravel from Palmyra, though, as a Greek clad leapt out of the fog from the NE to sink it. The galley underneath then made it safely, and all galleons can make it safely as they can get all the way from Military Port to Palmyra on the same turn. (That is NOT where they are running the troops, but I had to GET a galleon down to Palmyra from Tabriz, to complete the ferry boat chain). What we now have is a caravel and galleon between Viro and Nicomedia. I will add a second galleon here from Pisae by the end of my round. We have a galleon pair in Caesarea and Palmyra. And in the north, we have a galleon, a caravel and a galley between Military Port and Tabriz. Four units per turn is NOT MANY, but beats what we had incoming by a mile.

Enemy activity is increasing around West Isle. I don't know that this location can hold up without reinforcements until flight, but there is nothing I can do about it on my round. Bigger fish to fry getting the Mongolian effort on track.

I did manage to arrange a ship trap on the SE naval front. I'll detail how this works.

Galleon completed between continents, I start to ferry some of the surplus units and workers from South to Home. Slow going, though. Not even a whole trip per turn. And we will ALWAYS need this kind of shipping, as not every unit type can be airlifted.

Cities with between 40 and 52 shields started on hospital prebuilds.

Got my harbor in Gordium finally. :crazyeye:


1796AD: Iro's land three knights and a longbow next to our best town on West Isle, the one with saltpeter in range. I move our elite infantry OUT of the town and insert the vet unit instead.

Sank an Egyptian Frigate that wandered too close to Home.

Sank two clads in the ship trap.

Completed basic improvements on the west coast of South. All the cities there now strong enough to grow to size 8. Cyrene is the last, and is now building its aqueduct. Londinium shifts to settler, now FINALLY able to fix the overpopulation. (Please don't let it grow above 8 again, until it has more happiness in place. I don't need a case of apoplexy).

Pentagon completed.

I've been working on the railroad... in Mongolia. Gris should find life there much improved, though we're still a couple players away from having enough force up there to attack cities. First we must prepare wisely, and it seems Charis's notion of supplying more detailed goals and plans may be in order, lest another round and then another should pass, before we show signs of advancing.

I promote more rifles to infantry at the front. We're running low on cash, though, so this kind of spending cannot be done without specific purpose. I'm afraid I'm going to leave us broke by the end of my round, but... the arrival of hospitals and the increase of population in our cores along with higher unit support, should see some upturn in our economy. Post-stock-exchanges, with 1k in the bank and 50gpt interest, plus commercial docks, we WILL have the economy to crank a lot of troops. We'll be down to 175 turns left in the game at the end of my round, though. That is just eight more turns for each player, and the AI's are all going to have infantry and perhaps even mechs before this is over. Yikes.


1798AD: The Iro's kindly attack on West Isle, taking a combined 1hp off our infantry with their four units. Of course we promoted to elite. If those had been cavs, though... West Isle could use a few more infantry. Preferably from home, rather than spending cash to upgrade the pikes there, but less costly to upgrade than to lose the cities, so do whatever is needed to defend if a major invasion takes place.

Sink two more ships in the ship trap.

Our lone cannon on Desert Isle has successfully chased off one ship each turn. They are all going north to that rocky north island to repair, and using that as their base. We might mount a mini-invasion at some point and take away that island from them. Not until transports, though. Sadly, the enemy is accumulating more ships in this area, attacking here and West Isle. We may lose everything along the shore eventually, so rather than repair, I have been irrigating inland, mostly. Mostly.

Rome completes another army and I ship it north. About half a dozen infantry from South have now been shipped Home, and from there, northward. Rest of the northbound units have been weaker ones, but we will NEED warm bodies to suppress flip chances, if my plan is executed.

I'm able to crank science back down to 40% for the last turn on sanitation.

Fort Sirian founded in Mongolia as forward operating base. Rails are almost complete to it already.


1800AD: Learn sanitation, start SciMeth. I had set two cities for scroll ahead, forgot to do one of them, which completes an infantry that was being used as prebuild. I get the other, Gordium, which completes our first hospital this turn. Gordium starts palace prebuild.

Greeks landed a cav at Kazan.

My bombardments have chased off many of the Greek clads in the north, buying peace compared to early in my round. One lone English clad wanders into the ship trap up there and I sink it, promoting our vet clad to elite. I cover with the other, already an elite.

Two of our new infantry had promoted in recent rounds, I merge them both into one of our empty armies. Our almost-dead armies from Charis's assault still have not healed, but they are getting there. I merge an elite at Kazan into the rifle army there.

THIS IS TO BE THE LAST SUCH ARMY INSERTION.

*ALL* units added to all armies from here forward are to be elite infantry or elite marines. Priority to loading ones that already popped a leader, but we want elites. Even existing rifle army is best improved by adding an elite infantry. As a militaristic civ, promotions to elite will be common. Don't overvalue the elites on their own, we want them in the armies. The armies will win this game for us.

We want 20hp armies. One or two extra hp's might preserve 800 shields worth of units! This ain't like running tanks and armor. (Yes, 800 shields. 400 for the army, 100 apiece for marines, 90 per for infantry. So that's 760 shields for an infantry army, 800 for marines -- loaded modern armies are like walking great wonders).

I swap everything that is ready for hospital over to hospital. Some towns still working a bank or cathedral, or finishing a uni that is past 160 shields. Shouldn't need to veto any of these build orders.

South's cities all need happiness attention. Don't let them riot!

Gordium is on palace prebuild for ToE. If we pop a leader, get him to Home to instarush Hoover the turn after ToE. We can't have leaders around to rush both, and although I've popped two leaders on the same turn to rush both back to back in Epic Six, leaders are harder to come by for us here with less ground combat taking place.

We also need BatMed. This could be built in any city with 60+ shields, perhaps the FP site.

We will need at least two more galleons between continents, as South will soon be ready to crank infantry and artillery at high rate of speed, and these all need to go north for the time being.

Remember to sit on Atomic Theory and run all cash while waiting for ToE to complete.

After Electronics, we want Corporation, then probably Espionage. We also don't have ANY artillery at Home, to chase off clads, and there's one pestering off the shore of Pisae now.

Run high food at Home, where Bach's adds two happy per city. Get those populations up, post-hospitals. This is also going to add pollution, we'll need to shift some of the work force from South to Home.

Note the size 8 desert city on the SW coast of South? It had an aqueduct built but nobody grew it. Well, I improved its food and grew it. After it got to size 7, I added a worker to move it to 8, then stabilized it to max shields and break-even food. The same should be done at Cyrene. Workers should also be added to Viro in the same way, to its happy limit, after it gets done with its factory and then hospital. That might be a while, but keep it in mind.

Fort Sirian is another good candidate for slow worker training, after it builds walls. Forget the barracks. We only need one per continent, connected by rails, for rapid healing, and we have that at Tabriz.

Screenshots and details tactical plans to follow in next post.


- Sirian

OK, first of all, the Ship Trap.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1800ad-ship-trap.jpg

The three pink dots are low-yield tiles we can afford to have shot up. These are the only tiles on the SE coast that are to be left uncovered. Since the AI's refuse to fire at tiles guarded by units, I've set up these as their only options. To shoot at these, they have to come in closer. If they end their turn within two tiles of either Hippo or Aggripina, we bombard them down into the red, then our Mini-SOF's stationed in these ports jump out, sink the wounded animals, and return safely to port. At no time do our ships remain at sea at the end of their turns. This is the key to minimizing our casualties while inflicting pain on them, and it's better than just chasing them off. However, if they bring a minisod, wound some of them to chase them off, let one or two stay, then sink those at the first safe chance. I sank six ships in five turns with this plan, with NO casualties, and the area is somewhat quiet.

On the last turn, England shifted its targetting over to tiles around Gordium. And I had no ships there to close the deal on the wounded clad. I have one clad from the west moving port to port to reach Gordium. If the English make a permanent change in targetting, shift the ship trap accordingly. Up to you guys to adapt, but if you get the idea of the Ship Trap, you can set up your own wherever they are needed.


Now for the Supply Line.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1800ad-supply-line.jpg

Strict Orders: do not deviate from the supply line plan. If you need ships for other duty, do not confiscate logistics ferries. Train extra ships for the new duties.

There is a galleon in Nico. There is a galleon just outside Viro. These are one pair. The caravel guarding the galleon is now an extra and can be used for other duty, as can the new ship being built at Jerusalem.

At the end of EVERY turn, there will be a galleon in Nico and a galleon in Viro. If you move units from Viro to Nico, you bring the other galleon home, even if it's empty. Think of these two ships as trolley cars hardwired so that if one moves, the other moves too, never ending a turn in the same station.

There is galleon in Caesarea and a galleon in Palmyra. These only go between these two cities, always ending each turn with one in each city.

There is a galleon and galley in Military Port and a caravel in Tabriz. The galley and caravel together combine to function as one galleon. The galley can be left in military port unless it is NEEDED to ferry units to Tabriz, but the caravel and galleon should never end the same turn in the same port.

Now this whole chain will let you load units at Viro and unload them at Tabriz, with their land movement still intact, on the same turn. Thus units unloaded at Tabriz can still be moved to other cities, or even directly into combat.

If a leader pops, get him home safely on one turn.

NONE of these ships are ever to end their turns at sea. They go port to port, safely, and always in tandem, so that each and every turn, there is a steady transport capacity in both directions.

Although air travel will eventually overtake sea transport, there are units (armies, workers, settlers, explorer-pillagers) that cannot be airlifted, so this supply chain should remain in place for the rest of the game.

We also need shipping to Desert Isle, but I didn't have the resources to set that up. Shipping to West Isle is more problematic as we don't have the possibility of same-turn port-to-port ferries.


Finally, the Sirian Plan for Mongolia.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1800ad-mongolia-plan.jpg

Temple has been rushed at Fort Sirian, as you can see. Borders will expand by end of Gris's round.

The red circle marks location for next settler. This town need not bother with a temple, it won't help. What we need here is half a dozen or more low-grade units to serve as warm bodies for flip suppression, so get some of those old pikes and such up to the front. (Whoever that was moving old/weak units BACK FROM THE FRONT should not do that again, plz).

There is no settler waiting, and I'm afraid the only one I have under construction is down in Londinium. Worst case, however, is to get him up there by the end of Gris's round, and this will be the only other settler we should need for the Mongolian war. We can capture, rather than raze, the rest of their towns.

OK, now here's the plan. We want to save their current capital for LAST. We're going to cut it off. I have an infantry and an explorer moving toward the orange dot on the mountain. Park the infantry there once the pillaging is done, that will prevent workers from repairing (pillage-n-park). Their capital is inland, so while cutting it off will not stop local trade between their other cities, it WILL kill any import and export deals they have.

There is another infantry in the northeast with two explorers under it. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to pillage Darhan back into the Darhark Ages. Leave ONE ROAD from Fort Sirian directly to Darhan intact, so that there will be a road in place for our use after we capture, but pillage the rest.

We're going to go counterclockwise with the assaults. First up is Dalandzadgad at size 6. No need to pillage there, just gather a SoD, leaving PLENTY OF DEFENDERS behind in all our cities, and take the healed armies and go kick their butts. Not sure if we'll have enough units up there by the end of Gris's turn. We don't want to be too cautious, but we want to make sure to bring enough to win on the first try, without risking our current holdings. Don't be afraid to use up some of those older units. Don't waste them, but they'll get more value here, attacking Temu's muskets, than ever will vs the rest of the AI's rifles and infantry and worse.

From Daland, its up to Darhan, which we want to bring down to size 6 before we attack. Then around to Ulaanbatar, but that is not likely to come before my next round, as we have hospitals to build, SoDs to amass, artillery needed (and then some!) and of course, post-Hoover, all those stock exchanges to build.

In the mean time, we actually need a few more workers up in Mongolia, so as soon as some can be spared from South, ship some on up there. We need railnet, and we need forts.

Complete railnet city to city is top priority, connecting all four cities plus new one at red dot. Next Priority is an infantry fortified inside a fortification improvement on pink dot. This will establish ZoC in the area. White Dot also a high priority site for a manned fort, and then yellow and green dots. Forts take four worker turns to build, so our six slaves and one worker can build a fort in one turn on flat ground, two turns on a hill. One shipload of four workers would double the work force.

Other than irrigation (two worker turns) and forts (four turns), everything is in multiples of three turns. Three turns for a rail, six on a hill. Three turns for a mine, six on a hill. Keep most workers in stacks of three or six and complete whole projects on one turn. That's how I made rails progress in Mongolia: one fortified infantry on the road guarding a whole stack of workers underneath, move to next tile next turn, onward and upward.

From the white dot, our artillery can bomb their capital FROM INSIDE OUR BORDERS. At yellow dot we can bombard Ulaan. From green dot we can hit Hovd. No such luck for Daland, but we won't have enough artillery in place to matter at that point anyway.

Artillery! Mix half artillery with half infantry on troops trained for the front, we should take down the Mongols before too godawfully much longer.

At least, that's The Plan.


INF2 - 1800AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1800ad.zip)


Good luck, Generalisimo Griselda.


- Sirian

Just to reiterate:

The ONLY units to be added into armies from here on are elite infantry and elite marines.

I posted a lot in my report, and this is the one point that is most important to remember.


Whew. :)

Hey, this IS the fun part. :lol:


- Sirian

The [pimp] army was mine. RP was 8 turns away and I clearly was :smoke:! As soon as a did the army I noticed the second empty army and it finally occured to me that the rifles was a huge mistake, I had no recorse to fix it except to get the :spank: and give myself a :wallbash: and a :rant:.

Hotrod :blush:

OK. Don't worry about it. I know it was mentioned to save the empty armies for infantry, but it's easy enough for details to get lost or overlooked in the morass of things to keep track of, so I can understand you missing it. That's why I made sure to give that extra attention this time. No more rifle armies from here, though. :D Or we'll give you a good :whipped: :lol:

- Sirian

The plan is to get a good night's sleep and then play tomorrow. Hopefully I can stick to The Plan in RL and in-game. :)

-Griselda

With that simple sign posted in all our civ's restrooms, and new, sanitary conditions to care for our sick, our core cities have flourished! This also means a lot of our cities that have been at size-12-max shields for a while need a bit of extra TLC, and hopefully I was able to provide that for them.

Oh, we did get printing press from the library, so none of us was loopy enough to research it. :crazyeye:

(0) 1800 AD
BT - Greeks land at Kazan- 3 rifles and 1 longbow
Pollution pops up in three spots.
Cumae hospital - artillery
Neapolis uni - hospital
Pompeii hospital - infantry
Ravenna bank - hospital
Lutetia coastal fort - hospital
Londinium settler - factory
Fort Sirian temple - barracks

The way that I chose between artillery and infantry on my round was to look at a city's production, and see if I could build artillery in a turn less than I could build an infantry. If so, I built artillery. If not, I built infantry. I figured that would help to minimize loss, and it seemed to be pretty even for the most part. I have a nagging suspicion that I did the first couple of cities backwards, but I re-checked after each unit was completed, so they should all be right. Of course, they're growing, so their shield output could change.

(1) 1802 AD - Without many units in Kazan and no rails, I send the army out to kill a rifle. It kills it, taking 8. I want my army to heal, so I swap to barracks and rush. Then I notice that a barracks doesn't heal an army completely. :( I also move one of the worker rifles into Kazan.
Our cannon takes the Mongol capitol to 11. :jump:
I sink an English 'clad and wound an Egyptian frigate and caravel.
BT - Only the longbowman attacks Kazan, and it dies quickly.
Egypt unloads a pike and longbow at Nicomedia.
Rome hospital - army
Antium hospital - artillery
Veii hospital - infantry (needs a bank, too, but I wanted to grab a quick unit)
Byzantium hospital - infantry
Kazan rax- temple
Brundisium hospital - artillery
Pollution pops up in 2 spots
Caesaraugusta hospital - battlefield medicine. It's not yet quite at 60 shields, but looking around it does seem like the best spot.
Arretium hospital - artillery
Artaxata hospital - university
Agrippina uni - hospital
Sirmium colosseum - hospital

(2) 1804 AD - I kill the new Egypt units with an Elite MDI and a conscript rifle.
At Kazan, I need to kill that rifle so that I can finish my railroad this turn. So, I attack their rifle with a rifle, and win. :D The workers move the that tile and complete the rail line. Then, I promptly forget to bring artillery to bombard a retreated Greek rifle (it was only one down), and I lose an infantry attacking it. :splat: I think I bombarded and then killed it after that, but I didn't write the details.

I kill two Japanese frigates.
Agrippina and Eburacum aren't ready to grow, so I swap them from hospitals to colosseums.
Trapezus could grow past 4, so I set it to grow.
Our settler arrives in Hispalis, out of movement.
I do get to try out the shipping lanes for an infantry, pike, mdi, and rifle that are blasted from Hispalis right up to the front lines.
BT - more Greeks land at Kazan, but this time they've sent a regular hoplite and 3 longbows.
Two tiles get pollution.
Aurelianorum cathedral - market
Nicopolis hospital - infantry
Eburacum colosseum - hospital

(3) 1806 AD - MM New Antium for shields.
Sink English inronclad.
An elite rifle at Kazan kills a longbow and pops our friend Hadrian, who broke that dry spell for us so long ago. It's so early that I look around for stuff to do with him, but I agree we're better off waiting for Hoover, so he goes home to Rome (don't forget him!).
I kill all the Greek longbows, leaving a 1 hp hoplite.
I kill a Keshik, too.
The shipping lanes deliver one settler and four Mongol workers from Palm isle to the Mongol lands, and the workers are sent to work on the rail lines to our new city site (yay for that caravel and galley at Palm Isle). Hadrian hops on the shipping lines to get home.

BT - Antium artillery - artillery
Cumae artillery - infantry
Hispalis hospital - artillery
Seleucia colosseum - hospital
Brundisium art - art
Jerusalem galleon - ironclad
Tarentum market - cathedral
Arretium art - inf
Hippo bank - uni
Cyrene aqueduct - factory
A Keshik moves to the mountain by Fort Sirian.
I think I'm going to use the Jerusalem galleon to take units to the undersupplied islands. But, I'm making the non-core cities build these units. If anyone has a better idea, you're welcome to it. The islands are getting their tiles bombarded badly, but still didn't make it to high priority on my turn.

(4) 1808 AD - Kill 1hp Keshik with inf, promote to Elite.
Kill the 1hp hoplite.
I've sent an ironclad to Gordion to be ready if they start heavily bombarding by that city. Might as well get that there now while I can do it safely!
I swap Caesarea to artillery to bring to the NW.
Three artillery arrive at the Mongol front.

BT - I left a wounded infantry out, and forgot to cover him. He's attacked, and wins, promoting to elite. As we know, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good!
Pompeii inf - art
Nicopolis inf - inf
Agrippina colosseum - hospital
Corfinium aqueduct - artillery
Bagacum harbor - coastal fort
New Rome harbor - coastal fort

(5) 1810 AD - Almarikh is now cut off from the rest of the world. Also, bombardment takes it to 10.
I sink one Japanese and two English clads. I lose one elite frigate attacking a 1hp clad, though.
I join a worker to Cyrene, making it size 8, and MM it for max shields and no growth. Keep an eye on Londinium- it can grow to size 8 on its own in 2, and should also have growth cut off. Contribute to Sirian's cardiac health!

I think that Otto galleon that's at one hitpoint is full. It took all my available ironclads to bring it to 1, so if you can catch it next turn, sinking it would be helpful.

Gordion hires a tax collector.

Two elite infantry are now at the army city. I don't think I put them in the army yet, but they should probably heal and then join.

Here's the Plan for wonders next round. It may be self-evident, but it took me a while to think it through, so forgive me if I'm being redundant. Scientific method is due in 3. I think you can use scroll-ahead to swap Gordion to ToE. I can't count all those palace shields, and I don't know how much a palace would cost, so I don't know if it has enough to complete it. I'd guess yes, for whatever that's worth. If you take atomic theory and electronics from ToE, we can then rush Hoover in Rome one the next turn.

I'm very busy in RL, and will be out of town next weekend. Also, I'm horribly behind on Epic 21. So, if my turn comes again before I post my Epic 21 report (could be the Tuesday after close), please skip me.

-Griselda
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1810ad.zip

Will grab the game tonight but will not rush through it. I just went in LK37, Hot1 is over (stay tuned for Hot2) !

Hotrod

Another solid round from the Gris-erly one. :D You've got real talent for this stuff, G. We have a leader ready to rush Hoover. One more round of stoking up our economy, Hotrod gets us the double wonder effect and Charis should get to produce a lot of units and get some action going.

We'll still have to pause for stock exchanges in there, probably on my round, but even though time is starting to run thin, we're finally in position to start to take bites and go for the tootsie roll center, instead of widely spaced "just a taste" licks at the lollipop.

:hammer: :shotgun:


- Sirian

Slowly Cicerio IV wakes up and realized he was in a fog of :smoke: and needs a good :whipping:! Slow and Steady think before you act and the game will come to you, don't force it. Okay here goes. It is only 5 turns after all :D.

1810 AD (0): Not much to do :). Swap Fort Sirian from Barracks to Walls, with rails units can get to Tabriz to heal and swap out with fresh units. Swap a couple cities to put stronger shield cities on infantry and others on artillery mix remains the same.

AI Counter: couple iron clads connect and destroy some improvements nothing that can't be fixed quickly. Lost an infantry at Fort Sirian to a cav :(. Contemplating rushing walls :).

1812 AD (1): Veii builds artillery, starts a bank. Pisae builds Hospital starts infantry, due in 3 same as artillery. Byzantium builds infantry starts infantry. Syracuse builds colosseum starts hospital. Arretuim builds infantry starts another. Veron builds coal plant starts colosseum, already neads one taxman, decide to wait on hospital until it can provide a usable citizen. Curia builds Catherdral, starts galleon. New Cumaes builds a worker and starts another.
Bring 2 infantry and 2 pikeman up to the Mongol front reset the transports to bring four more units up next turn. Building up a SOD of Infantry to ready for attack on Dalandzadgad. Load up 3 warriors from the south and send them north for flip help in Mongolia.

AI counter: Weak attempts at bombing, kill 1 japanese ironclad in the west, Greece is very active in the north, Japan and England enter Sirians Ship trap to the south.

1814 AD (2): Antium builds infantry starts artillery. Cumae builds infantry starts another. Brundisium builds infantry starts infantry. Mediolanum builds Cathedral starts library, decide not to start a hospital yet, it still requires a taxman. Nicopolis builds infantry starts another. Eburacum builds hospital starts artillery. 4 new infantry make it to Mongolia. An SOD is forming up in Fort Sirian for the attack in the first city. SM due next turn at 30% +251 gold.

AI counter: Greek bombing continues with some success on the desert Island, no less then 8 or 10 ironclads spotted in the area.

1816 AD (3): Learn Scientific Method. start Atomic Theory. Pompeii builds artillery starts another. Hispalis artillery, start university. Lutetia hospital start infantry. Palymra revolts and requires a taxman at size 12, change from hospital to factory, no sense in building a hospital if only an entertainer can be used. Caesarea builds artillery starts ironclad. Arretium infantry starts another. Artaxata univeristy starts artillery. Move couple artillery, a warrior an MI to the front lines. There are now 7 infantry and 5 artillery at Fort Sirian awaiting orders. A stack of "weak" units covered by infantry head out to settle on the silks just North of New Cumae. Darhan is cut off from the rest of the cities, saltpeter is disconnected. Pillaging continues in the city north of the Mongol Capital. ToE will complete in Gordon Atomic Theory researched at 0% netting +637 gold.

1818 AD (4): Rome Builds another army, starts infantry. Antium artillery, starts artillery. Neapolis hospital starts artillery. Pisae builds infantry starts artillery. Ravenna builds hospital starts colosseum. Brundisium infantry starts another. Aurelianorum, market starts Colosseum. Nico. builds infantry starts artillery. Eburacum build artillery starts university. ToE completed in Gordion. Learn Atmoic Theory and Electronics :D. Hoover Dam is started and Rushed in Rome. Start Research on Corporation due in 5 at -3gpt.

AI Counter: Greeks continue to so dominance of the seas. They make an insertion on the Mongol Island of 2 infantry and 2 guerillas.

1820 aD (5): Continue to shuttle troops. Hoover completed, Battlefield Medicine completed. Start a few more artillery, and infantry. The SoD is on the move to Dala. Hope it is enough ! Added some workers to the stack accidentally :blush: perhaps once the city is captured they will be able to start on the rails. New Neopolis was founded on the silks and one fortress has been completed. Tried to get a couple workers up to Mongolia.

Here is the Save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/in2_1820AD.zip

Here's a tip... instead of typing in the URL, after you upload, look in the folder, hit the 'Date' link twice to sort in reverse order and your file is up top.

You uploaded "in2...zip" but typed link as "inf2...zip"

Turn looked pretty good, especially ToE and Hoover!!

In any case, "got it" :P (Wed night likely)
Charis

Charicicero III comes to power, feeling less sleepy than his predecessor!!
He's glad to see implemented that which haunted him during his sleep after
the last reign... shipping channels. Even better, "Virtual Rails"!
You're either going to love this turn or hate it. The war went well, at some
cost to our treasury and happiness (picture melting down latinum for swords!)

Histogram is looking real good. That fact that we're top in culture is sad.
Four turn research to new techs at just 50%? Wow, nice!

Opponents: Egypt lacks even Steam Power, Greece and England and Japan have Corporation
but lack Sci Meth, Ottomans lack electricity, Iro lack that and Industrialization,
and Mongols lack any modern tech, not even nationalism!

They may not lack it much longer, we need to get cranking while they can't draft and
only have muskets! None of the five non-cap cities have been taken yet. I'm confused
by the healed armies sitting at home (?) I need more infantry, and upgrade two in
Palmer island for transport next round, so the army can leave Tabriz. Rifle to infantry
is just 20g. So I upgrade a few more rifles to inf. Ok, not a few, a dozen. There are tons
of vet rifles just sitting in inland cities at home (for example, an elite inf in Corfinium).
Time for some drafting, let conscripts stay home, vets are needed on the front line.
Conscript INFANTRY I might add. (Rome was spared the draft) Basically, where EVER there
was an idle vet rifle or inf playing MP, I drafted. 31 drafts. (cough) How many vet
infantry do we have in all of Mongolia? 15. I just tripled our offense. (Ok, sure I
wrecked the economy, it will recover!)

[0] 1820 - Charicicero, enlivened by his caffeine, shoots have the treasury on military
upgrades. We got war to fight! :hammer:

(IBT) Iro spear and longbow land at Trapezius.

[1] 1822 - Antium is limited in how many squares it can work, time to stop growing.
With two irrigations becoming mines it can hit 60spt.

Some minor :smoke: is noticed - why do we have forested grasslands in the age of
railroads? They produce 1f2s instead of 2f2s or 4f with rr and improvement.
Around Arretium and Ebuarcum we need some chopping :P Perhaps this has been in
progress and there was more earlier. (Hmm, no, three workers flat out sleeping
in the forest at Eburacum.)

We sink an Otto clad in the southern death zone (after bombardment).

Fishing on the two puny invaders, we get... two kills, no more.
The newly transported army is filled in Tabriz with... no it's not. Someone
waved a big finger against filling with vets, so will wait for elites (they
do promote inside armies, btw, but ok ok, after last sleepy episode I'll
hold off for some elites now :P ) Greek forces are bombarded and rebuffed.

[2] 1824 - We bombard and kill a clad, move troops, then assault Dalandzadgad.
We lose an inf but capture the city, one elite inf promotion. 2 resistors.
Same turn Darhan is assaulted and captured, losing none, 3 resistors. Intact
rax, mktplace, aqueduct and harbor! :P

(IBT) Greeks land four next to Darhan.

[3] 1826 - Consolidation and movement turn.

[4] 1828 - Corporation comes in, next is refining. This one will take longer, as
we're not following something the AI all have, due around 11-15 turns.

In order to hide the damage to the economy, Charicicero starts a massive stock
exchange program!

Two inf promotions to elite, finally. Now maybe we can start to fill those two
empty armies in Tabriz.

Ulaanbaatar is shellacked pretty bad by artillery. With only hurt muskets covering
we attack, and thanks to a spare MDI in our stack, we take the city.

(IBT) Comrade Elizabeth is caught planting a spy in our capital. We declare war!!
Oh wait, we are at war.

[5] 1830 -

Charicicero's advisors tell him to move some artillery back into Tabriz,
lest our friend the senator fall into a state of apoplexy. Cicero is unfamiliar
with that malady but wonders what it would look like. He does leave one cannon
there, so as to not cause a fatal episode. He also has several new artillery
coming over by ship, so as to gladden the next leader. (Also, several artillery
are bombarding Hovd and Almarikh, and we haven't seen a counterattack by the
Mongols in ages, apart from a single slow longbow)

Hovd is size 3 and defended only by reg muskets. In we go! We defeat three defenders,
losing one, and capture the city. Just two left now! Almarikh has a *pike* on top,
and I can't help an attack to see what's under it. We beat the pike, lose to one,
and reveal a hurt musket. That'll do for now, but with a few more bombardments it
will fall easily (perhaps going for Choybalsan first.)

The inf army is in the fort outside New Neapolis will full movement left.
The rifle army is in Fort Sirian, almost full strength, and the other rifle
army is in Kazan.

I wasn't tired when I started (10pm) but sure am now! (3:15am). :lol:
We're at 592g+92gpt (40% sci) and Refining due in 11. Soon we'll want to save up
for a round or two for Wall Street, coming up when a five STX finish.

Our NW island is kind of weak, and there's a purple ship heading towards it.
There's also an orange ship on east coast of Southern mainland.

Save file 1830 (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1830AD.zip)

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

Good luck!
Charicicero

PS Those virtual rails ROCKED! I even made extra galleon pairs to double our bandwidth, as I had about 8 full loads to carry across all four sections of the OceanRail.

Aha! Real combat progress! I shall endeavor to keep the momentum going, finish off the current target, and gear up for the next invasion.

I'm afraid we're going to need to average about a capture each turn to finish on time, and I don't know that we can manage that just yet, but at least we are finally crawling forward.

- Sirian

It appear I was too conservative on attacking the Mongol cities. I didn't realize just how weak those muskets were. Glad to see Charis was able to "walk" through those cities. Sirian will complete the job of Destroying the Mongols and hopefully outline our next advance - who's next Ottomans, Greeks??

On the Armies I didn't have any elites to add.

5 hours for 5 turns this is truely a grueling game :D. Not for the faint of heart. Grueling but fun. Thanks to you all for allowing me to participate even with my sometimes :smoke: y turns.

Hotrod

I was aware, as Sirian is, of the *need* for rapid progress with units that are by their nature slow. When I saw no cities taken in the past two player turns, and how few units we actually had there, I felt the need for some drastic measures. Let me mention a little more why the game took so long, what I did, and some tips.

On units, we had way too few infantry. We're getting attacked at very specific points, not back home, and yet we had tons of vet rifles in the homeland. At 20g a pop it's an insanely good buy up, unlike the pike to infantry upgrade. So I basically went through every size 7 city in the realm, and if I saw a vet inf or rifle, I looked at the growth and happiness situation plus the shield box and in most cases, drafted. This turned out to be true in many cities. Next, how to get them over to Mongolia. With four 'legs' to the trip, any one leg with just one boat pair would slow down the operation, so I had to rush galleons in several spots. The OceanRail system is a true marvel to use. So much so that I cursed the site chosen for Syracuse - one spot more toward the ocean and it would have been a safe trip. We're very lucky there were no clads near this spot.

After the draft and upgrades I looked at our income. Down to about 300g and -140gpt income! :eek: Oops! Fortunately many cities grew back in size next turn and bumped that up. But I had to watch spending like a hawk and now happiness like a hawk, every turn. Our next leader will need to keep an eye on happy faces too as the drafted cities grow.

Two tips on the offense that sped things up. First, the Mongolians are just gassed, no more resources or offensive units, so the need to keep the artillery back on defense was gone. I used them liberally in the field (thinking the whole time that Sirian would probably kill me, but I felt I needed too anyway. Kind of a veto stamp vs the prod thing. I counterbalanced by not adding in any vet units to armies, despite having two empty ones :P )

Second, while the 'main stack' was moving CCW in a circle, I would divert a few infantry to the 'next town ahead' and creep up, get in position, fortify, and bring up an artillery or too. If they had more offensive units this may have been bad, but what it let me do in this case was to take several of the cities with this 'forward force' - *when* the artillery shots showed that the defense was weak. If I went in a 'pure' CCW fashion our slow movement would have meant I would have taken 1 to 2 less cities in that time frame.

The continent will almost SURELY be cleared and the Mongols wiped out in no more than 3 turns. The other reason I pushed so fast was to minimize flips risks. They're non-risks once the Mongols are gone of course. There is starvation at some of the newly captured cities, but it's not intentional.

The next islands are going to be a big challenge!!
- Lack of OceanRails(TM)
- Lack of escort ships for when we have no OceanRails
- Non-gassed full powered civs
- Lack of beachheads
- Lack of intel on even their maps!
- To win the game we actually have to move at a VERY fast pace!

Part of our solutions, imho, will involve:
- Battleships each ironclads for lunch, and the latter will not attack a stack of two battleships, even if they have 20 clads.
- Along with Battleships, carriers, oil denial, and ruling of the seas
- Alternately, and this might even be better, would be to get enough of a fleet to get *one* stack of many clads and a dozen galleons to all make one last ocean voyage together, land at a beachhead, and rely totally on flight. I've seen both approaches work, and well. Armies will still have to go by boat.
- It might well be the case that a game time crunch will see us having to establish a second front, e.g. very top and very bottom of the other continent, and push toward the middle. With half the forces available for each this is dicer, but potnentially twice as fast.
- So Mass Production soon would be very good, flight very soon after that, and Marines, our best offensive unit in the game, asap

Be bold, but smart! :hammer:

Charis

Thanks for the more detailed explaination. Gold was lower at the start of my five and only after we got ToE completed and I was able to set research down to zero did we get any gold. I think it was +500 or so toward the last of my turns. Glad you were able to spend it.

Being that the others are further away is the Ottomans the next choice to attack simply because of geography? Or perhaps the Iroquios with what appears to be the weakest troops?

Hotrod

Ottomans. The sole reason is naval control of the area. We can't possibly swim through the hordes of Greek clads in the north, even though zipping over to that island SE of Mongolia would be my ideal next target. All other targets are too far away, pending the discovery of flight to allow for improved logistics. The next target will be the Ottomans. We may open up a second front before finishing them off, though. We'll see.

- Sirian

Inherited Turn: spent mostly investigating the recession in our economy. :p

Some of these drafts were not worth it. Especially ones that took cities from size 13 down to 12. :eek: We lose 4gpt in unit support costs, per turn, at the lower size. We lose a coastal tile in many instances, for one less happiness. We lose out on having our cities larger size NOW, not just after they grow, and any cities that had ANY surplus food in the box at size 13 lost it for the food penalty of dropping to the lower tier. One coastal tile equals two commerce, which translates into FIVE gpt minus losses from corruption, for cities with stock exchange. Slightly less in practice, as we're doing research and don't yet have labs. Counting recovery time of 20 turns for the unhappy... we're looking at economic expense alone of well over 100g for some of these conscripts. Cities that lost two sizes worth of food in the drop are losing two sizes worth of commerce in the interim. Considering that we could promote a pike for 120g or a musket for 60g, this is very expensive. Not as bad at cities losing a sea tile, or smaller cities with more corruption and fewer improvements. I have no doubt, though, that the NET cost of some of these infantry drafts is over 200g! That's each. 200g each. The average is probably in the range of 110g-120g.

Exactly which of these draftees was worth it, I can't say. I don't agree with the idea of loading up our cities with weak or obsolete MP's and purposely making more cheap units to leave behind. If the purpose of the unit was solely to serve as MP, we're in the same position now with the MP making up for the extra unhappy as would have been just to go with one less unit there. And ALL of the units at home are the ones sitting around waiting and ready to head out via airports when airports come available, or to shift to another front when we open a new attack. I asked multiple times for OLD units to be moved to the fronts, for a couple of reasons. 1) Expendable or low-grade duty. 2) Flip suppression and MP. 3) To improve the unit quality at home, to have some strong reserve. As far as I can see, no old units ever got moved toward the front.

Now I have an MP force in Mongolia that is almost entirely made up of the cream of our military. I've decided to leave most of it there for now, as I don't think it will be all that long before I want to go for that mixed island, but more on this later.

How much, then, was gained by having the power to go on the offense more effectively, more immediately? That's harder to figure out. I'm definitely noticing a trend here, though. This is three rounds in a row, Charis pushed the limits of how far he could advance on the Mongol front. (Attacking without artillery support at Almarikh, with the artillery just a turn behind, "just to see what's in there"? Good grief.) This time he didn't leave me a gassed military and overextended/overexposed garrison, but he achieved that by gassing the economy instead. I'm quite pleased with his military results, but I'm growing concerned about what looks like a "got to get it done on my turn" approach. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. :p I'm spending a lot of time shoring up our existing positions on my rounds lately. I know this is his first Always War, but I find myself wishing he'd been there for LOTR2 or Epic Six, to get that full immersive besieged feeling, so he'd have experience with how a steadier pace gets more done in AW than overreaching and then being pushed back, or going all out and then having to pause for a long time to catch your breath.

It's a far cry from the last turn falsfire handed off to me, where he had actually held back on an attack to bring more force to bear, even though it meant the offensive waited for my round. If Charis "has a shot" on his turn, by all means he should take it. But I'm starting to wonder when he's going to start passing the ball if he's being double teamed.

The whole deal of rushbuying more ships, drafting so he could get those vet units to the front immediately... Time may be a precious commodity, but if our tech pace is SLOWED by these expenditures, it's that much longer before we get to flight, before we get to destroyers and battleships and marines. He could have increased the shipping and the unit count without all the rushing and draconian drafting, but it would have taken a little longer, and he would then have had to hand off to me without being to able to do as much, and let me wrap it up on my round.

The time between nationalism and hospitals is the prime time to peel off a round of draftees. You can't do that and peel workers, too, though, and Charis was peeling workers at that time. Probably best that he did, because we had gone light on workers and needed a surplus to get the rails done. Charis's LAST round was the one to draft on. This one, it's taking the cream of our growth-curve upswing in the wake of hospital completions. NORMALLY, more draftees wouldn't be a problem, but we are very low on lux and right up against our happy limit. Until we get out from under that, the costs for drafting and then SITTING at lower pop levels is way too high.

Another prime time to peel draftees is when you have enough happy to get all your cities to where they are carrying specialists because all their tiles are in use. Then you can peel workers, settlers, or draftees off the top, as the extra food slowly adds up to extra population.

Well, I hope Hotrod feels a little better now, watching Charis get the :whipped: ! Hey, I fuss about EVERYTHING! :lol:


The military situation in Mongolia is won. I don't need a single additional resource. As Charis predicted, I set em up and knock em down in just three turns.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-mongols.jpg

Seeing that coming, I had already moved to get something going on the Turkish front. Charis's additional galleons down there came in handy, as I confiscated three of the five to send around to Cyrene. I moved a few shiploads of units, especially artillery, from Mongolia back to the core, and starting shipping them south. All the cities were building stock exchanges, so once again there was little to no new production for me to do anything with. I did get some new infantry and a couple more clads out there, but just getting started.

I sank a lot of ships. A lot. I got about seven or eight in the ship trap, though I lost two frigates to 1hp targets on streaks. I nabbed a Jap clad off Londinium, three ships off the east coast of Home, and a Greek clad-galleon pair, loaded, off the north coast of Mongolia. I also chased off a few more ships.

West Isle lost two units, including our longbow, to bad luck fending off the first landing. The second landing came on my last turn, and I managed to win without losses. I even pulled a leader!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1840ad-leader.jpg

I used him to rush cathedral in the inland city, which is now over size 7.

I could see that time was running out on reinforcing West Isle, so I finally arranged to get some troops over there. Gris can unload them to start her first turn. Those ought to be enough to fend off the continued occasional landing, and when not doing that, to chase off some of those barking dogs.

Careful over there with the town training infantry. It's set to run out of food the same turn the inf completes. Figures that the island would finally train its own vet infantry one turn AFTER reinforcements will arrive.


With not much else to do other than right the economy and try to put Gris into a position to make some headway against the Turks on her round, I spend a lot of attention on optimizing tiles. One of the great benefits of having surplus workers is that on low-duty turns, you can afford to irrigate over a few mines TEMPORARILY, knowing you will change them back to mines in a few turns. This is pretty extreme micromanagement, by normal standards, but I will happily continue to tinker with my cities depending on what I want them to be doing. If one is set to crank a specific unit type for a long haul, I may add mines to speed production, or if I can't, I may add irrigations to speed pop growth. Cities who have maxed their tile usage, either at size 20 or due to overlap, tend to get put on low or break-even food to max shields.

In this case, I merged SIX workers into Rome, irrigated almost all its tiles, saw the extra pop working mountains to make up for the shields lost in the irrigations, and saw the four extra tiles being worked increase our income by 24gpt. Counting the 6gpt saved off the worker maintenance, that increased our economy by 30gpt. We still have plenty of workers left, of course, and more being trained up in Mongolia. Since Rome was on such sad food, it would have taken forever (and at lower shields) to manage this growth on its own. Once we secure Turkish furs for use, we will have enough happy to put Rome over 80spt and crank an artillery every turn when we're not training more armied out of the academy.

The changes I made with irrigations and mines are not all meant to be permanent. Some cities in the south are at the utmost of their happy limit and running over. I increased mines wherever possible for such locations. Coastal locations can still benefit, but inland overlapped sites with no more tiles available might as well pull more shields, in most cases.


I managed to land twelve units on a mountain on the coast of Turkey to end my round. No idea how much counterattack they will suffer, but the site is in range of a city, so it's already good for shipping in artillery to start battering down that first city.

Gris, if you would please, continue to add more units to the Turkish invasion. There's hill SE of the mountain, which is the closest tile to our land. That would make a good site for a beachhead city. Top priority to walls and barracks and temple. Raze the nearby Turkish town when the time comes, though I don't expect that on your round. Until a LOT of artillery gets there, there's no sense advancing. Just absorb whatever they throw at you, and if they don't throw enough because they shy from the mountain, move some units onto a hill. If you want to send units with explorers to pillage, and to explore inland, it can be done, but gauge their counterattack tendencies first, so you know how much needs to be sent.

WARNING: you cannot load a fourth unit into that army until you've shipped it to Turkey. An army counts as a unit, so an army with four loaded counts as five units and won't fit on a galleon. (We have to wait for transports to ship our loaded armies out of Mongolia).

We need more shipping. I confiscated some of Charis's doubled-up ferries to reinforce the West. They can be returned to the Viro-Nico run or they can continue to ferry units to West Isle if you think they're needed. (We still have to take that north isle someday). You should be able to leave what's in Mongolia now, up there. They too will be needed before too long to spring from there toward the AI mainland via Mixed Isle.

With all the stock exchanges and such completing on your round, you'll start to get full production. We want enough ships to move each new round's production toward the front as quickly as it is being produced.

Conscripts might be useful as "bait". Escort them into position with vets, fortify them, then withdraw the vets. ANY conscript winner instantly promotes to regular, and regulars promote 50% of the time on first attack. Any regular (or vet) attacked twice on the same turn auto-promotes. We will lose some conscripts if we put them in harm's way, but careful use of them can see many promoted to more useful experience levels, as well as move the AI toward gassing itself.

Priorities in Turkey:

* Establish a beachhead port city, of OUR making. Like Tabriz, this will be the safe zone, with barracks and expanded borders and our port for exporting furs home.

* Send troops. We need defenders. We will advance defensively, only attack when artillery has softened up the targets. This means we need a healthy mix of artillery and infantry.

* Arrange shipping. Units do no good if they pile up in port. Don't overdo the shipping, but we definitely need more than we have.


You'll need to peel some settlers from South cities. I didn't look, so you decide. I'd also LIKE to see us develop a naval presence in the north. A Greek Ship Trap at Kazan would be nice, us with a stack of clads sitting in there, and the artillery in Mongolia used to soften up and wipe out these barking dogs. I started training clads on east coast of Home for this purpose, perhaps you can assemble enough to do something there. Long term, we will also need ships up there for invading Mixed Isle. I'd like to use virtual Rails to move units from Home to Mongolia LATER, up to 8 per turn as Charis arranged, with 8 per turn reinforcement capacity, once we make a move to invade Mixed Isle. Perhaps we should act NOW to make some more galleons and get them up there, even though it will cost us 80g apiece to upgrade them to transports later. If they're in place, 80g apiece is a drop in the bucket to ward off another round of Charis Extreme Draconian Measures (TM). :D

Wall Street is due next turn, and I went all-cash one turn to put us way over 100og, so we're now running deficit research 60% sci.

We have been following the AI's on tech since ToE, and I'd like to continue that trend while we can. So if they don't have Steel by the time we finish Refining, I'd like you to make a pit stop for Espionage. Remember, can't go faster than four turns, so you may have to dial down the research rate temporarily.

Not sure how much you'll get to do in Turkey. Should be fun, though. Just don't go postal and attack cities without full artillery support in place, the cities preferably reduced to size 6 or lower to kill their defense bonuses (DO NOT attack anything over 12), and the target units stripped down into the red, if possible.

The Turks do not have RepParts but are only one tech short. I have only thin hopes we can prevent them getting to that tech, but perhaps enough inland pillaging quickly enough can manage it. Training a few more explorers might be worth doing.


- Sirian

Now that I've posted my turn report, some current screenshots.

Mongolia and Palm Isle in the north:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1840ad-north.jpg


West Isle and Desert Isle in the northwest:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1840ad-west.jpg


Iron Isle and Home:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1840ad-core.jpg


South continent:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1840ad-south.jpg


Turkey, in the southwest:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1840ad-turks.jpg


World map and our armed forces:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1840ad-units.jpg


INF2 - 1840AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1840ad.zip)


- Sirian

I have a plane to catch in the AM- I'll see you guys next round (might take me a bit to recognize the lay of the land by then!).

Hotrod -> UP
Charis -> On Deck

Ah, yes. I remember now that you mentioned this trip. Safe journey.

With five-turn rounds, I doubt it will be that much future shock for you. It will just seem like a ten turn round has passed by next time.


Hotrod will have to lead us to initial glory on the Turkish mainland. No change in advice, just fill in "Your Name Here" wherever I mentioned Griselda. :)

- Sirian

I will grab tonight and try to get it back over the weekend. With my daughters birthday on Saturday I may not get it completed until sunday.

Hotrod

I'm getting welts over my bruises :whipped:
;)

There were some cities where the draft was a poor choice, you're right, in particular 13->12. The first few drafts I took a look to see the economy effect and it was light, then dug into F1 and stayed too long before re-checking the cumulative effect. I immediately saw I went a tad too far.

In any case, I thought it was best to get a jumpstart to the offensive military. There are two key factors behind that. First is the general need to move along briskly (stemming directly from Sirian's comments on infantry and all war!). Second is the *relative* advantage of infantry now vs later. The Mongols lacked Nationalism, and could have gotten it on any turn. The advantage of infantry over muskets is quite nice compared to rifles. Turns 'unnecessarily' delayed now mean that many more turns where we have inf/marines facing mech inf. If we're able to hit the Turks and deny rubber just before they get Rep Parts instead of three turns after, it will make a huge difference. I'm a big fan of pushing to take it to the opponents when you have a differential advantage in military units. Here we do and our days are very much numbered as far as having an advantage.

Let me clarify one thing... I don't know if the turns gave the appearance of 'gotta get it done on my turn' but there is not a whiff of it here. That had no bearing whatsoever on any decisions, nor is it likely to on any future turns. My decisions would have been identical had it been a solo game or ten-turns (well, almost, I avoided doing some things that other players specifically asked not be done). I've had other games where the player said basically "I know this was a really poor move but I wanted to get that city captured on my turn" and I took him to task on it. Besides it would make particularly little sense to rush unsoundly when the 'hand-off' is to a player like Sirian. I prefer to trust *anyone* following me will do their best and not drop the ball, and do *not* think that if I don't get it done now it won't happen.

Charis

The reason it took me so long to play it last weekend was that it was my daughter's birthday! :lol: I hope you and your daughter have a great time. :bday:

-Griselda

[dance]

Oh my, "Little G" is really growin' up!!

Mine has hers this month too, going to turn '5'.
(She's been saying for about 8 months now, "I'm going
to be FIVE soon!")

Charis

She will be 2, and just decide this week she doesn't need a nap! :(. Her mom is not pleased :)

Hotrod

Cicero IV Returns earlier expected and takes a look at the situation and likes that Mongolia is now a sea of Red but questions regarding who is next have been answered. The forces on Mongolia are strong and there might is needed in the south. Begin to move infantry back to the mainland, along with 2 explorers and an empty army. They are held up in Nico because our galleon had bigger fish to fry to the west, transport to the south will be a bit slower but no worries. Currently losing 91 gpt but with many more Stock exchanges and Wall street next turn we shall see the economy improve.

1842: Neapolis builds a stock exchange. Eventhough destroyers are only a few years away we could use more iron clads in the north seas, start ironclad. Londinium is at 7 and growing, built a factory and will start a cathedral that will finishes as it grows. Wall street is completed in Gordion start infantry. Verona builds Market starts library. Treveri builds Cathedral starts infantry. Begin moving troops to the islands in the NW and artillery is loaded up to head toward Ottomons. 3 Ironclads are forming up on the East coast to head north to Kazan. Reinforcements arrive at West Island and sending a few to the desert isle.

1844: Kill 2 ironclads off the southern islands east coast, loadup 3 galleons and heading toward the Ottomans with infantry, artillery and an army of 3 infantry. Couple explores, an empty army and infantry will go next round. Form up a stack o'clad to head toward Kazan. Refining next turn +124 gold.

1846: The second wave has landed on Ottoman islands, more galleons will be added to the group. Ironclads are being produced on the West coast to head to the Western island to stave off the continued greek attacks. A greek landing party is dispatched losing 1 elite MDI. Some weaker units have landed in Mongolia for MP duty. Espionage is due in 4 with +324 gpt. :). And yes we have oil 4 sources.

1848: The first wave of artillery attacks on the Ottomans, 2 for 5 and dropped the city of Antalya to size 11. Cleanup an Iroquios landing party of 1 spear and 1 longbow, used elites but no leaders. Loaded up 4 ships with infantry, artillery and a settler for the Ottomon islands. Will arrive in 2 turns.

1850: Continue to bomb the Ottoman's city of Antalya, now down to size 9 from 12 2 turns ago :D. A settler plus infantry, artillery, a couple explorers and 1 settler are intransit. Getting units to Mongolia is slow going so I added 1 galleon for now and a couple more are available if Charis wants them. The ecomomy is strong, went for Espionage on the cheap, and is due in 2 turns with +465 gold, we have 2144 in the bank with more Stock exchanges coming online. Did pull a few settlers from southern cities. 2 enroute 1 is awaiting transport. Built a few ironclads and started a few more. There are 4 headed to the Kazan area and 2 heading toward the Western Isles. 2 others protected the galleons that transported reinforcements to the west. The west also could use some artillery. Managed to kill all landing parties easily on Mongolia and the western Islands, no new leaders however. Didn't see any particular project as a must have so didn't spend any gold on rush buys. The ship trap did take out a half dozen english ironclads but did lose 2 frigates to a 1/4 ironclad :(. Ottomons did manage to kill 3 infantry when I tried to promote a couple conscripts on weakend units.

Here is the Save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1850AD.zip

Sirian << On Deck
Griselda << Away but with us in spirit
Hotrod << Just Played
Charis << UP NOW

Tnx for the roster bump - I didn't post 'got it' because I intended to get to it last night. But after playing some basketball yesterday my arms and hands are in 'not-so-good' shape. I didn't do any gaming yesterday.

Sirian, if you're in 'famine,' please skip me or switch me. If not, I'll go with it, but may take an extra day. They're not feeling much better today either, and even typing isn't too pleasant.

Thanks,
Charis

PS in EDIT - Tues night - 8 pm, starting it. Hands are about '80%', up from 20%. Distress has moved to the knees. I *gotta* get out and play more hoops :P

Charicicero IV rises to power, after his father Charicicero III keels over
playing a game wherein a bladder like object is hurled ballistically towards
a circular rim with a web-like mesh of polymeric fibers suspended within.
His advisors are dreadfully puzzled, but assist his son in his duties.

Hotrod's turn looks pretty good. Espionage is due in 2, economy is far better
off than when Cicero's father (the Draconian one) was in power. Our goal is rather
clear - setup a beachhead port city. In fact, hotrod has a settler one the way, with
good ironclad cover! To avoid cultural pressure, we'll want to raze a turkish city
asap. The Turks lack Sci Meth, Refining, and... for who knows how long...
Replaceable Parts. Hrmmm....

The young new Cicero takes a close look at the diplomacy screen. The Ottomans
value Sci Method and Refining both as MUCH more valuable than Replaceable Parts.
Do you know what that means? (Pauses for emphasis...) They're almost done
researching it. Just a *FEW* more turns where we face rifles, soon it will be
infantry. The military advisor is referred to the doctrine of his father, Charicicero
the III... "when you have a great tactical advantage for a short time... capitalize on it!!"

:hammer:

(He feels the eyes rolling and the potential for apoplexy even now...)

[0] 1850 - Build orders look ok, I just shift a few cities over to artillery.
One minor catch, I give the iron-mtn to Rome instead of Brundisium, making no
difference in the latter's infantry production, but cutting Rome's army production
cycle time from 6 turns to 5 :P

Our army and SOD moves up onto the hill next to Antalya.

(IBT) Up north we lose a clad to a clad. Near Turkey we lose one, win one, clad vs clad.

[1] 1852 - A couple of cannon are upgraded to artillery. We defeat two turkish clads off
their coast. Our artillery battery outside Antalya does a good job dropping the pop
and before Rep Parts arrives, it's time to go in. We raze the city, losing three inf
and promoting two. We choose the BACK hill to settle on. That makes 8 tiles from our
other coast, helpful for virtual rails, and least cultural opposition. We can set
up a fortress on the chokepoint hill in front of it if we want breathing room in
front of the city.

Settler and some infantry land on beachhead site. A few infantry and explorer land
next to Bursa in the hills to draw some fire and if left alone, to pillage.

Off Mongoloian coast we redline then sink three greek clads.

(IBT) On the loose stacks which razed the city and landed in the hills we see
ten Turkish units die, and we lose three (too many knights slipped away on retreat)

[2] 1854 - Espionage arrives, we start Steel. No one else has it, but the only other
cheap choice is Communism for Police Stations. We want to get to Battleships, Marines,
and Flight rather than mess with that just now, I would think. Cumae starts CIA, due in 6.

Turkish Beach is founded. Our artillery shells Bursa, aiming to get it size 12 (6?!) or
less. More troops start to arrive or get deployed to Turkey.

(IBT) There's something in the coffee the Turks drink. It makes Swordsman run to their
deaths promoting our infantry, then the same coffee enables a *horseman* to defeat
an elite infantryman. Go figure.

[3] 1856 - More shelling, waiting for a few more units to arrive. We trap several clads
and kill them.

(IBT) We lose one clad. No attacks in Turkey, they too are waiting (for Rep parts and
Guerilla upgrades for their swords ;P )

[4] 1858 - Basra just has pikes on top now... go-go-go! Alas, their pikes (and the few
hurt rifles underneath) were drinking the horseman's version of the coffee. The city
holds and we lose three, killing several. We land a few more infantry, and an army.

[5] 1860 - Two pikes and one spear (!?) run up to reinforce Basra. Not enough, methinks.
After bombardment, a wounded pike tops the stack. Three such pikes die, then a very
hurt rifle, then a spear, losing two inf, then a longbow shows. He's drinking that
special Turkish coffee too! That leaves us just one shot left, with a half-hurt inf.
He takes on coffee boy and... Basra is razed.

To our next leader...
- Turkish beach has a barracks and temple (will take a few more turns to expand),
now working on a harbor (a candidate to rush)
- The attacks on infantry in the field have essentially stopped except by their mounted
units which are few in number (I've seen NO cav) - as long as they're together
in a stack of about two or more healthy infantry. For example the stack of slow units
on the hill in front of our defensive stack in front of Turkish beach has stood there
and not attacked.
- There is an army half-filled in Turkish beach (2 elite inf) waiting for 2 more elites
We just got a few more that could be sailed back to fill.
- Our large artillery stack is on the mountain behind the city where it has been
pummelling Basra. It will form the basis for your next big push, along with an army
which is finishing being healed.
- The queue's are "ok" but no doubt could take some adjusting
- The newly built Army is sleeping in Hisplais where a Galleon is due next turn to
take him across the channel to Syracuse. want to move some of the infantry there
- You may or may not have liked my crushing Basra this turn (I thought it best), but
you will be glad to hear I didn't draft any units or wreck the economy :hammer:
- I built several clads this round (more than I wanted too) as we seemed to be short some
- You've got your beachhead and one city razed to ease some pressure. The rest of the
island is yours to plan.
- You'll almost certainly see the Ottomans get Rep Parts (infantry, IF rubber, and
guerrillas for sure) within your turn. I'm not sure you'll reach another city before
this happens. At least stepping 'up to' Ayden would encourage them to draft now, rifles,
rather than infantry shortly.

Save file 1860 (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1860AD.zip)

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

Good luck!
Charicicero

I played this one over a day ago, but didn't get to report and then got busy with a variety of stuff, including watching Secretary Powell's presentation to the UN.


IT: I sent forth a few of our infantry and our settler, to penetrate inland. I did tinker with a lot of queues, too.


1862AD: Oops, that whole minisod, including settler, got wiped out! :eek:

My goodness, the Turks sure do have a ton of units! A TON! Ten or twelve died in the assault, and there were dozens upon dozens more waiting in the wings. The good news is we popped a leader in all that combat, the bad news is he got popped and there were no survivors from this expedition.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1860ad.jpg

Although we had some logistics in place, I was not happy with the number of ships we had available. Even though we had 32 galleons (!) it seems like none were where we needed, and heck, 12 of those alone are in the Virtual Rails ship relay. I ordered up more ships.

I then woke our not-yet-fully-healed army and sent it forth, with a larger minisod of infantry, and another settler.


1864AD: LOT-O-UNITS (TM) brand Turkish Interior Decorating Company. Sheesh. They mostly ignore our stack this time, though.

Our units on the north end are gathered and close into artillery range of Aydin. I had intended to settle on a hill, but there's a fur RIGHT THERE and I can have it connected next turn, and keep it connected with garrisons on the road (soon to be railroad) leading to port. I move our settler stack into position directly on the fur.


1866AD: Check this out. After wiping out other units with artillery help, then mopping up easily, an ARCHER with 1hp left nearly kills one of our vet units before he wins and promotes.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1866ad.jpg

I also finally got our explorers inland to reveal most of the interior. The Turks do not appear to have any native rubber.

I also mopped up that wounded enemy med-inf, and then had to cover both these tiles with healthy units. Well those turned out to be the only two roads left after next turn, because my city founding so close to their capital has sent the Ottomans into a complete frenzy!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1868ad-sod-nw.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1868ad-sod-s.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1868ad-sod-w.jpg

The SoD to the NW was the largest, by far, but other than a few rifles it was all pikes. The SoD to the west had their horse units in it, it was relatively small. The SoD to the south was both large and strong, almost all their pairs of attack-units plus cover, including most of their knights.

I got really scared. This many units might just overwhelm us if he sent them all. I filled our second army the rest of the way, then parked both armies there. I put every unit we could spare into the new city.

Oh, and guess what? We pop a leader, and it's over on West Isle. Go figure! I rush a cathedral in our other large city over there.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1868ad-leader.jpg



1870AD: Well, here they come. Wow. So much action, they took BOTH of our 20hp INFANTRY ARMIES down into the red. That should just about halfway gas them, but no they still have a lot more units on hand. They stopped, though, and the big pike stack retreated. We lost no units, but I sent both the armies to the back lines to recover, and moved up all the reinforcements I could. Also had to pay attention to preserving our rail line to the coast, as we are already dependent on our new supply of furs to keep our largest cities happy.


Gris is going to see thick action. Thick. The main objective for now is to stay on the defensive until they spend the rest of their offensive units. Then we want to get forts built in certain spots and proceed to bombard their cities.

They DO now have rep parts, and rubber. (Must be importing that). If Gris can disconnect their capital, she can get their rubber supply halted, I believe. They are broke, so they won't be able to upgrade many of their existing units, but any new ones they train will be infantry, and that's not good.

I've drawn up this plan:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1870ad-turkey-sandwich.jpg

Red, orange, yellow circles represent sites to build forts, plant garrison, from which we can hit enemy cities with our artillery, from our own territory. Green dot should be the first, and easiest expansion site to secure. We want to raze Iznik and replace it at white dot. We want to raze Istanbul, and later settle on dark blue dots. These should be done soonish if we can bombard them below size 6, OR if all the defenders are weakened on a given turn and we have the forces in place to take advantage.

We want to CAPTURE Edrine and the Pyramids, but that will come later. We can probably capture all the rest of the Turkish cities after razing Iznik and Istanbul.

Do NOT autoraze Sinop. Wait for it qualify for capture instead of autoraze (size 2 when you attack, or borders expanded).

Although tactically, pink dot is the ideal site, logistics demand razing Instanbul first and that could take some time. Rather than sit and do nothing while working on that, go ahead and found green dot once you believe the imminent threat of their SODs have passed, or you have a loaded army for escort.

The basic plan here is the same as on the Mongol continent: raze the capital, drive a wedge into the center of the continent, then mop up the horseshoe of remaining cities. Let logistics show you the path of least resistance. Attack the nearest city next, in this case Istanbul. Don't suicide the explorers just to isolate their capital, if you can help it.

Finally, you must -- MUST -- maintain defensive garrison on any tiles you don't want pillaged. Losing roads and rails really slows us down with no fast units. If they attack our fortified units, so be it. Protect our roads, and especially protect that railroad line for the furs. Nothing is urgent enough to lead you to abandon these garrisons. If that massive pike SOD moves onto any given tile withn our borders, we've lost control of that tile and it will be pillaged. Try not to lose a road link to the front, and especially not to those marked circles for forts/artillery pavillions.

I have the units arranged to best effect already. Just watch what the AI does, and how it ignores our fortified units to concentrate on the city and/or on pillaging open tiles, and you'll gain insight into how we advance. It's like the Borg ignoring the real threat because they aren't programmed to understand how much of a threat some of these other things can be.

You should be able to fill a new army with all elites early in your round. That will give us three there. Lot of work ahead, keep the fresh units shipping in.


I planted spies in our major rivals. First three chances were all success, then we failed vs Iro. Don't try again for at least three turns. Also, no need for spies vs Egypt, Ottomans.

I have a naval force moving north. Once we have transports, you should be able to start an invasion of that Mixed Isle using our armies and spare units and artillery from Mongolia. That won't come until Hotrod's round, though, so you'll only be able to set him up with the ships in place.

We should now have enough total troop ships. Capacity will double and speed increase upon upgrade. Try not to spend below 1000g so we get max interest. If you do dip, recover the next turn. Normally I would say not to upgrade galleons, but in this case I don't think it's worth it to wait on new transports, we need them NOW, so just spend the dough on ship refits.


INF2 - 1870AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1870ad.zip)

Also, we will want a LOT of planes once we can get them. We'll need fighters to fish out enemy fighters, eventually, though at first we could go with all bombers. And of course, airports first, too. We will need lots of airlift capacity, vet planes, and with Smith's our airports are all free! The only cost is 1 unit of pollution chance and the shields to build them at half-price (military civ).


Gosh, I hope I didn't leave anything out. Good luck, Gris!


- Sirian

That is a *LOT* of Pikes!! I knew their strength was in numbers, not quality, but I was surprised to see what happened when you got near their capital!

I'm glad we hit them when we did, and not 10 turns later. We did a good job pressing the attack in Mongolia and getting there in time ;)

Nice job pressing the Turkish attack Sirian! Your plan for continuing sounds pretty good too. I wonder - do we have any cities with enough shields for 1 guerilla per turn but not enough for 1 infantry per turn? We could use some cheaper offense if we're going to try to beat down a gazillion pikes. Now is when you wish you could build berzerkers, or had a cheap 5.1.1 unit :P

Good luck to Gris, and Hotrod,
Charis

I won't predict when I'll have my turn completed, since my estimates are always wrong, but it's safe to say that it's "in the queue". ;)

-Griselda

Don't rush the earliest I can play would be sunday night ;).

Good luck beating down the ottomans

Workers...

I brought one shipload of our workers to Turkey my last turn, and there are seven slaves there. That's the reason we now have rails. We should ship another batch of workers over, maybe even two batches, fairly soon. We need enough workers to be able to move onto a road and build both a railroad and a fort on the same turn.

As silly as it may sound, the least expendible units are the workers, so make sure to protect them well. I hope they continue to attack our new city site in the hope of destroying it, thus gassing their offense and allowing us to re-road with just a few infantry escort and not worry about the workers being targetted.

We want to do all irrigation in Mongolia. I have Tabriz building granary, with the intent to have it train settlers nonstop after that. The rest of those towns are doing workers or settlers, also. We can get some of them up above size 7, to add more unit support and reduce costs, so check them every now and then and behead the stupid AI tile selection, choosing shields in cities with complete corruption. :rolleyes: Go through now and then and put them on max food. Workers from up here can be spared at ANY time, shipped home via the chain to wherever they may be needed more (including the front).

Pushing into enemy cultural control with workers and settlers (properly guarded) will be key to advancing, for the rest of the game. Founding our own cities and having cultural control over territory and rails improves logistics, and the biggest part of the challenge to finish this thing in time is logistics: enough units advancing quickly enough to take ground at a pace that will let us beat the clock.

Pay attention to shields in our cities when deciding what to build where. Coastal cities with 40-44 shields net, are good sites for building destroyers. Coastal cities with 67-79 shields are great for battleships. Any city with 50-59 shields is ideal for building those 100shield units: Bombers, Marines, Paratroops, additional transports, and if there is need, battleships. Coastal cities with 45-49 shields are good for Infantry and Carriers, inland all infantry all the time. (Guerillas are the SAME shield count as Infantry, Charis, sorry. We won't be training any of those, I don't think. The only time to train them is after computers -- in a typical game -- two guerillas vs one mech if you need warm bodies for garrison, flip suppression, etc). Cities with 80-89 shields are ideal for building Fighters or Artillery (and if pollution hits, causing you to be a few shields short, swap to a marine or destroyer then back to the original unit type in the queue, so as to get SOMEthing extra out of the setback). Cities with 90-99 shields (we don't have any yet) are ideal for cranking infantry, while any city over 100 should be cranking marines or bombers. Cities in the 34-39 shields range should be doing marines or battleships. 30-33 is good for infantry or destroyers. 27-29 is good for 80shields units. 25-26 is good for 100shield units. 24 is good for 90 shield units. 20-23 is good for explorers, or slowly, any other unit type you need more of. Less than that, well, less than that ought to be building a factory. :o Or else training workers and settlers, if highly corrupt.

Also, shields can be increased by mining over irrigations, if the irrigations are no longer needed for higher food counts. So if you have a city that is at 43 spt, you might "upgrade" it to 45+ and swap it to infantry production, for example. And because pollution can hit, and will hit often, it's not always a bad thing to have a few surplus shields at any city cranking anything one-per-turn. For example, 95 shd is better than 90, for one-inf-per-turn. This is because if pollution hits, the 95 still produces its unit. The 90 has 85 or so shields sitting in the box, which is the same effect as if we had the unit sabotaged or wiped out! Now we can still afford some inefficiency, but as this one is going to go down to the wire on time, we cannot afford systematic inefficiency. Make the most of our production, and keep the Preference setting on "Always Build Previous Unit" so we don't have to re-decide what to build at each city. If you peel a worker or settler off a large city, USE THE QUEUE to also put the city back on its normal production.

I screwed this up this round at Aggrippina :smoke: by not using the queue to make sure it only trained one settler. I go back a couple turns later and the thing's down to size 12! Oops. I knew better than that.

OK, so there you go. One More Thing (TM). :lol:


- Sirian

What a turn to come back to! The action was indeed thick, so hopefully I handled everything OK. My biggest concern is west isle, which is now in *big* trouble, and I'm not sure the help on the way will be sufficient until we can put some more AI on the defensive.

(0) 1870 AD - Adjusted my eyes and tried to get the feeling of immersion back. I note that the Ottomans are in Anarchy. England and Japan are now in communism.

BT - Ottomans suicide some units at Turkish furs, giving us a new great leader. We lose one infantry in the attack, but we probably killed a dozen units. The Greeks land one cav at Mongolia.

Turkish furs barracks - walls
Aurelianorum bank - stock exchange
Cyrene factory - marketplace.
Verona stock ex - uni
Corfinium cath - factory

(1) 1872 AD - Bombard and kill that cav at Mongolia. I wound 5 Greek clads up there, and 2 galleons, but don't have any boats I can use to sink them.

At the west isle, I sink a Japanese frigate and an English clad.

It seems clear that this leader is meant to build an army, so that's what I do. The action is think and there's more vets coming all the time, so we should be able to fill it sooner or later. I was able to fill one army with elite infantry this turn.

Also in Turkey, I killed a horse, 3 pikes, an archer, a MDI, and a longbowman. We take no losses, and promote a few.
I don't see the plan for Aydin mentioned anywhere, but those units sure look like they're all set to bombard the city, so I do. I take it from size 11 to size 7. :D

I join two workers to Cyrene, because it's below its happiness limit but would take forever to grow.

I sank another ironclad somewhere.

BT - Half of the Ottoman pikes retreat to the nearest rails tile. Are they going to be sent to defend Aydin? (in retrospect- why would I think an AI would do something like that?) There's only a small Turkish attack, and all their offensive units die.

West isle is bombed a bit.

Tabriz granary - hospital
Tyrus market - rax
Iroquois land 2 rifles on west isle.

(2) 1874 AD - I bombard Aydin, destroying their library and courthouse and take the city to size six. They have a wounded rifle on top, and some 30 defenders a quick rail ride away, so I figure the time has some to attack, even if I don't have the logistics all set up behind me. Bleh- I lose two infantry while only killing one pike and wounding a rifle. I wait with the rest.

I do kill two rifles and two kinghts in Turkey proper, and I don't think I can see any more offensive units there.

I kill the Iroquois ironclad and their invading west isle units.

I load three elite infantry into an army down in Turkey- one more can load next turn when it has movement.

I move two more infantry to the mountain by Istanbul, so that they can hold the mountain while I take the explorers out with two infantry of their own. I pillage around to the west of Istanbul, then plan to loop around east.

That pike SOD is now really getting in the way of our green dot plans. I bombard and attack it, because unless they're really :crazyeye: we'll have to deal with those units sooner or later. I kill 9 of their pikes, losing one vet infantry. I also promote two infantry to elite. The front stack there is now at 22, and there's about 40 in the stack by Istanbul.

I sink a Greek clad at the west isle.

BT - Turkish pikes move toward Aydin. I think I slowed them by pillaging those rails next turn. A few more knights :suicide: at Turkish furs.

A Greek ironclad kills one of ours, but will die for it next turn. Greeks land 2 infantry and 2 guerillas at west isle :eek: I wonder- did they not have rubber for a while or are they just :smoke: ?

Tyrus rax - bank

(3) 1876 AD - The situation at west isle is dismal. I've got a few units kinda sorta on the way, but had been hoping to have galleons at Mongolia to upgrade and bring those armies in a couple of turns. I send out some emergency boats that willl hopefully tide us over. Menawhile, I rush a barracks at Lauriacum, and upgrade two pikes out there.

The Ottomans have been in Communism, for two turns now I think. Istanbul went from size 11 to size 7 - I wonder what they whipped up? I notice that the defender in Aydin is still wounded, so they must not have a barracks there. So, I attack. I kill a rifle, spear, and pike there, while losing an elite infantry (vs a wounded pike!). Then, the city is ours. I debate for the longest time whether to capture or raze. I only have one infantry that can be in the city this turn, but I don't think it's in danger of attack this round. I also don't have the supply line quite complete, and it may be far enough away that there would be hostile territory. I decide that we want the city. If we can hold it for this one turn, I think we can hold it, though admittedly I had thought that I could rail up a tile by Turkish furs really quickly (it didn't even have a road, though).

Sinop is now cut off from the rest of Turkey.

I raze around Istanbul- it's now cut off too! :band:

Science down - combustion still in 3, and we could use the cash.

I kill a 1hp knight- taking an infantry to 1. I kill a pike, which allows me to advance onto the razed tile just one north of green dot. Who would have thought that the biggest fight down in Turkey this round would be just getting onto that green dot tile?

I start moving some artillery onto the mountain north of Istanbul. If they're going to whip it to 7, I might as well help them finish their job. ;)

I sink a Greek clad and wound an incoming Japanese galleon/clad at the south isle.

BT - NO Turkey attack! :jump: They may already be out of gas.

Four (I think) wounded pike move into Istanbul. I'm not sure whether they plan to heal and move back out, or to stay and defend the city.

Japanese clads now approaching Aydin.

New Antium temple - worker
Lauriacum rax - worker
Turkish furs expands

(4) 1878 AD - Bombard Istanbul to size 6.

I attack the pike stack, and immediately lost a vet infantry. I decide to leave the pikes well enough alone for now.

4 Elite infantry move to Turkish beach to join the army. They're wounded.

A note about free healing- I pretty much had to play this round one turn at a time, because each move took a lot of concentration. Most of the time, I saved and exited at the start of a fresh turn so that our units wouldn't heal for free. At the end of this turn, though, I found myself so tired that I knew I wouldn't be able to watch the inbetween round (actually, I think I didn't realize I only had 1-2 more units to move before the turn was over), so I saved and exited right then. So, when I got to turn 5, our elite inf units healed one round sooner than they should. I didn't put them in the army yet, though. I made them wait a turn of "simulated healding".

Army and artillley to Istanbul mtn, making mini-SOD.

Settler is finally able to move onto green dot! He has a full army backup and some other units too.

Our artillery is very unsuccessful vs the Greek units on west isle, plus I think they have another full galleon there, and there's an incoming Iro galleon.

I sink a Greek ironclad off Mongolia.

BT - Greeks land 3 cav and an infantry at west isle. Iroquois land 2 pikes, a MDI, and a longbow. The Greek guerilla and infantry stack is still there, though I think I killed one infantry, and wounded the other.

Iroquois bombard Aydin. The resistance ends. The Mongols move their pike stack up to Aydin, and a couple more defenders to Istanbul. I lose an ironclad at Mongolia.

Seleucia stock exchange - uni
Palmyra hospital - colosseum
Palmyra will riot after it grows, and it's due to grow in one, so keep an eye on it.

Londinium coal plant - hospital
Our palace expands - it's looking nice.

Once again, no Turkish attack. Sinop grows to size 2.

(5) 1880 AD - Istanbul is now size 3!

The west isle is looking terrible. I note that nobody is even close to amphibious warfare, so in the worse case scenario, we can pull defenders out of back lines cities. I don't know if that would be an AI magnet, though.

I use all our artillery up there (3, heh) to bombard the cav stack, taking the infantry on it to 1. The cavs are unhurt. I also wake the galleon in Teurnia to grab some units from the desert isle.

I attack the cavs- our vet inf dies, doing 2 damage. The West Isle peacekeepers make the other two retreat. With the cav hurt, I think that the only threatened city is Trapezus. Before, the cavs could have attacked any of three cities on their turn. I suppose they could still, with their 1-2 hitpoints. Anyway, I move lots of units into Trapezus, leaving the other cities with a single defender and that mountain uncovered.

Hotrod, you will probably want to take a fresh look at the situation and see if there's something else that can be done.

We sink the offending Greek clad at Mongolia.

Japan has a clad/galleon headed towards our bay. I bombard it, and sink the ironclad. That leaves only a frigate of ours that can attack, but I figure it's worth it for the chance to sink a full (and wounded) galleon. I do, and it sinks. The frigate is exposed for this turn, but I don't see any ships in the area.

Now, on to Turkey. Our artillery wounds 5 pikes in Aydin. Time to bombard Istanbul-

1st shot wounds infantry to 2
2nd shot destroys their barracks!
3rd shot takes the city to size 2
4th shot destroys police station
5th shot takes the infantry to 1, guerilla on top
6th shot destroys marketplace
7th shot destroys library
8th shot takes 2 off the guerilla, wounded rifle on top

Not a bad round of artillery! I attack Istanbul, not expecting to take it but just to soften it a bit. Our elite infantry kills the wounded rifle, leaving another wounded rifle on top. We then lose a vet inf taking that rifle to 1. There's another wounded rifle on top. Our army kills that one, taking 3 damage. Now, there's a healthy pike on top, and that's the end of this turn's offense.

I have no idea how many pikes they have in there, but we have artillery and they have no barracks, so time *is* on our side. I move a bunch more units down to our mountain SOD.

Our explorers decide to pillage Mongolia's horses on the way east (since I could easily pillage the ones by Aydin soonish). But, I suppose we'd rather fight knights than guerillas? Anyway, while I'm pillaging the horses, I pillage a bit around Edrine since I'm in the neighborhood. Now, the stack is ready to march towards Iznik.

Turkish Stomp is founded on the green dot site, finally!

We have 1851 gold, which I've been saving up for a few turns because of wall street and conflicting priorities.

With the money, we could
-plant spies
-upgrade boats
-rush stuff at west isle, or
-rush a temple at Aydin

We certainly can't do all of that, though, as much as I would like to! Aydin will need a temple to expand, but then again we may get cultural control of that last row when Istanbul falls. So, I'd probably put that into last priority, and maybe not even build a temple there first. A barracks would be nice. In any case, the city came with a harbor, which was a handy little feature.

Please don't add those elite infantry to the army this turn, because they are supposed to still be healing. They'll be ready next turn.

Next round should see some heavy fighting on two fronts- have fun! :)

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1880ad.zip

...The Mongols move their pike stack up to Aydin, and a couple more defenders to Istanbul....

The ghosts are attacking !!! ;) :).

I will take a look at the game tonight but most likely will not get to it until tommorrow night.

Hotrod

Turkey gassed? Aydin captured? Istanbul teetering? Green Dot founded despite pike SoD? :hammer: :goodjob:

1880 (0): Checking out the situation and in Ottomons island looks good. Gather a Mini SoD to take Sinop. Move 5 infantry to attacak the 3/4 rifle next turn. Bomb Istanbul some more and wipeout the bank the courthouse, and take it to size 1, will raze it easily next turn. Kill off all but the stack of the 2 guerillas and 2 infantry on West Isle, did lose 1 vet infantry to a reg pike :(.

The Ottomans counter and pillage around Aydinn. 2 greek guerillas die and promote a vet infantry to elite on west isle.

1882 (1): Learn Combustion, start on a few Destroyer in those coastal cities with 40+ shields. Researching Flight due in 8 with +130 gpt. Upgrades for bunch of galleons to transports but kept gold above 1000. Capture and raze Istanbul, Capture Sinop losing 1 vet infantry. Begin bombing Isnik.

The Pike SoD is on the move.

1884 (2): Begin moving a couple loaded transports to the far north islands with artillery and infantry, and ironclad cover. Successfully planted a spy in the Ottoman capital, they are down to 55 pikes, most are in the SOD, 3 guerillas, 3 infantry and 6 rifles. Clean up the last of the Greek forces in the West isles. Peeling off a few ships from the south and heading them north.

1886 (3): Found Turkish Wedge at the blue dot. Raze Isnik and use the extra artillery to aid in cleanup of a few infantry and pikes. Ottomans are down to 42 pikes, no infantry and 2 guerillas, and 5 rifles. Will found white dot next turn, and pink dot the turn after next.

1888 (4): Bombed the heck out of Edrine, moved a mini SOD into possition to attack it next turn. 2 Settlers are in position at White and Pink Dots. continue moving troops north ward. Pollution is becoming an issue in the south.

1890 (5): Bomb Edrine somemore, Use the Mini SoD and Capture Edrine at size 3, bombing wiped out almost all improvements. We now have the Pyramids :D. Found Turkey white and Pink. Move in position to attack the city of Konya with the armies next turn. Continue to move 3 transports north with ironclad escorts. There are a few destroyers out and about.

One more transport of infantry is head to Turkey but I am not sure if additional will be needed. The Ottomans are down to only 3 spears, 27 pikes, 4 rifles and 1 guerilla :D. Not to mention 4, and soon to be 3 cities. There are now a new bunch of elite infantry to fill the 2 empty armies that are on the continent. A full transport just delivered 8 new workers to the southern continent. The West Isles are secure for now.

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/upload3/inf2-1890AD.zip

w00p! Good progress, Hotrod. Charis can mop up most of the rest of Turkey, and should start preparing us for invading Mixed Isle (SE of Mongolia). Did the galleons and clads I sent up that way ever make it? If so, upgrade the galleons, that's two transports to take armies immediately over to invade that island.

We'll have to push a brisk pace for the whole rest of the game, so as soon as matters are under control on one front, time to open a new front. I believe we'll need multiple beachheads on the big continent eventually, though of course we'll want to start with one. Arrangements to transport ALL of the full armies from Turkey to another invasion beachhead will need to be arranged, probably on my next round.

Good luck, Charis! I hope your cornucopia of feasting allows you to slip this dish in there somewhere soon. :p


- Sirian

Whoops, I sent 3 transports to the NE islands. Should've asked which mixed islands :(. There are 3 new destroyers in postion to escort any new transports from the Mongolia island to the "mixed island" to the SE.

Hotrod

It won't hurt to "get the North Island out of the way". We have to do it at some point. Sorry for the confusion. I try to be clear and consistent with these naming conventions, guess I failed this time. I did talk about Mixed Island several times, as a gateway to the main continent. That north isle is only a gateway to some icebergs. :lol: But capturing it will end their use of it as a base to attack West Isle.

So does this mean we don't have any transports in place on SE Mongolian coast? :( Hrrm. (Did you send the armies from Mongolia up to the North Isle??) Charis will sort it all out.

- Sirian

Ah Yep??? :blush: There are still a couple transports to be grabbed to go to the SE coast, with 3 destroyers. There are also a few galleons in the area to upgrade. I honestly missed the "gateway to the other continent". I thought sending armies up north was not exactly the right thing. They are 2 turns from landing to the north but could very easily be returned home. There is also an empty army in the Southern port of the main continent. That can be filled and sent East.

Consider those icebergs ours!!! :lol:

Hotrod

I'd thought the "mixed island" was the northern one, because I think you referred to it as such once when you were talking about all the 'clads healing up north.

The situation up at west isle had me thinking about that area more than anything else, so I'd have sent those armies up that way too. :lol: It would be nice to attack somewhere that will take those other guys to communism, though!

-Griselda

How many SG's have Charis currently "UP NOW"? Are there also others where he's on deck? With his game time (temporarily?) shortened for larger issues on the home front, perhaps he should select some in which to be skipped for the current round? Not that I'm suggesting he skip THIS game! :eek: :crazyeye:

Just a thought. :)


- Sirian

Charicicero V rises to power amidst great strife in the royal family,
as the queen didst slip upon a peel of the banana fruit, thereby
snapping the royal ankle. The king did thus have to deal with the
young prince's bouts of diarrhea and other foul duties, for the
castle was understaffed. He longed to step out again onto the battlefield,
and this report is the tale of his new conquests...

I hope to finish up Turkey (or nearly so), and since the armada is next to
'NW' isle, I'll continue on in that fashion - hopefully it won't take long.
Then we can focus on more important lands and get our fat armies over to
the mixed island SE of Mongolia.

The census: 21 explorers (!), 66 artil, 10 cannon, 20 ancient units, 43 pikes, 10 muskets,
31 rifles, 199 infantry (!), 13 galleons, 19 transport, 25 clads, 6 destroyers, 33 MDI.
Also 11 armies (wow). One (rifle) in Mongolia, 1 home, 7 in Turkey, 2 on ship to NW,
Democ Greece has 110 inf and 23 cav. Commie Japan has 26 cav and 113 inf. England has
57 inf and 4 knights :P

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to drop an army or two on the mountains on the FAR
coasts, not far from Turkey, for pillage parties. Would they get attacked, or with
sufficient numbers will the AI attack a healthy army? (I'm thinking no, but would hate
to waste an army to find out :P )

[0] 1890 - In Turkey there are several sleeping artillery. These are woken up to fire.
(IBT) The Pike miniSOD in turkey moves off the hill. Time to die.

[1] 1892 - A few inf are shifted over to West Isle, after all the scared cries above :P
Three clads sunk off West Isle. Konya in Turkey is easily captured. Target practice
on the Pike SOD. We lose two, but get a few promotions, and... Octavious Pikeslayer,
a Great Leader. (Yet another Army formed)

We land the boats outside Troy on NW Isle, including an army, several inf and artil.
That hits the toughest city first and expects to sweep over the others soon after.
Successfully planted a spy in Salamanca.

(IBT) We lose two clads and defeat one, vs Japan.

[2] 1894 - Lots of troop movement. Uskudar is captured.
Obscene defense at Troy. Size 10, not on a hill, no river, our army of 20hp loses
17 taking out a *regular* inf. Our second army there loses 12 of 17 hp on a *conscript*!
Then with one 1hp defender left, a plain old rifleman takes the city. Go figure.
Troy is captured, with rax, mktplace, courthouse, aqueduct, hospital, factory,
and Police Station intact. It's getting starved down for sure. Better luck at nearby
Dover, an inf taking out a conscript inf, leaving just spears beneath. The city is
captured, with a harbor intact.

(IBT) In Turkey a guerilla runs past our army to hit an exposed hurt infantry.
Also, a minor Greek landing in Mongolia. Our troops have longed for battle :hammer:

[3] 1896 - That Greek landing was only 4 units, but with insufficien artillery around,
we take some dmg too, including some pain on our rifle army and losing two inf.

Adana in Turkey is shelled to below size 6 and attacked. A spear remains.
We move right up to the last two cities.

(IBT) English clads manage to knock out a destroyer. Two of our clads win other battles.

[4] 1898 - Flight arrives, and many queues are swapped to airports. This will be HUGE.
Next we start Mass Production, due in 6. About six airports online and now producing
planes. Another 6-12 due in 3-4 turns. With PtW, we get the ability to make airfields
now, reducing the need for ships greatly.

Izmit has three rifle defenders, no match for our army. Infantry vs spear in the last
town of Adana. We redline (eep) then beat one. Then another, and it's ours, with
granary, rax, courthouse, aqueduct, bank, hospital, harbor and PS intact!

SCRATCH the Turks! (IBT - Nada)

[5] 1900 - Troops landed on the North island, so it's half-done and two cities to go.
It will be close with what is on hand, given the wounds on the armies (which are
nervously healing in non-flip-safe cities atm, take action if needed)

That's it for the reign of Chariscicero V. No drafting, no tossing away the treasury,
just a mop up in Turkey and some progress on North Isle, plus a few units starting to
head toward Mongolia.

Leader notes -
- Several movements left, depending on your next plan
- Empty armies and some inf and artillery are on transports between Turkey
and Cyrene. They can travel the Virtual Ocean rails quite a distance, if you
want to go at the mixed isle via SE of Mongolia. In Turkey proper are a few
full armies, ready to head the same way or a rear guard action upon the Iro.
One full army is in SE Mongolia, at Dalad.
- There's a settler in the middle of the big 'gap' in Turkey. Settle somewhere in
the middle near where he stands.
- You might want to rush a temple at Troy or Dover

Save file 1900AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1900AD.zip)

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

Good luck!
Charicicero

PS Tnx all for your patience. Not as bad as the old days, 'just' up in four and on
deck in one. ;) But I've not been knocked off computer for about four days
straight, at least not at a time when things got feasty. I did in any case
take a skip in one, and sadly an epic punt.

Inherited Turn: Somebody turned off "Always Build Previous Unit". :nono: That's fine for a normal situation, but when it is turned off, the game randomly "suggests" what to build next, and like all the other aspects of automation in the game, it rarely selects the optimal choice. We need to get the most out of our cities if we're going to pull this off. We have over 350 enemy infantry units to kill, most of them entrenched in cities with big defense bonuses, while our best attack will be 8 from a marine, 6 from anything else. We literally may need every last unit.

It took me over half an hour to go through our two cores one by one and figure out what each should be building. :( I hope I don't have to do that every time, and that you guys aren't randomly allowing the computer to build infantry out of cities with 40 shields, artillery out of cities with 35 shields, and destroyers out of cities with 54 shields. :eek:

There's no good reason in our situation to turn "build same unit" off. The main reason to do so is to avoid forgetting that you set a city on workers or settlers and come back later to find you shrank it into oblivion. Avoid that by queuing one settler or worker, then queueing a return to the unit type.

I'll return to managing production at the end of the report.

We also had another tough situation. Not a single asset in position to make a new landing on my round. I realize the whole team did a great job finishing off those Turks. We went from beginning preparations to having wiped them out in just two rounds, or thirty-five turns. (Gris took a pass once). Considering that we were building stock exchanges and airports in there, that was as good as we could hope for. Still, we have 125 turns left and aren't even ready to begin to move on the big continent.

With nothing even remotely near Mongolia, the plan to launch from there has been scrapped. It will take less time to ship directly from Home than it will to arrange to ship from Mongolia.

Keep in mind, we don't need to ship troops, except enough to make a beachhead. Troops can be airlifted in, as many as we need, once there is a secure landing zone (self-built city) with an airport. Planes can also be rebased on a single turn. What can't be moved through the air includes: workers, settlers, artillery, explorers, and armies. We have to set up shipping logistics to get these forces to the combat zone.

The shortest path to the big continent runs through the Mixed Isle. The best distance from Mongolia to Mixed Isle is ten tiles. That will mean FOUR TURNS round trip per transport. It also means at least one turn spent at sea, so at least one turn delay from production to the island, for non-airlift units. Airlift units can go directly to any airport with only one turn delay. There's two possible routes from the SE corner of Mixed Isle to the continent, with a five tile journey. That's virtual rails, with two ports and transports in place. We need TWO pairs of transports from Mongolia to Mixed for each pair from Mixed to Enemy Continent. It's quite a massive haul, though. Home to Iron Isle, Iron to Palm Isle, Palm to Mongolia, Mongolia to Mixed (2 turns), finally Mixed to Enemy Continent. And even then, we'd only have the units piliing up on our central beachhead. One front may not be enough, in the long run.

However, there is another route. We can get from South to England in less than 15 tiles. England to Enemy Continent is another virtual rail situation. So... we can open two fronts with full logistical support, and perhaps open additional beachheads with landings and only air support.

OK, I'll see what I can do. :)

"Amateurs study Tactics. Professionals study Logistics." - Anybody know which American military leader spoke that line?


- Sirian

Inherited Turn 1900AD (continued): I wake two transports on our SW coast of Home and send them north to replace the ferry ships, then send the ferry pair at Nico/Viro east around the north shore. These will be half of our first invasion fleet. I wake the two transports out of Hispalis and send them counterclockwise. These will be the other half. I move other ships around as well, and change orders in coastal cities to produce additional ships. Charis has two pairs of destroyers at sea, south of Mixed Isle. I look in vain for a mission. Recon? Patrol? Out doing drugs in the middle of nowhere? I combine them into a 4-stack and send them homward to provide cover for the main transport fleet. Wake our old ships out of NE corner of Home and send those toward Mongolia -- better to have some crap ships up there than no ships. Rome swapped to fighter construction, build one per round. Finally, I send as much homeward as I can from Turkey, via ships.


1902AD: Charis is right, we barely have enough forces on North Isle to finish the job. That's actually a good thing, though. It means we sent an efficient quantity. I send our first Bomber to Dover, and I expect to send all the rest produced on this round, until we have enough to redline that Jap town.

I trained one transport out of the SW coast of South, and one destroyer. Another transport will be done next turn. More destroyers are set to be produced as well. I'll be able to send an expeditionary force to England, arriving at the end of my round: enough to make a beachhead, but no more. It's a start.

I upgrade two galleons out of Hispalis to transports, then send two transports from Syracuse, which form a third expeditionary force. Thus, I will leave Gris eight full transport loads of units either in place or well on their way. That's all I expect to be able to arrange, although I'll push logistics as far as I can to have other units ready to go for the "second trip".

My bombardment of the remaining English village on North Isle takes 1hp off the defending reg inf, no damage to the rifle. We have two inf in place. Attack! Kill the enemy inf, then die to the rifle doing no damage. Go figure. I move an elite rifle in to cover. The transports that came up to North from Mongolia are sent back toward Mongolia.


1904AD: Bombard the same town, our rifle attacks and wins, site autorazed. (Ack!) Six more bombers move into Dover.

Main naval task force continues to assemble. Next turn, we will have an actual fleet.

English Expeditionary force assembles. Ack, not much there to be doing: two transports, one destroyer, one elite frigate. We LOSE two ships attacking a redlined clad in the ship trap, as well, leaving us no ships left at all in the area for mop up duty.

SEVERAL AI ship pairs are sailing into the bay between our continents. I use artillery to wound ONLY the escort ships, which will cause them to retreat, and the AI will park the galleons and wait for other escorts to arrive. In that time I hope to build new destroyers out of FP city to attack. Note, this is taking advantage of the AI's ship routines, but if the AI moved ships without escorts, it would probably actually be more vulnerable. If you wound both the escort and the troop ship, both will retreat. If you wound only the escort, only it retreats IF there is another escort available for the AI to send, and the troop ship sits and waits for that to arrive. Since I didn't have enough ships to kill all these invaders, I scared off the escorts, leaving the troops for another day.

Upgrade some galleons on the Turkey Run. Line up remaining ships between the two cores for virtual rails. With three turns to Mass Transit, I swap some coastal cities to Docks prebuilds.


1906AD: Many coastal cities now swapped to docks prebuilds. Gris won't have to spend her whole round building docks, she can train new forces.

BTW, we are paying like 250ish gpt in unit upkeep. :) I decide we need to trim that back a hair, so I move workers from Mongolia coreward (pausing to clean up several nasty pollution sites on Iron Isle). I also wake our remaining cannon units and ship them to sites for disbanding, pick up some shields and reduce costs a wee bit. At some point in the future, once there is no more use for them, we can do the same with most of the explorers. They are just about to get to where they will be the MOST useful, though, so that time is not yet here.

In the same vein, we have TOP quality troops on garrison in Mongolia and especially in Turkey (which was the Front Line, until only recently), while we have the dregs of the dregs on duty in our two cores. This... is not the ideal arrangement. Finally, FIE-NUH-LEE, I am going to arrange to move some of those crappy units from Home out to the provinces, and recover a sizable number of strong, useful units for other duty. I start with one transport of old units from South, to be shipped all the way north to Mongolia.

Our main task force assembles off the coast east of Cumae. Two full armies, a settler, some workers, explorers, artillery, and additional infantry, are loaded up. The fleet sets sail, ETA 2 more turns.

Our English task force is loaded up with two full armies, a settler, an artillery, and four explorers, and sets sail for England. ETA 2 more turns. The Frigate can't keep up but I send it anyway, as a decoy.

Our Greek expeditionary force assembles off the east coast of home. I load up a full army, a settler, half a dozen explorers and some odds and ends, and this force sets sail. ETA 5 more turns.

One transport and our obsolete units assemble off the SE coast of Mongolia. I load up one full army and three inf and prepare to set sail, moving into launch position (have to wait for the clads, which just arrived). Our ragtag task force prepares to set sail.

Units on North Isle line up for the final assault. Our bombers make almost no headway, that's not encouraging. :( I send some more up there. I'll be lucky to finish the combat up there before my round ends!

More galleon upgrades at the Turkey run. Some galleons will be left unimproved, though. I have managed to transport most of our artillery and all of our armies and elite units back home.

Our only elite galleon arrives on the west side of Iron Isle, to serve as ferry from there to Desert Isle, if needed. (Don't upgrade this unit!)

One destroyer trained at FP site picks off a wounded escort. There are now two naked galleons sitting in this area.


1908AD: Two more destroyers are produced in the bay, they move to attack the vulnerable enemy ships. A third galleon pair invades the channel. Our artillery wound the escort, our destroyer in the area then picks it off, leaving THREE naked galleons.

Our four task forces advance across the waters.

Real progress at North Isle: Barracks and other buildings leveled, pop reduced, and more of our forces move into attack position. I may just be able to finish up there.

Load of old troops from South arrives in Mongolia. Massive unit reshuffles across virtual rails. Our other army in Mongolia is sent Home. So is a full load of infantry and another full load of workers. Mongolia has now been reduced to Minimum Garrison. They have only enough to defend themselves, no more.

Several loads from Turkey are ferried all the way Home.

An Iro ship pair off the SE coast of South is spotted. Our new destroyers in the area are dispatched, escort killed.


1910AD: Our guns wound the naked galleons, our destroyers mop up, promoting two out of three. We have elite destroyers! Another promotion in the south, mopping the Iro galley. (Yes, I said galley). I also said elite destroyers.

:jump:

Our forces invade Mixed Isle.

Our forces invade England.

Our Greek task force ETA 3 turns.

Our obsolete task force ETA next turn.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1910ad-mixed.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1910ad-england.jpg

Our bombers and artillery combine to redline two Jap units. (20 units to redline one village? Sheeeeesh) Our forces attack and win with no losses! North Isle has been conquered!

We have two transports at West Isle that can pick up our inf army and most of our artillery. Need to ferry a settler up there, too. No big hurry on this, need to make SURE the island is secure first. Probably just leave the rifle army there, too. We don't want to have to reconquer the place later. Troy is down to size 1, btw. So are all the cities there.

Massive troop shuffle, good units coreward, cheap units rimward, is nearly complete. All excess units from Turkey are home or on the way. LOT of workers on Iron isle finished cleaning pollution, can be sent (mostly) home. Merge some of the extra into cities with low food and spare happy. That's what we're training them in the colonies for! (That and airfields/radar towers). Still work to be done to get more obsolete units to Turkey and bring more of our vet inf home for new duty.

Airports done on some islands.

Mass Transport learned, start Amphib. I set the course of the rest of our teching in this age, check F6.

Massive shift to dock-building. Many sites complete next turn, some take longer. This will boost our economy!

I also managed to save a little cash, to be used for rushing airports, then temples, then barracks in beachhead sites. (Barracks higher priority if we suffer massive attack and need faster healing). Remember, dont pay double! Wait for one shield, or rush a starter at double and the rest at normal, or if need be disband an expendable unit for starter shields then rush. Gauge the urgency. Remember, flip risk is probably the worst risk, so an airport to ship in more units (even some obsoletes for garrison work) is good, as is a quick temple. The Airport is actually fastest on flip help, getting new units en masse in there on turn 2, vs turn 5 for temple to expand.

Wow some real progress! I am so glad those icebergs are secure. :p

These next few rounds will be interesting.

Hotrod

It took several turns, a dozen bombers and half a dozen artillery to redline two inf in a fishing village on a hill. We might run over some locations on flat ground with little or no artillery support, but only cities under size 12 or defended by obsolete units. Even marines won't cure our ills, though they will help.

So the main thing we need to do is build up our artillery force. This means bombers, some fighters once the AI gets to flight, and also more artillery units. The planes are versatile, but they are weaker vs fortified units. Bomber gets 8 str attack, 3 shots. Arty gets 12 str, 2 shots. The str edge goes slightly to the arty, plus bombers can be shot down if the enemy has fighters.

If we get too many ground pounders (gropo's) we'll be wasting too many in low odds attacks vs too-large cities. If we get too much artillery, we won't have the gropos for garrison, keeping roads open, covering exposed units, etc. We need a lot of both, but likely more gropos, as some of those die and others get left behind, while the guns keep marching on.

Well, guns and armies and workers, etc, must be shipped. Part of the challenge is looking ahead to what you need and when, then handling logistics to have it in place when you need it.

At first, we can only bring enough units to press on one front. We don't have the ships to make that the English front, so I sent our arty to Home, to be shipped en masse to Mixed Isle in the next big load. Isuggest we send all the bombers there too, until we meet three objectives:

1) Raze Eretria
2) Raze Oxford
3 ) Found virtual rails ferry station on green dot.

At that point, the bombers can move to one of the other landing sites, leaving the arty to finish up on the isle.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1910ad-island-plan.jpg

Make sure to use troops to cover the roads, especially the rubber, as the AI will pillage as high priority and that cost us precious time.

Oh... in case I need to say it, I landed on the tile I thought we should settle. Same in England.


The Greek task force is headed for gems near Mycenae. I suggest pink dot unless a better site inland shows up. Land on red X tile, as pink dot is one turn further for the ships. Use explorers to scout inland, and once you have chosen a site with gems in range, and built an airport and sent in troops, send a minisod with the explorers to pillage heck out of greeks. Protect the road to the gems, even to the point of delaying founding the city until you can get any AI units off the gem tile(s).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1910ad-gems-plan.jpg

Note, white/yellow dots show the two sites in 5-tile range of green dot on isle. Both require a razing to allow us to use.


Main objective in England and Greece short term is foothold. Just hold your ground until enough gropos and enough bombardment to move forward is assembled. Prioritize nonairliftable units in shipping.


England has Magellan. We want it. I didnt check which city has it, tho. First we need breathing room. Raze the three cities nearest the landing unless any of them have useful wonders.

HOTROD: these plans include you, so plz review once you are up, as well as adapting to Gris's results.

If Nottingham is razed, blue dot is good replacement site.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1910ad-ivory-plan.jpg

We want to get ivory hooked up as a mid-range goal. Could take awhile, three cities to conquer first, and nowhere near enough assets there or even planned for the short term. Happy to let them gas themselves if they care to, though. :)

I suggest sending ALL the arty from Home to mixed isle, and using Rome plus citiies with 40 shd to build more. We'll need more guns to win. BIG OLE STACKS o guns on the AI continent. Also bombers. Need stacks o planes, too, a good mix of both.

Also keep in mind we need settlers and workers, too. Dont waste whole turns for lack of enough of either on the front lines!

While we're at it, we need to eat our cake and then still have it around for later. ;)


If you guys can conquer Mixed Isle in 15 turns, AND hold on at the other two landings, AND set up logistics to invade Egypt to go for dyes, AND have enough ships built that most cities can be building planes, guns or gropos, we'll be in good shape.

See? Nothing to it. :lol:


INF2 - 1910AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1910ad.zip)


- Sirian

Nice job all and great read (as usual).
A word of caution about bombers, though.
Last game I played, I built no tanks but went all navy / bombers / marines instead. Proved damn efficient but I discovered a nasty bug: the game would crash every time a stealth bomber was intercepted. Probably not a big deal for you since you'll most likely finish that game prior to stealth bombers... but it also did crash on me once when a normal bomber got intercepted. That's one odd instance vs "every single time" when stealth bombers were involved. Still, I'd make sure to save the game *very* often when using bombers and the ai has fighters.

I've been plugging away at it in my typical "turtle in a race" fashion. :lol:

-Griselda

IIRC, the turtle won the race. :hammer:

The hare... :smoke:

:lol:

Well, let's hope so, anyway! :lol:

Inf2 to 1920 AD

(0) 1910 AD - Bombard and wound Greek and Iro cover ships on West Isle.

BT - One English 'clad sinks itself on our boats.

England attacks our landing force with one MDI. Our clad on mixed isle is sunk. The west isle boats are not chased away. They land on west isle.

Pisae dock - inf
Ravenna dock - inf
Hispalis dock - dest
Lutetia dock - battleship
Byzantium dock - artillery
Eburacum dock - destroyer
Agrippina dock - bomber

(1) 1912 AD - Melting Pot founded on mixed isle, and starts airport. 2 inf are planted on each RR square in our territory. I bomb Eretria, plus start stationing bombers there as they are completed. I also roll out some artillery to the covered squares to bomb exposed English units. I also can send the explorers out for preliminary pllaging.

Hadrian's Wall founded in England, but can't really cover its territory and defend itself. An airport is ordered up.

I sink 2 clads at home.

In the west isle, the Iro's have a pike, longbow, and 2 MDI's. The Greeks have an inf, 2 guerillas, and a cav on the mountain.

I swap Hakodate from guerilla to rax. I also swap a couple of mainland cities to infantry (OK, so I briefly missed the giant stacks of inf we had there. I still think it didn't hurt).

I move a transport back to fix the virtual rails at Palm isle.

BT - Melting Pot is attacked by 4 units. Hadrian's Wall is attacked by 16 units :eek: The enemy moves in a LOT of units.

Veii dock - inf
Seleucia dock - airport
Caesaraugusta dock - destroyer
Palmyra bank - dock
Nico dock - inf
Corfinium granary - factory

I sent some more old units to Turkey, and, in an attempt to send a full boat, I must have inhaled some of that Turkish :smoke: , because I pulled some units out that were serving MP duty. Then, I didn't spend enough time at F1 before hitting next turn, and those cities riot. I did get those fixed when I realized what I'd done.

(2) 1914 AD - Hadrian's Wall is in trouble. The two armies are at 8/20 and 12/20, with no backup. It's surrounded by 29 units, mostly infantry. :help: It's looking so critical that I almost think about abandoning it all as lost, and not even bothering to rush the airport. A human enemy would recognize the situation and take the city, but I'm guessing that the AI won't attack with all 29 units this turn. So, I rush the airport, and hope...

With the single artillery at HW, I bombard Nottingham. I figure *maybe* that will make the English feel like they're under attack and switch to defense?

Melting Pot, on the other hand, lost only 5 points on its army, and it's looking good. I bombard Eretria, destroying its barracks, coal plant, and taking it to size 2. I rush the airport at Melting Pot.

At west isle, the Iro are threatening Treveri, and Greece threatens Augustodurum.

I kill the Iro MDI and both pikes, and wound the advancing guerilla. I airlift in 2 new vet infantry.

From the iceberg I load up 1 army and 6 artillery. That leaves several nice units behind until we see how it's going. Whatever boat brings a settler up there could probably pick up some units also.

One of our destroyers goes to 1 hp sinking a redline English clad.

Reinforcement boat arrives at Melting Pot. I roll the inf army and 5 inf towards Eretria.

A bunch of old units arrive at Turkish Beach, and Turkey goes to a skeleton crew (not *that* bad, I don't think). I ship off 2 transports of vet and elite inf.

I ship some artillery and workers north from the mainland.

BT - Hadrian's Wall is attacked by 12 units, and holds! [party] The rest of the units focused on pillaging, whew!

One infantry on the Melting Pot hill is attacked by a single cav, but we win.

Pompeii dock - destroyer
Aurelianorum uni - dock
Nicomedia bank - dock
Gordion dock - battleship
Treveri granary - hospital
Curia hospital - colo
Melting Pot airport - temple
Hadrian's Wall airport - rax
Athens has captured our spy.

(3) 1916 AD - At Hadrian's Wall, both armies are at 7/20. I airlift in an archer, thinking I could disband it and rush the barracks, but of course I can't disband it the same turn I airlifted it. I rush the barracks at double price anyway, I think it's urgent. It's still surrounded by 20 units. I use the mainland to airlift in 7 infantry also.

I bomb Eretria, making over 20 runs, and have terrible luck. I destroy a couple buildings, ding a couple units, and take it from 2 to 1, but that's IT! I kill one infantry with our army there, and there's another healthy inf on top.

I airlift 4 infantry to Melting Pot.

The Iceberg units arrive at west isle, where they are needed to help with the invasion. I bomb the inf units with our artillery, and then lose 2 vet inf vs wounded ones. Our army is able to kill one wounded inf also. I think I airlifted an inf or 2 from the mainland to back us up there.

I sink an English clad at Mongolia. I also wound an incoming Greek galleon and clad, but have no boats to sink it. I note that I should build some offensive boats and distribute them around our shores. We have escorts for our transports, but not a lot extra. At some point, I start leapfrogging some of our southernmost destroyers north, but the boats are not yet in place at the end of my turn.

Our Greek contingent arrives. The gems have 4 infantry and a cavalry fortified on it, that should be interesting! I decide to unload while I can, revealing another cav behind the gems.

I airlift a stack o' inf to Melting Pot.

On the mainland, I load an army with elites and send it to Mongolia. I have enough units to fill the transports that arrived at Mongolia this turn. Things were moving along slowly enough that I didn't consider waiting for the settler that would be complete next turn, because it was hard to picture that we'd be ready for it so soon. Now, I realize my mistake, but there is a single transport on the way that should be able to pick it up.

Science to 40%, amphibious war in 2.

BT - Hadrian's Wall is only attacked by 1 unit! There is no attack at Melting Pot.

The enemy stack on the west isle moves off the mountain, and the cav kills a rifle (oops).

Neapolis dock - destroyer
Viro dock - art
Lugdunum colo - dock
Hippo dock - destroyer
Londinium bank - explorer
Tyrus library - dock
Hadrian's Wall rax - temple

(4) 1918 AD - Japan, of all civs, has an elite sword next to Hadrian's Wall.

I rush the temple at Melting Pot., and bomb Eretria, destroying a few buildings and leaving a healthy cav on top. I kill the cav with an inf, leaving a 1/3 inf on top. I kill that, and find another. I attack that one with a healthy elite inf, and we lose. I then kill that inf and one other before I'm out of gas for the round.

I begin bombardment of Oxford (OK, it's hard to tell when you have bombers available, and I thought I'd used them all at Eretria), and destroy the barracks. Oxford is starving itself, because they're not cleaning up the pollution.

I disband the archer and rush the temple at Hadrian's Wall. It's surrounded by 17 units, which, compared to what it was, seems like the worst threat is past. So, I send the explorers out with 3 inf, planning to disconnect London (landlocked 1 tile from the coast). I airlift one more inf to Hadrian's Wall to help defend it.

I moved the Greek stack in one tile, the gems are still covered and fortified.

On the west isle, I kill that offending cav. I then bombard the infantry on the mountain, and attack the wounded infantry with a west isle peacekeepers (attacking from a mountain that I've been working on a road on). I lose! Clearly the RNG is evening itself out after the fantastic rolls I had during my last round.

I need to irrigate one tile by Viro, because there's a Greek ship there that I can wound but not kill, and the city is starving without that coast tile.

BT - Hadrian's Wall is attacked only by that Japanese sword. But, the explorer stack is attacked by 2 English inf, and we lose one inf there.

Melting Pot is attacked by one, and the Greek stack is attacked by 1. (Ack, I realized I fogot to check on the stack on my last turn, so hotrod, please check the situation there!)

Amphibious War in, start radio (ack, once again, I forgot to turn science back up, hotrod, science can probably go to 50%).

Medio dock - arty
Jerusalem coal - airport
Caesarea coal - dock
Cyrene coal - airport
Verona dock - marine. :)
Melting Pot temple - rax
Hadrian's Wall temple - walls

I didn't check to see what other cities could be swapped to Marines. I must have been a bit too excited to see that "hit spacebar" on my last turn, sorry hotrod!

(5) 1920 AD - Eretria is bombed again, redlining the units finally. I attack with two armies, and raze the city, capturing a settler.

I then bomb Oxford, taking it to size 8, and destroying its harbor and some other buildings (no rax already). I send a mixed isle explorer pack out, and move a SOD to Oxford.

At Hadrian's Wall, the explorer stack waits as I move out another inf before moving on. I airlift in one more inf to replace that one.

Rome has finished its army, and I swap it to artillery for the time being to replace those that I shipped north.

On west isle, I kill a wounded vet infantry with out army, losing half of our army's life! Things are actually looking good up there, and hotrod should be able to mop up easily.

Most of our vet infantry on the mainland have been airlifted to Melting Pot. There's 3 elite that I figure can wait on the mainland until the army arrives (one is currently in Mongolia waiting for the boat with the settler and a few other units). There are plenty of other elite inf at Mixed isle to make a 4th for the army. In fact, it might even be worthwhile to ship another army, because we may have the units to fill it by the time it arrives.

That's about it. Have fun! :hammer:

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1920ad.zip

I see it will review the plans and compare with what Griselda was able to accomplish and begin working on it tomorrow.

Good work, Gris. Looks you had just enough to hold on in England. :cooool:

One comment about armies: Armies are best used on the assault or on defense at a new beachhead, or for stability at front line cities. Inf armies are best for the latter two, but marine armies will be clearly superior in the first capacity. That's why I left four empty armies on the mainland. We don't actually want to fill those yet.

There IS a limit on the total number of armies we can have (albeit with this many cities, the limit is fairly high). But we already have what, 14 armies now? At 4 cities per army allowed (no fractions), that means 56 of our cities are already "in play" for army support.

We ought to have enough infantry armies for all defensive and stabilization needs. Need to save some for marines. We ought to be able to fill several marine armies fairly quickly, once we really start cranking marine units. Since they airlift to the front, they get into the action quickly.


- Sirian

I am working on it - have played about 1 1/2 turns and am 3 hours into it. Hope to have it on to Charis soon.

Will give an update soon.

Hotrod

OK, thanks for the notice. Take your time well enough to play unhurried.

- Sirian

I'm relieved to know that I'm not the only one who needed that much time to play 5 turns! :p

-Griselda

Wow the logistics of getting units to the other side is amazing. find a few airports that haven't been used yet and send 3-4 more elites to Hadrian's wall. Build airfield on the north isles, mongolia and turkey to suffle elites out and strickly weak units in for MP duty. Plenty of worker around to build more airfield if needed. Loadup a transport with destroy cover to bring more artillery, a full army and an empty army to England. Explorer checkout the lay of the land in Greece. Of interest is that Iroquios don't have infantry protecting their cities. Once a city is on the Main island Iroquios may be the easiest target. Change 4 Main Continent cities from Bombers to Marines.It has been an hour and a half and I have yet to play a turn.

Day 2: 1922 AD (1): A ironclad/galley group approaches the north of Mongolia, no ironclad or destroyers in the area :(. Most likely will land 4 units next turn. Damaged both the clad and the galley but can't kill it without ships. Wake sea units in the North icebergs and send them East. Hurry Tabriz settler for transport to mixed isles with another settler next turn. Unload 28 units at Melting pot and start bombing runs at Oxford. Brought down to size 3 destroyed every building you could think of and brought the 3 infantry to redline. Oxford is razed and will move on toward Liverpool with a stack of infantry and send in artillery support. The bombers will continue at Rhodes. 2 new settler will be sent next turn toward Melting pot and a transport of more units sent toward Greek Mainland for support of a soon to be new city by the now Roman occupied Gems. Send a few units to West Isle for cleanup duty next turn. Also, send some obsolete unit to Ottoman lands for MP duty to get those infantry where they need to go. There are new airfields 1 each at the North icy islands, Mongolia and Ottoman territory. Next turn may build a few more. Hurry barracks at Melting pot.

Day 3: 1924 AD (2): British Ironclads destroy the airport at Hadrian's Wall :(. 2 settlers and more artillery are on the move. Cleanup all enemy units at West Isle and the 4 that landed in
Mongolia. 6 greek Ironclads have entered the Straights between Iron isle and Main island :( No clads in the area, sending a few that way. Will damage them with artillery as they pass through.

Plant a new spy in Athens.

Day 3 continues: 1926 AD (3): Rhodes is beat down and will fall next turn as will liverpool. Began rebasing some units to Hadrian's Wall. The Greek landing party is on the gems and sitting tight awaiting reinforcements. I fear settling the city and hold the gems is not possible. The settler reveals that the gems are not our until the city of Mycene in Razed. Marines and artillery are loading up at Melting pot. A landing party has landed on the Mountains of Elephantine and will hopefully take that city soon. 2 new settler will be able to land at Rhodes next turn and set up the Green dot on th Mixed Island. After Rhodes and Liverpool fall only 1 Japanese city remains and will fall quickly. Hadrians now has some Naval support to take care of those pesky clads. A transport has arrived with a new army and some artillery support. Also a few extra bombers were lent by Melting pot as we have run out of hard targets on the Mixed isles until the green dot site is settled and an airport is built.

1928 AD (4): After 12 shots from the artillery Liverpool is damaged and taken without loses. I didn't realize until I took the city that it was not at size 6, had plenty of units in the area and only lost 1 infantry to a redline. At Rhodes was not soo lucky. Underestimated how many units would be needed to take the size 1 city protected by 3 redlined infantry. Had 6 units and the rifle army and only killed 2 of the 3, losing 4 infantry in the process :(. Will take it next turn. Moving on the last city on the island and have bombers and artillery in position to beat it up and take it next turn or the one after. London is completely disconnected.

1930 aD (5): Capture Rhodes Easily. Bomb the heck out of and Capture Matsuyama. Found Mixed Isle landing on the green dot. Suffle some units around. Nottingham is at size 6, London is still size 17 but there are now bombers and artillery at Hadrian's Wall. There is a large stack of infantry in the hills. There is a settler on the next city site for the entrance to the Main Island. Did not found the city on the Main Territory. Thought it best to wait for some reinforcements. Had every intention of sending units that direction but elected to get a hold on the These Peninsula first. There are more units enroute and another settler awaiting transport in mongolia.

Here is the save and a picture of the NO LONGER "Mixed Isle" :D.

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1930ad.zip

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/nonmixed.JPG

Nice progress by Griselda and Hotrod, good job!

"Got it" - I'll re-read recent posts for direction and 'one more thing' items :P

Charis

PS - An aside @Sirian - I'm almost done with my FRFR turn. I've had two nights in a row where I got a few turns in, then Mrs C gave me other pressing items to attend to

Painting the town red, as they say!

:hammer:

Looks like Hotrod took out five cities. That's good work cleaning up after some setup rounds where few cities were taken. Lost the airport in England? To clads? NEED MORE NAVY. Get an offensive force of destroyers and b-ships to the region, even if it means reducing escorts on the transport fleets. Secure those waters. If they keep building more clads, well then they aren't building more infantry. We'll have to secure the waters eventually anyway, at least in that immediate area, to move from England to the mainland.

Looks like Hotrod also has us set up with a foothold near Thebes, where we can go port to port as planned. Charis will have several options as to where to "spend his IFP's" this round. :)


- Sirian

I was able to move a small Navy toward the English. I think 3 ships, a couple destroyers and a battleship are at Hadrians Wall and there are a few more available in the southern islands and a couple out to sea enroute.

By Griselda in FRFR .... threads on this forum while you're waiting for this one to turn red


I could resist the connection ;) :lol: I think subliminally (sp) Gris is just as anxious to see if the English are a few cities lighter or if the Egyptian dyes are ours!!

Charis - Hope all goes well !!!

Hotrod

"Amateurs study tactics and
professionals study logistics”.
I've seen this attributed to Napolean, Rommel,
and "an old-time soldiers proverb." What American leader were you thinking of?

The world lives to see a sixth Charicicero take the throne, in the year 1930 ad,
shortly after the capture of "No-longer-mixed" island!

Sorry this turn took a while, but I wasn't slacking off. I think I played about
two hrs per night for two nights, then almost 5 hrs tonight to finish off
just 1938 and 1940. 8-|

In recent rounds, our objectives included:
- Make lots more artillery
- Main objective in England and Greece short term is foothold. Just hold your ground
until enough gropos and enough bombardment to move forward is assembled.
- England has Magellan's in Coventry. We want it. First we need breathing room. Raze
the three cities nearest the landing Shakespeare's and Sistine are in London.
The latter is a definite keeper.
- Later try to get ivory hooked up
- Need more navy was recently noted, d-ters and b-ships in the region in England

- "Charis will have several options as to where to "spend his IFP's" this round."
IFP's??

The build queues for the cities look good! Almost no adjustments. (And I confirm
build last unit is checked).

[0] 1930 - Some artillery at Palmyra are woken up to fire at a Greek clad.
Bombers in Hadrian's Walls are asleep? London is shaved down a notch.
Outside Mycenae, explorers are awoken to do some pillaging.
(IBT) An Egyptian cav *army* impales itself on a fortified inf in the mountain
outside Thebes, muhahaha.

[1] 1932 - I *like* all those planes in Hadrians! Good job! We redline every ship in
the sea around us, and shellack London pretty good. We settle on white dot a bit
off from Thebes, five moves from Mixed Isle. The city is named "Gateway"
I spend a little cash, transport, temple, walls, destroyer, carrier, near our front lines.
At Hadrians we sink three clads, and two more off South coast. One destroyer lost.
We queue up several new big ships. We just toe the line in Greece and England for now.
(IBT) Not much, some silly guerillas kill themselves at Hadrians.

[2] 1934 - Gateway airport is rushed. A fair amount of movement, setting up for Thebes.
(IBT) Minor landing of Greek troops outside Hovd in Mongolia.
We get radio, start Motorized Transport, the last req'd tech of the age.

[3] 1936 - London hammered down to size 7. Nottingham also hit, and we setup for there.
In Mongolia, our infantry loses to a 1hp guerilla? Bah! Others kill that thing.
Thebes is bombed right down to size 1. They only have cap plus four cities, btw!
(Still, Thebes itself is going to be razed) The roads to Thebes were cutoff last
round, but Egypt landed a transport full of troops next to Thebes last round.
In we go... Only the top two are vets, the regulars. Our marines and armies
do the job. Thebes, with no wonders, is razed. We settle on the yellow dot instead
of Thebes, as it's also on the Virtual Rail network, and it's within bomber
range of Hieraconpolis. City name is "Bane of Thebes". The egyptian reinforcements,
one turn too late, look on in horror. A radio tower is built on the ruins.

(IBT) A wienie Iro landing at West Isle. Egypt throws most of those landed units at
the inf army on the radio tower. All die. Right next to them, Japan moves up *20*
cav next to us.

[4] 1938 - The pollution on our South island is getting horrible, with all our coal
plants, while the Hoover powered North is in better shape. I send over a team of 6,
then a few more from Turkey. Two ships sunk off mixed isle. That big cav stack is
made very red, and we go fishing for promotions (and perhaps a leader).
Lots more marines and artillery and even an army or two are making it over to Egypt.
The small Iro landing is crushed. Ah, there is our leader, Hadrian, from an elite
infantry vs injured longbowman battle :P

(IBT) Well, no surprise. All the wounded cav retreated (we don't have enough marines
on hand yet to finish them), and now the slower units arrive. A LARGE stack of
infantry and more hits the same square. (Of course, after no pollution on most
turns, North mainland gets hit with three, and one on a hill :P )

[5] 1940 - That large Japanese stack is 33 units, a smattering of infantry, guerrillas,
rifles, MDI's and a few longbows. There's 10 more just behind them. The bombardment
went quite poorly against them this round. One bomber run to the SE for recon showed
another two dozen on the way. Two ships sunk at Gateway. Clad sunk off West Isle.
Jpn frigate-galleon pair sunk near Cyrene.

Finally, bombardment at Nottingham goes well, and it's time to take some culture
pressure off Hadrian. RNG goes nuts on us. Three marines promote with little damage,
and our army of 20hp turns red and barely escapes death vs a 1hp infantry. :eek:
I move out the partially-filled army and some infantry to cover our units.
They have neither the units nor the chutzpah to hurt either the city or the
two field stacks there.

Notes:
- This turn took a while, but I wasn't slacking off. I think I played about 2 hrs per
night for two nights, then almost 5 hrs tonight to finish off just 1938 and 1940. 8-|
- Banes of Thebes has a new temple. When it expands the dyes will be ours. It's
building a barracks, worth a rush. Gateway has a harbor to export the dyes and to
heal the ships.
- I've not overpushed the fighting, doing more logistics and bombardment this round.
The focus has been on Egypt and the landing spot on the main continent. You could
send a few transports and/or airlift many units to either Mycenae or England if you
preferred to focus there and 'hold' at Egypt.
- The AI will have Tanks before long, so as the next leader I wouldn't be TOO defensive.
Speaking of tanks... denying oil and/or rubber would be exceedingly useful.
- There are a small number of bombers to rebase where you like, and a few ships to move
- England has been shifting the two dozen infantry around Hadrian like a shell game,
but never attacking.
- Our leader Hadrian is in a boat off Corfinium. He can be transported towards home
(no virtual rails from Curia island however) or turned back to rush a battleship.
- Two empty transport are heading back from Mixed Isle to Mongolia to pick up more loads
out of Dalandzaladad. (Settler, artillery mainly)
- The destroyer and clads are fortified there as the journey mid-point.
- Take a close look on the mountains near old-Thebes, and see if you want to stay
fortified, move up a step onto the gold mountain, or attack the big green stack.
On the latter, many were hit but not redlined, leaving fresh guerrillas now defending
the stack. Getting some elite marines there soon would be good, as there is an empty
army in town.
- There's a few transports in Bane of Thebes that need to criss-cross back to Mixed Isle
landing to maintain virtual rails. I'll let you do that in case you DO want to send
an army or transport(s) of troops to Mycenae this turn. In fact... I just now noticed
one can be used with say the new army that just arrived and go inland to plonk down
next to Hieraconpolis in the gold mountains SW of the city.
- My production focus this round has been on artillery and navy. Feel free to actually
get more marines in the fields, or continue on with artillery (can't have enough :P )
* This should be a tactically rich situation for our OWGWHTTZ leader...

England --
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Inf2-1940ad-MapEngland.jpg

Egypt and Greece --
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Inf2-1940ad-MapEgypt.jpg

Save file 1940AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1940AD.zip)

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

Good luck!
Charicicero

I see the light somewhere at the end of the tunnel. The logistics required to get units to the frontlines is amazing. The length of turns is by far the longest I have ever played and by no means did I think you were slacking off.

The sign of a good and entertaining game is one that keeps you wanting to see more. This is one of those games.

Glad to hear my :smoke: was not to thick last round ;).

Hotrod

oh yeah, the bombers in Hadrian's - thought maybe you would want the option to go at the cities or the ships or even the StackO'Infantry ;).

Now, we can use those fine Egyptian dyes! :goodjob:

-Griselda

edit- must have hit post with the side of my hand

Worker-made airfields have ALL the benefits of airports. You can send and receive troops at them. This may be important once we get to paratroops, and add value to that unit type, as we can capture terrain or raze cities and free up terrain, move workers up on the same turn (if we have enough workers, railing all the tiles between, adding radar towers or forts if desired, etc) and construct an airfield. Still on the same turn, we can move ANY NUMBER of paratroops to the forward airfield and airdrop them up to six more tiles away. Helicopters would have to be rebased to the airfield, requiring an extra turn, therefore I see LOTS of paratroop usage in our future, particularly for destroying enemy radar towers. Marines will remain our strongest offense, though. I don't see Paratroops taking cities, but the need to attack enemy radar towers (with no fast units on hand and our time running short) will require significant paratroop activity. If we're going to make it in time, we'll have to find the right balance to keep moving forward at our best pace.


Inherited Turn: set objectives. 1) Raze Mycenae and get those gems online finally. 2) Take over the south of England. 3) Capture London. 4) Dispose of the Japanese SoD. 5) Move workers and settlers to the main front at Egypt in large numbers, so that we will have the support necessary to advance.

I did make some changes, especially some decisions about what cities were producing. I will mine over some irrigations and swap cities to producing mostly ground troops. All naval production will halt except for two cities at 67+ shields in South, staying on b-ships, and two cities at exactly 24 shields staying on d-ters. I intend to halt bomber production for now, as well. Send in the marines!

I nearly had a conniption when I could not find any settlers anywhere near the front. My eyes rolled back in my head and demonic noises roiled forth, smoke billowed from my ears in tiny clouds, and the earth began to tremble. THEN I found two settlers in a waiting stack just outside Mixed Isle Landing and we avoided a nuclear meltdown. :lol: Not quite a perfect score, though, as I cannot get them to the mainland until the next turn.

I moved out a stack of troops in England, to go on the attack. I send an army and some extra troops up to land outside Mycenae, as Charis suggested.


1942AD: Move one of the settlers into position in Egypt. Our English attack force moves into position. Heavy bombardment of English target, also Iro city SE of main landing. Our artillery SoD bombs the Jap MegaSoD.


1944AD: Founded "Dying For Dyes" on the other side of the Thebes ruins. The dyes are now online. (Sorry, Charis. Couldn't wait for your temple. We have to get that Japanese SoD to ATTACK, not wander around aimlessly). MASSIVE settler production round in Turkey, as I rush more than half a dozen settlers to completion. I want to make sure we don't lose a single turn, at any point, for want of settlers to push the fronts forward faster. (Don't worry about ICS. Don't ICS for its own sake, but settle ANYwhere that moves our troops and guns forward faster, and don't spare the settlers. If you even think you can gain ground and hold it, send a settler and go for it.)

Ice Burg founded on North Isle. :lol:

CAPTURED an English city! Moved a settler I had rushed out of Hadrian's forward along with escorts.

1946AD: Japanese SoD attacks our new city! I have three 20hp inf armies fortified inside and the city's on a hill AND we have a radar tower up in range. Oh, and there are about twenty other units in there, too, plus almost all our artillery. It took a while for all the animations to play.

AND I figured out why only half the English attacked Gris last round, as only half this SoD attacked as well. Half the enemy are set to "offense" and the other half are set to "defense", acting ONLY as escorts. The escorts will not attack! So once the offensive half of the stack is spent, the rest all retreat. (Whether the AI will reassign them to offense later, and whether they have to retreat to a city for this to happen, I don't know). This means you CAN'T count on half a stack of fast units to retreat, but you can count on up to half a stack of slow units not attacking, as many will be on defensive orders. Make sense?

Founded Fort Sussex in England, putting us within two tiles of both remaining south English cities, including Magellan's.

Pull a McArthur and land 8 units at Inch'on. Er, I mean at Heiracon. Behind the enemy lines.

ATTACK at Mycenae! Oh my goodness. They have a lot of units in there. Many many. 2damnmany. All three of our armies in the area defeat units, losing many hp's in the process, plus we lose two vet marines, plus another marine kills a fourth unit, and we aren't even halfway there?!? STOP THE PRESSES! AN AI HAS MOUNTED A CREDIBLE CITY DEFENSE! Sirian's jaw spotted on the floor. :eek:

Barracks rushed in DFD.


1948AD: Japanese SoD takes all three of our armies at DFD down below 10 hps. They are taking massive casualties, though, and not scoring any kills.

I finally get more workers to the front and rail that annoying mountain between the airport and the front. I have spent a lot of effort on using the virtual rails. There's a bottleneck, though, at Nico-Viro, so I decided to go with less VR capacity and send some of the other transports forward. We're only going to need limited VR capacity in future anyway, mostly for settlers and artillery.

Move forces into position at Canterbury. Land another transport at Mycenae, including our first 20hp all-marine army.


1950AD: Japanese move almost all their cavs forward, next to DFD! More than 30! They attack with their foot troops, make little headway, escorts retreat, leaving only THREE inf covering the horses, all wounded! :smoke:

Sirian opens a glue factory at DFD, wiping out the ENTIRE stack! (Oh my god what happened to the ponies!) Japan is not quite gassed, but they are moving rapidly in that direction. I killed off almost a third of their entire armed force on this round.

ATTACK MYCENAE! Oh my goodness, in the bombardment we took out their-- CIVIL DEFENSE! :eek: No wonder they've been resisting so effectively. That city is going down, I tell you. I will conquer it. I will. I-- WILL.

Our 16hp infantry army attacks with 9hps left... AND LOSES. I scrape together just enough bombardment and ground forces to get it done, though. Mycenae razed. Found Gem Ha'Dar. Disband one explorer to get shield starters then rush the airport. Used the one worker from the razing to make a radar tower. We ought to be able to hold out for one round, despite our weak position. If so, Gris can airlift in massive reinforcement and we'll have a secure landing.

Note, if that army had had four more HP's, 13 of 20 instead of 9 of 16, it would still be alive. That was our original army from Mongolia. The first we've lost in action?

ATTACK CANTERBURY! Success. Move forces into position at Coventry. Gris will get the glory of capturing Magellan, and probably also London and it's wonders, too.


I conduct a city survey via F4. Here's the situation:

Egypt - 4
England - 4
Greece - 15
Iro - 8
Japan - 17

Total Cities - 48

Remaining Turns - 99

Do the math. We're still in serious danger of losing. I managed to capture 3 cities on my round. Any round we capture 3, we're ahead of the game. If only 2, we'd better have made headway in setting up the next player. Less than 2? :eek: Better have made a lot of headway in clearing out SoD's, radar towers, navies, improving logistics and setting up attacks for your successors.

I believe we can do it, that we will do it, but it's going to be close.


After advanced flight, we want computers, then miniaturization. We want to rush the Internet ON THE AI CONTINENT, as that will give us free cultural building in all cities there. Build offshore platforms at applicable core cities. Steal Rocketry from Greece if they get to modern age. Genetics may be useful, then ecology, then shut down research and end the game all-cash.

We need more logistics to England, and at England. Maybe send most of the Turkey transports there, as we only need a couple at Turkey now. Also, transports will now be useful at the front to speed some invasions, going faster by sea than by land.

The AI's apparently correctly prioritize Radio. The rat bastids.


I waited at Heiracon, hoping for capture instead of autoraze. That, plus the bombardment was always too busy to concentrate there. We should probably try to take out Egypt and Iro's before they get to Radio, if we can. Going to be a real bugger for the big boyz.

I'm enjoying this more than I ought to be. :p

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1948ad.jpg

First time I ever saw that msg.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1950ad-leader.jpg

Used him to rush a vet b-ship.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1950ad-dfd.jpg

Haha! Yes, I had to use every last available unit in the area to wipe out that whole cav SoD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1950ad-conscript.jpg

See?


Here's the world map:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1950ad-map.jpg



Now the Egyptian Plan:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1950ad-egypt-plan.jpg

Pink dot is an important goal. We can cut off the Greeks and lock them to the north if we can divide the continent. It worked well in England, could do us a lot of good here. Gris, if you can get a settler+InfArmy there on your round, and secure rail connection with forts and guards, Hotrod might be able to make some headway on that front on his round, especially giving the Iro's a good thumping from a second front. Note, raze both cities nearby, replace with our own. (Avoid the Throwaway Cities exploit, of course).

The white shows three cities bombers can target from Gateway. Orange shows three from DFD. Gem Hadar can hit FIVE targets, so send any newly built bombers there (assuming you've secured it). We want to minimize moving bombers around, as that wastes attack-turns, but of course move em to where you need em, as the most important thing is progress on beating down cities.

Pay special attention to enemies who may have Civil Defense improvements!

Good luck.

INF2 - 1950AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1950ad.zip)


- Sirian

Well done!

> Worker-made airfields have ALL the benefits of airports.
I didn't realize until my turn that you could SEND units from airfields as well, but yes, they're full-fleded. An amazing savings of shields. As you said, a MAJOR boost for paratroopers.

> All naval production will halt except for two cities at 67+ shields
> in South, staying on b-ships, and two cities at exactly 24
> shields staying on d-ters.
I did crank out quite a few, glad they're enough. I did notice that we were actually ruling the seas on my turn. I feeling I had not had previously in this game.

> I intend to halt bomber production for now, as well. Send in
> the marines!

Probably an ok move based on the number of turns left, although I've been finding the bombers very handy. Regarding your later comment with paratroopers and radio towers, I think bombers are an excellent way to deal with RT's. It just takes several hits, but vs an infantry (or mech inf!) fortified in the mountain, you can knock them out before it's safe to get behind enemy lines and without losing a unit. (redline the defender, knock out the road/railroad, then the tower falls last)

I'm glad meltdown was avoided - didn't have enough Mixed Isle ships available to send the settler over AND the artillery and army.

> Our artillery SoD bombs the Jap MegaSoD.
This sounds like a Godzilla movie!

> Founded "Dying For Dyes" on the other side of the Thebes
> ruins. The dyes are now online. (Sorry, Charis. Couldn't wait for
> your temple. We have to get that Japanese SoD to ATTACK, not
> wander around aimlessly).

np at all. I was braced for the attack, but as you said, they wandered aimlessly. Is this new, that the AI are smarter about attacking? Except, apparently, when it comes to lashing out at a city!? Here I was making sure they had no path to a city to preserve our beachhead, then you lay down a sacrificial city for them to attack on purpose!? But with the intense protection we had in the city, we brutalized them.

If nothing else this whole game, that move in particular was an eye-opener and a nice tactic I can walk away with! :hammer:
(In an Apo thread this week, btw, it showed a similar situation where if you had a city on the front line the AI sent a SOD of about 24 cav to hit it, but build two fortifications with two infantry each in them, in front of and blocking that city, and they DO NOT attack at all! It's the opposite of what you did, or rather, the very thing I did. The AI apparently will NOT take chances on attacks outside the city, even if they have 10 times the 'numbers' needed to take it, but they'll throw dozens of units to their death against a city.)

We're seeing a similar thing in England, the AI isn't hitting our infantry in the field despite higher numbers, due to odds.

> AND I figured out why only half the English attacked Gris last
> round, as only half this SoD attacked as well. Half the enemy
> are set to "offense" and the other half are set to "defense",
> acting ONLY as escorts. The escorts will not attack! So once the > offensive half of the stack is spent, the rest all retreat.

:cooool:

*TWO* very cool nuggets learned on one turn!? Woohoo!

> Pull a McArthur and land 8 units at Inch'on. Er, I mean at
> Heiracon. Behind the enemy lines.

Good deal. I think we'll see an acceleration in the number of cities falling per turn, as we form beachheads, see the AI gassed, and can go after more than one front at once (production and logistics permitting). If we can knock out strategic resources too, there should be an acceleration.

> STOP THE PRESSES! AN AI HAS MOUNTED A CREDIBLE CITY
> DEFENSE! Sirian's jaw spotted on the floor.

:lol:

> Sirian opens a glue factory at DFD, wiping out the ENTIRE
> stack! (Oh my god what happened to the ponies!)
...
> Gem Ha'dar

:rotfl:

> ATTACK MYCENAE! Oh my goodness, in the bombardment we
> took out their-- CIVIL DEFENSE! No wonder they've been
> resisting so effectively. That city is going down, I tell you. I wil
>l conquer it. I will. I-- WILL.

I urge you not to feel that you have to do everything on your turn.
(j/k, really, but I couldn't resist :D )

> After advanced flight, we want computers, then miniaturization.
> We want to rush the Internet ON THE AI CONTINENT, as that
> will give us free cultural building in all cities there.

Aye, excellent!

> I'm enjoying this more than I ought to be.
You're getting a steady stream of military-in-position ready-to-pounce turns. Happy Birthday!!

Charis

PS Nice maps and dot plans, I just saw them while I'm looking at this in 'preview'

Very cool!

Didn't see a screenie of England is taking their final 4 cities soonish feasible and using that island to mount an attack on Japan?? I will have to wait until tonight to checkout the lay of the land.

Hotrod

I didn't get a chance to play any yesterday, so now it means that I'm up the same day that I expect my MoO to arrive! :p

-Griselda

I'm only just over a turn in now, but I keep having to put it down when I start looking like this- :aargh:

Bad, bad, evil turn. Bad, bad, bad, bad.

:aargh:

Time to take another break! :lol:

-Griselda

In my view, airfields are overpowered. All you have to do, is find a strip of mediocre land, and make about 10 airfields in a row. Then you can airlift units from them. Likewise, at your beachhead, just make and defend an airfield next to your city to fly units across.

Suddenly it costs a single cheap worker to make an airfield, instead of having to spend all those shields. The only reasons you'd want to build airports now are for aerial trade routes, and to produce veteran air units.

-Sirp.

That's the name of the game this time, unfortunately.

(0) 1950 - Wake 3 transports at Turkey and 2 destroyers to send East. Until my very last turn, though, I was still thinking they'd be most useful long term vs. Japan, rather than immediately vs. England. So, on my last turn these ones will arrive (about half full with workers and stuff), but I sent a few of the transports that were on the mainland back. Then I noticed how far apart the English cities were, boo. But, there's 3 transports arriving, and 2 more (iirc) can be there within about 2 turns.

BT - Lose an MDI at DFD. Gem Ha'Dar is attacked once, then a giant SOD moves into position. Japan unloads 4 at west isle.

DFD walls - airport
Gam Ha'Dar airport - temple
Curia bank - stock
Another Greek agent tried to expose ours :lol:
We get new oil, so someone else might have lost theirs.

(1) 1951 AD - Redline West Isle attackers and kill 2 out of 4 of them.

I then turn my attention to Greece, and check out the SOD next to Gem Ha'Dar.

50 Infantry
17 Cav
13 Guerillas
1 Longbowman :eek:

I take a look around for the "massive reinforcements" that I'm supposed to airlift in, and I don't see them! Did Sirian just mean the gropos that were produced this turn, or am I missing something? Anyway, this alone was enough to make me need to take my first break in the name of mental health.

I came back a little while later and assessed the situation. If half of the infantry, and all the other units attacked, we'd be attacked by 56 units. If half of all the units attacked, we'd be attacked by 40 units and a longbow. The second number sounds more reasonable, since the AI probably would have sent defensive units to cover the guerillas and the cavs, right? Well, that's the estimate that I'm going to keep in mind while planning my defense.

There's also an Iroquois mini-SOD within range, but it's small enough that I'm not going to really factor it in. I probably should, but I'm going to have to do terrible things already just to defend against 40, and my brain is on overload.

OK, so if we assume mostly AI infantry attacking our infantry, I'm going to estimate 2 hp lost per attack. This should heopfully be on the high side, since we're defending from a city on a hill with a radar tower. Hopefully, it will give us enough cushion to cover the Iro units. We'd be much better off if we had more than ONE artillery, naturally.

I count the available hit points I can have in the city without giving up the gems or the radar tower. 30. We want to be able to take 80 damage.

I check back with the mainland, and notice that most cities are building marines, and only one completed an infantry this turn. Well, marines will have to do, I suppose. This turn, I can easily send 1 infantry and 5 marines from the mainland, and 1 from Dying for Dyes (though I hate to steal from one front for another, this is an emergency). Not enough.

I take a look at fairly content cities with some food surplus. I draft from Pisae, Neapolis, Lutetia, Hispalis, Lugdunum. In a couple cases, I draft a conscript and send a vet from the city.

That's 73 hp of marine/infantry types. Close. Airlift in one vet from Ice Isle, and one from Turkey. 81 hp of defenders, though some are conscripts (well, at least they'll get life back if they win, right?), and not all are infantry.

I swap Gem Ha'Dar to barracks and rush at double. If it holds, I want my units to heal!

I can barely think about anything else until I find out what happens to this city. But, the turn must go on.

I kill a stack of 8 by Dying for Dyes, and sink a Greek transport/destroyer (SO nice to have good boats!). I bomb Coventry for -2 population, destroy the barracks, and take all defenders to 1 or 2. I attack, and take Coventry with no losses, and several units to spare that can instantly head north to help with the silly English units trying to attack up there.


But I'm mostly thinking about Greece. I cross my fingers, and hit next turn.

BT - Japanese destoyer sinks itself on us.

Iroquois attack Gem Ha'Dar with 5, barely a scratch.

The Greeks attack. I try to keep a tally. Only, when it gets to 40, it doesn't stop. Oh no. By my estimate, we were attacked by 74 Greek units! Seventy-four! Well, it probably would have been 81, then, but the city fell. [punch]

The pRNG must even have been good to us to have lived through 74 attacks when I planned the defense for 40. The defenders at Gem Ha'Dar fought bravely, but they were defeated by the sheer number of attackers. We even got a leader in there, though we won't get to enjoy him.

I'd also like to dispute Sirian's claim that the AI won't attack with all its units.

I'm out of free time for the moment, and I don't want to lose this in a crash. So, I'm going to post this now, then post the rest later this morning when I get a chance (I've played all 5 turns).

This also fits with reality, since I took a break again :aargh: -style as soon as I could save the game.

To be continued...

-Griselda

Moving right along, I return you to midturn between 1951 and 1952.

The Greeks founded the city of Marathon to the NW a bit, our of range of the gems. They had some 27 units left, though most of them were fresh units that they had moved up in between attacking.

Jerusalem uni - stock
Cyrene cath - dock
Tyrus hosp - airport (weed?)

(2) 1952 - England has a bunch of units that are in the way of advancing on London. I use the bombers to redline one tile's stack, so I can get a RR line to London.

I sink a Japanese destroyer, leaving a full transport exposed. I can get that next turn if they leave it out.

I'm not sure what the best plan for Greece is. Greece still has 100 infantry, and after that last fiasco, I half expect them to throw all 100 at us simultaneously if we try to resettle. These will be the guys to beat as far as the game goes, but I really don't feel like we have the resources to take them on as part of a three-front war. Plus, we've already drafted recently from several cities, and don't have a lot left in case of emergency. I'm trying not to burn my bridges, though, in case others disagree. Both armies are parked on the gems tile. They won't heal there, but they should be able to hold it. Of course, that's probably not the most effective use of our armies, but, lacking a long-term goal or neighborhood transports, that was going to have to work for now.

That meant that all new production could go to gateway, which was very nice for the situation there. We'll need to cover a lot of tiles to make progress there anyway, and I like having the resources to do that.

BT - Greeks unload 8 inf on that north mountain tile by Gateway.

Syracuse coal - stock

(3) 1953 - Getting infantry off a mountain is no fun at all. I used the artillery to take them all to 1, but I still lost a bunch of full-health marines in the battle. It was bad enough that I suspected a streak, so I waited a turn to finish the job (also, I would have some more fresh units). I make a note to make sure I cover that tile in the future!

Now for some more weed on my part. I see Hieracopolis is now size 2, so I prepare to take the city by bombing it. Naturally, it went back to size 1. The city had no good food tiles, so there was no way we wanted to wait for it to grow again. So, I bomb it in earnest, and move some more forces in from the north, including a settler.

I attack Hiero and auto-raze it, with only one loss.

I sink that Greek transport that was exposed last turn, and a Japanese destroyer. I also wipe out all the English units that are in *our* side of England, and move up the workers.

BT - I forgot to cover an infantry that had attacked Hiero, and he was attacked. He won, and popped a leader. Then, he was attacked again, and lost. I sure hope the AI don't get to keep the leader, do they? Boo.

Advanced flight comes in, and we start computers. With the drafting that I did earlier, 60% science is now a small deficit, but it still seems like the best research rate for now.

Palmyra stock - c fort
Egypt moves a settler towards the Hiero tile :lol:

(4) 1954 - I bomb Memphis to size 9, destroying the barracks and some other stuff. I don't have quite enough to capture the settler this turn, but I should get it next turn.

I sink a Greek destroyer.

The railroad to London is complete, and I move a big mama SOD into place. London won't have a chance next turn.

In fact, England is so gassed that I take one carrier/destroer stack and start bombing Tokyo. We might not be ready to invade over there, but we can annoy! I moved the stack back away from Japan between attacks to avoid artillery, but I think it's easy to recognize the stack I mean.

I rush the airport at DFD. Why I didn't do that sooner is anybody's guess.

BT - Greeks move two transports and two destroyers toward DFD. Another greek destroyer sinks itself by attacking us.

DFD airport - temple
Caesarea bank - stock
New Rome 'duct - granary

(5) 1955 - I sink both Greek destoyers and both transports. At this rate, we won't even have to land on them for them to gas themselves! Our attacking stack is hurting, though, and needs to go to Gateway for a rest.

Attack London! I attack it with three full armies and some marines, and win every time. We capture it, and have another full army ready to move in and secure the place.

Gold Beach is founded on the Heiro tile. We also capture that Egyptian settler.

I wonder if Egypt did capture that leader, because they have an army in the area now. I bomb the army to 3 hitpoints, and Memphis to size 7 with a lot of buildings gone.

I sink an incoming Iro galley at Turkey, and a Greek clad somehwere (West Isle?).

I start some paratroopers at some marines cities. Helicopters seem useful in some situations, but it seems like you'd need stacks of em, and I wasn't sure how to prioritize that. So, some cities could be swapped to helicopters by someone who knows more about that kind of thing.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2-1955ad.zip

-Griselda

Whew! Very Big Turn (TM).

You did a good job up at Gem Ha'Dar. We may have lost the foothold, but we did kill, what? About sixty units? I figure some of their cav retreated. Maybe it was as many as seventy units. And you only lost about 25-30? We've largely gassed Japan and now taken a big chunk out of Greece's available forces. And you still gained ground with cities taken in England, plus the Heiro region.

I hope you enjoyed the arrgh moments, too. The good kind of stress, right? Like... very challenging situations. That's what we signed up for! :D

The only thing that made me go "hmm" was the airport at DFD. Why was that needed? The one over on the peninsula should have sufficed. (Or did you let them sever the rail line through the mountains? I thought about pointing out the need for covering the rails. They had been covered, but I needed every last unit to kill the Jap cav SoD. And I didn't want to overmanage.) And yes, there was no "massive force" standing around waiting. You did the right thing, gathering up all you could from wherever you could. That was the idea. It turned out not to be enough, but we still made important gains.

Once we have all these opponents gassed, we can make faster progress. They will still produce new units, so they'll never be wholly silent, but once their SoDs are gone, we won't have to use massive SoDs ourself just to advance.

Hotrod: good luck!


- Sirian

I second that Very Big Turn!

I have the game and will try to start tonight, but have a couple questions first:

Is it in our interest to try to resettle in Greek Territory or continue pressing forward from Gold Beach? Also, is there any use to build helicopters?? IIRC they cannot move workers or settlers just ground units 2 at a time. They may be useful for landing in the middle of enemy territory but I am not sure of there range? Okay all that being said I don't think I will build any for my own use but is there a value to using them and should they get into the building que for use by Charis and Sirian??? @2 per I agree with Gris' comments that we will need a whole lot to formup a stack that is worth while anywhere.

And lastly, I know that Charis has patched for the upcoming Epic as he stated in his MOW game but I haven't patched due to commitments to Lee's 5CC game and I thought perhaps incorrectly that Sirian's thoughts on Patching mid game (this game for example) :nono:.

I will play tonight unpatched and if this game moves ahead patched I may have to drop out :(. Or resolve patching issues in my other games.

Hotrod

The only tile they were ever on was that northernmost mountain, and they didn't even pillage that, although I had to let them stay there for two turns. Other than that, I think everything's covered now, and the railroad is intact.

I mostly rushed the airport so that we'd have the option to increase our bombing range, now that we won't be bombing from Gem Ha'Dar.

A lot of the cavs did retreat, but we certainly killed upwards of 60 units. It was much easier once I could kill them on loaded transports, though. :)

The tale of Gem Ha'Dar was a tale of bravery on the part of our defenders, a tale that actually was retold that night at the local game shop (I had to meet my husband there about 5 minutes after the city fell). I enjoyed planning the defense, though I did feel bad that it affected our economy civ-wide because of the draftings, especially because we lost the city.

It could be our battle cry vs. the Greeks: "Remember Gem Ha'Dar!" :p

-Griselda

Remember Gem Ha'Dar!

:hammer:

I had similar reaction to Sirian's... yay! They send dozens upon dozens of units to their deaths, and our losses were fairly reasonable. It will be good to smell Greek gas! Besides, the fewer infantry they have around when they finish research computers, by far the better. Cook 'em now!

I hope we don't get into patch troubles (ie hope my patching wasn't :smoke: ) My apologies if so. Sirian is the host of this one, and will instruct on whether or not to patch. I wonder if the 1.21 and 1.17 save files are compatible, for that matter?

Charis

1.17?? Hmm. My hope is to complete all 3 SG's I am currently in under the new patch or Patch all 3. Here playing the new patch isn't a problem but LK42 will remain unpatched due to the oversees players in Lee's other games. I kept HOT2 unpatched for the time being because of the LK game and what I, perhaps mistakenly thought, Sirians position on patching mid game would be.

Charis, I understand your reasoning for patching and would prefer to patch as well to play Epic 25. And if patching is required here I will have to figure out how to play all my games at the same time.

Is there an easy way to patch and unpatch??? I know it was done before when it went from 1.21 - 1.29f. I would prefer not swapping back and forth if at all possible.

Hotrod

PS: any thoughts on Helicopters?? Did some checking and it may be only 1 unit per heli :p. What is epic 25 going to be I haven't seen any description at RBCiv??

Does it not work to install 1.21f and then reinstall 1.14f over it? I have done this because I stupidly installed the patch right when it came out without thinking of overseas ramifications, but we haven't had any problems in CF2 and it says 1.14f in the bottom corner of the screen.

Speaker I will try that!

Hotrod,

Epic 25 is just about to be announced. Without giving much away, it's an Emperor diff builders game with the Carthaginians.
:p

Charis

The reason that patches are inviolate for the Epics has to do with our priorities on maintaining an even playing field, and keeping our word to players who undertake the games. We don't abandon Epics just because a patch comes out.

SG's aren't in the same position. They are singular events, not tournaments. There's no concern about our game results being different from other SG's if we patch, and no imposition on others who have ALREADY PLAYED some or all of their game on the old patch, to be disadvantaged vs those who delayed starting or did not play as far, then patch. That's the real issue. Those who have already played some or all of their game can't go back to replay those parts under the new patch, because of spoilers, so they are stuck having used the old patch and get penalized. THAT is what I won't accept in the Epics, most of all. That's not a concern in SG's unless they are doing RBD23-style parallel competition.

Hotrod, go ahead and play your turn on 1.14. Then we'll move up to 1.21 on Charis's round, and if you have to skip a round or two until you're ready to patch, or else jump through hoops to run both versions, that'll just be how it goes. OK?


- Sirian

1955 BC (0): Raze York after counting the infantry that England had count the infantry, there are 9 5 are accounted for that puts 2 in each city. York is protected by 2 wounded infantry and time is short, I take it now and raze it to the ground. There are no transports in the straights between England and Japan. I change Warwick to a Transport and will rush it shortly. More transports are on the way from the mainland but are a few turns away. Hastings will gall shorty ounce paratroupers arrive at Hadrians wall. Within 3 turns the island will be ours.

1956 AD (1): Lost a destroyer to a Japanese Battleship. No other attacks anywhere lots of troop movement though. Tyrus airport starts infanatry. Some Paratroupers arrive at Hadrian's wall for drop outside of Hastings next turn. Bomb the reamaing infantry around London the red, attack with an elite Marine and get a leader Anthony and we get another Army.

Back at DFD, redline some approaching units and attack, kill 3 Jap infantry promoting 1 marine and getting another Leader Octavian, send to DFD and perhaps will rush something or build another army, to be determined (out of moves :)).

Moving a stack on towards Memphis and another towards Centralia. Promote many marines to elite kiling about 8 cavs, 3 infantry and a couple guerillas outside fo Gold Beach.

1957 AD (2): Bring Memphis down to size 3, Bombing at Centralia destroys many improvements. Begin widdling down some SoD from Japan. Produces 2 more leaders. Build another army and rush an airport at Gold Beach and Rush a Battleship at DFD.

Continue to bomb Hastings, units should be in range to attack next turn. Transports have arrived and will begin moving units toward Hastings. A group of workers brought ivory online and will get the future British cities on line quickly. A new group of settler and workers have arrived on the transports.

Begin to look how to land many units on the ruin of Gem' Hadar, Paratroups have moved into the region and will play an imporant role I imagine.

1958 AD (3): Knock down 2 Mini Japanese SoD. Losing vet Marines to redlined Marines :(. Get my forth Leader Hadrian. Bomb the heck out of and Raze Mephis, settlers move in and found Elivs In Country just East of old Memphis site. Moving a small SoD with settler in Tow South from Gold Beach and Find the Egyptian Capital of Helioplois. There are 3 large Greek SoD in the Area. Build Radar Tower outside of EIC. Start on Airport. We have a new Spy at Egypt. Our leader will rush the Airport at Elivs Next turn.

1959 AD (4): Bomb and shell a stack of 10 Greek units, kill all ten. Shell another stack of 8. Bomb Centralia and redline 4 defenders, rifles and guerillas, attack once below size 12 and fail to kill all but 1 guerilla. Bomb Heliopolis with Shells but fail to redline any units or destroy and citizens :(. Move a few bombers to Gold Beach just to bomb Helio. Bomb Hastings then send in 3 Marines to easily take the city. The English are no more. Settler Ivory Hills, in the hills East of London. Another settler is in the are to settle on the hills nearest Japan. 3 Armies await transport to Japan Territory, will get a foot hold with a settler and support next turn. Will easily take Centralia Next turn and begin additional bombing of Helio.

1960 AD (5): Iroquios drafted :( and sent in reinforcements, kill 3 units 1 still remains in Centralia, it is now at size 1. Little happened at Heliopolis. Focused on killing 2 Greek SoD of 8 and 10 units respectively, lost about 6 units total in the attack. Moved units onto the Japanese Mainland, there is a settler so Charis can pick the site. Got another Leader in the Attack on Centralia he is in the Army stack there. The Navy is at England, it was useful in helping to clear out Hastings. There are Bombers in EIC that can hit the Iroquios and Japan Cities to the NE and E. Settlers are in the area for deployment once Helio and Centralia are destroyed. Did not move on Greece to the North but he sent enough units for me to kill along the way, they starte at 97 infantry he is down to only 70 or so.

Overall a lot of fighting and some headway.

Good luck Charis,

Here is the Save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/inf2_1960AD.zip

Hotrod

No Problem: I played under 1.14 and will most likely be patched before the next turns come up. I want to start on Epic 25. It will really depend on wether LK42 goes to 1.21

Hotrod

Wow, lots of results. You're going to be playing Deity soon. :D

Not only did you make your city quota, but you wiped out dozens of units in various AI minisods. Nice work. Sounds like Charis should be in position make still more gains.

- Sirian

That *WAS* a good turn :goodjob:

I get another 'tough act to follow turn' :P

Charis

It was a fun round for sure! As you can tell from my post time I just could bring myself to stop at a reasonable time :lol:

Already enjoying Epic 25, another great game Charis. :goodjob:

Hotrod

I guess this one got moo'ed under?

I sure hope not ! :lol:

It is only 5 turns per round but each round is lasting on average 5-6 hours. :)

Hotrod

It seems moo'd down, not moo'd under :P
I did my Moo turn last night and hope to hit this one tonight.
(I have to head in to work now, and have a date with the Missus tonight, taking her out for a surprise dinner at a new restaurant in town :D ) (Hmmm... I'll have 6-8 free hours tonight, right? :eek: )

Charis

PS / Edit - If someone who has more time wants to go, hop on in. But I think everyone in here is in the same position.

NP: This is not a quick game by any streatch ! I too am busy tonight and tomorrow and having just gone shouldn't go anyway. Epic 25 is too fun to put down right now any how ;)!

Hotrod