After much discussion and considerable delay, we finally bring to you the strange creatures and fantastic animals of the Menagerie game!

Civ Choice: Rome (as suggested by Carbon)
Leader: Ringmaster P.T. Barnum of the Romans ;)
Opponents: India, Celts, Greece, China, Persia, Carthage, Scandanavia
World: Standard Size, 70% water continents
Climate: Random
Barbs: Roaming (with Jags and Mounted Warriors as the barb units!)
Difficulty: Emperor with 70% AI cost factor

Modified Rules: All civs have access to ALL unique units at all times. This should make the game a bit unusual, to say the least! The AI civs can only build UUs in situations where the UU is better than the unit it replaces; for example, they cannot build spears since hoplites are a better unit but can still build non-unique units like rifles and artillery which do not have an upgraded UU. The upgrade chains have been altered to reflect this and help out the AI civs. The following upgrade chains will be in use for the game:

1) Jags do not upgrade (They are seen as UU scouts with attack/defense, not as warriors.)
2) Legion/Immortal/Gallics --> Guerrilas
3) War Chariot --> Mounted Warrior --> War Elephant
4) War Elephant/Samurai/Rider/Ansar/Keshik --> Cossack
5) Cossacks/Sipahi do not upgrade, of course
6) Bowmen --> Berserkers (this one is really strange!)
7) Hoplite/Impi/Numidian --> Musketeer --> Rifle

All other units follow the same upgrade path as usual. Golden Ages can only be triggered through building wonders.

Variant Rules: We can ONLY build UUs, ever! This is not just a voluntary rule; changes have been made in the Editor so that we actually cannot build anything but UUs. This won't pose any problem early on in the game, but in the Industrial and Modern Ages the lack of any defenders better than Musketeers and Panzers could prove problematic. (And we can never use artillery, gotta use those hwachas instead!) :D

The goal of the game is to use these units a lot, so we will probably be trying for a domination or conquest win. All victory conditions will be on for the AI civs, however. Conquest will become increasing more difficult as the game progresses, so early war should be a critical part of this game. A number of players have expressed interest in the game, among them Carbon Copy, T-Hawk, Arizona Steve, and Arathorn (sorry to hear about your PTW copy Zed). Roster spots are reserved for these players (please confirm your interest with a post), if there are any drops then spots will go to the first who claim them. I'll start the game as soon as the roster is fleshed out and I can get my own computer hooked up to the Internet once again. :king:

EDIT: Just wanted to mention that today, December 20, marks the one-year anniversary of the first Realms Beyond succession game (RBD1 - Gandhi Tales). Hard to believe it's been a full year, and most of the players in that game are still around here today! Special thanks to Sirian, Charis, and all the others who have made these games such a joy to play for the last year. :goodjob:

EDIT2: Added team roster.
Sullla
Carbon_Copy
Arathorn
T-Hawk
LKendter

Count me in. This weekend is bad for me, so don't place me in #2, but I should be fine after that except for Christmas day (naturally).

I'm in too; not sure what schedule I'll be able to play until after Christmas day either.

Actually - I'm going to be getting PTW itself on Christmas day, so I surely can't play till after that :)

Early war won't be all that easy - everyone has hoplites, which give even Immortals some trouble. I'd expect us to run rampant with Berserks, though, and of course Panzers late.

BTW - can we build non-unique transport boats? (Heh - Men-o-War are our only combat navy!)

If we can't, it'll sure be interesting trying to win by conquest on a continents map, if we get stuck with a small continent we may have to turtle down until...well, unless somebody declares war on us and we beat them down until they give us cities for peace and we build airports, forever.

I'm in. I'll be around through early next week and then AWL for about a week.

Arathorn

Heh, I should have mentioned this in my original post. I left us the option to build all transport ships (galley, caravel, galleon, transport) because otherwise we wouldn't be able to reach the other continent(s). Carriers are also allowed because they are transports for planes. But I disallowed all "attack" vessels like ironclads, destroyers, battleships, etc. so that we would have to use the Man O'War to defend our transport ships. Can you believe that we will actually need to use the Man O'War in this game?! :D As far as planes go though, only the F-15 is enabled.

And this is what our starting position looks like. I'm too busy to start the game today, will hopefully play the first turn tomorrow.
EDIT: Gaah, forgot to save the original starting position! :cry: Well, had to re-roll a new map and got this one instead.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_start1.jpg

The preliminary roster is set, and to go by the order of posting we have:

Sullla
Carbon_Copy (weekend is already over)
T-Hawk
Arathorn

Still waiting on confirmation from Arizona_Steve, if we don't hear anything the game can run just fine with 4 players instead of 5. Sorry about the slowness in starting the game, but the holidays have been busy for me as well. Playing the first turn now...

(0) 4000BC Hmmm, not a bad starting spot. On a river, lots of floodplains tiles (including two wheats!) and a bunch of hills. This looks like a good spot for a city, so I found on the starting tile (and pray for no disease). We start work on a Jag, due in 10 turns without any shield bonuses, and set the worker to (gasp!) mine the grassland wheat tile. Yes mine, because Rome will have an insane amount of food and will need shields more than anything - see RBE1 Pasargadae for a good example. I set research to Pottery because there's only one expansionsist civ in this game, meaning that we should get some brokering opportunities from it in addition to being able to build granaries. Science to 100%, naturally. With that done, I sit back and prepare for some boring turns.

(7) 3650BC Rome grows to size two and our worker completes his mine on the grassland wheat tile. Road ordered, luxuries dialed up to 20%.

(8) 3600BC Rome produces Jag, starts another due in 4 turns. We seem to be pretty close to the equator, so exploring in any direction is as good as any other. I send him east.

(9) 3550BC Two barbarian Jags appear next to Rome. I kill the first with our own Jag; unfortunately our worker must stop work on the nearly-completed road or die to the other one. We really should have turned off barbs, I get the feeling this is going to be a nightmare scenario with them...

(10) 3500BC We meet an Indian Jag this turn. Trade them Warrior Code for Ceremonial Burial + 10g; yes, I know it's a bad deal for us, but the Indians will get the tech from another AI civ if we don't trade now. Barbarian Jag is running around and I have no idea what it will do.

(11) 3450BC Barb Jag runs away again. I really liked them better in 1.29f Civ3, where at least they just mindlessly attacked you. These barbs... I can't figure them out at all.

(12) 3400BC Rome builds a second Jag, starts a third (may be subject to change). The barb Jag turned around and moved back to Rome this turn; our new Jag dies to it without inflicting any damage, but our old Jag kills it and promotes to veteran. Contact made with Alexander via a hoplite, he has Bronze Working of course but refuses to trade it even for Warrior Code and Ceremonial Burial. We could use some spears at the moment...

(13) 3350BC Rome grows again, to size 3. I decide to move our Jag into it and then send the next one produced (2 turns) out exploring. Losing one of our explorers so early didn't help.

(15) 3250BC Rome produces Jag, starts on a settler. I doubt we need a granary with so much food at hand. Now we just need to find out what's out there to get some good city sites. India now has Pottery, so they probably met up with the Vikings at some point.

(16) 3200BC Rome is hit by disease. Great, just great. Next turn it will be at size 1 when the disease strikes again. Talk about a poorly-implemeted game concept... In the first positive news in awhile, spices are discovered in large numbers to the east.

(17) 3150BC Disease strikes again, as I knew it would.

(18) 3100BC Rome regrows to size 2, set on max food for the moment. Ocean spotted two city-lengths to the east.

(20) 3000BC Pottery discovered, Writing set as next research project at min science (40 turns at 10% or 100%). Alex will trade us Bronze Working for Pottery, Ceremonial Burial, and pretty much all of our gold. I'll leave the decision on that up to the next player, but I think we should go for it or else will be left out of the trade loop entirely. That's buying in @3rd, not @2nd monopoly price. It would take us close to 40 turns to research Bronze Working ourselves.

Despite some bad luck with barbs and disease, we've got a nice starting position and good land around us. The Greeks and Indians are our opponents, and from the lack of other techs appearing on their screens, we are probably alone with them on a continent. Three commercial civs - how rarely do you not get a trading benefit from Alphabet, huh? Priority right now is exploring and settling, thus setting us up for some UU conquering in the late ancient or early middle ages! :hammer:

RBP4 3000BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_3000BC.zip)

This should be a fun one :D

Good luck to all! With good interest in the discussions I was preferring to pass and let someone else get a slot. I thought Zed wanted a 'wacky' one like this?

I'm on the verge of starting a game that I'm undecided between solo and open sg... we'll see shortly.

Charis

Checking the LK36 thread, Steve is off to England for the time being, so I think we can rule him out.

I've got it, probably will report tomorrow.

Still waiting on confirmation from Arizona_Steve

He posted - (Not available from 12/23 and 1/8) in one of my games, you won't see him for awhile.


I am tempted by this one, but Emperor with 70% AI cost factor is FAR beyond my abilities. Is that right - Diety is on 40% factor?

Monarch 90% Emperor 80% Deity 60% cost factors, as I recall. The real killer for deity, IMO, is the free settler they get early on, which doubles their expansion rate yet again. Shudder!

It's the lack of knowledge of how the various UUs may interact that adds spice to this game. For many of us (Sullla and me, at least, I'd wager), Emperor is a nice "experiment" level, where we can win a variety of ways. I can't speak for Sullla, of course, but I don't think the difficulty level should scare you off, Lee. You're a good enough player to fit in with this group and do well, IMO.

Can I maybe jump ahead of T-hawk and play tomorrow evening? That'll probably be my last civ chance before the 30th or so.

Arathorn

:cringe: OK, I was thinking backwards as in Deity = 40% bonus, Emperor = 30% bonus, etc. I put this way ABOVE Deity with the production bonus :blush:

I agree the free settler is the killer with Deity - witness the T-Hawk game without the extra setter, and France was the same size as the rest of the board.


@Sullla - The question is, do you want a fifth now that I realized I was being clueless when reading the difficulty? This one is just to bizarre to pass on.

To end any confusion - On Regent, the AIs pay the same cost (for city production and technology) as the player. On Monarch, the AI Cost Factor is 90%, which is also expressed as "10% discount". Emperor is Cost Factor 80% (20% discount.) Deity is Cost Factor = 60% (40% discount.) This game has been set to Cost Factor = 70%, which is halfway between Emperor and Deity. TH3, to which Lee referred, was on Emperor difficulty but 60% AI cost factor. RBE4 was on Deity with the cost factor set even lower (harder), to 50%.

I'd be happy to drop as late in the roster as you want, since I'm not even going to have PTW itself until at least Christmas day and possibly a few days later. :) I'd also be happy for Lee to join in, or even one more to make for six total (hopefully Zed can get his PTW CD problems sorted out and join us.)

As for the game - GET BRONZE WORKING! That's the only way to really keep the barbs off our necks :) Do remember that the AIs will have trouble with barbs too - in particular I can't see them running tactical defense against the jags very well. (Did their free starting units get converted to the UUs? I think they would've, since I'm pretty sure Greece in the standard game gets hoplites instead of spearmen to start.)

Lee - you are welcome to join us. There's very little difference between standard Emperor and a 70% cost factor version of it. That was only put into the game to help compensate for the fact that the AI civs will never be able to use these UUs as well as we can. I agree with Arathorn and T-Hawk that the bonus settler is the big difference between Emperor and Deity; TH3 really was an excellent test of that. The AI settling pace was only marginally faster than Emperor games without the free settler; in other words, the AI cities grow much faster, but they still don't know how to manage them productively! :) I seem to recall a time in the past when LKendter was reluctant to play Emperor games as well; seeing as how that was many months and many games ago, I don't anticipate Lee having any problems with this one. He may be the only one in this game who has played with the UUs of every single civ! :D

T-Hawk - As far as I know, the way the starting units work on Monarch and above is that the game scans automatically for the unit with the highest offensive and defensive values, then the AI civ gets those units as its "freebies." So the English starting with Pottery and Alphabet would get only warriors for their offensive and defensive units, the Zulus would get archers as their offensive units (from starting with Warrior Code), the Germans would get archers and spears from their starting techs, and the Greeks would get hoplites as their freebie defensive units. In this game, every civ starting with Bronze Working would probably get freebie hoplites. :) We probably would have seen the same thing if Persia had started next to us; beware the Persian hoplites! (Now that's just really messed up if you're at all familiar with the history of Alexander the Great. :crazyeye: )

Good luck Carbon; show them the might of our Roman Jaguars!

He may be the only one in this game who has played with the UUs of every single civ!

Well I have played every vanilla civ UU - even realized the Jag best ability was fast scout. However, haven't had enough time to learn the new ones. Now if the Beserck is in here :satan:

Okay, before I get to playing this turn, how many game turns am I supposed to be playing? I'll probably play 10 and pass, unless you want the second person to play 20.

The idea was the standard 10 turns each; I just always play 20 when starting a game since turns 1-6 involved doing nothing but hitting spacebar.

This will be my next-to-last chance to be online. Since I can't download, play, and upload in our fell swoop, consider me skipped until 12/30.

I think that puts T-hawk up after CC, but I'm not certain.

Arathorn

3000 - First order of business: Bronze working from Greece for Pottery, CB, 2 gpt + 10g. Iron Working may be of more immediate importance, but I don't think we'd be the first ones to discover that and instead put our minimum science on Writing.

2950 (1) - I see a Greek Hoplite-Numidian pair move onto the mountain I was going to use for scouting, and a Greek Bowman nearby.

2900 (2) - I find the location of Athens to our southeast.

2850 (3) - Wait, that Greek Bowman was actually a Celtic bowman! :smoke: We're up Alphabet on Brennus, that's it.

2800 (4) - Nothing.

2750 (5) - Nothing.

2710 (6) - Rome completes settler, starts on Hoplite.

2670 (7) - Nothing

2630 (8) - Nothing

2590 (9) - Nothing

2550 (10) - Veii founded on one of the five spices next to Rome, starts Jaguar Warrior.

To the southwest of Veii is another prize city spot, which would give us one of the most food-rich starts I've seen since Epic 14.

here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4-2550BC.zip) is the game, and here is a screenshot of the area to our immediate south (with the big red dot showing where we should put our third city):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp42550dotmap.jpg

I see it. Not sure when I can play; might not be for a couple days; though that should be okay if Arathorn's out until 12/30 anyway.

Sulla, you could insert LKendter ahead of myself or Arathorn if you like?

LKendter, feel free to play if you have some free time or want to. If not, we will simply put the game on a short hiatus until 12/30 when Arathorn returns and T-Hawk will have more time. Seeing as how I myself will be away from 12/28 until 1/2 (free trip to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta - one of the perks of being in your university's marching band :lol: ) there's certainly no need to rush this thing at the moment. Take the turn if you want, but don't worry about it if you can't.

being in your university's marching band
You guys are really making me feel old here - If you are a freshman, I am double your age :cry:

I got it :crazyeye:
I think we can start to set the permanent order with me in this slot.

@all - I play my LK games with worker purchases on the table.

However, I don't know how you are playing this one. I could have snagged a celt worker for Alphabet and ~$20. I passed, as I think it is considered a exploit by this group. I want the official position posted, as I screwed our growth curve by passing if this is a valid option.

2550 BC - Pre-turn review - I can’t believe the volume of food on this map. I spot flood plains by the other civs, besides the flood plains wheat that we have.
I painfully skip buying a worker, as I believe it is considered an exploit by this group.

2510 BC - The Greeks build Thermopylae to close to the killer red dot spot with wheat and cattle :(

2350 BC - I kill a barb Jag Warrior.

2310 BC - Our Jag Warrior fails trying to frag a barb camp on silks. I switch Rome to Bowman to go hunting, and we need an escort before sending out a settler.

2190 BC - Bowman do better, kill a barb with no effort.

2150 BC - I generally don’t like building road before clearing forest, but we need the spices on-line ASAP.
I get Iron Working for Alphabet and $68 from the Celts. Alphabet was worth ~$80 to them based on the other possible prices. Would you like to guess what we don’t have?

Summary - Settler in 2 with bowman for escort.


Up next = ??????
I don’t know the turn order yet.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4-2150BC.zip

Realms Beyond have not yet determined if the price increase on workers has fixed the balance issue. I've seen a few instances where I still think the new price is cheap, for the damage it will do to a civ early enough, but we'll have to gather more data from playing and hold a discussion on it once we're ready. In the mean time, any rulings on the issue for this game would fall to Sulla.

- Sirian

I too have not played enough with PTW to form an opinion on the higher prices for worker purchases. If you had bought the Celtic worker, I wouldn't have held it against you in any way. But overall I'm mostly glad that you held off on the purchase; a pre-2000BC worker buy can seriously screw up an opposing AI civ. Since we managed to trade Alphabet for Iron Working, we didn't miss a major trading opportunity either. Nice solid, standard 10 turns. And if I make you feel old LK, well, yesterday for Christmas dinner my cousin came over with her new 2-month old baby. THAT had me feeling a bit older myself, to say the least, even though I am only 20 myself... :)

Since Arathorn and T-Hawk are away at the moment, that means the next 10 turns fall to me. I'll play and post sometime tomorrow. At the moment the roster is a little crazy, but after the New Year rolls around we should be able to get back to the rotation that I posted on the first page (see the thread-starting post if there are any questions).

Sample size 1, but we did an extremely early worker buy in RBP1 from Spain, and I'm not entirely sure that it wasn't just the power of the Gallic Sword that had those Spaniards folding like a cheap tuxedo. One of Isabella's problems in that game was that, despite having two iron resources within reach, she never got either of them hooked up as far as I could tell. I may be wrong on that point, she might have had them hooked up once then had them disconnected, since with the long roster I never got a chance to fight Spain (in fact it wasn't until about 2/3 of the way through that game that I wasn't handed a fresh peace treaty to start my turn).

So, it may be that the "seed corn" restriction of not buying either of the last two workers from any civ may still be a good policy even with the inflated prices.

(0) 2150BC I swap one tile in Veii, from one forest spices to another, so that when our worker completes his road we will snag an extra gold piece. Not much to change, I notice with interest that despite our early struggles with barbs and disease we are only down one tech (Mysticism). If we get Writing first, we'll be in great shape.

(1) 2110BC Whoa! I turn the animation back on. My computer does the auto-moves so fast that I can't even follow them. Our bowman kills that irritating barb Jag near Rome.

(2) 2070BC Rome produces settler, moves down towards the south to steal that wheat tile away from Greece. Jag in the north reveals some nice terrain up there for future expansion. In addition to Mysticism, The Wheel has been discovered and traded around.

(3) 2030BC I notice that the lux rate can be dialed back from 40 to 10% since Rome produced a settler (+2gpt). Brokering time! We send 24g + 4gpt to India for Horseback Riding, then trade Horseback Riding + 1gpt to Brennus for Mysticism + 9g. We lost most of our gpt but are again at tech parity. A good deal overall. And Thermoplyae, the Greek city to our south, did in fact steal horses as well. :(

(4) 1990BC Alex extorts 14g; noting our very weak position, I have to give in. We spot iron in the mountains to the north, easily within range!

(6) 1910BC Rome produces hoplite, starts work on settler, due in 5. Spices are now hooked up, allowing me to set luxury rate to 0% (going from +2gpt to +7gpt!)

(7) 1870BC Antium founded in the south, in a location one tile off the river but on the coast and in a position that does not overlap with our other cities. It also secures silks for us, though we won't have them hooked up for quite some time. Might tick off Greece in the long run, but we'll deal with that later. :D

(8) 1830BC I notice this turn that India has Writing. Nothing for us to do but wait out the last 12 turns on our min science move and see if anyone else is lacking it then.

(10) 1750BC Rome produces settler, Veii produces hoplite. I set Rome to produce another hoplite for our next city and Veii to produce another worker - which we desperately need more of. Our Jag in the north has revealed horses and iron in the north, which we can get with a single city placement. It would probably be better to get them with two cities however, since the land up there is very poor; all desert and mountains. I also discovered that India is to our north by the way - isolated from the other civs, India might make a good first targer for us down the road. But for now we need to secure more cities and lock down sources of iron and horses.

RBP4 1750BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_1750BC.zip)

Here's the current situation. We're smaller than the other civs, not surprisingly, but they don't have land any better than us. The iron and horses are to the north of us, there is an Indian Jag standing on the horses at the moment. I think we may only want to settle a couple more cities and let the AI settle the bad land around us, then take it from them in warfare. Immortals supported by Mounted Warriors, anyone? :lol:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_1750BC.jpg

Just a notice to everyone else that I will be away until January 2nd of the new year. Please feel free to continue play and skip me should the rotation get that far. And if you should have time, watch the Peach Bowl on New Year's Eve at 7:30pm (EST) on ESPN - I'll be there. :D

Great Stuff :goodjob:

You are a UU in RL as well :D

What instrument d'you play please ?

Have a bowl at your bowl :lol:

So as for the game..

I can play, most likely, on Tuesday. Arathorn is supposedly coming back sometime Monday, but might not be able to play immediately. CC, you and Lee seem to be the only currently available players. You two can take your turns now if you like, or wait for myself and Arathorn to slot back in for our first-round turns and then pick up the second round from there (Sulla having already taken his second turn.) What say thou?

Sullla (played 2 rounds)
Carbon_Copy (played 1 round)
Arathorn (not played)
T-Hawk (not played)
LKendter (played 1 round)
At this point Arathron and T-Hawk aren't going to to play round 1 IMHO, as the order will get to confusing.

Based on the above, I suggest that CC play his turn.
Once CC is done, Arathorn should be able to play.
Once Arathorn is done, T-hawk should be able to play.
At that point we can have a turn ordered per the roster.

I guess I have it then. I'll get to it after I get to LK36.

Argh, can't make it to this game before tomorrow, and tomorrow is starting to look doubtful. If Arathorn is ready, he can have this turn.

Got it.

Arathorn

Built a city over by India to get iron and a chance at horses. Explored. Built a granary and a worker. Got hit by disease at Rome. Discovered Writing, bought Masonry.

That's about it.

Save file at
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-1450bc.zip

Arathorn

I have PTW now. Got the game, should have time to patch up and play sometime tomorrow, or will report back if I can't.

Well I'm back from my mini-vacation to Atlanta tonight. "Vacation" might not be as accurate of a description as "business trip" though - I had about 3 hours of rehearsal, a parade, a pep rally, and a 5-hour game on New Year's Eve. But it was all worth it to see the University of Maryland beat Tennessee 30 - 3 last night. [party] [dance] I had just enough time after the game to go see the big peach drop in downtown Atlanta at midnight. All in all, a thoroughly entertaining trip. I hope your New Year's evening went as well. :D

I'm glad to see that the game still progressed a turn over the last few hectic days. LK's schedule sounds good to me, so at the moment T-Hawk is up and LKendter is on deck, then we will be back to the normal rotation.

[Skyfish: In response to your question, I play the trumpet, if not particularly well. :) ]

Be forewarned that this is my first PTW action of any type, so apologies if I screw up something obvious...

Arathorn didn't mention it, but he left us at tech parity before passing off. :goodjob:

Veii, btw, is built on spices; whoever roaded the forest-spices tile was wasting time.

The water up to the northeast, by the wheat, is fresh! Our next settler will beeline there. That's about it for fertile land, though. Between Rome and the coast, there's some grassland but no bonuses of any sort - I guess we should still do one more settler to go there.



Echoings of Sirian: Where are the workers? I built several more out of Antium.

Brennus established embassy with us.

A barb sacked Veii because its hoplite left to escort a settler.

Got Map Making and Horseback Riding two-for-one, and did some map brokering.

Persia built the Pyramids.

Our jag in the south needs to come home to help the barbarian defense, which the cardboard cutouts are barely handling...

We need some massive worker labor projects to connect our iron and to connect road to India to start trading.

Rome is set to +3 food ATM; in two turns (after the bowman completes) it should be set to +4 food for growth a turn sooner.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-menagerie-1200bc.zip

We've now all played one round, except for Sulla who's played two. CC, if you can play now, you could pick it up as we begin/continue a second trip through the roster?

There is some confusion at the moment as to who is up next in the rotation. LKendter proposed that Carbon, Arathorn, and T-Hawk play out turns and then return to the original rotation, in which case I am now up and we are back to the starting format. T-Hawk proposed that I be skipped since I've played two turns and everyone else has only played one. I don't have a problem with either suggestion, so in order to clear up any confusion and get the game rolling again I'm going to go with T-Hawk's suggestion so we have an even balance of turns. The current order looks like this:

Sullla
Carbon Copy <<< UP NOW
Arathorn <<< on deck
T-Hawk
LKendter

And we'll use this rotation for the duration from now on, allowing for skips and drops of course. Unless anyone has a problem with it, I'd also like to go back to a 24/48 post and play system now that the holidays are essentially over. From this point therefore, Carbon has 24 hours for the "got it" message and 48 hours to play after that, then we continue through the rotation. I apologize if I'm stepping on anyone's feelings here, but we need some more order or this game will go by the wayside. :)

Sulla, thanks for clearing that up. I was a bit confused, but I was pretty sure I wasn't up. Now we know.

Arathorn

I agree, thanks a lot for clearing it up. I didn't know who was expected to pick this one up.

However, you'll have to be a bit patient with me. I just got my new motherboard from UPS today, and my computer will be going under the knife shortly for a drastic overhaul. If all goes well, I should be able to pick this one up, however I'd rate the chances of having everything going off without a hitch as slim. Regardless, this isn't the only computer in the house with net access, so even if it turns out to be a complete disaster, I should at least be able to log on and let you know.

Carbon, I'm sorry to hear about your problems with the new motherboard, but for now we're going to have to skip you in the rotation. Arathorn is now up and T-Hawk is on deck.

I got it then.

Arathorn

Edit: No, I don't have it. I played right before T-Hawk and it seems a bit silly for me to play again right away. I can certainly do so, but I want to make sure that's the way people want it. Not sure Sullla understood the complete ramifications of that decision, so I'm delaying my "got it" until tomorrow at least. I don't really have the time to play tonight anyway.

Even if it does feel (rightly) as though you just played, please take the next turn Arathorn. I am trying to get us back onto a fixed rotation here, and there is bound to be some discomfort until we get there. This game has been all over the place due to the holiday season, so please don't ask me to come up with yet another new schedule for the group. I don't want to sound dictatorial, but at some point in time we have to draw up our turn order and stick to it, or else we fall into the chaotic mess that destroyed succession games like RBD19 Big Brother.

I can understand that you feel leery about taking too many turns in a short period of time. Don't worry about it. Everyone in this game is an experienced SG veteran. I can't see anyone here playing too many turns and "screwing things up" so to speak. If you really don't want to play, we can skip you but then T-Hawk will be up - who took the last 10 turns. Please play the 10 turns so we can finish this awkward trip through the rotation and get back to normal, ok? :)

OK. I couldn't have played before tonight anyway, so my consternation didn't cost us any real world time. I hope to take my turns tonight.

GOT IT!

Arathorn

Not quite the uneventful 10 turns I had envisioned.

No new techs for us, although Code of Laws and Mathematics are both out there. As is Literature, but that might be only with the Celts. I can't really check, as Brennus decided we would be easy pickings (and we would be, as we had about 4 military units when I took over). He declared on us in 1125.

Showing the luck of the Irish, he's won two battles where the odds favored us and is now nearing our cities. I think/hope I have troops in place to at least blunt his offense. Rome has a barracks now and should probably be on military duty for a while. Don't neglect the power of the Jag Warrior. At one/turn, they can be exceedingly nasty.

I managed to get rid of a barb camp up NW by the horses. I have our iron city training a settler, with the hope of settling over by the horses, so that we can get that vital resource. The Indians beat us to the punch in the NE, although we could probably settle a pure desert city, if we were to magically get an extra settler and not need every shield for military.

I founded zero cities and built very little but working on military.

Greece won't ally with us for everything we can offer. Or at least he wouldn't in 975 BC.

My best recommendation is to fight a delaying war and keep Brennus (who built the Oracle in 1075) off our lands until we can sign a peace treaty.

It's not a pretty world at http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-950bc.zip Not pretty at all.

Arathorn

Wow. Well, we wanted a chance to play with the UUs :)

I see it and can play on Tuesday (50% chance) or Wednesday (95% chance.) Carbon is welcome to claim it and get in his turn anytime before I do.

I really regretted not getting a chance to play in this variant of the game. If you decide to try it again on a different map, if someone bails from this game, etc., please consider me for a spot on the roster.

reagan - You have first call on the roster if someone drops out and we need a replacement. I wouldn't be surprised if this concept comes up again sooner or later either. :)

For everyone else, here's a map of our situation after Arathorn's turn. We have virtually no military, but both ancient age resources nearby and some pretty good terrain to work with. The war with the Celts could be a problem, but fortunately Brennus is the furthest away of our neighbors and the weakest as well. As long as he doesn't ally with one of our neighbors, we are perfectly safe. Good luck T-Hawk.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_950BC.jpg

Got it, will play shortly.

Inherited turn:

Rome, being too large already and having a granary, I think is the better place to build our last settler (to claim those horses) than small granaryless Veii and Cumae. I think we only need one settler; there wouldn't be any point to a pure desert city to the NE (if it's got saltpeter we'll conquer it with berserks), and India's already got a city near there too.

900 BC: Brennus will talk, and peace would cost us 100 gold.

775 BC: Only killed one Celt unit, but the price of peace is now 20 gold. I take it, because (and I have no idea how) an elite Celt bowman just appeared from the NORTH, where we aren't defended.

I played to 750 BC to even up the turn numbers. I got the road up to Cumae done, and we are going to have road connected to India next turn. We also have a galley exploring and another on the way. We acquired no tech on my turn; everyone we know has Mathematics, Code of Laws, and Literature.

It's up to the next leader, but I'd strongly suggest putting a COLONY on the iron near Cumae. It'll take quite a while for Cumae to get a temple built to claim it. Then we could start cranking Immortals right away (swap Rome's temple to one if you do), and go after Greece or maybe India.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-menagerie-750bc.zip

"Next leader" would, I think, be Lee, if you're out there. :)

Guess it would be - I got totally confused with trying to give Arathorn and T-hawk two turns after the first round was done IMO.


Got it.

I didn't have time for this last night. I am flying tonight.

Expect something very late tonight, or maybe tomorrow.

:mad: I left my PTW disk at the hotel, so I won’t have access to it again until late Sunday night (playing time doubtful that night). To avoid delaying the game, I will swap places with Sullla. No rush for Sullla to get back, as I will be stretched on Monday with 3 games due. I am glad to pick up some part time work, but I already squeeze 3 billing days in at night (this year :eek: ) which really eat into my gaming time.

Sullla (currently playing)
Lkendter (on deck)

OK, no problem. I can't play tonight, but will do so at some time tomorrow morning. Got it.

(0) 750BC I take a good look at the game when opening it up. We would probably be best off - from the theme of this game and our militaristic civ trait - to gear up for war and attack someone sooner than later. It's a shame we can't upgrade warriors to swords, but that was the decision made for this variant. Why trade for tech that we can beat out of our neighbors, after all? :) In any case, we need iron immediately so I agree with the call for a colony. Veii, with three floodplains in range (producing +4 food/turn), does not need a granary -> changed to barracks, which will complete next turn with no shield wastage. Antium is producing another galley; do we need a second one? I think that having one circle our continent will probably be enough, seeing as how I would guess we are on a continents map and not an archipelago one. I switch Antium to barracks as well, also due next turn. Our other cities are too shield-poor to build anything quickly and can be left along for the moment.

As for diplomacy, everyone is up Mathematics, Code of Laws, and Literacy on us. We will get Mathematics for free in 10 turns, so no trading for that. Neither courthouses or libraries will be of much use for us either until we get into a different government, so they can pass for now. I trade world maps, paying about 20g to get a complete picture of the entire island. The other civs are larger than us, but many of their cities lie in useless tundra. They are not as strong as their number of cities would indicate. With that done, I end the turn.

(1) 730BC Units fly past me at light speed. I don't know how some of you can play with the animation off; I have no idea where the AI units just moved. It gets turned back on, at least for my turn. In the north, a worker sacrifices himself to create an iron colony. Rome goes to immortal, due next turn with a good deal of waste (Rome is getting 9 shields/turn, have to do something about that). Veii and Antium both switch to immortals as well. I have little to do other than hit "next turn" for the remainder of my turn.

(2) 710BC Rome produces first immortals. It is reconfigured to grow with one less food each turn in order to get from 9 to the magic 10 shields/turn. Road to India connected this turn; we can trade for furs or ivory but have no real happiness need for either at the moment. Yes, we're running 20% luxuries but are also making 25gpt which is a ton in then ancient age. In any case, I want to grab another tech cheaply. I trade spices and 47g for Code of Laws; the major result is that we are locked into 20 turns of peace with Gandhi. Alex looks like the best target for us now.

(4) 670BC Greeks found another city, Mycenae, in a poor location in the desert to our east.

(5) 650BC Another immortal produced out of Rome. Gandhi establishes an embassy in our capital. :D Another reason to leave the nice guy alone - for now, at least. I run low food for one turn in Neapolis to get our barracks one turn sooner with no waste.

(7) 610BC A barb galley appears near ours; we fortify to have a better chance of winning against it.

(8) 590BC Our galley survives, but is down to one hit point. Since it's so far away from our cities, there's nothing to do but keep exploring. Immortals produced from Rome, Veii, and Antium. We now are up to 5 of them. I'm currently running a blockade of a Greek hoplite/settler pair in our territory to provide us with free workers in the future.

(10) 550BC Mathematics 40-turn min science finishes. We now can see that the other civs all have Literature, Construction, and Philosophy up on us. I heartily suggest that the next player trade for Philosophy and start a min science research on Republic (India will sell cheapest at WM + 111g). We have 5 immortals at the moment, and in 5 more turns will have 5 more. At that time, we should gather them up and attack Greece. We should be able to capture 3 or 4 cities pretty easily, at which time Alex will give us any techs we lack for peace. Then consolidate our gains for a couple turns and attack again for more concessions. I've been using this strategy very successfully in PTW Emperor games recently. The AI civs simply cannot handle such a focused attack this early in the game with 10 swords/immortals. Of course, if you disagree with me there's always the power of veto... :P

RBP4 550BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_550BC.zip)

One More Thing: I left our galley fortified in the north by accident, LKendter should make sure to start it moving again around our continent. LK is up next, then we return to the normal rotation with Carbon Copy.

Map:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_550BC.jpg

550 BC - As requested, I wake and move the galley. It discovered a couple of new squares, so of course I sell our map around. I agree on token research for Republic. To make it happen, I buy Philo from India for $111 and wm. I would like some fast units in the attack - but the horses aren't close to being connected.

530 BC - I can't justify 50% luxuries for Pompeii - so I hire I token scientist.

510 BC - We are forced to 30% luxuries.

490 BC (I) Now this is interesting - the Greeks declare war on the Celts [dance]
The Greeks build a city to the west of Antium!

430 BC - Our buddy from the Celts will give us Literature and $60 to fight the evil Greeks. It sounds good to me. WAR!
(I) I am not sure how to interpret this - 2 Indian units are approaching Pompeii.

410 BC - Our Roman Immortals :crazyeye: capture the horse town from Greece - Thermopylae, and we catch a settler inside for 2 workers :)
(I) We get the option for the forbidden palace already.

390 BC - More silliness - Roman Immortal attacks Greece Immortal.
This is a nice deal -Silks to India for furs and $70.
(I) GACK - The Greeks beat an Immortal and get a leader!
Massive barb uprisings - near Pompeii - I realize what India was after.
The Greeks finish the Great Library (leader rush?)

370 BC (I) - I can't believe it - we have a unit win a defensive battle.
India builds the great wall.

Summary - The RnG wasn't nice, so I am collecting a second stack of units by Thermopylae before continuing.
Don't forget our alliance with the Celts.

Sullla
Lkendter
Carbon_Copy (currently playing)


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4-350BC.zip

The city by the horses is 2 squares away, but we could put another colony on that square to get the horses online within a couple turns (should be easy enough to build a road to the intervening square.) I'd say to press with Immortals, though; MWs don't do that great against hoplites, which everyone has (so much for Greece's advantage :) )

I know I've been pretty scarce in this thread, but this time around I don't have any major computer overhauls planned and I have some time to play (I would have had my turn last round done if my turn didn't span a Saturday, I have exactly zero minutes of Civ time on Saturdays, as it was Sulla called time just before I cruised to the boards to verify I had the latest save and post that I was going to play my turn belatedly).

Expect it tomorrow night.

350 (0) - Not much to do. Whenever we're done with this Greek business, though, we NEED to start building some culture in our cities, if only to expand the borders a bit (I'm somewhat surprised that we don't even have a single temple anywhere besides Cumae, a town that will never get higher than population 6 until railroads). Plus, we are at just about the limit of population we can sustain without having to find other luxuries or build some buildings. But there isn't anything I can do about that on turn zero, so I just hit next turn.

330 (1) - IBT India moves some units through our field of vision at the speed of light. I can only guess at what happened since animations were turned off. I know that for a slower computer, having animations on will make the in-between turns take forever, especially in war, but for a higher-end computer, it's the only way that you are allowed enough time to see what is going on. Everybody needs to keep this in mind and adjust their preferences accordingly; whoever follows me will get animations turned ON except for our manual moves.

-Our scouting galley spots a stack of Tartar pirate galleys and uses its other two moves to run away.
-Healthy units I am keeping out of Thermopylae, it is just too much of a flip risk. Having the wounded Immortals try to crush the resistance is okay by me, though.

310 (2) - Galley fortifies in place, I'll take my chances with the pirates attacking rather than run away from them forever. More troop shuffles. Veii finishes Immortal, I re-micromanage so that it produces 8 shields after corruption and +1 food instead of +9 shields and no extra food and have it build a hoplite next. Rome switched to Mounted Warrior from Immortal (same shield cost).

290 (3) - IBT the pirates get our galley. If Roman Jaguar Warriors looked funny, Roman Mounties are truly bizarre.

270 (4) - Reg. Greek Immortal attacks our elite Immortal and loses, no leader. One resistor quelled in Thermopylae, we can now start starving. Our forces are assembled enough that I can send them out next turn.

250 (5) - Troops begin to move out towards Pharsalos.

230 (6) - IBT two Greek Immortals stopped 1 square away from my stack and were dealt with, one mounted retreated but two victories from our Immortals.

210 (7) - Resistance in Thermopylae is over. A Mounted Warrior removes one regular Hoplite from Pharsalos a turn early.

190 (8) - Pharsalos taken, no casualties but a few wounded on our side. Size 4 with three resistors. Athens, which two turns ago had been size 8, is now size 4.

170 (9) - Veii builds a new galley to replace the one I lost, starts on a Hoplite. Troop shuffling to work around the river that Athens is on, and due to the geography, I won't be the one to take it without taking an unnecessary risk. I check to see what the Greeks would offer for peace. They'll freely give Currency and Construction, but we'll have to kick in some if we want Polytheism, too. Alternatively we could get Mycenae and Ephesus (two cities probably closer to Rome than Athens, though neither one of them a grand prize by any reckoning), or any other single Greek city. But with 7 turns left in the alliance, I decline to do any dealing now. I rearrange the commerce in Rome to allow it to be at size 11 without rioting and still over 10 spt.

150 (10) - India sneak-attacks Greece at Mycenae. Their motley invasion force was repelled by the Greek Hoplites, though. Troops quell one resistor in Pharsalos. Our troops are now officially in place to capture Athens, and two mounted warriors still have one movement left if the next ringmaster is feeling lucky. Both Athens (size 3 down from size 8, but that last one could have been due to starvation from me trampling their floodplains) and Sparta (size 1 from size 4-5) have shown evidence of severe whipping by Greece.

Goals for the next leader:

-Taking Athens (you have 7 Immortals and 3 Mounted Warriors to attempt it with next turn) and deciding what to do with our alliance with the Celts and our peace concessions from Greece (he's prepared to offer big).

-Building some culture in our cities. I don't think I've ever had this low of a nation-wide culture ever at this point of the game (though admittedly I didn't play in the Cretin game).

-I forgot to set Pharsalos to starvation before I made the save, don't forget to do that before next turn.

Save game is here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4-150BC.zip)

Unless I'm way screwed up on order, I'm up now in this game. Got it and will play around with all our fun UUs.

Anybody mind if I look to India as a second target, after the alliance vs. the Greeks is over?

Arathorn

India's done nothing wrong to us... I want revenge on Brennus! :)

I second the vote for the Celts.

My reason - the agression level for India is low, so we can ignore them longer. Plus they are our cheapest trading partner.

My reasons for India instead of the Celts:
- Closer -- our Immortals can reach there before 400 AD
- Larger -- therefore more of a longterm threat
- Already in war -- so their forces will be distracted and somewhat thinned already
- Lux-rich -- so our people can stay healthy
- Pinned -- nearly no one to fight except us

With us being limited to only UUs, speed is of the essence. Slowing down the largest rival seems to make the most sense to me. We're gonna need our whole continent by the end of the knight era, so we can use our cossacks and sipahi to conquer other lands. The draught from sipahi to panzers is long -- especially when h'wachas are your only artillery unit.

Of course, if the will of the group is still anti-Brennus, I can roleplay this one out and move that way.

Arathorn

I second Arathorn's vote for a move against India. The Celts are simply too far away from us for there to be any reason to go after them. Their land sucks bigtime too. Why should we try to conquer tundra on the other side of the continent when we can take nice, uncorrupted territory close to home? As for the roleplaying factor... well, let's just say that I think we intend to pay back EVERYONE on our continent in time. :mwaha:

Heh, 2 votes for Brennus, 2 for Gandhi. Carbon, you present?

My logic on Brennus:
1) I prefer to take out the high agression civs first, Celts are clearly it.
2) At the end of the Greek wars, most of our troops will be sitting next to the Celt cities.
3) I think we have a much better zone for the fp on the Greek / Celt side of the map.
4) Gandhi is the cheap source for when we do buy tech, and the only civ we can trade luxuries with at the moment.

We can let Gandhi have his luxuries; he'll trade them to us just fine. That last point is a very good one, that after Greece our troops will be sitting right next to Brennus; the Celts are actually closer for war purposes than India. We also have a better head start in that area with the Greek cities, so bringing them up to speed with a leader-rushed FP down south would be better than in India, I think. The Greek cities are also better to hand-build an FP should we have to do that.

Oh, and there will be no "age of the knight" in this game. We've got Berserks, which will work just fine the whole time until Sipahi get here. Feel free to build bowmen for later upgrade (boy does that sentence sound weird :) ), especially if we can snag Leonardo's.

I think the question boils down to this: Where are we going to put our Forbidden Palace? We don't have a good spot within the native Roman lands. We are now in the process of digesting a good part of Greece. If Greece is where we want to put our FP, then we're better off leaving India alone for now and swallowing up the Celts to expand our number of productive cities. If we want our FP up in India, then we need to disengage ourselves from Greece as soon as it is expedient, take the peace concessions and swing our troops to the north. Neither option seems significantly better or worse to me, truth be told. I'm content to let Arathorn do what he thinks best.

Well, briefly at least. I was handed a game with big-time military aspirations and just went with it. I'm passing off a game full of possibilities for the next leader.

Early turns: Capture Athens and move forces towards more Greek cities. Fight off counter-attacks (minimal at best) and starve some cities. Acquire Construction, Currency, and Polytheism from the Great Library in Athens. Enter the Middle Ages.

Middle turns: Capture Corinth. Cancel the alliance with the Celts, which they would never accept anyway. Make peace with Alex, getting a mere 4 cities (Knossus, Mycenae, Ephesus, and Herakleia), a worker, all his gold, and all his gpt as part of the deal. He would *NOT* part with his tiny city on the tundra island with Herakleia, so I'm 99.8% certain that spot will have oil. I don't remember the name of the city and it's since been razed.

I also came to the conclusion that all our forces were too close to the Celts to make the trek back through our lands to India. India had a fair few forces in our lands, too, which would make a BIG first strike the best option, and the troops just weren't positioned for that. Carthage completed the Lighthouse, so hopefully they can get us contact soon.

Then, Republic and Monarchy popped out of the Library. After a bit of thought, I decided that this was as good a time to revolt as any. We have over 1000 gold, which does us no good in despotism, especially with so few upgrades to contemplate. We weren't actively engaged in war, so no big threats. I revolted.

Late turns: Fed the non-Greek people. Massed troops near Alesia and Sparta for Celtic conquest. Verulanium will auto-raze, I'm sure, but Sparta has Greek culture memory to keep it from razing.

For the next leader: Decide on a govt. You should have control back in a couple turns. I'm recommending Republic and seeing that it's T-Hawk, I can't imagine any other government being selected. I would go to war pretty quickly with the Celts and capture Sparta, Alesia, Entremont, Camulodunum with troops on hand and see what other cities we can get for peace. I'd pop out a few buildings in the core (Thermopylae, especially, needs a temple to minimize Greek culture pressure), and then have them crank a few troops for war with India in ~15-20 turns. Rome should hit 15 spt soon, which is an immortal every other turn. Herakleia is going to need a defender rushed ASAP.

Order:
T-Hawk -- up now
On deck -- not sure -- either Lee or Sullla

Save file at
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-50ad.ZIP

Arathorn

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-50ad.jpg

That map looks good to me. :) Owning the Great Library as well is almost more than we could have hoped for at this point. I'd also recommend choosing The Republic over Monarchy, as I've been able to wage war for hundreds of turns in a republic in the past through using oscillating war declarations. Just to clarify the turn order, T-Hawk is next and LKendter is on deck (the turn I switched with him was not a permanent thing).

Got it, might not get to play till tomorrow. Full steam towards Republic, absolutely. :)

Err, I might have to beg for a skip on this; doesn't look like I'll have time until Saturday night at the earliest. Swap me with Lee now, and then if Sulla wants to play after Lee and keep things movings, skip me.

Got it :(

Expect a post very late tonight.

50 AD - We are in anarchy, so not much to do.
I switch our deal with India from Silks (no spares) to Spices for Furs with a token $5 from India.

70 AD (I) - The Republic of Rome is formed. Bozo is out of a job.

130 AD - We contact the Celts. We feel they owe us for the inconvenience of the last war, but he won't even give us one lousy city - so war breaks out.
(I) What a surprise - a Greek / Celtic peace treaty is signed.

150 AD - Sparta is captured.
During the auto-raze of Verulamium, the unit of Lee's Immortal Doom is formed.

170 AD - Trajan is ordered to build the fp in Sparta.
We kill several units, but Alesia holds with a 3hp immortal.

190 AD - We finally kill that demonic Gallic sword that was floating around Sparta that took out several units. :mad:
Our mounted warrior - the only undamaged unit is range - captures Alesia.

210 AD - Our exploring galley finds news lands, but it looks like a small chunk of ice :(

Summary - I am waiting for a new healed stack by Alesia. I think we should take a least a couple more cities from the Celts. They will only concede ONE junk city.

Sullla
Carbon_Copy (currently playing)
Arathorn (on deck)
T-Hawk
LKendter


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4-250AD.zip

Lee, your list of who is up next is NOT correct! :eek:

T-Hawk, do you want to pick up the game now and play ten turns? If not, I will be up next and only then will it be Carbon's turn. The rotation should look something like this:

Sullla <<< on deck
Carbon_Copy
Arathorn
T-Hawk <<< UP NOW (?)
LKendter

:cringe:
I thought t-hawk was a complete skip

Eh, how's Carbon currently up? :crazyeye: I was swapping with Lee. I got it again; pretty sure I will have time to play tonight. Then Sulla after me and we'll be in normal rotation. :)

Inherited turn:

MM a few cities, get Sparta onto a granary (our FP city should grow!), rush Thermopylae's temple (cheap flip insurance; a flip here would be excruciatingly annoying), rush Corinth's temple (doing so gets flood-plains wheat online and rockets the city's growth). Pharsalos doesn't need a temple, switched to aqueduct. Knossos is stuck at size 2 without a harbor, needs that more than courthouse.

This may be crazy, but I start Rome building a wonder. Either Sun Tzu's or Leonardo's would be nicely helpful (who wants to try a massive upgrade to Berserks to invade the other continent?) Also, we need one of those for half a Golden Age, and we'll have to try for the other half at Smith's. We can get Great Leaders, but there's always wonders available to build in the middle ages.

Diplo check: nothing to do.

End of turn: Monotheism comes from the Great Library.

Alesia flips back to the Celts! We lost Lee's Immortal Doom :(

260 AD: Why are our immortals positioned to attack Alesia over a river? Well, better to suffer that defense bonus than allow the city to be reinforced... although we lose 2 immortals retaking it.

270-300 AD: Consolidating at Alesia and crushing the resistance. Brennus lands a Legionary at our outlying Herakleia, which just has a hoplite and nothing else I can do... and we lose the city. :(

310 AD: We extend peace with Greece, and sell them Feudalism for 110 gold + 11/turn (where they're getting that cash I have no idea.) We also lose our exploring galley that tried a suicide run.

320 AD: Nine immortals set out for Entremont, but Celtic immortals kill two before they get there.

350 AD: The Seven Immortals attack Entremont. We lose only one, and now own the Celtic capital! And we have the Oracle. But then we lose two more immortals trying to kill one stray Celtic immortal. :P

Also this turn, all the other leaders suddenly appear on the F4 screen! Except China, but our world map to Hannibal gets us that contact. China is far behind; we trade him Construction for the world map. Persia is in the lead on that continent by quite a bit. Xerxes and Ragnar are both furious for no reason. Nobody has any tech that we don't. Next leader can look for more trades, although I don't see any unless we want to trade a tech to Ragnar for more map info.

War weariness just kicked in, so we should probably make peace with Brennus now, although he'll only concede two useless cities. Up to Sulla.

We have a settler moving to reclaim the ruins area. I'd suggest one NW of the ruins as the best spacing.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-menagerie-350ad.zip

Got it. I am tired but happy after spending most of today in College Park watching Maryland defeat #1 Duke in basketball - for the second year in a row. Go Terps! :D [dance]

(0) 350AD Some intial comments upon looking at the game... Wow, on the other continent Persia is huge! That's mostly due to the fact that China has a genuine Epic14 dud start, stuck on some hills in the middle of a huge tundra. China has exactly ONE non-bonus tile that produces two or more food, a single irrigated grassland (there are also two game forests, a wine hill, and several fish/whales). Yeah - that's some really sorry land. No wonder X-Man got so big!

Next observation: we are stinkin' filthy rich! Almost 3000g and cranking 124g/turn, all thanks to our captured great library. We love you for building it, Alex! :love: We're also at war at the moment; with only six immortals left, most of them injured, and our core switching over to infrastructure, it's a good time to sign peace. Brennus will give us another non-useless city (Richborough) for peace, plus his world map (actually worth about 30g) and 4g. I sign on the dotted line and peace returns to Rome.

Diplo and domestic stuff: I go through and cities and switch some production around. We need more hoplites and temples mostly; I will rush temples where appropriate so our borders expand. Agree with the wonder call in Rome: either Sun Tzu or Leo's will be a major help. Sparta, our Forbidden Palace city, cranking +8 (plus EIGHT!) food/turn is working on a granary? :) Maybe we should get a defender in there first! Veii, at 10 shields/turn, is going to be cranking Hoplites for at least my turn and maybe longer. Rushed a harbor at Knossus. Another harbor at Ephesus. These fishing towns need them just to start growing. We need workers!!! Corinth is set up to become worker factory central, with multiple floodplains tiles (one with a wheat) and an iron hill for shields. Traded some maps around, made some more money (Gandhi payed us 1gpt for our world map, heh). The half-hour preturn finished, I hit next turn.

(1) 360AD Athens produces hoplite, starts another for another city. Gandhi comes calling to renew our spices for furs deal; since we will go into large-scale disorder with his furs, I renew it for only WM + 30g. Almost a straight-up deal. Temple speeded along to completion at Mycenae - it even will do double duty for us, as we actually own a non-expired Oracle at the moment. :p

(2) 370AD The resistance has ended in Entremont! Now the people can celebrate by starving to death. Ravenna founded in the location T-Hawk suggested (I concurred). I use this turn to found embassies with the eastern civs. Persia is in anarchy at the moment, going to republic. Persepolis has all of the ancient age buildings, plus the Pyramids, but is only getting 11 shields/turn and is no threat to get whatever wonder we are building. Interestingly, the garrison consists of 5 vet legions and a regular hoplite. Carthage looks very similar; although it is only size 7, it gets more shields than Persepolis (12/turn). Same garrison, mostly legions with an odd hoplite. Trondheim has only a barracks - no other improvements - and generally kind of sucks (10 shields/turn). Numidians are the defenders here, for whatever reason. Another good question: why are the Vikings in a Monarchy? China just sucks, no commentary on them.

(3) 380AD WTF! Entremont, with 8 defenders in it and NO resistors, decides to go back to the Celts. I am NOT happy about this. An example of where this game is broken; that should NEVER happen due to a roll of the dice. Sigh. From now on, raze ALL capitals. Alesia's temple rushed to deal with new cultural pressure from Entremont.

(4) 390AD Rome pulls in 25 shields/turn now, only 14 turns to Sun Tzu. It looks like we can get that AND Leo's without any trouble! :D Corinth now set up as our worker factory; it can crank one every two turns from now until the end of time. I suggest we do exactly that.

(5) 400AD Chivalry pops from Library; apparently the Indians and the Celts(?!) have it. Cumae is frozen at 10 shields/turn and has no need for any of the current infrastructure buildings. Time to produce units then! I have the fun choice of Rider, Samurai, War Elephant, Keshik, or Ansar. I go with Ansar for now; the next person can always change it. Knossus gets a rushed temple this turn.

(6) 410AD Richborough gets a temple this turn, the only significant event.

(7) 420AD Rome has been maxed out for now at 26 shields/turn (wow, that's a ton for this stage of the game). Workers diverted elsewhere.

(8) 430AD Alesia's borders expand; it should be all but completely safe from a flip now. Another temple rushed at Ravenna to fill in the gaps in the center of our continent.

(9) 440AD Temple rushed in Ephesus. Yawn.

(10) 450AD Nothing important going on.

Well, I did my best to clean up a bit and tie some of our enormous conquests together. I put defenders in all of our cities (many, many of them were open to attack when I started) and temples were rushed in corrupt/low shield cities, are being manually built in others. Within 10 more turns, we should have no more gaps in our cultural borders. Some possibilities for the future: well, we can't upgrade any more horses to war elephants, but we can still build a lot of bowmen and have an instant army of berserks. At 100g per upgrade, we should be able to do 30 of them with ease. Sun Tzu is due in only 7 more turns, and at that point every city will have a barracks. I think Rome should go right onto a prebuild for Leo's at that point; we could theoretically get EVERY wonder from this point on if we get a couple leaders. If Theology is not discovered in the next 7 turns, we will kill the wonder cascade right here! Corinth is our worker factory and should remain that way; you may have to rearrange its tiles to ensure growth every 2 turns, but it can easily get +5 food and 5 shields/turn. We are already getting +162g/turn, and that's with only one marketplace in Rome. This game is already won; let's just kick some AI butt and get a REALLY early conquest/domination victory to show for our effort! :cool:

RBP4 450AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_450AD.zip)

Map, with a few of some of our fun choices:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_450AD.jpg

Sullla
Carbon Copy <<< UP NOW
Arathorn <<< on deck
T-Hawk
LKendter

Entremont, with 8 defenders in it and NO resistors, decides to go back to the Celts.

On a scale of suck, that is a 9.5

This is why I am so paranoid of never leaving more that 1 or 2 units in a captured city.

=======================

This game is already won
I won't argue with you at all on that point.

Greece is already a non-player, though we should get there capital soon since it will be productive.

The Celts already took a hugh hit. A second round on the Celts should make them a non-player.

I suspect India will be a bit tougher nut to crack.

I was thinking about this but forgot to mention it: how about swapping Veii to another wonder? It's not quite the powerhouse Rome is, but it should have 15 or so shields/turn by now. It can also use the Palace to tide it over as long as necessary; depending on which direction tech goes that might even turn into Smith's, which we MUST have if we want a Golden Age before the Internet.

That would be fine, but my thinking was to get Veii up to 20 shields/turn (it's at about 13 at the moment and is losing some to corruption, which could be fixed with a courthouse) and then crank a bowman every single turn out of it. Of course we could just as easily use another city for that; I was kind of banking on getting at least some leaders to help us rush wonders. Either way, we're in a pretty good situation here.

Oh, and on the wonder/golden age situation. If we capture a commercial wonder and already possess a militaristic one, building ANY other wonder will trigger our golden age. I think we won't have any problems landing Smith's, but even should we miss it, we can still get a GA.

Well, there's only four commercial wonders before the Internet, and the Great Lighthouse and Colossus are already on the other continent. I did forget about Magellan's, but Veii is our only viable city to build that one too. Doesn't have to start immediately, but should once Education shows up; Magellan's can very easily disappear in a blink of a cascade.

Got it, can probably play...I guess I have to call it today (I've been out much too late :ack: ).

As for why the Vikings are in Monarchy, it's because their shunned government is Republic. I don't think they'll ever revolt into a Republic, though they might change to Democracy later on if we give them the chance. What is more interesting is that Persia also has monarchy as a favored government and republic as shunned, did you check to see if Persia has the Monarchy tech yet or that they actually revolted into republic? I just happened to have myself a little table listing all of the AI build preferences and favored/shunned governments, I actually learned a lot from writing it out (too bad it's only on paper so I can't copy/paste or post a link).

And to account for the motley assortment of defenders...I can't, really. Persia could be explained because Xerxes has a tendency to often build offensive land units, but Carthage only prioritizes naval units and trade and the Vikings offensive land units and naval units. It's possible that the AI will tend to build units with higher overall stats over cheaper units that have the same stat that matters (e.g. NuMes or Legionaries over Hoplites...does Ragnar have iron connected? If not, he may not be able to build Legionaries), but that's the only theory I have. I guess the telling point will be what sort of knight units we see from Persia (I'll assume they have both Iron and horses), and if we'll see any Ansar Warriors, Keshiks, or War Elephants, or if we'll only ever see Samurai and Riders.

As I stated in an earlier post, I find this variant game really intriguing. Is there a way I can play it without having to duplicate your exact same game? In other words, can I use your first posted save as a springboard to a new game (on a new map, vs. different civs, etc.) or do I need the modified .bix file? If it's the latter, could someone post the file and/or e-mail it to me? I'd really like to try a game where all of the UUs are available. Thanks in advance for any responses. :love:

My e-mail is civfanreagan[AT]hotmail.com if my ability to play the game requires someone to e-mail the scenario file to me.

reagan - I created the scenario for this game and set it up for our use. I'm sending you the file and some instructions on how to use it right now. :)

Sullla -- I got the game and it works just fine. I sent you an e-mail thank you but wanted to post a public one, too, because you were kind enough to go out of your way to help me. Thanks again!

It looks like y'all have this one well in hand. Good job! :goodjob:

Give me one more day. I stopped to do some pondering and "rested my eyes" for a few minutes...that stretched into about four hours. Maybe I shouldn't stay out quite so late in the future.

Oh, and I did check on what the deal with Persia was, and they did NOT revolt into Republic, they are now a Monarchy. The fact that they were at war with the Vikings (and making good progress, from the looks of it) might have had some influence on the decision for both the Vikings and the Persians, though.

Hey! Carbon Copy...

I love your new 'Avatar'

:rotfl:

Chariscientist

Why Leo's? That's 600 shields not put into military. I'd rather have the 10 Ansars, thankyouverymuch. We don't really have many upgrades to worry about, as the hoplite->musketeer upgrade is very costly, but doesn't provide much benefit, really.

I suppose if we do a massive bowman->berserk upgrade, it would be worth it, but I'm not sure of the wisdom of that. If we're going for early conquest, we should hit India now (well, very soon) and be looking to cross the water in about 30 turns, with Greeks, Celts, and Indians eliminated. I mean, it's already 450 AD...the clock is ticking.

Arathorn

Executive Summary: I hate Gandhi.

450 (0) - First thing I check to see is what government Persia is in. As I suspected, they did NOT revolt into Republic but into Monarchy. I then check to see why Greece is still alive...aha, we still have a peace treaty with them for 6 more turns. I predict that Greece won't survive much longer than that.

460 (1) - I move our Ansar warrior south, and with a movement of 9 on roads, I'm starting to like these things. I notice that Veii can be MMed to produce 15 net shields per turn instead of 14, that's a 4-turn Ansar if I can finish the dang marketplace.

470 (2) - Nothing important.

480 (3) - Nothing important.

490 (4) - AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRG! Three turns before we would have completed it, India finishes Sun Tzu's in Delhi! At this point I scramble to see if we could possibly afford to drop the ~500 shields we've invested on it, and I decide we can't. The only tech that we can buy our way into would be Theology for the Sistine Chapel from India (the Art of War-stealers, no less!), and it would cost us a good deal, since we would be buying @2nd for 1775 and our world map. Luckily for us, we can afford such ridiculous prices. Though this is very painful, I'm not going to let us come away empty-handed on a wonder build this far along and to give India a leg up on Sistene, to boot. So Sistene Chapel is now due in 3 and we're out 10 turns of income. Unfortunately, we can't broker it around for anything, either, unless we're interested in giving it to Persia for their World Map and 15g.

500 (5) - Either our buying Theology put Persia over the beaker cost or Gandhi liked the world map + 15g thing, because Persia got Theology IBT (after I finished this turn I reloaded and didn't buy Theology, and it wouldn't pop out of the library). Nothing else interesting happened.

510 (6) - Nothing interesting, Sistine due next turn unless India steals THAT, too [/bitter].

520 (7) - Sistene complete in Rome. The good news is that killed the cascade. IBT I see some Indian Immortals strolling towards the border, maybe they're gonna sneak attack us after ripping us off for tech. Rome starts on a Rider, since those take just as many turns for Rome to build as Ansars. Veii completes a market, starts Ansar. Cumae finishes Ansar, starts Ansar.

530 (8) - Yeah, looks like somebody's gonna get sneak-attacked and it's probably going to be us. I change border cities to hoplite and rush them if necessary.

540 (9) - Well, all those Indian units had a chance to whack two of our workers left completely undefended but walked right past, so maybe they're going for the Greeks or the Celts instead. Hopefully. Well, if they're after the Greeks, they'll have to move fast because I just declared war on them. Two ansars in range attack and defeat Hoplites in Delphi, both of them promoting, but Greece has at least one more.

550 (10) - Huh, looks like it was us, after all. Delphi is down to one Regular hoplite but I can't do any more to them, so I retreat the ansars back to our territory where they're covered by a hoplite. The Ansar in Thermopylae can attack Delphi next turn if you manage your movement right (make sure you attack from the north so you aren't crossing a river) and that might be it for the Greeks. Rome completed a Rider and started another, sent that one towards Pompeii. It looks like Pompeii is the center ring for this war, at least for now. Next turn might be kind of hairy but Pompeii can build a Hoplite every two turns (every turn if you partial-rush it via a jag or worker). We lost our two luxuries in the sneak attack so we might have happiness issues, I didn't really check.

Right now I think the units we need to build are Ansars and Riders, though there may be something to be said for Keshiks to cross the Indian mountain ranges or Samurai who can defend better against Indian Immortals or knight units. All I've seen are foot soldiers so far, though.

Game is here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4550_AD.zip).

P.S. @Charis: Thanks :)

Sounds like fun! I got it. I expect a mix of Ansars and Samurai will be what I build, but I'll go with the flow. No artillery til H'wacha, right? OK.

As for "losing" Sun-Tzu, Ghandi just saved us 600 shields, much like Alex did earlier, when he built the Great Library for us. :)

Lock and load. We're hunting Ghandi's "troops"! :lol:

Arathorn

Broken link. No 550ad zip file available in the uploads folder that I can find. I won't be playing tonight, I guess...

I had PM'd CC about the problem a few hours but no email either. Guess I'll try again tomorrow night.

Arathorn

Hmm, as usual the case-sensitive "easy" file upload server appears to be the problem. Carbon put an underscore in his link to the file and that created a broken link. I fished the zip file out of the uploads folder and hopefully this link will work:

RBP4 550AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4550AD.zip)

Good luck whenever you next get to play Arathorn. :goodjob:

Could have sworn I had this thing uploaded (was in a rush to celebrate my mom's birthday at the time I was uploading).

I'll try this again. Game is here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4550AD.zip)

Will try again tonight.

I believe at least part of the problem was the uploads folder here on CFC. The new files look appropriate. As it was, I just went to bed last night (having a sick six-month-old doesn't do much for healthy rest patterns....).

Arathorn

The first of the meetings between the leader of India, Ghandi, and the newly-elected leader of Rome, Arathorn, was held in 550 AD. These meetings were held every 10 years and serve to illuminate the situation of the nations quite well.

550 AD:

Ghandi is quietly smug, almost gloating, over the imagined success of his attack against the Roman nation. He is curious why the leader of Rome would want to meet with him, as his envoys have been turned away, and no real diplomacy can happen so early in the war. But his curiosity was piqued, so he agreed to the meeting.

As the Roman leader entered the room, Ghandi paled visibly. "A-A-Ar-Ara-Arathorn?" he stammered. "B-b-b-but I thought Carbon Copy was the lea-" he also managed to get out before he was cut off.

"Not any more. I am now. And I'm very disappointed in you, Ghandi. What have I always told you?"

"Never mix-up toilet paper and sandpaper."

"No." Arathorn shook his head sadly. "The other lesson. The important one. You know...'Never...'"

"Never attack a war-monger with a huge war chest -- and I'm not talking about breast size!"

"Exactly. And what did you just do, a few years ago?"

"Well, I, err... that is, umm... But CC isn't...."

"No excuses. You will learn the error of your ways, AGAIN, once I deal with other more pressing matters."

Ghandi was actually indignant about this. "What more pressing matters? I have a number of troops by Pompeii and more on the way. What in the world could be more pressing?"

"See these pants. Look carefully at them. What do you see?"

"They appear to be smoking."

"That's right. Where, specifically?"

"The pockets."

"Yep. There are holes being burnt right now. I gotta deal with that, first. There's also this engagement I have with Alex that I don't want to delay any longer. You'll just have to wait."

At this point, Ghandi is so offended, he leaves in a huff, muttering "I'll show you, you arrogant bastard, that when I declare war, I mean WAR!"

560 AD:

Once again, the two leaders meet. This time, Arathorn speaks first. "Not so effective, were you?"

"Hey," Ghandi counters, "I killed a rider...and injured those two hoplites you have defending Pompeii."

"True," Arathorn concedes. "And it only cost you, what 2 dead immortals? Nearly an even exchange. Of course, you've forgotten that I'll get a counter-attack. AND that the silly rider was left there, undefended, by my predecessor, and not by me."

Ghandi looks unconcerned.

"May I also point out to my troops by Bangalore? You may want to look to your own defense, before you get too smug, Ghandi, my friend."

At this point, Ghandi prepares to leave, clearly unconcerned by any threats Arathorn may make. A dispatch from the fighting front stays him.

"Thank you, Argon Falcon. That will be all now", Arathorn dismisses his page. "Ghandi, would you care to read this with me? We can find out simultaneously."

"Oh, dear, my friend. It looks as those you lost another immortal," Arathorn comforts his enemy. "One of these days, I'll have to look into that incident, but I'm still so busy in other parts of the world. I do hope you'll understand." With that, Arathorn ushers Ghandi out.

570 AD:

Ghandi looks less-than pleased this time, as the two leaders meet again.

"Where'd that third hoplite come from? I'd've had you if not for that." he fumes.

Arathorn merely looks bemused. "You thought the citizens of Pompeii would stop working, simply because you had troops near them? You underestimate Roman resolve. Besides, it only cost you, what, a few troops to find out?"

Ghandi's wrath is not very concealed. "Three legions of immortals, and two of those twice-damned numidian infantry. I should have at least killed one troop."

"But you did not, my friend. That's the next lesson you should learn, although you still haven't seemed to grasp the first. Always bring more than overwhelming force."

"The forces I brought were enough to pillage your little holdings, Arathorn." Ghandi is nearly spitting now. "And your little forces by Bangalore didn't fare so well, did they?"

"That feint?" Arathorn smiles. "Yes, indeed. One casualty among Roman troops, and three in the Indian forces. I divine your *cough* master strategy *cough* now."

"What about Greece? I thought *they* were your main concern. And, here you are, spending time and wasting lives with a feint against me. Haven't you taken Delphi yet? Oh, wait, my spies told me about that. Three divisions of ansar warriors attacked Delphi and didn't take the city."

"True," Arathorn concedes. "But ..."

"But nothing!" Ghandi crows. "You didn't bring enough forces. You violated your own lessons, you hypocrite. And I'll teach you another lesson soon!"

As Ghandi is preparing to leave, Arathorn is still smiling. "But it wasn't a pointless venture. I learned one thing of value, Delphi is defended by a single hoplite. Plus, none of those troops died, they all retreated to fight again. Another lesson you will probably never learn, Ghandi." So run Arathorn's thoughts as his erstwhile enemy leaves the palace.

580 AD:

Ghandi storms into the next meeting, wrath plain on his face. "How in the world did you get a division of immortals into Pompeii? I checked my spy reports very carefully and they indicated you only spent 120 gold in the city. That defies all laws of rush-building that I know."

"Again you come to me for advice, Ghandi? How much more will I have to teach you?" Arathorn sighs. "Very well. Pompeii had just finished a hoplite, as you well know, at the end of 560 AD, so it had no shields in the box. The first thing I rushed was a jaguar warrior, for 80 gold."

"But an immortal attacked," Ghandi interrupts.

"Patience, my curry-loving friend, patience. You must learn to accept what is as well as what it might become. Next, I switched Pompeii to a hoplite, and rushed that, costing another 40 gold."

Ghandi tries to speak. "It w..."

"No, it wasn't another hoplite. Changing to an immortal, then, let Pompeii spend its natural production of 10 shields to complete the project on time. No waste! Every gold of value; every shield pulling its weight."

Ghandi is dumbfounded by this revelation. "It really works?"

Arathorn nods. "You have the proof in your own casualty reports. What did you lose by Pompeii since we last spoke? Another immortal, a couple numidian infantry, and a hoplite? Something like that anyway."

Ghandi remains quiet, perhaps thinking about his next action.

590 AD:

The next meeting between the nation's leaders hadn't even begun before Cinna, Arathorn's priest, burst in with exciting news. "Your regeantship, Arathorn, I bring news of the battle near Delphi."

"Yes, what is it?"

"We have captured the city. The mounted warrior retreated, but the bowmen won. We didn't even need to send in fresh ansars."

"EXCELLENT! Have Alex brought to me. He will serve as an excellent object lesson for other unwise leaders." Ghandi harrumphs. "Yes, I mean like you," Arathorn says, without even turning his head.

Cirrus leaves, as does Ghandi.

600 AD:

"Ghandi, you've decided to return!" Arathorn greets the rival leader. "Have you come to surrender?"

"Hardly" is Ghandi's gruff reply. "I've come to complain about your actions. Why are you killing my hoplites?"

"Well, I've finally got a little bit of spare time and I want to clean up the messes CC left, so I've had to kill off your pillagers. Sorry about that, but they were actually to another square that had improvements...and were on flat ground. Timing is everything and the time was right."

"I see," says Ghandi. "While I'm here, can you teach me something about your handling of the city of Rome?"

"Certainly! It's producing a very awkward 26 shields at the moment. That'd be 3 turns for 70-shield unit like samurai or rider, but it wastes 8 shields and takes a long time. I'm producing ansars out of there."

"Yes, every two turns. I see that. But HOW?"

"It's very simple. I rush a jag (80 gold) before I start my ansar production. 2*26=52+10=62, so I get an ansar in 2 turns with only 2 shields wasted."

"But, you're rushing from a cold start! Shouldn't you build for one turn and then rush?"

"Often, yes. But, in this case, no. You see, we have nothing that costs 40 shields. Building one turn gets 26 shields...rushing to 30 shields doesn't actually help completion time, so I would have to rush to 50 shields."

"50 shields?"

"Yes, Gallic swordsmen. They have many uses, ya know." A pause falls over the room, while Arathorn thinks about cities producing 7spt. "Oh, yes, where was I? Right, rushing to 50 shields costs 96 gold. I can then get a 70-shield unit out, but it seems so wasteful."

Ghandi is awed. "Once again, I learn from the mountaintop. I will return to my people now."

610 AD:

Ghandi travels to Rome to place his knowledge of Education and Engineering into the Great Library. While there, Arathorn greets him.

"My friend, what are you doing here? I thought it would not be safe for you to visit."

"Well, this Library seems to be a repository for all that is known in the world, so I thought I would pass along some secrets that my Persian friend, Xerxes, shared with me."

"Have you not grasped the lessons of Education, though? Not all knowledge can be contained in so small a building."

Ghandi ponders this a moment. "You're right," he says finally. "I'll stop bringing my knowledge here."

620 AD:

"What is this outrage at Jaipur?" Ghandi wants to know.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Arathorn replies. "All 4 resistors and not quelling easily. Are they that attached to your curries?"

Ghandi smiles. "You better believe it! They may even decided to overthrow your little attack force and rejoin my empire."

"Not on my watch," Arathorn vows.

630 AD:

Arathorn receives only a flyer from Ghandi. On it are printed a few words. "Look what we can do. A press...that prints. Will wonders never cease?"

640 AD:

"I tried, Arathorn, really, I did." Ghandi protests.

"Tried what? To make me laugh? You succeeded at that."

"You've always talked about the power of artillery, so I built a catapult and actually brought it with me for offense."

"Indeed, you did. So, what is the problem?"

"I still lost on my attack and then I lost the catapult." Ghandi whines.

"Attacking a fortified hoplite on a mountain is not exactly a wise attack, Ghandi."

"But I'd bombarded it first!"

"Yes, but only with a single catapult. Bring MANY and defend them better than you would a city. Then you can see their greatness."

"Must I fear that from you?"

"Nay. For although we Romans understand mathematics and even the principles behind the catapult, our people are too proud to use such a common weapon. We destroyed it immediately upon capture."

"Is that not foolish?"

"Foolish or not, it is our way."

650 AD:

Arathorn travels to Delhi for one last discussion.

"Ghandi, my time is past. I have been remiss in teaching you the full folly of your ways. I have come to apologize."

"Apologize, my friend, for what?"

"Not teaching you, in unmistakeable terms, to never attack a war-monger with a large war chest."

"You have crushed my offensive maneveurs, taken one city, and amassed a large number of troops on my border. What more did you expect of yourself?"

"Much, much more. I only my successor can follow up on my advantage. I began waffling between an eastern assault, a western assault, and a central assault. I got distracted by the lure of a keshik, to see what mountains acting like grasslands can really do. I have lost focus, a sure sign of being past my peak operating efficiency. It is time to pass the rei(g)ns of government."

"But to whom? Who can follow up such a performance?"

"One greater than I. T-hawk is his name. He is to be followed by Sullla."

"So, you're telling me I'm doomed?"

"Yes, Ghandi. You are. But not by my hand shall you fall, at least, not yet."

"And where are you leaving your reins of power?"

"In a secret place (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-650ad.zip), known only to those with the wit to follow the clues."

"Are you sure I can't crush him?"

"Well, your attacks at Cumae have been interesting. And the vet samurai defending Bombay will probably be difficult to dislodge. I also left a few troops a bit out of position. I'm not sure what to expect."

"I guess only time will tell."

"Indeed."

"One greater than I. T-hawk is his name. He is to be followed by Sullla."


And the General by the name of Lee wonders -
what happened to his followers.


He gathers them for a coup when the power of t-hawk weakens.

Oh dear. Not only is this a great and very interesting game, but that report really made me laugh :lol:

All hail the king. :king: When will he return? Let's see what the next in line can do :goodjob:

:rotfl:

:lol:

Show 'em, monger of wars!!! :hammer:
Charis

Very entertaining summary Arathorn. :goodjob: But LKendter is indeed on deck after T-Hawk, not me. Maybe I'll have to try to make my reports more "interesting" as well in the future. :)

That was a great report, Arathorn! :lol:

Any word from T-Hawk? It's been over 24 hours. Has he posted in forever? Is Lee's coup going to take place earlier than expected? (Sorry about that, Lee...completely unintentional, I assure you.)

Sullla, this is your game, so you have to make the final call...just pointing out that the time for T-hawk to "got it" is officially past. (and bumping this up again)

Arathorn

PS Glad y'all enjoyed the report. Going back through past games, it's the fun reports (like a lot of RBD13) that make an SG so much fun to read. I'm gonna try putting more "story" back into my turns...try, anyway.

I'm here; unfortunately my Civ 3 computer isn't, and I won't be back to it unil Tuesday. I'll have to beg for a skip again (I really do hate doing that...)

:crazyeye: Got it :crazyeye:

Feast overload tonight with 3 games due (in order) -
LK38, LK39 and RPB4

4 lousy games, and 3 show up tonight :rolleyes:

The General by the name of Lee and his army of dancing icons overthrows T-Hawk in a bloodless coup! Will he lead the forces of the Roman Menagerie to victory? :crazyeye:

(Sorry to hear about your computer T-Hawk, we'll catch you in the next rotation.)

650 AD (Pre-turn) - Gandhi attempts to meet with the new leader who keeps signing:
War, what is it good for? Uhh - more Indian cities.
War, what is it good for? Uhh - more Indian cities.

After the singing steps Lee simply states, "your technology will be incorporated into our own - resistance is futile".

Gandhi walks away shaking his head saying that will never happen. The General simply smiles :satan:
(I) India attacks with a war elephant - how did that happen? The unit is correct for their nation.
Jaipur concedes that resistance is futile, and stops trying.

660 AD - Ansars attack - target is Bangalore. Mission success and 7 new drone workers have been added.

670 AD (I) - Other foolish factions begin fighting - they only weaken themselves and insure that they will be absorbed - PT Barnum is good.
The weakling Gandhi comes asking for war to end - error, analyze, analyze. Gandhi thinks that his technology should not become our own - error, Gandhi logic is faulty and must be corrected.

690 AD - The razing of Bombay has been ordered - during the process a superior drone by the name of Hadrian appears and teach of the art of combing several drone into effective units of destruction. The idea is acceptable to the General. The unit is successful, and detail instruction to create more superior drones begins in Rome. The epic instructions will take sixty years to write. The city as been eliminated, and a total of 8 more worker drones have been acquired.
Highly illogical, Gandhi still refuses to give us the secret of banking. All he will give us is this worthless press.

700 AD - A new living unit has been formed - Hispalis - immediate drone repair services are ordered up.
Some coinage is used to speed up the arrival of additional military units.
(I) Some one by the name of Jerkes demands some of our coins - the unit requesting the money was beheaded.
This Jerkes thinks he can defeat us at war - he is welcome to try.

720 AD - The drones have completed there repair cycle. The order is giving to destroy the operation base of Gandhi - all units' attack. The multi-attack unit is severely weakened, but destroys the Samurai in Delhi.
Error - error - Sun Tzu in Delhi - must acquire this device - Lee compute.
Attack orders are revised - Delhi must be kept.

730 AD - The unit that held Delhi from two attacks is renamed Lee's Delhi hero - the title is deserved even if he didn't created an exceptional drone. More coinage is used to speed up units, and the Ephesus about markets.
(I) An unknown device begins - Persia starts something call Leo's Workshop.

740 AD - Resistance in Delhi slowing down - all resistors will not be fed. Resistance is futile - you will become part of the Roman collective.
(I) The guidelines how to create leader drones is completed in Rome.

750 AD - Large stack of units appear by Bombay with goals of giving our people furs.


Summary - Still kicking Gandhi's butt :)
No sign of war weariness.


Sullla (currently playing)
Carbon_Copy (on deck)
Arathorn
T-Hawk
LKendter

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4-750AD.zip

Well, I'm pretty sure that I understood Lee's writeup, at least all the important stuff. :D Got it and will return the game shortly.

In the wake of General Lee, a new face stepped up to lead the Roman Menagerie. It was Lucius Cornelius Sulla, patrician Roman dictator-for-life, who stepped down from the exalted halls of the Senate to grip the reins of power with both hands. Sulla looked around the Menagerie and saw idleness and slackers on all sides. Cities were producing units with great wastage of shields, workers were toiling away mining the deserts instead of hills, and the worker-rushing policy of the great Arathorn to produce Ansars had been abandoned in favor of building Riders at a slower rate. Sulla pulled out his gigantic veto stamp and began proscribing weedy behavior left and right.



(0) 750AD Got to look around and the game and see what has changed. We now have Sun Tzu, but Delhi has 8 resistors - not good. I'm going to have to move units back there soon to quell that resistance, as it's just too much of a risk to flip at the moment. Rush a worker in Rome so we can get our 2-turn Ansars; I hope Lee was continuing that process that Arathorn started. Notice that Persia is at war with us, I thought that was the case but couldn't tell for sure from the game notes. Going through all of our cities and make the following changes... Hispalis goes to work a cattle tile instead of an irrigated plains one. Temple rushed in Hispalis. Thermoplyae can produce an Ansar or Rider next turn, so it gets switched to Rider. Antium microed to increase growth greatly without slowing production. Temple rushed in Bangalore. Delphi switched to marketplace, since there are plenty of other cities working on military. Why is Neapolis, a size 4 city without high food and no granary, producing a settler for our civ? It has its infrastructure maxed out (including an aqueduct) so we want military coming out of this city, not a settler! Switched to hoplite; we need cheap defenders for captured cities too. Jaipur is working on a barracks (!?) :smoke: It goes to courthouse. Why is Pisae working a mined desert tile over a mined hill tile? Pisae goes to hoplite production, as it is near the front and gets 5 shields/turn. Mycenae goes from military to a needed aqueduct. Overall problem is too much military; we want cities maxed out on infrastructure producing units, not cities still under development. And I don't know what Lee meant by no war weariness; we are at stage two at the moment.

(1) 760AD Lots of stuff completes all over our territory. One resistor quelled in Delhi. Madras attacked and captured, two ansars died in taking it. We now have furs, thanks to a colony that I used a captured worker to produce. Some workers are prioritizing the wrong tasks, like mining desert tiles over hills (?) I set them straight. We also badly need a road over the hills to the north of Pompeii, so I shift workers to go do that.

(2) 770AD Delhi down to five resistors, ditto for Madras. Most other large cities will be razed to avoid doing this. Praying for no flips coming next turn in either of those big cities.

(3) 780AD Down to two resistors in Delhi, resistance ENDS in Madras. Nice! A berserk shows up for the first time and is cut down. Our army leads the way in the fight against the city of Bengal; the army kills the defending samurai without effort, but the second samurai on defense kills no fewer than four Ansars before doing the decent thing and dying. The good news is that we get a leader when he does finally die! [dance] [party] Bengal is razed to the ground and Maximus goes back to Rome for safekeeping. We want to rush a wonder with him, but at the moment we can't trade to get any techs needed to build one. When Persia is willing to talk, we will get Invention from them and rush Leo's.

(4) 790AD One resistor left behind in Delhi. Virconium founded near the site of the razed Bengal. (Indian) settler rushed from Madras to help it shrink and to found a fishing village in the future. We sign peace with Xerxes and pay him 850g in the process to pick up Invention as well. We can now build berserks too if we want - sweet!

(5) 800AD Here's something really wacky: signing peace with Persia ended the "war happiness" phenomenon that you get when another nation declares war on you, and it went into disorder! Wow - sorry guys, did NOT see that one coming. Maximus rushes Leo's in Veii; the cascade has once again been killed. Delhi came out of resistance this turn - hurray! It also gets a settler rushed out of it, which will be used to refound future razed cities. A samurai defending India's iron source at Hyderabad goes insane when reduced to 1hp and wins 9 straight rounds of combat, preventing me from taking the city. :mad: Five units died, and now that thing will be back to full hit points next turn. Is there a "double-mad" smiley? Why did the AI have to get smart enough to use samurai on defense? These things really suck to fight since we can't retreat!

(6) 810AD Settler produced out of Delhi, now size 4. Monster samurai is killed by our first ansar's attacks and Hyderabad is ours. India now has NO iron, and that means no more nasty samurai for us to play with, at least until they get Astronomy and can trade with Persia. Truly massive war weariness pops up this turn. Now we COULD sue for peace... or we could punish Gandhi some more and just up the luxury rate! I opt for plan B. Luxury rate up to 50% (!) but we still make +138gpt.

(7) 820AD Furs colony is attacked and its hoplite defender killed, sending our civ into large-scale unhappiness. I raise luxuries to 70% (wow!) for one turn until I can found a new city and get the furs back into our city radius. The offending samurai is cut down and killed though.

(8) 830AD Resistance ends in Hyderabad. Lutetia founded to plug a cultural hole in our borders. Byzantium founded to pull furs back under our borders; luxury rate back down to a more sensible 50%. Kolhapur captured with only one loss.

(9) 840AD The resistance in Kohlhapur has ended (it was only size 2, after all). Delhi is back to size one now, after having been starved and settlers rushed from it. Moving into position to attack next city...

(10) 850AD Army leads the way again and kills top samuari defender at Lahore, losing 9hp in the process. Lahore is taken without losses and kept, as it is size 2. Almost all of the north is now in our hands.

I didn't do anything dramatic on this turn, mostly just kept pounding away at India, taking one of their cities every two turns. I changed a number of things around on the first turn because we were focusing TOO much on unit production; we are doing just fine with the maxed out cities producing units and the newer cities still working on infrastructure. Every city needs a temple, marketplace, and aqueduct/granary/courthouse where appropriate. That's it for now; we don't need anything else. When we get banks, we can rotate old core cities onto them and newer ones onto military, and so on.

War notes: Don't make peace with Gandhi until we have taken all of his cities in the north. There's just 5 more to go, and we can easily wheel through them from north to east on the Chittagong -> Karachi -> Calcutta highway. India is gassed and we shouldn't lose too many more units; hopefully we won't hit stage 4 war weariness. I continued Arathorn's policy of rushing a worker in Rome for 80g, then building an Ansar in 2 turns. We can actually do the same thing in Veii as well to get an Ansar every three turns, which I did a couple of times as well when we needed forces soon. Follow as funds and need dictates. A lot of cities in northern India need temples, but we probably won't have the funds for them until after the war. We should be done with India in about 10-15 turns, at which time we give him peace for all of his techs/cities and reduce him to OCC status.

Long-Term Plans: Once we deal with Gandhi, it'll be time to settle with Brennus in the south. We should have more than enough forces on hand to eliminate him quickly. Then it's time to haul on over to the other continent. I envision a wave of initial attacks with berserks from ships, to be followed by a rush of cossacks/sipahi across the enormous expanse of Persia. Should be fun! X-Man is still in a Monarchy and will have to run all research by himself now that we've taken out India and he has crippled the other civs over there, so the tech pace should be nice and slow; just how we want it. Playing around with all the different units is a ton of fun here in the middle ages; I can't wait to try a combined berserk naval assault with a sipahi blitz! Good luck Carbon. :)

OK, I would have put this into a more interesting format, but I frankly don't have the time and I'm sure everyone would rather I post the save file than wait until tomorrow to come up with a good narrative.

Sullla
Carbon Copy <<< UP NOW
T-Hawk <<< on deck
Arathorn
LKendter

RBP4 850AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_850AD.zip)

Map Time:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_850AD.jpg

Originally posted by Sullla
Cities were producing units with great wastage of shields, workers were toiling away mining the deserts instead of hills, and the worker-rushing policy of the great Arathorn to produce Ansars had been abandoned in favor of building Riders at a slower rate. Sulla pulled out his gigantic veto stamp and began proscribing weedy behavior left and right.



Hmmm....
Reviewing every city for optimal unit to build with the number of types units we have is simply something I don't have the desire to do. If this is a major issue let me know, and I will drop out of this one. That much detail is something I find hard to do in easy emperor games.


One the worker actions - sorry feast overload and the rush to finish these turns come through. I should have waiting to late last night AFTER I finish some critical personal items - not rushed this game to get to them.

Lee - It's not a big issue, and I certainly don't want to see you drop from the roster. Yes we are far ahead, and yes we are probably going to win this game without any kind of problem. Once you get into that Deity mindset though, it's difficult to break out of it. I can't just relax and let things go, even when it doesn't really matter anymore; I find myself still investigating cities almost every turn to shift tiles around and get that extra shield out, get an extra food to grow sooner, and a few extra points of commerce. It's either a sign of greatness or a sign of paranoia, but I can't stop doing it either way. Don't take it as criticism of your playing style; Sirian has done the same thing to my actions when taking over in past succession games, and I don't take it as a knock against me. Just that someone who manages things even closer to the vest than I do has taken over. Also bear in mind that the intro to my turn summary was written "in character" - things were not nearly so bad when I grabbed the game as I may have made it seem. And playing games on a feast night carries its own problems, which I'm sure is the reason why a city we had was working on a barracks while we had possession of Sun Tzu! :)

850 (0) - Survey of the land does not reveal any weed to my eyes, though I am somewhat confused by all the military units fortified in random places by Corinth. One thing that we've forgotten about, methinks, is that WE own the Sistine Chapel, and are not even close to building a single cathedral. Heck, Rome doesn't even have a temple! My goals for this turn are to acheive peace with India and get some cathedrals built up in our larger cities. If we had cathedrals in Antium, Delphi, Pompeii, Rome, and Thermopylae, we could lower our lux slider to 40% (it would take most cities having a temple and cathedral to make 30%, though). It's not as if I have the resources to build it on turn zero but something to consider the next time we want to warmonger ourselves into stage 3 weariness.

And speaking of stage 3 war weariness, I'm not really sure why we're throwing 200+ gpt down a rat hole for the privelege of being at war with Gandhi at this point. We've got everything from him that is worth anything, as far as I can tell he's got no luxuries, no resources, no cities productive to us. I'll continue for the first few cities to simplify our border in the north but I'm not going to let this war continue much longer. Besides, the sooner we can make peace, the sooner we can extort Banking from him and the sooner we can get in some needed infrastructure in our cities.

860 (1) - One more Indian berserk comes over the hills, Some troops build, Thermopylae switches to Cathedral but otherwise the ones that do finish a unit don't need one. Move the beatdown stack outside Chittagong, resistance in Lahore ends.

870 (2) - Chittagong captured, no units lost. Size 2, 2 resistors, but hopefully the whole beatdown stack piling into town will change that. Instead of going with an Ansar Warrior, I partial rush the worker so a temple builds in Rome in 2 turns.

880 (3) - Border expansion at Alesia takes away one Celt iron. Karachi captured with Ansars I had assembled in Byzantium, size 4, 4 resistors. That simplifies our border with India greatly and it will be several turns before I can wrangle the units into place to attack any of the ones left, so it's peace time! I dial up Gandhi, and while he will give us one of Ganges or Indus, he won't give both (oil down there?) and neither with a tech, but what I'm after is tech, anyhow. 380g will buy us Banking AND Gunpowder. Now to check for saltpeter, we have 4 instances of it in various places, no surprise considering our territory. Celts have one source by Lugdunum, Indians are without, Carthaginians are without, Vikings are without, there's only three instances on that whole other continent but they're all in either neutral territory (which will be Persian with border expansions) or in Persian territory outright. Veii switches over to a palace for a wonder, preferably Smith's.

890 (4) - Rome completes temple, to speed along the Cathedral (160 shields), I first rush a worker (80g, 10 shields), then I rush a courthouse (280g, 80 shields). Then I turn Rome onto a mild deficit to make up the other two shields, otherwise it would complete in four turns instead of three with a horrid 24 shields of waste!

900 (5) - Lots of size 6 cities complete projects and I set them to granary if they have an aqueduct. I've been swinging all the units back from the north in India down to the Celts' neighborhood.

910 (6) - A good first-strike force is now in place at Richborough to attack Lugdunum and take their saltpeter. However, I see their defender is a samurai and Lugdunum is on a hill, I decide it might be best to wait another turn where I can get the troops and army from up in India to help me out.

920 (7) - Moving troops into position.

930 (8) - In Richborough, there are: 17 veteran Ansars, one elite Ansar, and one veteran and elite Rider. The army will be along in one more turn and I have a Samurai on the border for defense once the city is taken. Actually, since I only need to wait one more turn for the army, I'll hold it off yet another turn to get that for Samurai-busting, and if I'm waiting another turn I might as well raze as capture since I've got some settlers arriving in the area a few turns later. I rush a couple temples up north to plug gaps.

940 (9) - I dial up Brennus and declare war. I start off with the army, it takes out the Samurai on a hill w/o a scratch, then blitzes out a NuMe that took off 5 hp. A rider promotes on the next NuMe, then another one dies on a non-fortified hoplite, then an elite ansar razes the city and gets us a bunch of slaves. The rest of the units in the stack (1 elite rider and 18 vet Ansars) then park on the mountains outside Entremont.

950 (10) - First Hoplite in Entremont goes down quietly, the second one was a monster, causing one unit to retreat and killing two more before finally dying. Remembering earlier antics with Entremont, I decide to raze rather than capture, especially since the Oracle doesn't work anymore. The rest of my units are still in range to attack Camulodunum on this turn, and it only takes one to defeat the lone hoplite and raze THAT city, too. A stack movement snafu however prevents the rest from attacking the capital and last Celtic city on our continent, Gergovia next turn (forgot about the spent units still in the stack with one fewer movement and when they stopped the whole stack lost all their moves :mad: ). Army and a few other damaged units are healing in Richborough, settlers can replace the razed cities in a few turns, Gergovia is toast in two turns, and the war chest grew to 1900 and making 416 per turn. There's a galley in Corinth and another going along our coast if you feel like taking the fight to that one Celtic island off the coast by Corinth (we'll need boats for Persia/Scandinavia/Carthage, anyhow).

In other news, once peace was declared lux tax was scaled back to 20%, Rome and Thermopylae were the cities that prevented us from going to 10%, we might want to do that once Thermo's cathedral builds if we haven't reached stage 1 weariness by then. No new tech was discovered on my watch, everyone is still just up printing press on us, so there will probably be a flurry of new advances on Arathorn's.

Game can be found here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4950ad.zip)

And here's a bonus trivia question: what is wrong with this picture of Gergovia?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4gergovia.jpg

For 200 pts -
What are mines doing on forest.

It's green, not red. That's what's wrong. I'll take care of that.

My goals:
- Finish off Brennus
- Build a slew of ships to take troops to the other continent
- Tech parity (or close)
- Leave troops to finish off India when the time is right
- Oh, and probably a bit of infrastructure here and there :p

Arathorn

(errr...that's a "got it", by the way)

Short report....more to follow tomorrow.

Eliminated Celts. Saw Bangalore flip to India. Gained zero techs but Astronomy and Economics have been shopped to the "powers" (India, Carthage, Persia). Persia is a democracy and has Chemistry, too. Xerxes has to go down soon.

I recommend buying at least one of Astronomy and Economics from India for cash in about 3-4 turns when we can go to war with them (getting some cash back when we take cities). I've overemphasized the western island and probably don't have enough troops in the north. T-hawk should have a few turns to fix that before our current peace treaty expires.

Save at http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-1050ad.zip

Arathorn

We saw a city flip back to India? That's frustrating but not a huge problem. What is somewhat of a waste of time is the fact that we now have to turn our forces around and head back up to India to deal with their few cities up there. I would have kept fighting India until they were off our island completely so that we wouldn't have this issue now, but hey, that's the fun of succession games after all. :) Good luck T-Hawk (and I wish you even more luck in helping our poor RBE6 Vikings! :D)

Got it. Sorry I can't wait for the rest of Arathorn's glorious report, but tonight is when I've got time to play, so gonna take it :)

T-hawk spends many hours consulting with his advisors. This empire has undergone many changes since the last rule of this esteemed family.

He notices the Roman people are not at war currently, but demands for more Indian blood run high. Rome has pledged to peace, but only for the next thirty years.

T-hawk establishes as priorities (I'm writing this as much for myself as our readers):

* Watch for a trading opportunity involving the knowledge of Chemistry currently possessed only by Persia.

* Acquire knowledge of Astronomy when possible, so as to learn how to Navigate ocean and trade with faraway lands. Our Menagerie will run even better with supplies of exotic items, since we would not have to devote 20% of our income to our own premium food for the beasts. Also, Veii's magnificent Palace might be turned over to an explorer by the name of Magellan, for ease in transporting our Menagerie.

* More Indian blood, natch.

T-hawk orders most military production changed to Berserks. Speed has been nice against India, but against another continent we want to hit harder and from the boats. Berserks are also ordered instead of Banks. We've got plenty of money and not enough military.

-----

In the twentieth year of T-hawk's reign, he and Gandhi meet at the bargaining table. The ringmaster pays 1,000 gold to the Indian leader for knowledge of Astronomy. That allows Rome to attempt construction of yet another Wonder of the World, and such is begun.

Nobody yet knows how to navigate the treacherous ocean between the Old World and the New.

-----

In the thirtieth year of T-hawk's reign, he and Gandhi again meet, and once again the Menagerie declares war! War weariness, however, begins at level one, meaning this war must be short and to the point.

-----

In the fortieth year of T-hawk's reign, Gandhi loses his two cities on the western island.

Also in this glorious year, T-hawk makes a realization: The golden age of the Roman people has not yet arrived. All that is necessary, though, is something to exploit the rubes... err, to maximize the Commercial nature of the circus. All the scientists in the Roman Empire are ordered to divine the mysteries of Navigation. This plan will take fifty years to complete.

(We could go for Smith's, but I'd rather have Magellan's to simplify the logistics of conquering the other continent. Also, Navigation will net us 2-5 techs in trade if we get it first. And at any rate the sooner we get Navigation, the sooner we can trade for more luxuries and kill the lux tax.)

-----

In the year fifty-five fifty-fi.... err, in the fiftieth year of T-hawk's reign, more of our ringmasters go berserk and Bangalore and Dacca fall.

-----

In the sixtieth year, etc etc, the Persian nation has discovered Navigation. Their price, however, is far too high, and the Roman scientists continue researching. We could trade luxuries with Persia, but they want all three of ours for any one of theirs. T-hawk adds Xerxes to the top of the "To Be Destroyed" list.

-----

In the eightieth year, the Carthaginian scientists have also learned Navigation. T-hawk executes the advisor that suggested that plan of research, and buys Navigation from Carthage for 12 gold.

Also this year, the berserk animals rampaging out of their cages overrun Calcutta. India has only one city remaining.

We trade several techs to Scandinavia for supplies of two luxuries, and several luxuries to Carthage for Printing Press.

Persia is the only civilization that knows Democracy.

Veii then immediately completes Magellan's Voyage, sparking the most Golden of all Ages for glorious Rome!

------

Ravenna is assigned to use the now-available Palace to build another wonder. T-hawk's Imperial decree is for this city and Rome to build Smith's Trading Company and Bach's Cathedral, in either order, if possible. Persia completed Copernicus, so to allow Rome to swap to a wonder, we have to buy Economics from Carthage with two luxuries and some spare change.

In the ninetieth year of T-hawk's reign, the face of the planet no longer includes the face of Gandhi. The Emperor cancels all taxes, leaving the Golden empire with a surplus of over ONE THOUSAND GOLD per turn.

------

At the centennial anniversary of T-hawk's coronation, one of the berserk animals, thirsting for blood now that there is no Indian prey available, mauls and kills the Emperor. A general named Lee is raised to the throne (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-menagerie-1150ad.zip). He shall coordinate plans for the invasion of Persia.

We have one beaker in on Music Theory; we can research anything easily in 4 turns (3 for Music Theory) if we so choose. I have not tried to optimize cities for particular builds, or really to do anything other than build more berserks.

But, please tell this humble peasant, how shall the great T-hawk be raised from the dead?

1150 AD (Pre-turn) - The General wonders why he was called to leader, for there is no war going on.
He hand the reign of power to his son, who likes to build things.
LeeSon is worry about spreading the word, and rushes many temples. He seeks to spread the Roman culture throughout the lands. LeeSon needs but one answer from the General, where should the troops go?
General Lee says "Knossos, from there we can get to the Persia islands, and we can get start in Zohak and get our people multi-colored shirts from Reykjavik which will make the people happy".

1170 AD - Once again LeeSon rushes more buildings; some fighting guys, and improves the ships.

1190 AD - Once again LeeSon rushes more buildings, and adds more fighting guys.
LeeSon buys the secrets of Chemistry - it just sounds good - from the Celts for $1125.

1200 AD - (I) New of fighting between Persia and China reaches our shores.

1210 AD - LeeSon decides to rush nothing, as he feels he spent too much money last time

1230 AD - LeeSon is back rushing thing, but mostly fighting troops this time.

1240 AD (I) - Our people celebrate the arriving of a man named Smith in Rome. It is said he trading company will help our economy.


Summary - The General reviews he sons reign, and is pleased. Roman culture which soon occupy every inch of our continent. There is a nice collection of troops building near Knossos. The new banks increase our people's wealth.


Sullla (currently playing)
Carbon_Copy (on deck)
Arathorn
T-Hawk
LKendter

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4-1250AD.zip

Looking pretty good from what I can see here. :cool: Got it and will play sometime tomorrow.

(0) 1250AD Looking at the game, all I have to say is WOW! We are kicking some serious behind. The whole continent is now flying the red flag of Rome, and we're making +1223g/turn in our golden age (!!!) LK has left me a monster army, which I thought I'd show in pictoral form:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_menageriearmy.jpg

I just need to shuttle these guys over to Persia and let the fun begin! First though, I trade for Metallurgy with Hannibal for 1190g - which is still less than one turn's income! :lol: The sooner we get to Military Tradition and can augment our forces with Sipahi and Cossacks, the faster this will go. Berserks are great units, but they are slow moving against inland targets. Oh ho! Now that we have Metallugy, we can see that X-Man alone of all civs has Military Tradition. He wants 3000g for it. I say that we will just take what we want with our embassy. The steal fails, but we manage to get away without being discovered. Well uh, there went another 1000g, but I will try again next turn. We've got the units, now all we need are the ships! Caravels rushed in all nearby coastal towns. I set sail with most of the berserks and the elite horse units; those that are veterans I hold back to upgrade to Coassacks. We're going to war again, baby! :D

(1) 1255AD China is killed between turns. That's what you get starting next to Persia with a genuine Epic14 dud start. I decide that stealing Military Tradition and potentially not getting it for another turn is stupid when we have gobs of money lying around, and so I buy it from X-Man for 3075g. Ouch that's expensive, but still only 3 turn's income. And with luck we will grab a lot of that money back as we sack his cities.

(2) 1260AD Persia dialed up and war is honorably declared. Jinjian, defended only by Hoplites, is seized on the opening turn of the war (3 resistors; surplus units landed to "deal" with them).

(3) 1265AD We Love the Ringmaster days are celebrated all over the great Menagerie at the declaration of war against the vile Persians. Even better, the first of our great Sipahis roll off the assembly lines in towns across Rome, eager to engage in glorious combat. On the bad side, only one of three resistors was quelled in Jinjian, despite 11 units garrisoned there to end the rioters (?) Meanwhile, the struggle at Zohak is viscious, as the city is size 7 on a hill with musket defenders. Our first two berserks die in the struggle but redline both muskets (looking decidedly odd in Persian green, I must say). The third one wins his struggle and the previously injured muskets are killed. We have our first base on the other continent! 6 resistors, but with the units I'm going to pile in there it won't be a problem for long. Large cities in Persia should be razed however, since their culture is much better than ours.

(4) 1270AD Persia moves a jumbo and a samurai into range but makes no counterattacks this turn. 11 units were STILL not enough to quell two resisters in Jinjian. This is where the "culture" aspect of the game is broken IMO; when 5:1 ratio of defenders vs resistors is not enough to get the job done. Looks like we'll be doing a lot of razing in this game. I pick off the exposed units with no losses - no leaders either from our fishing Ansar and Rider elites - and wait for more units to arrive. Not that it matters, but our score passed Persia this turn for #1 on the histograph. :)

(5) 1275AD Resistance finally ends in Jinjian, down to just two resistors in Zohak. And here comes the Persia counterattack: lots of Riders and Cossacks (5 of them). But they are foolishly left exposed on open ground for our mobile units to nail. Unfortunately, we do lose a few of our units, two or three of them, in the process.

(6) 1280AD Wowie! The Persians DO have an army! Cossacks come after Zohak like there's no tomorrow, nearly taking a city that had almost 10 units in it! Thank goodness for that 4def that our own Cossacks have; it saved us from losing the city. I mean wow; I never expected to see more than 15 units concentrate on the city like that. Now it's mop-up time; time to pick off all those exposed units in our territory. We kill most of them, but too many escape. The problem with the zerks is that Cossacks keep retreating from them; we need more mobile forces. Resistance has ended in both cities we captured, so we should be safe(r) from a flip. Zohak also has dyes in its range, so when our harbor comes in next turn, it means even more happiness.

(7) 1285AD Dear GOD! The Persians are POUNDING Zohak! They attacked it with no fewer than TWENTY-TWO units between turns. I mean... I have NEVER seen the AI hit one city with so much punch in such a short time. Since Zohak is behind a river and on a hill, we are fortunately still alive - with almost every unit there redlined. The good news is that we got a defensive leader in the struggle, Germanicus. The victorius unit was remaned to Magneto - the bane of X-Man. I'm sending him back to the mainland for safekeeping, the next player can decide what to do with him. We are at WW stage two already! From nothing to stage two in one turn! I can only imagine what that will be doing on the other side to X-Man, in a democracy and with many, many fewer luxuries than we have. 10% luxuries is plenty for now to keep the peace. Over on the war front, I cannot attack many Persian units that have 1hp left, because they are covered by other units with full hit points. The retreat ability is really helping them and hurting us. Fighting defensively against the AI... wow, that's something new. We should have enough to hold Zohak, barring another enormously huge attack.

(8) 1290AD Not TOO bad of a turn over on the other continent, only saw 14 attacks this round. We are just getting our asses pounded over there; to be honest, reinforcements can't get there fast enough. I don't know if it's going to hold. In better news, the Persian island colony of Borazjan was captured by a small group of zerks, though two of them unexpectedly died to hoplites (what's up with that?)

(9) 1295AD I... can't... believe this. They threw... TWENTY SEVEN units at us last turn. TWENTY SEVEN!!! This is absolutely insane. Zohak survived... barely. It has one Ansar with 2hp and a zerk with 2hp. That's it. Our once-might invasion force has been literally cut to rags. They even launched a freakin' attack from a caravel with a zerk on our poor city. Persia is taking absoutely horrible losses, but... it takes us SO long to get our forces over to their continent, they are frankly winning the war of attrition. Winning it badly. Two defenders left, and at least three turns before our reinforcements arrive. We... cannot win in this situation. I think that we should make peace with Persia, hard as it might be to believe that. I WANT to fight them, but we only have five defenders, all of them hurt, in Zohak and we just cannot hold out through another turn of fighting. We just need two turns to get our next reinforcements over to Persia's island. Once we get more than one city over there, we can cash-rush units every turn. But right now... I do think we need peace. Will leave it up to the next leader to decide. I'm tired now, this turn took over 4 hours to play. The armies of the Menagerie are bruised and bloodied right now, awaiting the hands of a new leader to give them direction.

RBP4 1295AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_1295AD.zip)

I feel like I managed the war poorly in that last turn, which is partly why I'm handing off one turn early. I send our offensive forces over there first, as I usually do when fighting wars. What I did NOT expect was the absolutely enormous number of counterattacks that we saw on my turn. As a result, the few defensive units I brought we quickly slaughtered, and a lot of our zerks ended up getting killed defending against attacks - ouch. You never want to see that happen. We probably killed close to 20 Persian units just defending against their attacks, plus easily that number again on offense. I was stunned by the speed and sheer numbers of our attackers, and we were almost pushed back into the sea by their massive counterattack. We will be, if we don't sign peace. That's a shame, because Persia's cities are starving and they are almost (but not quite) gassed; I know that we are nearing the end of their offensive units. But our offensive is gassed too, and even 10 turns of peace would be massively beneficial to us. I guess the moral of this story is to bring more defensive units with an attack! In all my time playing Civ3, I had never seen the AI counterattack so visciously, especially not on Emperor.

Situation:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_1295AD.jpg

Sullla
Carbon Copy <<< UP NOW
Arathorn <<< on deck
T-Hawk
LKendter

Beware the Uncanny X-Man!

I have seen much worse counter-attacks/attacks, even on Monarch. Not much later tech-wise, I've seen 50+ cav stacks attack a city.

My current deity solo game (been playing since about Thanksgiving), making a beachhead, I couldn't count the attacking numbers. Spies before and after indicated well over 100 units DIED in the attack, not counting those that were red-lined. And that lasted for several rounds. I brought 35 transports full of infantry and artillery. And it was barely enough.

BTW, not having *any* hwacha along, at all, is :smoke: IMO. Beachheads are ALWAYS hard to form and to hold, even on regeant. Artillery is most important for fighting a defensive war, because it fires twice a round, every round.

Please, CC, if/when you do make peace, don't get any real concessions, so we can break the treaty at our liesure (if you carefully read the phony peace treaty, it's only getting hard goods for peace and then breaking the deal that is an exploit). Another few shipping rounds and a bit better preparation and I think we can resume war during my turns...I hope.

Also, 3K gold for a tech? Which doesn't increase our defense at all? More :smoke: We don't really need MT right away. Samurai are just as good defensively and the answars/riders have the speed. OK, 4 attack vs. 6 attack makes a small difference, but I think we could have safely waited a few turns to save thousands in cash AND not given it to our biggest (only) rival.

Finally, I think the BEST thing to do would have been to declare war, sign Carthage and Scandinavia to alliances, about 3 turns before our troops landed. This would have helped use up many of X-Man's spare offensive troops on people other than us. Would've probably made a 30-unit difference...and given us more time to establish our beachhead properly.

I do hope you rushed walls ASAP and barracks the next turn in Zohak, so at least we got that bonus. You did, didn't you?

Not your best set of turns, Sullla. Of course, expectations for you are so high that anything short of wiping Persia off the map would've been a bit disappointing :p ;)

Arathorn

BTW, not having *any* hwacha along

:smoke: Ouchie, I didn't build any of them for the stack - DOH!


Did we get the settlers to the ice islands? I didn't mention in summary, but they were built to lock those islands. Every space is closer to domination - they same reason I rushed culture like crazy in the homeland.

I'll probably make peace and take what I can w/o any real concessions (Persia had better be prepared to fork over that world map, though ;) ).

Do remember we're at higher-than-Emperor difficulty, with the cost factor at 70%. That's mostly why Persia's got such huge stacks.

And a big :splat: to those who forgot the Hwachas :P :)

Sadly, this is our best opportunity on the tech tree to invade. By the next time we try, they'll have riflemen (Persia's scientific) to hold off our cossacks and sipahi. Hwacha can help some, but there's that ROF of only 1, half as powerful as artillery. Oh well, there's always the Panzers :)

1295 (0) - We're in over our heads and need time to re-establish ourselves on the Persian continent. Time to start suing for peace. WM + 49g is all he can do without going for cities or tech discounts. And yes, to ease Arathorn's mind, Zohak indeed does have a barracks, walls, and harbor already. I buy Physics from Carthage for spices, furs, WM, and 640g.

1300 (1) - Rome starts on Military Academy. Some Sipahi finish building, I swap a bunch of cities over to Hwach'a. I notice that some of our workers are doing pointless work (like mining hill tiles that don't belong to any city), and as I see them I stop them and move them inland.

1305 (2) - Germanicus makes landfall, but I don't know what to do with him except maybe to rush Newton's once ToG becomes available. I'm going to keep him in Sparta for now.

1310 (3) - IBT Persia moves a worker into the city radius of Zohak (whose military garrison has once again climbed to over 20 units). The first of our Hwach'as are built back home, Zohak rushes another one up by the front.

1315 (4) - I get some partial rush scenarios set up. For cities that make between 15 and 20 shields, they can build Sipahis every other turn by going worker -> Berserk -> Sipahi (build in 2). Zohak can build a hwach'a every turn for 200g by going worker->hwach'a, and any city making 10-15 shields can build one every turn by going worker->Immortal->Hwach'a, or a Sipahi every other turn by going worker->Cossack->Sipahi. I eventually decide that rather than build them at home then ship to Persia, 200g is low enough to just rush them in Persia and cut out the middleman.

1320 (5) - Persia enters the Industrial Age, which means they got Theory of Gravity. Carthage has Magnetism. I decide to try to make a gamble and for 2100g attempt to steal ToG. I actually succeed. I then trade ToG + 100g to Hannibal for Magnetism, and now both of us are in the Industrial, too. I upgrade a few caravels to galleons and load the army into one of them. Germanicus rushes Newton's in Sparta. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

1325 (6) - Newton's complete in Sparta, more caravels upgraded to galleon.

1330 (7) - Not much, more troop shuffles.

1335 (8) - Not a whole lot.

1340 (9) - The last of our caravels arrive in port and get upgraded to galleons. Since I've burned away about half of our treasury with partial sipahi rushes, I only rush the Sipahis that would take longer than 6 turns to build naturally.

1345 (10) - Nothing much. Forces now in Zohak: 10 Hwach'as, 22 Sipahi, 7 Musketeers, 2 Cossacks, 7 Berserks, 1 Ansar army, and 1 Ansar Warrior. In transit: 8 Sipahi 1 turn away, 2 Sipahi two turns away, 4 Sipahi three turns away, plus whatever is making its way to Knossos over land. Military Academy due in 7 in Rome, Music Theory in 10, Palace prebuild in Ravenna due in 10 (nobody has MT yet). Tech Situation: Persia up Nationalism and Democracy on us, Carthage up Democracy, Scandinavia down Physics and Metallurgy. Cash situation: we have 6000-something in the bank and make 997 per turn. I accidentally hit next turn before I save or rush anything (whoops!), but I'm not going to use any troop moves.

1350 (11) - IBT Jinjan flips back to Persia (size 2, full control of its 21, 1 defender), which means that it will have a rifle defender now. Boo.

Here's the game: RBP4 1350 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp41350ad.zip)

Got it! Too bad about Persia getting riflemen. That will make things ... more interesting, to say the least. But I don't want to wait around for them to get infantry.....

Arathorn

Nice turn Carbon; I'm glad to see you fixing up a lot of the awful weedy moves that I was making on my turn. :smoke: [pimp]

Persia with rifles? :( Well, we knew that was coming. That's part of the reason why I was rushing to attack them when I did, only to see it blow up in my face. I was looking back over the games that I have played, and I realized that even though I've gone through almost 50 full games, I've never actually invaded another civ as large as Persia in this game on another continent in an Emperor/Deity situation. Maybe that would help to explain why I was woefully unprepared for what X-Man was sending after us. You live and learn, and hopefully can avoid making the same mistake more than once. I won't be making THAT particular mistake again anytime soon. :D

Now Jinjian flipping is just ridiculous: on an island WAY far away from Persepolis, no resistors, no cultural pressure, with level 2 cultural borders, and only one Persian national. A city should NEVER flip back under those conditions; this is one of the few areas where Civ3 is simply not balanced correctly.

Fighting against rifles is not the best, but at least we have Sipahi in this game! Good luck Arathorn - if there's anyone who understands warfare in this game, it's you. :goodjob:

WAR with Persia...they declared on me after our ambassador was found with his fingers in some secret files. That he'd already escaped with Nationalism, despite having worn blazing lights and bells in the first time didn't seem to matter. :)

And, well, after Scandinavia joined...and so did Carthage, Xerxes got gassed in a big hurry. He's almost totally spent now. I've captured 6 cities and razed another 3. Counter-attacks are down to one/two units every turn. I've been capturing instead of razing, because we're short on settlers in the area.... Resistances take forever to squelch.

Ice island was the harriest, as X-man landed two samurai and I'd almost abandoned our one city to take the other. Both cities are ours now, but Carthage filled in and not us.

Umm...what else?
- Jag warriors are there for flip suppression/resistance quelling. They're cheap, so I'd keep building them.
- The southern two cities that were Carthage's had ZERO Carthage culture, so we're not in much danger of flips, once starvation is done.
- Don't be fooled by the two stacks of Sipahi by Carthage. The western one is meant t go west and the eastern one is a feint. Do *not* attack Carthage with these measely forces.
- The sipahi in the east, OTOH, should be able to take their city fairly easily.

This game has 10-20 turns left, I think. Domination...keep pushing. Infantry will suck. I've not used the h'wacha much since the first couple turns, before X-man got gassed.

I did start steam power @50% after we got Bach...just because movement time is starting to matter. Feel free to continue at that rate, move up, or down. I seriously doubt it will affect the outcome.

Most cities have had one vet rifle, one vet musket/cossack, one vet legion, and one drafted rifle. 8 sipahi are usually enough. Smaller cities that we're hitting in the east now are less well defended, as X gets more and more gassed. Expect ~8 rifles in Carthage.

Sorry for the discombulated report...it's pretty late here and I've been dealing with sick kids all day.

Arathorn

Save at http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-1400ad.zip

Got it, might not get to it until Sunday night or Monday afternoon. (I have to go through some computer-setup gymnastics to play; why oh why can't the game play at less than 1024x768?)

Here's the current map. Arathorn is certainly right to rush Jags out of Seleucia and use them for flip suppression; they're only 80g each and by using them for garrison duty, our armies in the field can keep pushing forward at all times. We're getting close to domination, but all the tundra forests up in the north of Persia may slow us down a bit. It shouldn't take more than 30 turns (max) to win though. Nice work! :goodjob:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_1400AD.jpg

BTW, are we allowing Mapstat to check on how close we are to domination?

I won't be using MapStat, but if someone else wants to do so, that's their own priority. This isn't a competition game after all.

Arathorn said his report was discombobulated... indeed so! He talks about our sipahi surrounding Carthage. We're at war with Persia and the troops are outside Persepolis. :crazyeye: "Rome is at war with Persia. Rome has ALWAYS been at war with Persia..."

Anyways, I crank up research to max on Steam Power; it'll greatly simplify logistics of moving more troops. Also, we could make use of Universal Suffrage, although I won't bother with a prebuild since we'll surely get a GL.

Our size-12 cities without cathedrals are swapped to them; even with all eight luxuries they're barely staying content - 6 happy/6 unhappy, which war weariness will mess up.

Inbetween turns, two Persian sipahi attack Antioch, which only had two defenders.. and survives with 1 HP on the last defender. Gotta watch out for those 3-move units...

1405: Shanghai falls to only two Sipahi attackers. Sipahi move into position to join with the shiploads of Berserks to take Pasargadae. Going to take Persepolis once the Hwach'a get there.

Dang, we have a lot of boats, and it doesn't help that the galleons look so similar to the men-o-war...

Antioch flips back, eliminating four sipahi :P

1410: Antioch recaptured. Pasargadae captured (probably should have razed it; it's also in Persepolis' shadow.)

Carthage and Scandinavia MPP.

1420: Arbela captured.

1425: Our people want to build the Iron Works! In, uh, Syracuse, a marginally useful size-6 city.

Tarsus razed, alleviating cultural pressure on several of our new holdings. And we got a Great Leader, who I'll save for Universal Suffrage.

Antioch flips again, this time wiping out our ten-jaguar garrison company.

1430: Hwach'a begin bombarding Persepolis.

The VIKINGS capture Antioch.

1440: Our sipahi grow bored while waiting for the Hwach'a to pound Persepolis, and go raze Tyre.

1445: Antioch flips AGAIN, from the Vikings back to Persia.

1450: The hwach'a howl, the sipahi shriek, the cossacks charge, the armies advance, and Persepolis is plundered. I couldn't bring myself to raze the Pyramids, though. The city is down to size three, so it shouldn't be a big pain.

And that was the killing blow. We also took two more cities this turn (including Antioch for the fourth time). We're positioned to take three of the four remaining Persian cities on the continent next turn. I also diverted two boats towards the north-central island.

We've got a fairly haphazard rail net coming along on the home continent.

Two settlers and the Great Leader are in Artaxata (which we founded so it's flip-proof.) Next leader gets to decide what to do with them, and play Rush-the-Temples, and, well, the boring parts of a domination win. :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-menagerie-1450ad.zip

Alright, it looks like LK gets to dot the i's and cross the t's for this game. Have fun! :D

1450 AD (Pre-turn) - :confused: We have just about won, be we are researching toward factories at full speed?
We have this game WON with just a few more cities taken, and a few border expansions. I shut research off to get maximum cash rush money - that is what will win this game, more squares under our control.
I rush libraries where possible.

(I) The people must know what is about to happen, and they add pretty trees to our palace.

1455 AD - Resistance ends in Persepolis, so a library is rushed.
Sardis, Dariush Kabir and Canton are captured.

1460 AD - Resistance ends in Nanking, so a library is rushed.
Xinjian and Tsingato are captured.
I don't see a reason to keep the leader, so I rush a library in Arbela so that it will complete next turn despite resistance.

1465 AD - Istakhr is captured, and the Persians are dead [dance]
Aurelianorum is founded, and of course a library is rushed.

1470 AD - Hippo Regius is formed, will it be enough?
(I) Game over [dance]

Our score is 5,709 - a nice score for this game.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RPB4-1470AD.zip

Wow. That was a cool game to watch. As a lurker/observer I must say you guys played an excellent game with a fascinating concept. Bravo.

Victory! [party] [dance]

I'm say we really laid the smack down on all the enemies of the great Menagerie! :hammer: Yes, P.T. Barnum and his fantastic crew of assorted critters and entertainers are now ready for a well-deserved peaceful retirement.

The replay revealed a number of very, VERY interesting details. The Chinese, for all of their horrible starting location, were able to pop a leader in their war against Persia in 510BC! Must have been used for an army or killed, becuse they didn't get a wonder from it. Most shocking of all was that the early combat with Greece versus the Celts generated a leader for them - who rushed the Great Library in Athens! :eek: Yes, that's right: the Great Library that we used throughout the game was leader-rushed by Alex right before we jumped into the war and took his capital! I can only refer back to Sirian: sometimes it truly is better to be lucky than good. :goodjob:

Carthage got a golden age through wonder building, and China got a second leader as Persia was wiping them out, not that it was in time to save them. I love the more detailed PTW replay, by the way. We started kind of slow, then steamrolled everything in our path. And one final note: we had a 98% approval rating on the final turn of the game, and that was only good enough for second place on the F11 screen? How happy were those other civs?! :)

It was fun guys, and I want to thank everyone who picked up the pieces from my one bad turn against Persia. The fast victory belongs to the four of you, not due to anything on my part. I've got something else fun planned for another succession game, so stay tuned, I'd like to debut it sometime this weekend... ;)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP4_final.jpg

Very fun game! Thanks all. This game was a breath of fresh air. Fun, light, not without its :smoke: but never too bad. Thanks for taking the time to set up all the special rules (and test them), Sullla. Thanks to Lee, T-hawk, and Carbon, too, for keeping the game going, especially through the early awkward period.

Arathorn

This was great fun. It's too bad that since this was a scenario and not a true game, the victory doesn't go into our hall of fame.

After having played with most of them now and weighing their relative strengths head-to-head (instead of comparing them to just the base unit), based on what we built and how well they've worked for me in past games, the best UUs in the game are:

Ancient Age:

Hoplites
Immortals

Medieval Age:

Ansar Warriors
Berserks
Sipahi

With honorable mention going to Mounted Warriors and Samurai.

And is it just me, or does the game now give Ironworks-capable locations much more often? I've been seeing them with a lot higher frequency in PTW than I ever did in normal Civ3 (only one I could think of off-hand was in the RBD4 SG and we didn't put our city in the right spot).

PTW doesn't put modded games into its Hall of Fame automatically, which is rather silly since if you have the skill to mod the game you certainly can figure out how the HOF works. If you want to put this game into your HOF, you can do what I did and open up the "HighScores" file in the PTW folder, then copy this line into it:

P.T._Barnum 1 5709 4 0 1

It's very useful to be able to manipulate the high scores list, as I was able to transfer my scores from my old computer to this one and to transfer my vanilla Civ3 scores into the PTW HOF. I had to do the same thing with the heavily modded Epic22 game as well. :p