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/uploa