NOTE: I have NO intention of making the LK series all deity, all the time

World = Open to discussion
Difficulty = Deity
Barbarians = Sedentary or roaming - I hate barbs
# Civs = 7
NOT culturally linked, NO restarting players.
Civ = Open to discussion


Signed up:
LKendter


10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.


Mandatory requirements
Play The World Expansion
Must SHRED Emperor, Deity experience preferred.

The following tactics are PROHIBITED:
RoP Rape - if you have to ask...
RoP Abuse (irrigating all tiles with a city building wonders, denying resources with a RoP, etc.)
Scout resource denial - parking a scout on a resource, as the AI won't ask scouts to leave
False Peace Treaties (must wait for the 20 years to end)
Declaring War to break trade deals including actions like the Demand exploit to force a war, or demanding to leave territtory
False Alliances (ally with several people vs. a civ then peace with that civ), and other actions that completely abuse the AI limited diplomacy ability.
Spy exploit - If you fail to plant a spy, you CAN'T try again. The exploit is: you can infinitely plant a spy until the Civ declares war.
Demand exploit - You may make ONE demand a turn per civ. The exploit is: you can demand to the end of time, and guaranteed to get a civ furious and almost to war.



OK, the big question:
Who wants to start a deity game, and with what parameters?
LK36 was my first deity win, so please don't suggest beyond deity (50% factor, or other things to make it way harder).

I am more thinking civ, a possible goal, and a map other then my norm to support the scenario.
One possibility is Korean space race with a twist - We must build the Internet, and trip our golden age during the space race.
I am open to other PTW civs except Mongols that I am currently playing.

I am interested LKendter. I am currently playing the Ottomans and Mongols, but would be very interested in trying out the Spanish or the Carthaginians. I think the best idea I can come up with is a national culture victory with the Spanish (who as religious, get cheap temples). In my deity experience, there is always at least one civ that runs away with culture, so we would have to destroy them and perhaps others militarily in order to secure the culture victory. What do you think?

Hey Lee. I might be interested. I'd like to play an industrious civ, doesn't have to be an expansion civ, though. Also not looking for a variant, just a deity game with a non-RBE2 start.

- Sirian

LKendter, K7 is wrapping up much sooner than I had expected on such a large map, even with some slow play over the holidays. Emperor vs. 'zerkers was a bloodbath. I had forgotten how large the Emperor to Diety jump is. So count me in if you have some space.

I am pretty easy on settings. I played as Spain and Otto over the holidays (both conquest victories), and have a game as the Arabs going now, possible culture victory if I can take out the Babs. Korea is the last PTW civ I haven't played, but my first was Carthage so I would revisit them (to satisfy Sirians desire for Industrious as well as Speakers request). Maybe we could just play with Diplo off, to take away that bailout victory possibility and allow us to forget about the UN. 7 civs makes it a standard map? or is that large? I like to play random map age and shape, gives a bit more unknown to the fog.

I'm game. I really like the Industrious trait. Using Carthage would be fine with me, as would eliminating the Diplo victory condition. I posted my Deity victory in the RBE thread. I usually play to the point where victory is ensured and then start a new game, but decided to complete a game so I could post it.

I will commit to the standard 24-got it/48-post it requirements if that's the course we take. Please let me know if you would like any other information about me or my playing experience.

Lee,

If you'd like one more, I'd be game. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

JMB

We are at 6 possible players!

I am at work, so I can't confirm Carthage being Industrious. I haven't played them yet, so I am up for a game with them.

I feel Industrious and Religious are in a tie for the best trait in the game. Double speed workers rock, but I can't argue with cheap temples that make domination much easy. I personally prefer domination to conquest, as I always found it so painful to have to get every last city like civ2 required.

I posted my first deity win in LK36, and I did help with a key trading round. Reagan has posted a deity win. Speaker is playing deity right now.

What I need now:
1) Confirmation from Sirian if he wants to play. I know he plenty of deity experience. That will decide if JMB makes the game.

2) Gothmog is an unknown - what is your previous deity experience?

3) JMB played TH3, close to deity. Have you played an actual game of deity?


It appears we have at least a couple of votes on turning off Dipblowmatic as a win. I can't live without that option.

I don't play much on large maps except my world map series, so I will stick with standard size world. Random weather and age is fine. I still prefer large continents - I really don't want a GOTM #14 situation here.

I'll confirm that Carthage is Commercial and Industrious.

In solo games I play Diety exclusively, with totally random map settings. I win most of the time. I like to take different paths to victory. Check K7 for an example of my experience SHREDDING (make that embarrassing) Emperor, and check RBE3 for an example of my Diety play - although I joined 1/3 of the way through. I'm an old civ2 hand as well. When I got civ3 I played once at Monarch, once at Emperor, the rest at Diety.

OK, no question that Gothmog is in.

I don't mind Commercial at all - less corruption is always good.

Clearly in
Reagan has posted a deity win.
Speaker is playing deity right now.
Gothmog mainly deity player.
Sirian if he confirms.

JMB is in *if* Sirian is a no, and a better clue on deity experience or at least shreding emperor.

@Sirian - If you have time/inclination, I'd appreciate the opportunity to play this one with you. I've read your reports on here and on your Web site with great interest. Your writing style is easy to read and your analysis is exceedingly helpful.

@LK - (1) I am a pretty amiable team player-type guy, so my comment about the Diplo victory condition was more a signal of acquiescence than advocacy. In other words, I'm open to playing with the Diplo option on or off, although my "vote" would go towards keeping it on. (2) You are right that Religious is right up there with Industrious for preferred traits. I try not to use the Egyptians too much because they are so powerful. I like Carthage because Commercial is a very valuable trait and my preference for a builder style of play does not necessitate very many government changes, which somewhat reduces the Religious trait's value.

I have posted a deity win in the thread of my SG game, but I'll post it again here for ease. I agree with you on religious and industrious being the two best traits. I usually used the egyptians in vanilla Civ3 and have since moved on to the Ottomans in PTW. I would love to try the Carthaginians if we go industrious or the Spanish if we go religious.

I guess if you blinked you missed a shot at this one, eh? Oh well, I will have to fill in the time with the LK-WM testing, and try to get one of the Epics done before the deadline.

Lee,

I have beaten deity a few times (e.g., RBE4 and RB Epic 17) but am by no means an 'experienced' deity level player. I'm easy whatever happens.

JMB

If we play an industrious civ (any) and no added variant rules, I'm in. Diplo option on or off is fine either way.

- Sirian

@JMB - sorry, but I you missed the 5th slot

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

Player order

LKendter
Reagan
Sirian
Gothmog
Speaker

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

Parameters agreed on -
Civ = Carthage: Commercial and Industrious.
Standard size world.
Random weather and age is fine.
Large continents
Roaming barbs
Standard 7 opposing civs.

1 no diplo, 1 yes, 2 either wayincluding me.
I will start later tonight and see if more comments on Diplo.
As of now, just 1 clear no = keep Diplo.

I'm looking forward to thumping some AIs with y'all. :hammer:

I would say keep the Diplomatic option on. I find the Diplomatic victory to be very satisfying. It encourages honorable play and the race to get the UN can be quite exciting, especially with a perfect prebuild.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LAK-237.jpg

4000 BC - I never like goodie huts at suicide range. However, I can't waste 3 worker turns to get rid of it. It will pop in 10 turns! I am tempted to move off the forest for most short-term shields, but long time this city will rock. Carthage is formed. A warrior is ordered, what else? The mandatory pottery is started.

3850 BC (I) Warrior #2 is ordered.

3750 BC - We spot our first luxury - gems.

3600 BC (I) - Warrior #2 is ordered who will stay home until the hut pops.

3550 BC (I) - The hut pops with a free warrior. I don't argue - it will hurt the gpt short term, but I get another exploring unit.

3400 BC (I) - On conscript warrior is attacked by barbs, and is now a regular.

3350 BC - We have a first contact - Russia - I really want to find India, but never argue with contact. We have a successful trade of Alphabet to Russia for Bronze working and $22. We spot wines, but I have a feeling that Russia will be there first with the 6-unit stack I spotted.
(I) I hope to spot another civ, so I start a 40 turn minimum science on math.

3300 BC - Another trade that favors Russia a bit, but I can't argue the change to get another tech. I ship Masonry to Russia and I get Warrior Code and $13 (all cash).

3250 BC - The free warrior continues to earn his keep, as he frags a barb camp.

3100 BC - South and southeast don't go very far, so the other civs must be north.

3000 BC - We get our second contact - the Mongols - Did we get all the aggressive civs nearby?
The good news is he did NOT find Russia yet. I give him Alphabet and get Burial, Wheel and $10. We have tech parity with the expansionist Mongols :confused:
We have a nearby source of horses [dance]

2900 BC - Our third contact - trading won't be a problem. Aggressive civs will be - it is the Germans. I want to find commercial India! No trading with them, as I won't give Alphabet up for simply $25.

2850 BC (I) - The granary is completed, time to pump out settlers.

2710 BC - I hate deity barbs - our warrior is slaughtered trying to stop the barbs. I have to switch the capital to archer. Our settler will be delayed several turns.

2670 BC (I) GACK - Carthage is hit by disease.

2630 BC - We have a rare deity moment - I pop a hut, and get mysticism. It seems like I always get barbs at higher levels.
(I) We see the typical disease, round 2.

2550 BC - Germany is still way behind the times, so I pay 3rd civ prices for Iron Working to the Mongols, $146 and $2/turn. We have **2** potential iron sources :)

Summary - We have barbs floating around the capital, ESCORT settlers!
The warrior should lose versus the barb camp on the mountain - don't bother. He has more value to help escort settlers.
Based on the landmass side - I think we have another civ not yet found.

LKendter
Reagan (currently playing)
Sirian (on deck)
Gothmog
Speaker

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LK38-2550BC.zip

This is our first dot-map.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LAK-238.jpg

Yellow dot - gives gems, and the direction Russia will come from - the highest priority IMO.
Blue dot - weak growth, but it gives horses.
Black dot - the only spot with growth in that desert mess.
Red dot - a bit of a question mark on location - need to understand the fog covered question mark square.

Great timing. I just finished watching one of my all-time fav movies -- "Spartacus" -- and checked-in here in time to see the game is ready for me to play. This is my "got it." I will endeavor to play my turn tonight and post a save.

2550 (0) - Except for wondering why our Worker is improving (mining) a tile Carthage will likely not use for awhile instead of building a road to future city sites, no changes are necessary.

2510 (1) - Our "barb camp warrior" begins his trek northward to help fortify Carthage or escort helpless settlers. Before his departure, he notices the rude barb beasts have tamed beasts of their own and are now riding horses. One is now ready to begin wreaking havoc. MM Carthage to grow at the same time the settler pops, without losing production.

2470 (2) - The Russians have had Workers in their capitol for two consecutive turns. They must be under barb seige or, more likely, already warring with one of our fine neighbors.

2430 (3) - Carthage: Settler -> Warrior. The Russians continue to protect their Workers. If they let them go during any of my remaining turns, I will so report.

2390 (4) - Our Archer dispatched a barb (but not the camp yet).

2350 (5) - Carthage: Warrior -> Warrior.

2310 (6) - zzz

2270 (7) - Carthage: Warrior -> Settler. Mongols appear to be headed towards the barb camp south of Carthage. Bis has acquired IW and Myst during my seven turns, while never having more than 25 gp in his account. He has 25 gp more, so I take it for Alphabet. If he doesn't get it from us, he'll get it somewhere else, right? I'll readily admit that valuing early techs is not one of my strong suits. I generally will sell them if the other civ is paying bottom 50% civ prices and has 25+gp in the early game. Right or wrong?

2230 (8) - Someone must have Writing because the RoP and Alliance options appeared on the diplo screen IT.

2190 (9) - Carthage gets wracked with disease again. Someone teach these people to wash their hands already! Mongols now have Writing and don't have contact with Germany. Given that Russia also has contact with Germany and is likely at war with Germany and not the Mongols (due to proximity issues), I sell contact now. Mongols will give 67 gp for it. Instead, I give contact+1gpt+43gp for HBR.

2150 (10) - The scourge of disease strikes again. Utica, our Cartier(tm) of the North, is founded and begins work on a Granary. The barb camp in the middle of Mongolia is on a hill, so I left it alone. The horsie below Carthage kept our Archer parked in Carthage. If the fleabitten horse stays where it is, no harm no foul. Russia's Workers remain parked.

I recommend going for red and then green dots. Note that the water by red dot is NOT fresh. I have also moved blue dot, which will avoid some overlap and gain a grassland, but will cost the use of the two tiles circled in grey. I have also circled in purple two Wine squares.

Good luck, play well, Sirian.

the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38-2150bc.sav)

the pic (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/carthage2150bc.JPG)

IT: Granary at second town vetoed. Swap to warrior-worker combo.

Early: Gifted HBR to Germany. They have taken Moscow, are at war, and they might trade for or get the tech soon anyway, so we might as well get the diplo benefit from this. The barb horse in the mountains attacked a Mongol unit and lost. I sent our next settler NORTH.

Middle: A new barb camp appeared northwest of Carthage, and a barb warrior came out to pester our unescorted settler. I dispatched him with our archer, the settler continued north. Mongols have already settled in the area up there, claiming the third iron. Our archer cleared the barb camp successfully. A barb warrior kills one of our two warriors at Town 2. Good thing I had trained a spare. The spare wins the next fight.

Late: Our settler arrives at the lake and settles on the only bg tile in the area. IMO, no choice. This was the only tile not overlapping the Mongol town that was still on the fresh water. We do NOT want to piss off the Mongols with an aggressive settlement. (Anybody here who has never read my Epic 13 report, might want to take a look. I used defensive settlement in GOTM14 and was not attacked by Persia until well into AD years).

My second settler grabbed the coastal dot on the river. I trained a worker out of Town 2 and our third worker out of the capital. We're industrious here, folks, GOT to take advantage of it with a few early workers. The more roads we get built, the faster we can move out our settlers and respond to barb threats.

The capital demands micromanagement every single turn. That mined hill is seeing heavy use. Run four food on the first turn, using the hill, then switch from hill to flood plain, 6 food on second turn sees the city grow a size (growing every two turns now!) and that causes the hill to be picked back up automatically, meaning we get the hill every turn. It's a little work, but now is the time when such work pays off the most. I got two settlers and a worker out of our capital on my brief round.

There are dyes in the jungle just north of us, much closer than the wines. BAD NEWS, the Mongols have already settled there! :eek: If any of you have ever played "Go", you'll understand why I sent that settler north. I've got a new dotmap, and we need to prioritize pushing north, not south. We don't want to wait too long and lose the horse-iron blue dot, but we'll have time to send at least two more settlers north before we have to pick up the blue dot to be 100% sure we don't lose it. The good news about our third city, up on the lake, is how much territory it covers for preventing new barb camps, and gives us some room in which we can somewhat safely move workers and new settlers. Remember, on deity, NO settler is safe with one escort. We can be on a mountain with a vet spear and lose to a barb warrior. You escort settlers by clearing the way in front of them, not pairing them with units. Sometimes the unit pair ain't a bad idea, either, but it's not enough and not always best.

LK38 - 1750BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38-1750bc.zip)


- Sirian

Here's the new dotmap. I urge top priority to pink dot. We already have cover in that area, where our archer cleared out a recent barb camp. Then we should go for either green or orange, really reach out there and try to make a bold grab. After that, we must clean up dark blue and white dots to secure the resources. We also need to scout the jungle and see where, if anywhere, we want to add a safe dot to flesh out our border with the Mongols. Germany and Russia are warring, and both pretty far to the east, especially Germany. The Mongols are, for the moment, our only real settlement rivals, so if we push in their direction first, we may lead them to stop pushing our way and start filling in their backside, giving us a chance to fill in our backside.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38-1750bc.jpg

Good luck.


- Sirian

Sirian :
Talking about defensive settlements in GOTM14 ; when is your report published I CAN'T WAIT ANYMORE MAN !
Looking at your save game I saw this huge Maginot line of fortresses across the isalnd so I already have a "guessed" idea of what was your early expansion and ensuing strategy : quite interesting !

I see the granary is really earning it keep :)

Our first luxury of of Gems is secured.



The capital demands micromanagement every single turn.


I agree 100% - the fastest we get those settlers, the more cities we can grab. I was tweek it a lot my turns, along with changing the luxury tax.

LKendter
Reagan
Sirian
Gothmog (currently playing)
Speaker (on deck)

Great turn, Sirian! It was a real boon to find fresh water up north. I agree with your dot map and proposed settlement order. Grabbing both the Dyes and the Wine would give us a real boost, making (1) pink, (2) green, (3) orange my preferred order.

"Got it"

This is what I like to see, 24 hours pass and 3 turns already played. I may slow the pace a bit here, I'm at work now and I'll play tonight but may not get it posted until the morning.

The granary is indeed huge, as always when no AI starts in your second ring! The mined hill was also an excellent move.

I'll be looking to settle as many new cities as possible. Trying to push north as far as I can, possibly all the way to the orange 1st, while on the lookout for mongols moving south. I may use the archer to clear up the fog west of the orange to make sure we don't miss anything there. I don't see the mongol settlement near the dyes but I guess I will when I open the save. That also suggests that I try to grab the wines sooner than later. Too bad none of our other cities have any bonus food, that could have accelerated our settler production some.

Where is our ancient rival Rome?

Originally posted by Gothmog
Where is our ancient rival Rome?

Where is Rome? How about where is anyone? Our continent is huge, but still only 3 civs found. If Russia gets knocked out, we could be looking at just 2 civs.

good luck with this one guys, certainly is a lot of land for you to deal with there. As an emperor player looking to move onto deity this is exactly the sort of game I love to follow, so plenty of analysis and screenshots please!!!!

The continent could just be oddly shaped, I was wondering if there is a bottleneck somewhere east of Utica. The mongols either have lots of room to their north, or there is another civ up there.

Let's see, there are 7 civs... It wouldn't be unusual to have 4 on one continent and three on another.

Well played so far everyone. It looks like we will be in great shape as far as resources and luxuries are concerned. One question about the Numidian Mercenary being contructed (trained?) in Utica: Since it is Sirian who was building it, I do not doubt there is a good reason. Perhaps it fits perfectly with a settler or worker, or something along those lines. If it is for military police, then a warrior is 1/3 the price and just as effective. Obviously you already know all this, but I'm just curious as to what your plan is.

Needs could change and the NuMe might be vetoed for something else. However, barbs are a raging menace to our civ in this game, whatever they may be set at. We already blew ten shields on a warrior lost to barbs in that city. The NuMe's are our UU, and also our military strength. Defense 3 fortified on on a hill ought to fight off even Deity barbs. We have to get military from somewhere, and we need some mil with more teeth. The one archer we already had is the only reason I got as far as I did on my turn. Otherwise, the camp north of Carthage would be owning us, and wrecking our improved tiles.

Deity barbarians change everything. They are formidable. Not unbeatable, but nothing like any lower difficulty, including emperor. I don't know if we have the time to train a NuMe there, but if not there, then where? If we had just ONE of them, we could secure vs barbs on whatever frontier we like, including the possibility of WHIPPING to get one of these things trained earlier. Having one ready for escort to green dot would be nice. Perhaps changing to warrior, then doing the NuMe and whipping its last 20 shields, would be better. Up to next player.

We need to get more cities going as fast as we can, but we have to have some military with teeth to cope with these barbs. The AI's will send units to dispatch the camps eventually, but how far we can push farmer-style expansion with SO MANY barbs and camps running loose is a difficult question. If a town were overrun and improvements lost (barbs can now destroy at least walls, maybe more) it would be a big setback. That's another reason not to let the blue dot go for toooo long. Barbs in the mountains or hills to the south would have to be cleaned out by the AI's and that could take them a while.

There are too many variables to know the best plan. Where and when will new camps pop up? I can't predict that. We've got to have more than just warriors, though. It's a tough balancing act that can go wrong in either direction rather easily. I was lucky to see our archer win two fights vs barbs in hill terrain. If the archer had died out, we'd be in a pickle right now. Yet it's hard to slow down to build a NuMe at the capital, with so much food rolling in and only one high-shield tile fully improved.

I don't actually have a plan, only an awareness of competing needs.


- Sirian

That works for me Sirian. I know exactly what you are talking about in regards to Deity barbarians reaking havoc. They are the real horde, not the Mongolian army. NuMe also have an attack of 2, so they can take out a barbarian on flat ground. Thanks for the explanation.

The barbs are simply at roaming.

Summary: The mongols have lots of room to the north and east and haven't sent any more settlers our way. We settled the orange dot and there is a settler presently standing on the green dot. We met the Scandinavians (Vikings) and they have contact with the Koreans and the Indians. We have a good WM and tech parity excepting CoL. The Koreans have an island to themselves and the Indians share with the Vikings. The other civ is Persia and they must be on an island by themselves.

My Report:
I look things over: Russia still has workers in her capital and the Mongols have writing. I decide to change the NM being built in Utica to a warrior and send the one garrisoned there to scout out the lands near our future wine settlement. I can’t remember if I am supposed to play 10 or 20 turns on my first go, so I decide on 15.

Early turns (1725-1600): I rush the settler in Carthage at pop 5 with 20 shields left. I want the orange dot. Math is discovered and I start min on Poly. I trade Math to the Mongols for writing and 140 gold, to the Russians with 70 gold for the two workers cowering in Moscow. One industrial worker + one slave worker can build a road in one turn so this will help us connect our empire. Germany has nothing and gets nothing. We have too much cash and the Mongols will extort us soon. I send the archer to disperse some barbs north of Theveste, and our northern scout runs from barbs discovered up there.

Middle turns (1575-1475): A barb horse emerges from the fog east of Utica, I cross my fingers and attack him with a warrior out in the open – and win in the red. The Mongols have CoL now, but we are nowhere near affording it. IT the Mongols extort us for 31 gold, OK for now Mr. Ugly pug. The Mongols do help us with barb control east of Utica attacking the camp on a hill. The northern scout is attacked by a barb horse coming out of the fog while on a hill and survives in the red. Russia and Germany are going at it, this will help us as Russia would certainly have grabbed the wines by now otherwise. Carthage produces another settler, and a settler reaches the orange dot location. We now have Gems hooked up. Hippo founded on orange dot, this will mark the northern extent of our empire.

Late turns (1450-1350): Our settler heads out for the wine gambit, I have a scout around there and our chances look good. IT Ragnar calls us up, wanting to sell us Philosophy for 160 – I pay him 155 for it. He has contact with Korea and India (our future commercial trading partner). On my turn I trade Biz Phil, and Math for MapMaking+WM+10 gold. Biz's WM included the Scandinavian TM. Russia already has MM and is up CoL and communication with Korea and India on us, they must have made first contact with Scandinavia. They would sell us CoL for 158+WM+1 gpt, but I hold off awaiting more contacts to drive the price down. I swap Theveste from NM to galley. Ragnar will trade his treasury (32 gp) for our WM so I take the opportunity to trade our WM+90 gold for his WM. Then I sell our WM to the Mongols for 8, to the Russians for 70, and to the Germans for 43 (treasury). I use the profits to buy embassies with the Mongols (running 100% science, 55 turns to pyramids, no buildings, 1 entertainer and 3 spears) and Germany (running 80% science, have a ‘racks and 3 spears). Russia is down to 3 cities and may not last long so I decide against spending the last of our cash on an embassy. IT Russia calls up and offers us contact with the Koreans for our treasury (100 gold) – no thanks. On my last turn Carthage completes a settler, barbs appear north of Theveste and I swap it back to a NM. Our settler reaches the green dot to grab wines and define the eastern extent of our land grab. :thumbsup:

Thoughts: I left the settler in Carthage unmoved on my last turn so the next leader can decide what to do with him. The NM in Theveste is due in 1 turn, but could be swapped back to a galley if the next leader is feeling bold against the barbs. We have a NM due from Utica in 3, I didn't whip it (and whip it good) because the timing of our growth wasn't ideal, but maybe I should have in retrospect. We will want a galley ASAP to settle the southern island and to get contacts if they aren’t brokered around before then. The Mongols extorted us 9 turns ago, so watch out in another 11 turns - don't leave cash in the bank. Remember to MM Carthage if below size 4 as noted by Syrian (swap hill to flood to generate 6 food on second turn), at size 5 and 6 no MM is necessary as it produces 5 food with hill in play. There are still about 5 turns of whipping sadness left in Carthage. Think about using the whip again after that, with the AI having galleys about they could swoop in and grab our choice spots. We want to secure horses, 2 iron, and those cows ASAP. Working from Sirian’s dotmap that makes our priorities Dark Blue, Light Blue, White in my opinion. It looks like a good game! Enjoy.

Save and screenies to follow.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38-1350bc.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LK38-1.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LK38-2.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LK38-3.jpg

@All
10 turns is the standard move -
I am not sure why I missed it when I last posted the turn order

:( pity i misses this one.

If Russia is about to go down the tubes you can always pay them gpt for contacts/CoL when it looks like they are about to go under.

When I took a 'big picture' look at things I realized they have two cities up near the mongols. I am not sure how or why this happened (i.e. why they passed up the wines), but it should ensure their survival until the Mongols get tired of them. They have lots of 21 square overlap.

Expansionist civs can get a free city in PTW. I already saw this happen in my PTW games with Vikings and Mongols. The probably got a free city, an then added a second city from that one.

You are probably right LK. I recently got two cities and a settler while playing the Arabs. I was shocked.

I saw a Russian archer headed south with my wine scout, so maybe those bonus cities will tip the scales and allow them to survive the German onslaught. It would be nice to have a small buffer civ between us and Germany for a while.

Got it. Will play and post today.

Edit1: Will play tonight and post tomorrow.

Edit2: Done

IT: Micromanage Carthage as per Sirian's instructions. Change slider from 6.1.3 to 7.1.2, gaining 3gpt. Trade WM to Cathy for WM and 3 gold, to Ragnar for WM and 3 gold, to Genghis for 1 gold, and to Otto for 4 gold. Decide to send the settler resident in Carthage toward the pink dot, which probably should have been settled long ago. The archer will clean up the settlement while the NuMe takes out the roving barbarian. Germans offer an alliance against the Russians and RoP but I decline.

Early Turns: Theveste changed to Galley. Not sure what to do with Carthage after it grows. It automatically chooses the forest square, making Carthage grow and finish the Settler in 4 turns. After toying with several other ways to micromanage it, I decide that is the best way. I settle near the wines. I make contact with Korea when I find a city they founded on our eastern border. Our NuMe gets his first action. I don't really like his animation. I found pink dot, aka Sabratha. I clean up the barb camp to the east. I trade our WM and 51 gold to Korea (they give the best rate) for contact with India. India lacks Mathematics, but first I offer them our WM to which they offer their WM, 1 gold, and....Code of Laws! Uh, that works for me Gandhi. We are now at parity with everyone but Russia, Scandinavia, and the Mongols. All 7 civs are now found.

Middle Turns: I continue map trading every turn. I am starting to consider it to be mildly exploitative. What do you guys think? The first settler to come out of Carthage is sent to the dark blue dot, with a NuMe clearing the path for him. The AI civs want 5gpt and 222 gold for Polytheism, but for now, I hold out, until one or two more of them have it. Change the slider back down to 7.1.2 from 6.1.3. Remember that when Carthage grows from 4 to 5, it needs an extra luxury, but when it goes back to 4, it should be readjusted. Keep Carthage going as per Sirian's instructions. Mongols sign an alliance with Russia against Germany. The barbs around Utica are a huge pain in the ass. They pillage a road and mine. Perhaps I should have attacked them, but they were across a river, so I didn't want to risk the NuMe. Russia is down to only two cities. I am growing a little antsy keeping so much cash around, so finally I trade 258 gold and 1gpt to Scandinavia for Polytheism. Korea offers their WM and 71 gold for Polytheism and Otto offers their WM and 31 gold. This will bring our total cost down to 156 gold and 1gpt. I take it because if I don't, someone else will. I start on Repubic, under the assumption that it is much easier to trade for Construction, Currency, and Literature.

Late Turns: Theveste finishes its galley and I keep it on another one. The next player can change that if he wants to. Our regular archer kills a barb warrior and is promoted to veteran, losing one hp. India founds a city near one of our yellow dots. We had better fill in our backside next turn before India does. Our veteran warrior in Leptis Minor takes 3 hits before he dispatches a barb horseman.

Conclusion: Like Gothmog before me, I have left a settler in Carthage, for LKendter to move where he likes. I recommend the light blue dot in Sirian's dotmap, or near the horse inbetween Utica and Ulaanbaatar (if we think we can win the culture battle). We are at complete tech parity, ahead of India by mathematics and Polytheism, with only 1gpt of payments, going to Ragnar for 17 more turns. Gandhi, Wang Kon, Genghis Khan, and Otto are all Polite toward us, and Cathy (who is almost dead anyways) and Ragnar are both annoyed with us. I have left the two cities closest to the Mongols on Temples, due in 24 and 25 turns, and of course, they can be changed if LKendter wants. I have left one NuMe in the eastern desert to clear out any barbs, although at this point, he is probably not necessary, as the Indians have a warrior running around and they don't have the disadvantage against the barbs that we have.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LK38,_1100_BC.SAV

LKendter (currently playing)
Reagan (on deck)
Sirian
Gothmog
Speaker

I see it - of course, it arrives when I am flying tonight :(
Expect something very late tonight, or maybe tomorrow.

A few comments, note I have not looked at the save or seen a map, just read the report:

I am worried about the light blue dot. We are lucky that Korea didn't settle there rather than wherever they ended up in the east, same for India. They do have our maps now and they will be back with more settler/galleys. This is potentially a powerful city for us. I am glad you settled the dark blue dot though. IMO the pink dot could have waited some more. The mongols are the only grab risk there and they have good room to expand up north without having to cross our territory (and potentially be slowed or blockaded by our troops). Which is why I settled orange first and put even white before pink in my report (it's on the coast).

Nice work with the India contact/trade. You got to them before they had a WM of our continent. I would probably have waited for galley contact, or a contact trade. I don't consider the WM trade exploitive, its just a payback for some of our northern and northeastern scouts.

I might have gone for monarchy, as we will not be ready for Republic until we have at least a couple of market built (and that implies currency). But I understand your reasoning.

I would not have let the barbs pillage our bonus grassland mine. I don't know the sequence of events that led to it, but that is a harsh blow for Utica.

With industrious, a pillaged tile isn't as bad. We ought to have enough workers to repair the damage quickly once the area is secure.

Remember, we are non-religious. If we switch to Monarchy, that just means we are going to have to have another round of anarchy when we switch to Republic. Considering you really dont get Democracy until the very end of the Middle Age if not the beginning of the Industrial Age when you are not researching yourself. The WM trading I am talking about is going back every turn and getting 1 gold per civ, when really we don't have anything new to show them. I chose the pink dot before I knew the Indians were in town (remember I chose the site at the very beginning of my turn, but I also chose it because it can become a productive city rather quickly. Also recall that Sirian urged it as a top priority. As for the pillage, well, there really was nothing I could do. The barb would not attack my NuMe and kept sitting across the river, so I didn't want to risk the 30 shields it would take to build another one, or let him sack the city. An archer may be necessary over there to civilize those barbs.

LKendter, if you read this before you play, please notice that Leptis minor is set to complete a warrior next turn and DOES NOT need one. This was an oversight on my part, as two exploring warriors returned home before Leptis Minor produced anything and I forgot to change it. An archer would be a better fit I think.

Sirian urged pink before orange. I settled orange first and stand by that decision (I would have gone for pink if I had seen any mongol threat). I believe with orange settled, the need to get pink diminished, as described above. Also, if you haven't noticed already, I may not take Sirian's comments as the gospel. He is a good player, very thoughtful and writes well, but not the final authority by any means. The light blue has two cows and would (will) be majorly productive. I mention my fear of the AI's swooping in at the end of my post. I litterally hopped out of my seat when I read that you were going for pink first hoping that we wouldn't lose light blue before the end of your turn.

As far as the Monarchy vs. Republic. As I said, I understand your reasoning, but thanks for elaborating. If we go to war (I hope not), and get our golden age from our NM, we may wish we were in Monarchy. I mention in my report that I would have whipped another settler, you chose not to. Sometimes differences are just that, not better or worse just different.

I would have attacked the barb, maybe with a warrior (I don't know where you sent the two that were in that area at the end of my turn), maybe with a NM (it does attack at 2). Again just a difference. Hopefully I wouldn't have let him get in that position in the first place (as I said I don't know the sequence of events).

Sorry if you felt my commentary was too harsh, I didn't mean it that way. Your play was fine, only the pink dot do I consider a small bit of weed and hopefully I will be proved wrong. I like to play in SG's to find out about other playing styles. I like to comment and be commented upon. I will refrain next time if you say so.

Generally, Republics do quite well in wartime, especially if you are not the aggressor. With a non-religious civ I would almost always go towards Republic rather than Monarchy (unless I want the Hanging Gardens for some reason.)

No, I appreciate the commentary. Commentary and discussion are how we get better. And isn't that the point of playing an SG in the first place?

I think it was a great stroke of luck stumbling across a Korean city like that. It was even luckier that they gave us CoL for our WM. To be at total tech parity at this point, with only 1gpt in outgoing payments is a minor miracle. There is a chance that we might even beat the AI to Republic. We could even sneak a wonder, if we wanted, if we start a prebuild.

My .02 on the recent issues:

- Monarchy v. Republic - My general approach is to self-research Republic first because it's usually an either/or choice given the high value that the AIs place on both techs. Republic is likely going to be our gov't of choice, especially given our non-Religious traits. I support the decision to begin Republic research.

- City sites - Settling near the cattle to the SE of Carthage (assuming that's possible, which looks unlikely) should be very high on the list of things to do next turn.

- Wonders - My standard view regarding self-building wonders on Deity prior to ToE, especially when still trying to get general city improvements and military in place, is to fuhgedaboutit. I'm having a hard time imagining a situation in our current game where straying from that philosophy will have a positive expected value.

Gothmog leaped out of his seat with concern at pink dot. I did the same upon reading that the capital got whipped. :eek: That is something I would never do. To save THREE TURNS on a settler? No settler is that urgent. That's 20g in added lux IF LUCKY, this if it costs just 1gpt to raise lux by 10%. Or... if not doing that, then keeping the capital at lower size for an extended time, which costs at least 2gpt (river tile) and at least 1 food or shield per turn, for each population reduced. If the city were sitting on size 6, it could produce 6spt (forest, mined hill, two plains, two flood plains) with 2 suplus food and 12 to 14 commerce per turn, and be done with the settler as the city goes to size 7. From size 5, whipping means the city dropped all the way down to SIZE TWO. At size two, the city is pulling in only six commerce per turn. Sheesh. The lost population will mean at least two turns delay on all later settlers anyway. :smoke:

I do agree with Gothmog that players should make up their own minds, not blindly follow my suggestions. However, that cuts both ways. I would urge others not to be whipping our capital please. Population is power. :) Thanks.


- Sirian

@Reagan: Normally I would agree with you, regarding wonders, however I have just had one of the most bizarre results with prebuilding in an Emperor game, where a palace I started at 8spt, completed in 86 turns, managed to steal a major wonder and win the game for me, so I am now realizing that anything is possible. This is not to say that it is applicable in this case, and it probably isn't, but I just wanted to keep all our options open. If we prebuilt now, for what it's worth, we could probably get a Middle Age wonder, though it definitely isn't worth it until we get City Improvements.

@All: Just to clarify, I wasn't blindly following Sirian's suggestion. In my opinion, the pink dot was the best available site for our next city. Its terrain is half hill, half grassland (with some jungle over the grassland), and by the time we get to Republic in 40 turns or less, it will be one of our top cities. Light blue dot has two cows, yes, but it also does not have fresh water anywhere nearby, and has only plains and water in its radius. Let's not overrely on bonus tiles so much that we lose sight of the whole of the City Radius. Until we can irrigate without fresh water, those cows will produce 2 food, 3 shields (if mined), and 1 gold, or one shield better than a mined bonus grassland tile, but since a potential city on light blue dot would be 8 tiles from Carthage, those extra shield would almost certainly be lost to corruption anyways.

This is the sort of discussion I enjoy! Well, I saved three turns and got to a spot I thought was critical to block off the rapidly expanding mongols. They haven't sent another settler our was since. They went east instead. We got a bit of luck in the east and I got the wines spot as well. I was really thinking it would just cost us some gold and with Germany and Russia fighting I didn't think we'd need it anyway (tech pace slow). I did lose track of the fact that we had a nice river spot and could grow past size 6. This might have changed my analysis a bit (a small bit of weed that is). With those flood planes we could be larger now than we are. Why didn’t anyone tell me this before, did I have to prod? As I said before, please offer comments on my turns, especially on questionable moves. But still, from Sirians analysis I gained 3 turns, lost some gold (ofset in part by 3 turns earlier city production), and delayed future settlers by two turns. If we couldn’t grow past size 6, I would take that deal again (in the current game where gold isn’t really a problem and the tech pace is slow). Given that we could grow past size 6, there must be some way to configure our city to produce settlers every 4 turns with its array of resources. I would have tried to get that to happen (rather than the average of every 5 turns we’ve been doing - three during my turns and two during Speakers). So thank you for pointing that out, although I could have done without the Sheesh. Were you upset by the final authority and gospel comments? We should definitely try to configure our capital to produce settlers every 4 turns (I think this would take a size 6-8 cycle).

I agree with the Republic choice. As I said, I might have gone for Monarchy. We might have been able to trade it. But I think actually the Republic choice was best given the high price the AI charges for governments. I learned something I already was leaning towards here.

@Speaker: You are right about the potential productivity of the pink spot. I was just really worried about AI invasion after we gave our world maps away. The way I typically lose at Diety is to not get enough of a core set up in the very beginning. It is great that we have had no problems in that area yet.

I agree that we should try to figure out a way to get a settler every 4 turns. Perhaps LK could look into it during his turn (if he hasn't already played).

You can only work with the tiles you have. We don't have BG tiles at the capital. We have flood plains. That means choosing food OR shields. Unless... you simply let the grow larger and keep it there, where you can get food and shields. There's just no way to get these tiles to four turns per settler. I agree with the urge to speed things up, but your whipping sped up one settler at cost to everything else.

Did it turn out that the Mongols were racing for Orange Dot? Did you three turns earlier grabbing that actually make or break the difference on us getting that location? I didn't get that sense from your report.

Settler production rate can be limited by food or by shields. In the case of lands with no food bonuses, the fastest settler rate is ten turns per settler. It takes that much food, with granary support, to grow the city two sizes. This can't be sped up no matter what. Whipping to try to do so would completely fail to recognize that it is the food, not the shields, that is limiting production.

Well, for our capital, it is the shields that is limiting, but you speak of a settler every five turns as an unacceptably low output. That would be absurd, in my view. If we had drawn lower food totals, we'd be stuck with a settler every ten turns at best, and training units in between each settler.

Fact is, we have the food and shields to put a settler out every five or six turns. That is monumentally good. It only works if we keep the city between size 4 and 7, though. Dropping it to size 2 means a delay of running four or five turns of max food and virtually no shields just to get back up to sustainable settler production of one every five turns, OR WORSE, not do that, and continue to shrink the capital even more, this with every whipping adding unhappiness that lasts an additional twenty turns, compound.

There is just no scenario in which whipping your capital comes out ahead.

As for losing light blue dot, there's no way Korea or any other AI's from other landmasses could hold those cities if we don't want them to do so. Right there on our core, with them having to ship reinforcements over by boat? We could take the cities away from them if we had to do so. Inland cities are another story. If we take on the Mongols or Germans, its a much bigger task.

I urged pink dot because of the quality of the land. You got the orange, that was a good move. You got green also, and that was very good. We're doing fine. But the land at our capital is a conglomeration. We can only sustain a high production rate at a higher population, to get both food and shields at the same time. This is very different from a low food, high shield, all grass layout where you WANT your capital sitting around at size one because you need those settlers out the door the moment the food allows it.

If I think hard, I could come up with some emergency situations where I might deem it worth it to whip the capital. Almost all of these involve countering some unexpected and dire threat. If the intent is to boost production, it is always a step backward. The capital would have produced five or six shields on its own anyway, so for fifteen or sixteen shields, you traded away ten food, PLUS the shields and food and commerce lost from working fewer tiles, PLUS the unhappiness for twenty turns, which would be tripled (not doubled) if a second whipping were done.

I never whip the capital. Even if I had all flood plains and desert I wouldn't do it. I'd get the thing up to size seven and run some desert mine tiles. For settler production, I'd run break-even or even deficit food at size seven, then max useful food to get back to size seven, then high shields again, round and round, the fastest total continuous settler output.

I realize there is a sense of urgency, to try to get something done on your turn. Everybody feels it. Ten turns go by quickly. All we can do is all we can do. You don't want to set up something big, not have time to finish it, and have someone else come along and undo all your gains. But Deity-capable SG players who've proven they can be part of winning teams... if any one player tries to do everything and win the whole game, it will likely only result in setbacks that others then have to try to undo. Sometimes the best thing you can do on your turn is to suck it up and leave the glory for the next guy. Sure, if you've got an open shot, take it. But if you don't, then pass the ball to the guy who is open. You'll get credit for the assist. If you never pass the ball and always take the shot, even if you don't have a good one, and especially if you miss a lot, you'll get credit for that too. :o That you ran overtime on your turn to go get the green dot... maybe that was just confusion. I don't know. But really, you don't have to do it all. We will achieve more if we work together and trust one another. You can analyze, leave suggestions for the next player, veto choices of your predecessors. If your own results come out well enough, people won't object. If you take charge and rework what someone else was doing, then it needs to work out often enough that people continue to trust your judgement. That trust thing is a two-way street. :)

In fairness, though, when I made my dotmap, there was no contact with the other continents. You may be right about increased priority to light blue dot. I don't really know. I also don't tend to analyze and criticize other player's turns. I have a need to keep my mouth shut and choose my moments wisely, because if I went completely unchained, I'd nitpick and analyze everything, and the important points would be lost in the tumult. If I want my opinions to carry weight, it's up to me to make them weighty, not toss them around like rice at a wedding.


Hey, it's unusual to be sitting around waiting on Lee to have time to take a turn. :) He spends all that time in hotels, he usually is on top of everything and needing to fight off boredom between those intense periods of doing his job. We all get busy sometimes, though. I hope he has a safe flight. :D


- Sirian

Originally posted by Sirian
Sometimes the best thing you can do on your turn is to suck it up and leave the glory for the next guy. Sure, if you've got an open shot, take it. But if you don't, then pass the ball to the guy who is open. You'll get credit for the assist.
- Sirian
Yup, there's nothing like opening up a game to an awesome setup. Me, I'm actually one of the players who prefers to do the setting up, to devote my ten turns to getting everything sitting right in place for the next player to open up a can of whoop-a$$ cola on the AI. When I'm handed that big, pointy stick I feel the pressure to wield it just right, but if I hand it to someone and see them masterfully execute it, it gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling inside too that I was a part of a grand scheme, and a team effort.

In RBP1, I was quite happy to have spent alot of my one set of ten shipping a TON of MDI's right up to the Ottoman & Arab borders & parking them, and rather than trying to conquor three civs on my turn, just beat up on Korea. When the player who followed me opened up the game and proceeded to use all those well-placed units to wipe out the Ottomans & Arabs in record time, it made me feel all warm & fuzzy too :)

I second Sirian's comments. He also described a lot of the current problems with the Houston Rockets basketball team (and I'm not talking about their penchant for whipping the capitol). They are a collection of talent that will be super-tough in the near future, but they have a couple of high-quality guards who often put pressure on themselves to make something happen and then fire up subpar shots at the end of the shot clock. The worst part of that is the guards have good passing ability and can really make the offense click when they work as a part of the team.

Anyway, that last part was more of a :rant: about the Rockets than commentary about our current team. The main points are that we (1) don't whip Carthage unless absolutely necessary and (2) operate as a cohesive unit that tries to pick up where the other guy left off while setting up our successor for a good round. We're in solid shape!

: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 Reagan. No rush for Reagan 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.

LKendter (on deck)
Reagan (currently playing)
Sirian
Gothmog
Speaker

Remember, 10 turns per round from now on - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

Got it. Because we have extra time during my turn, I thought I'd get some consensus about our next city site. Given the likelihood that we'll lose the double-cow spot, we have four choices: (1) settle on the Wines site on our eastern border, near Germany; (2) settle the last first/second "tweener" site west of Carthage, by the Iron; (3) drop a Settler on a boat and see how the land to our south looks; or (4) aggressively settle by the Mongols and snag some Dyes (see attached pic). Before I begin moving our current Settler, please let me know your preference.

the pic (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/citysite.JPG)

So that the team can see it

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/citysite.JPG


@Reagan - to get the picture in your post
!img]www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/citysite.JPG !/img]

Replace the ! with a [

My feelings on Red Dot

**NO**
1) This is a cultural suicide city. It is surround on 3 sides the the Mongols, and can NEVER control it full 21 squares.
2) If we are lucky, it will simply flip to the Mongols. More likely, this city would sour realations with the Mongols - possibly producing an early war - bad news at deity.

I agree with LK, but I disagree that the light blue dot is definitely lost. We already have the NuMe there who can act as a sort of blockade. I would recommend one of the two following options: send the settler toward light blue dot and if the Koreans do in fact settle there, put the settler on the galley that is hanging around that spot and drop him on the southern island and maybe accompany him with the NuMe. The other option is to send him in between Leptis Magna and Utica (probably on the single hill jutting out into the jungle, next to the bonus grassland, securing the horse. That will be a culturally tense area, however, so you might want to move one more tile away from Mongolia.

Edit: On second thought, after reviewing the save file, the Koreans do have a settler under the warrior who is in sight. They probably will settle near the two cows.

Well, now that two of you have voted against red dot, I'll make it a majority and take that option off the table. I included it only because I wanted to present all of the choices, not because I thought it was a good one. I'm ambivalent regarding the other choices, so I'll wait until late afternoon today or tomorrow morning to play my turn, giving us time to reach a consensus.

Guys, I am going back to college today, and my internet access will be sporadic at best for the next week. If my turn comes up and I am absent for 24 hours, please feel very free to skip me and I'll pick it up the next time around.

1100 (0) – Traded our WM (which I’ll do on alternating turns from now on) and lowered lux for a total of 9gp+1gpt. Sent our Settler on his journey towards the other Wines. Swapped Hippo from Temple to Worker. The Persians' border is just peeping out of the fog to the north of Frankfurt. They can only be contacted via Galley unless Germany or someone meets them first.

1075 (1) – We are in a nasty position relative to the barbs by Utica and Leptis. I withdraw our NuMe and two Workers into Utica (rather than risking a cross-river attack onto a forest square). The Mongols have Construction now. We now have an embassy with every civ except Persia. Russia was pretty cheap, so I went ahead and established it even if they aren’t going to be much of a force in this game. Our Galley begins its trek towards the Persians.

1050 (2) – Vikes have Construction, too.

1025 (3) – The Mongols took out the barb camp, which caused a new camp to spring up at our next most likely city site. Korea settled the cows.

1000 (4) – Our Mongol pals took out all of the barbs by Utica. Our NuMe will be there to escort our new Settler, though. The Vikes, Mongols, Germans, Russians, and Indians are in a full-blown steel cage match now. The Mongols are using a Deity-RoP to get to the war front(s) to the east.

975 (5) – The Russians very aggressively settled next to Leptis. Their name just hit “the list,” I presume.

950 (6) – Carthage spits out another Settler.

925 (7) – zzz

900 (8) – The Koreans have entered the fray – leaving us as the only peaceful civ.

875 (9) – zzz

850 (10) – With one more turn of MM, the forest clearing at Theveste should allow the Granary to complete before pop growth. The Germans have met the Persians and now have Literature. I acquire the Persian map from Germany and trade it around to the rest of the world for +69gp. The southern island is ready for settlement, as is the Wines square to the east. My successor should meet the Persians during his turn, which means buying contact at this point is not a good idea. Hopefully our meeting Jerxes will come in time to trade contact to some other civs. With the world at war, we are in a great position to cultivate friendships through trade!

Good luck, play well, LK (and have a good trip, too).

the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38850BC.SAV)

You link was lk38850BC.SAV
The correct link was LK38850BC.SAV.

Please watch the case in the future.

Also, please you .zip in the future.
I had more problems with corruption when using .sav format.

I "got it", very late tonight or tomorrow night.

Sorry for the typo. I forgot to check the link after making the post.

Doesn't our Commercial trait reduce corruption?

Reagan: Lee's talking about save file corruption. Our commercial trait won't help with that. ;)

He wants you to zip the save files before you upload them. I'd prefer that too, so I don't have to manually redirect where the file is supposed to go, or have to go looking for it if I put it in the usual place. For me to download and open a zip file is two clicks: all the zips go to an incoming folder. One click to download, one click to unzip, both already pointing to right directories. However, if you upload a save file, that actually takes me longer to deal with. Ironic, but true.

Sometimes those new to SG play don't see the sense of zipping the save files, insist they don't want to do it unless persuaded it is necessary, and it can get to be as much work trying to convince them as it would be to deal with the problems we are trying to avoid with the Zips. :( Except for one thing... If a game does happen to be held up by a corrupted file, it seriously damages the flow of the pacing trying to sort it out. Some SG's have actually not survived this adversity.

Anyway, Lee's asking you to zip the save games before upload.


- Sirian

@Sirian - Thanks for the explanation. Guess I have some 'splainin' to do, too. I like to joke around a lot but have a dry sense of humor. I knew what LK was referring to and will try to zip my files in the future. It just seemed funny to me that one of our traits fights corruption, that's all. :lol:

@All - Who's a Simpsons fan on this team? If there are a few of you, I'll try to occasionally drop a few lines into my turn reports. If not, I won't.

850 BC - What a weird map - you rarely see continents this absurdly close. Korea was just 2 squares from our landmass?
I raise luxuries to 30% - I can't remember if happiness, or pop reduction from settlers occurs first. I don't want to take a chance.

:confused: I can't figure out what we are up to with settlers - we have a first ring spots unclaimed, but there a settler to claim a 2 square island?

I hate wasting workers turns, but Hippo and Sabratha will critically need WATER when Republic arrives in 27 turns, but we are mining the logical path to get water that direction. Irrigated grassland and mined hills is a powerhouse city, so I want to start our path that way.

I find an Indian worker for sale, and I snag it for $105. The lone Indian city on our continent pays off.

I switch one of them temples to NM - we need more barb fighters.

(I) India / Mongols ally vs. Germany.
Leptis - completes worker, and starts another.


825 BC - At this point the settler is there, so Oea is formed.
On the other hand, building the wine city at its current location results in cultural overlap - I move it a square.
Our nm frags a barb camp near the iron - next up white dot.
(I) A ton of Germans and Mongols kill each other my Leptis.
Korea completes the Great Lighthouse.

800 BC - Hadrumetum is formed - not a great city, but is does claim more wine.

775 BC - (I) Sabratha completes nm, starts another.

730 BC - Cadiz (A.K.A. - white dot) is formed. With us just one tech from barb hordes, I am glad to get that in place. The Mongols have Republic, Construction and Monarchy

690 BC (I) India and Korea peace treaty.

670 BC - First contact with Persia - I can't believe that he only has contact with Germany!
I know we would be extorted for contact in no time so I get everything I can out of it.
I buy construction from India for contact, wm, and $198.
Contact to Mongols for wm, $115.
We trade wm, poly, math and contact with Korea for Republic, $5. :)
I sell Persia construction for wm, $250.
Contact with Russia is only worth $22 - no surprise.
Contact with Vikings is worth $33.
I sell construction to Germany for $152.
I sold the updated maps around for a decent chunk of change.

This may hurt is a barb camp shows up with all of this cash, but I revolt to Republic - we draw 5 turns of anarchy. Bozo is well employed for the moment.

650 BC - Cirta is formed - close to the red dot site.
(I) Russia and India sign a peace treaty.
Barbarians kill a foreign unit near Leptis.
A barb galley nails our galley :(

630 BC - All of a sudden every one has Literature - I buy it from India for $110 to start to reduce our cash.
Our nm kills a barb by Leptis without a scratch :)
3 turns of anarchy left.


Summary - I didn't mention it in my reports, but I did trade maps every turn.

The nasty time of massive barbs will arrive shortly, hopefully longer then 5 turns.


LKendter
Reagan
Sirian (currently playing)
Gothmog (on deck)
Speaker

Remember, 10 turns per round from now on - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LK38-630BC.zip

IT 630BC: MM to halt starvation at Utica, increase food in cities that can, and change to taxmen in cities that can't.

570BC: We enter Republic. Massive Uprising at the camp north of Hippo. I check. Four civs have changed ages. India has not, but has Monarchy.

Currency @5th from Korea for ~330g.
Monarchy @6th from India for Currency @6th and ~320g.
19g from Germany (all the had) and RoP, for Currency @7th.
Monotheism @5th from Germany (scientific) for Republic @7th and Monarchy @7th.
All of Ghandi's cash (what we paid him, plus change), and RoP, for Monotheism @6th.
76g and RoP from Mongols for Monotheism @7th.

We have picked up three techs and three diplo-boosting RoPs for ~200g net. No gpt payments. All civs but Russia now tech-parity in the middle ages.

I then take our cash and rush three important temples: Rusicade, Sabratha, and Hippo. Our current income is 37gpt. Start lone scientist on Engineering.

530BC: Rush walls at Hippo, as 8 barb horses move into view. We have a nume and two other units here, and its on a hill. Here's hoping.

510BC: The barbs headed for the Mongol town. :lol: One lone barb penetrated past L Magna, though. We lost a warrior attacking, but did win with our nume from L Magna.

490BC: Well, some of the barbs are back. Situation is a bit dicey with several horse floating around on our north border.

470BC: Korea has settled the iron south of L Minor, in overlap range. At some point, we are going to want to attack and take over this town and the cattle site, but it will take a little while before we are ready. How long to wait will depend on a lot of things. Korea will probably be perm-furious with us after this, so don't act rashly. Certainly the early industrial age is the longest I can imagine holding off, though.

Also, I took a look at Scandinavia... they are rather closer than the map indicates. If they picked us as a target, sailed their ships across the bay and attacked amphibiously with Berserks, we'd be in a heap of trouble. I decide to pay 3gpt for RoP, to try to improve relations. This brings them up to cautious.

450BC: I attack a barb horse in our territory near Hippo with our vet archer. He loses 0-4. :(

430BC: The Mongols have arrived! They lose one archer attacking the barb horde, but eliminate all but one unit, which then races deep inside our borders. I had sent a spare warrior up from the capital, he attacks and wins, eliminating what looks to be the last of the uprising. The camp is still there, so we could see one or two more harassers, but the big threat is gone.

Our settler has arrived at the yellow dot in the desert, last dot left from my old dotmap. Next player will have to settle. This site sucks now, but could be near oil or saltpeter, and with electricity and rails, will eventually be useful. Might as well get it, and then cash-rush a temple and try to stay ahead culturally of the equally bone dry AI competitiors on the coast. There are no other useful sites. The far north is still open, but sure to be highly infested and too dangerous even if we did send a settler pair.

I also rushed the temple at L Minor (our main wine town). I took a screenshot on my final turn, but forgot to paste it to file and overwrote it when I pasted my report from the text file. Oops. :o I'm not going back for another one, though. Sorry.

Our capital is size 9 and capable of reaching 12 most easily. It's so strong on food, it can even do settlers or workers from there if we need them. I have it as one of the cities where I am building a barracks, currently. It already built a temple.


I emphasized temples on my turn, and barracks. I got units into all our towns, but these are mostly cutouts. We have a few barracks due to complete and our border situation is in good shape. Barb threat is under wraps. I deliberately avoided connecting any iron for now. We don't need them for Numes, which replace pikes. We don't need them for swords, with no military campaign on the horizon. I did connect the horses, I urge training of horsemen and numes for now.

Oea, the much-disparaged LK-disapproved-of island village, is bringing in 2 gpt income and hosting our lone scientist, so that important cities don't have to slow their growth to keep our research going. It is also now impregnable to invasion from all but the Vikings, and being farthest from the capital, is not even adding corruption anywhere. With us being commercial, it is even short of total corruption, incredibly enough.

I'm afraid the AI's have already discovered Feudalism, not six turns after they got to the middle ages. That is quite a tech pace. If you see a chance to get two-for-one on techs, go for it, but otherwise we're good for now. We can build numes, horsemen, courthouses, aqueducts, cathedrals, harbors, markets, libraries... we have plenty of tech to hold us for a long time, in terms of what we can actually USE, so I urge saving cash and using it to rush courthouses, harbors, temples, for the next period of time, taking a longer view with our short term economic resources, and only move up in tech when truly choice opportunities present themselves. With the current tech pace, we won't get engineering before the AI's do unless they beeline up the education branch, but you never know. 33 turns left to go.

I also looked at the FP situation. This being deity, we're not likely to expand beyond our current territory for some time. The only site I liked at all was Leptis Magna. It's a little close, but there is a lot of fertile land up there, should we eventually challenge the Mongols for the dyes, etc. This is also the most fertile part of our outlying lands. The wine region is very rugged, and it's closer on the map to the capital than it looks, because of the parallelogram aspect of the tiles. (The world map is mathematically square). On Deity, early FP tends to be more urgent than ideally located FP, and this site actually has strong future potential if we can ever take some of the jungle away from the Mongols. With no rival site even remotely close in total potential, I went ahead and ordered the FP to be started. There is also a harbor underway so that we can get some trade going here soonish.


If Gothmog takes only nine turns this round, we'll have the turn numbers back to normal and not have to bust our brains tracking how many turns are left in the round. :)

LK38 - 430BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38-430bc.zip)


- Sirian

Oea, the much-disparaged LK-disapproved-of island village

It wasn't the city I objected to, so much as the PRIORITY. I would have built the two site by the capital *BEFORE* the island site.

I also looked at the FP situation. This being deity, we're not likely to expand beyond our current territory for some time. The only site I liked at all was Leptis Magna.

I have to agree on no really good choice here. This game we defintely have the potential for move the capital via leader.


I glad the barbs didn't to much harm ;)


LKendter
Reagan
Sirian
Gothmog (currently playing)
Speaker (on deck)

Remember, 10 turns per round from now on - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

I'm not touchy about others raising issues about the state of the game after my turn, but I would like to offer a few more detailed explanations than were in my turn report.

City placement choices - I posted a message requesting input regarding city placement. The only responses were to veto the worst of the choices, which I had included only for completeness. I decided to snag the Wines first because they were the most at risk for being lost and a luxury can be sold for big bucks as soon as everyone is out of despotism. :groucho: We had another Settler due from Carthage in 4-5 turns who was slotted for the first-ish ring city site to the west. Unfortunately, the shifting barb camp changed that plan. Rather than waste several turns waiting to :slay: the camp (or, worse, lose the Settler to a barb), I sent him to the island and figured the next Settler would catch the close site. Because of their proximity, I figured the Koreans would send a boat to the island if we waited too long. As it turns out, we got all of the city sites we wanted. :band: By the way, the Settler was on the Wines because I had to [dance] around the warring Mongols/Russians/Germans and there was a Russian Archer parked on the best city site. I moved out of their path hoping we would be able to take their spot the next turn.

Mining the grasslands - While it is correct that mining non-bonus grasslands is not always the best course of action, here is my thought process. It doesn't take any longer to irrigate a mined square than to irrigate an unimproved one. We have super-speed Workers who can irrigate in, what, two turns? We had ~30 turns+anarchy left before Republic was due. I had no reasonable expectation that we would be trading for Republic any sooner than that. Shields were at a premium in that area, so it made sense to squeeze out some production before shifting to food.

Luxury rate - There is no need to raise the luxury rate when a pop point and Settler are due on the same turn.

Again, I'm not upset about these things but I do want y'all to know I'm not some newbie who fails to have a reasoned purpose behind all of the moves he makes. :D

Re Sirian: I felt the mongols would go for the orange dot and possibly pressure the pink dot site as well due to all the good land down there (possibly going for a costal site inbetween). I didn't have a good WM at that time and didn't know they would end up expanding to the east. I am not sure how settling the orange dot changed the mongol expansion pattern and I don't know if the three turns was make or break. To find out I would have to do a replay. Five turns per settler is great, growing every two turns four is max (obviously). I felt there was some urgency to settling our northern and eastern borders and was willing to sacrifice to do that. It was a trade off and I made it consciously. Sorry if you dissagree, but this is a SG :)

I write my report while playing, I don't have internet access at home right now (my old provider sucked and I haven't signed up a new one yet). So I connect at work and at the library. I really didn't know if I was due 10 or 20 turns, so I took 15. If you take a look at K7 (or even RBE3) you will see I like to set up things for others (ala falsefire) as a priority. Flow is needed (and thus discussion).

I don't have PTW where I access the internet and so haven't seen a map. I think we lost the light blue dot, and settled another one near the eastern wines? Now Russia has come for her share of the wines, yes? I guess I'll find out tonight. Consider this my 'I got it' and I'll be playing tonight. I will go 9 turns to get us back on even numbers.

Oh yes, good work on the trading Sirian and LK - esp. the work with the scientific germans.

Also, I agree with LK and would have settled the 'fill in' spots before the island. We lost the iron spot south of the pink dot to the Koreans? I think due to barbarians, ah well those are the breaks.

As I stated before, my main worry early in Diety games is grabbing enough territory. I don't mind falling behind in tech or culture. Those AI's love to settle in what I consider my homeland.

Move the capital via leader? To where? :)

The only way that might make sense is if we take over Korea, completely, while all the other AI's are still strong.

Moving the capital means abandoning low corruption in our original core. Yet that's where all our markets, banks, factories and high population will be. It takes a lot of time, care, and effort, to build up a new core from scratch. Even captured cities have to build all culture from scratch.

Lee, I think you're still overestimating the importance and value of distance between the two palaces. In GOTM14, I built my FP in a city about the same distance from the capital as this site would be. I conquered the world in 1750AD and won the conquest trophy. That was with having to produce troops into the modern era. I had leaders enough to move the capital into the heart of former Persian lands, but that would only have SLOWED ME down, because none of those areas had factories, markets, etc.

Using a leader to rush the FP in an ideal site in the middle of AI territory, with an ancient war, can be a great plan. So is building the FP right on top of the capital and moving the capital later. These are warmongering game plans, though. They don't achieve the best results if you end up staying out of wars and building up peacefully.

I'm not suggesting either of those. We haven't gone the ruthless whip-our-civ-into-the-dirt mass-upgrade-to-swords route. If you are running a builder gameplan and trying to stay out of wars until your economy and production improve, you have to make the most of what you have. The AI's have all been locked into heavy warring lately, which means they are all very unit-heavy. We might knock Korea or India off our shore, a couple of villages, then make peace before they can do any real harm, but that's not the same as going over to Korea or marching up into Mongolia and taking over. And those dry shores I'm talking about as reasonable for us to try to take over, wouldn't be worth moving to anyway.

If you're really intent on shooting for two perfect cores, then the FP should be built in Sabratha instead. Either way, we need to choose quickly.


- Sirian

Sirian: I agree that jumping the Palace is a warmongers thingy - but as you well know deity games can go weird paths. I think lee only wanted you all to remember that if you build the FP somewhat close to the capital you can still move your core (which i might consider after my first Cavalry war with Factories built in the 'old core').

That has often prooven good for me, especially the no-flip chance for the new capital. :D

I haven't seen a map, but I'll be weighing options for a hand built FP in our second ring. Most likely the city Sirian built on the fresh water (I forget the name), that way if the mongols do come for us we can have low corruption in our new former mongol holdings.

I will also be looking with displeasure at the AI's in our homeland. Any thoughts about the advantages of a limited war soonish (knights?) and getting our golden age now vs. allowing the evil AI to keep cities in our homeland and waiting for cavs to go to war (then we can choose to take our GA at that time or even wait longer).

Summary: The FP will be good where Sirian started it. Not much happened. Started some marketplaces to take better advantage of our commercial/republic situation. Built some NMs, no horses. Other civs have feudalism, the Persians and Koreans have theology and engineering. We couldn't afford the brokering possibility on my turns. The tech pace is blistering even with all the wars, in part due to our sucessful past brokerings. I did hook up iron just to take advantage of the shield bonus on that hill - we don't need any more warriors anyway.

Report: Preturn - Woah, the mongols could surely take us out if they wanted. Good thing they are polite and have other foes. A quick check reveals a RoP with them too. Click - Persia declares war on the mongols (good). Russia demands literature from us, I decline and Cathy backs down.

410BC - 250 BC: Found Nora in a spot with no 9 square overlap and in postition to use a few plains, set to temple. I notice that there is one flood plain in its territory, cool. Had to increase lux to 30% to keep Leptis Magna at full production. Made a priority of getting wines hooked up ASAP. IT 350BC peace was made between the Germans and Russia, Scand, and the Mongols. Good thing the Mongols are at war with Persia. Germany wants a MA vs. the Indians, I decline. A Korean settler/spear emerges from Paegam. Wines come online and I reduce lux to 20%.

Thoughts: not much to say. The markets in Hippo and Leptis Minor could be swapped to Courthouses if desired. Hippo will be near the FP when it completes however. I sold the map whenever I cleared some new fog with the galley, got 9 gp from Russia for it once. I would advise doing some cashrushing to reduce our treasury. Construction was really just starting during my turns. We won't be ready for war any time soon.

The Save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38_250bc.zip

and a screen shot:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38_250.jpg

It looks like we are doing well so far. Just a couple of thoughts:

- FP placement - Leptis Magna seems fine to me, too. Expecting a leader rush of a Palace or FP is probably wishful thinking. If we are to expand our holdings, southern Mongolia would be a valuable patch of real estate to "acquire." Unfortunately, it may be awhile before we have the muscle to accomplish that. That said, I would discourage us from waging any wars unless necessary. A diplo victory might be our best bet, especially with all of the fighting (and resulting spoiled AI relationships) that has taken place so far. The Mongols are bad boys right now and dumping the Koreans, Indians, and/or Russians out of our vicinity would likely cost us votes in exchange for some ~unproductive turf.

- Iron connection - I agree with Sirian's assessment regarding leaving the Iron unconnected and believe we should pillage the current Iron connection in order to save it from a potentially bad RNG result. The road only adds some (potentially corrupted) trade but doesn't impact the production from the resource.

With some preparation we should be able to take Paegam from Korea. If we get them to declare on us there will be no reputation hit to speak of. Even they will get over it before too long. The main reason for doing this, IMO, would be to start our golden age. I am not advocating this path forward, just making note of it. I agree that it will be quite some time before we could take on the Mongols. We need infrastructure!

Re Iron connection: we have two sources of Iron in our territory and, if you are worried about it, leaving one unconnected should be plenty. If it were just upto me I would hook up both and not feel bad if one dissapeared. Trading Iron can be quite lucrative (once we have the ability). The iron that is connected is in Cadiz (a first ring city), and the additional two trade is very nice. Finally, I believe that once an Iron has been hooked up pillaging the road doesn't do any good.

Guys, I think you'll have to skip me this time around. I have access to a computer, but it is a mac :rolleyes: and get this...it has no floppy drive :confused:, so I can't download the file and then play it on my laptop. I'll be moving into my own room on saturday and should be back to normal internet access then. Sorry!

250 BC - I look at Leptis Magna building the fp without a courthouse. However, after playing with the time to rush the courthouse it doesn't look like it will make much of a difference.

I rush the harbor in Rusicade, as there are 3 potential civs to trade luxuries with via a harbor. In addition, another wines will connect in 1 turn. I switch Leptis Minor to courthouse at 50% corrupt.

:confused: This is deity? The German people are impressed by our cultural achievements?
(I) Germany / India sign a peace treaty.
Germany / Korea sign a peace treaty.

230 BC - I ship Korea our only gems, and get spices and $40 back for the trouble. Every penny helps, and a couple more like this will pay for the harbor rush.
If India would build a port, we could trade them iron - a very profitable resource.

210 BC - I don't understand how, but we can irrigate that flood plain [dance]
Nora will not be a dry city. It looks like the river comes to that point of 3 mountains.

190 BC - Our number 1 priority is to increase revenue to help with the tech race later on. A courthouse in Leptis minor should pay for itself soon enough.
(I) Not as much as I would have liked - courthouse is even in revenue, but the extra shield will help.

170 BC - (I) Persia begins Leo's, the tech continues to move forward.

150 BC - It is barely worth the bother, so I pass on Gems to Mongols for Dyes and $9. I will wait to see if they get some more cash.

110 BC - Russia is really screwed for tech - they just learned literature.
(I) Germany completes the Great Library.

90 BC - The mined hill pays off, and fp now due in 23 turns.

50 BC - GACK - The Mongols aggressively settled by our second wines city. I immediately rush a temple out of paranoia.

Summary - I didn't mention it in my reports, but I did trade maps every turn.

The Vikings still don't have Engineering, but will that last 14 turns?

The bad news - very few civs want our luxuries.
The good news - cash flow has improved a lot.


LKendter
Reagan (currently playing)
Sirian (on deck)
Gothmog
Speaker

Remember, 10 turns per round from now on - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LK38-50BC.zip

Originally posted by reagan
@All - Who's a Simpsons fan on this team? If there are a few of you, I'll try to occasionally drop a few lines into my turn reports. If not, I won't.

I am a Simpsons fan....lets here some of your lines :)

Got it. I should be able to play and post tonight.

Germany has been at war the whole game. Now that that they are at peace the Diety bonus will kick in for them (re culture). They should have libraries everywhere soon enough.

For a desert to be a flood plane it must be up against a river. There is no way to see it but it must indeed be between the mountains. I only noticed it because the game picked it as the first tile to work for Nora.

Oh and regan, I am no huge Simpsons fan but I did watch it long ago. Feel free to add some humor to your posts. From your earlier attempts I see that your humor is dry and subtle, much like my own.

Turn 0: Reset some cities from marketplaces to aqueducts (including 1.5 ring Sabratha, which was at size 6), as they would hit size 6 around the same time the markets finished and would have several turns of lost growth potential.

Early turns: I conduct WM trading each round. It's amusing that 100% of Russia's treasury is being spent on our map. Popped a Worker from Carthage and mined a couple more tiles to allow two-turn NuMes. Added a lawn to the Palace. Turned Utica into our stable for Horsemen training. We might want to start building Horsemen for a Knight upgrade soon.

Middle turns: The Jerk extorted 54gp+WM. Mongols completed Sistine. Persia cascaded to Sun Tzu and Leo’s. Uh oh! It’s not like they weren’t already crushing everyone in culture and leading the tech charge.

Late turns: The aggressive Mongol city by Hadrum is rubble. I started a Settler there to fill-in if you want, Sirian. If not, swapping to a courthouse would be my suggestion. There is a major Mongol SoD (hopefully) headed towards the German front. During a diplomacy session, Bis (who has been at war pretty much the whole game) confided to me: “I’m a rage-aholic. I just can’t live without rage-ahol.” The SoD should help take care of his problem one way or the other.

Going forward: I saved our money so we can go on a tech buying spree after Engineering is discovered. The backwards Vikes still don’t have it, either. Rushing the Leptis Minor acqueduct might be useful, because it is ready to grow another point but is stuck at 6. Persia is at least to Astronomy now. The NuMes on the roads are headed towards the east in case the Mongols are getting any ideas about attacking us (although, if they do, we are SO screwed). If we train a group of vertically challenged mercenaries, would they be MiniMes? The lumberjacks by Hadrum will be done in three and two turns, respectively, so watch the shield allocation/building choice there.

Have fun, Sirian.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/LK38150AD.zip

LKendter
Reagan
Sirian (currently playing)
Gothmog (on deck)
Speaker

Remember, 10 turns per round from now on - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

IT 150AD: Rush courthouse at eastern wines. Swap cities with more than 15% corruption to courthouses. Swap some projects to library so we can get 1000yr bonus. If not now, then pretty much never. We have to play from behind either way. It's easier to make up a commerce deficit than a cultural one. A little cultural prowess goes a long way at the diplomatic table, while a complete lack of refinement is only safe if you conduct all your deals at the business end of a sword.

Early: Rush Library in the desert. We're committed to aggressive cultural struggle here, now's the time to make a strong move. I also start some more barracks. Mongol SoDs are so huge, I turn off animation of friendly AI's.

Middle: Carthage, Hippo and L Minor all complete libraries. Utica is also working on a library. I keep the market going at Sabratha, though. Sadly, Vikings learn Engineering two turns before the tech comes in. We're left in the dust. I buy Feudal from India, still no deals possible. I buy Theology, including for some gpt, but Vikings and everyone else but Russia has Education. I go ahead and buy that, too. All three purchases @7th. We're broke and down to ~35gpt income left, not enough for any more tech at this time. Only Persia and Korea have Astronomy. I'll try to get that once the FP completes, and trade it for two or three other techs.

Oh, and Mongolia signed Russia to alliance vs Germany. Will Russia fold to Germany, or do they have enough to hold on and serve as puppet strings for Temujin. Heh.

Late: Mongols start to bring infantry and then Keshiks to the battle. Germany has done better than I expected, with their foolhardy attacking of Mongol SoDs in the mountains. Still, the Mongols got some, too, losing three vet swords in a row to one defending longbow, and their SoD reinforcements have finally petered out. Apparently humans aren't the only ones to see really incredible streaks on the combat rolls. Germany actually held the front stable for eight turns, despite being outgunned, but those Keshiks in the mountains are something fierce to watch. Germany's knights are in trouble in this terrain. Once Keshiks arrived, German lines collapsed almost instantly. Moscow falls before the end of my round.

The FP completed, and the same turn, India and then Mongolia acquired Astronomy. I bought from India @5th for more than we could have afforded prior to the FP, then traded to Germany for Invention and to Scandinavia for Gunpowder. We have two saltpeter in our territory, neither connected, and we are only a couple of techs behind the main pack of AI's, though quite a few behind Persia. One salt is outside anybody's city radius in our territory which the Koreans could culturally wrest from us as a remote possibility. Korea is the second strongest world power now, economically. Germany and Mongols have been fighting for too long and both are slipping.

India still does not have a harbor. If they should ever build one, we might be able to trade them wines and most of our remaining GPT for Navigation or other tech not known by all, and trade that to Vikings and Germans for stuff like Chivalry, etc. I paid big to catch us up to where we could manage multiple trades. I got one for us, but we'll need more such to keep up. Clearly Persia is the main powerhouse, and we cannot let them run away with the game. They could conceivably win by culture as they are more than twice the total of any civ except Korea. They have SunTzu also.

I weaned us off the 20% lux tax and went to paying for luxury imports instead. Saved us a few gpt and gets us into positive trade relations with all the major powers, the better for us to fly under the radar a bit longer.

In other news, Korea is on the warpath. They have moved military units on a sneak-attack beeline into our territory in the east. I think we are the likely target, thanks to pissing them off with cultural pressure at Paegam, but it is possible that they are instead heading for Russia or Mongolia. We NEED their spices for another two turns until our main cathedrals are finished, plus no sense forcing the issue if it turns out they are targetting someone else. They are definitely sneak-attacking SOMEONE, though, so be wary. We're in no position to fight, although we have enough to defend vs any initial sorties, judging by the sorry stack they've sent so far. I pushed infra my whole round, but we have strong cities ready to crank units and quickly, if need be. Carthage is up to 20 spt, that's a catapult in one turn or infantry in two. Utica needs one more mine to produce a nume every two turns. Theveste is a town that got a barracks on my turn, can crank some numes after one more turn. Vet units can now be cashrushed at eastern wines, because I also built a barracks there.

I doubt we want to stick with lone scientist on Printing Press. Democracy or Nationism are the only techs worth waiting 40 turns on at this stage of a deity game -- optional, and also overpriced by the AI's. Then again, you never know, so I went ahead and ran it. The island has to run a specialist, might as well be a scientist just in case.

Paegam's borders also expanded right after I built the library in Nora, so I believe they'd be stronger there now if I hadn't done that. The spear in the desert is a settler pair, though, so if Korea DOES attack us, we can pick up some slaves. In any event, I pushed the pendulum far in the infrastructure direction, it may need to swing back to military now. I was doing all I could to improve our income rate short of completely ignoring culture to speed up more markets. What can't wait, shouldn't wait. If we sat on the tech backburner too much longer, we'd have had to pay for every single tech. We gambled on the engineering and lost by just two turns, but having rushed courthouses and temples earlier has us in better position now anyway.


- Sirian

Snapshot of FP completion:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38-fp.jpg

Here's the save file: LK38 - 300AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38-300ad.zip)


- Sirian

LKendter
Reagan
Sirian
Gothmog (currently playing)
Speaker (on deck)

Remember, 10 turns per round from now on - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.



This is so much better then LK36 for keeping up with tech. :)

Originally posted by LKendter

This is so much better then LK36 for keeping up with tech. :)

No wonder with twice as many Cities :lol:

OTOH Sharing a Continent with the Mongols who will be soon out of other Victims this could get interesting.

Good Luck

Rowain

'Got it'

I'll be focusing on shoring up our defenses on my turns. If Korea does attack us it shouldn't be too bad (although I can't see what units the do have on our continent). The AI is not famous for efficient battles involving a water passage. Plus we will get our GA and that should help get us over the edge. Also I would love to take Paegam from them. Now that we know there is water on that side of the mountain Paegam is a great 2nd ring city on the far side of the FP. It could be a problem if the mongols smell blood in the water and come for us too (like a big big problem). In fact it might be worth trying to sign them up against Korea (I have no idea if we could afford it), that would give Korea another target in the south (Moscow) and ensure no dogpile.

Note that we also are putting cultural pressure on Korea at Kaesong.

What ever happened to that settler/spear pair that was leaving Paegam on the end of my last turns? (reagan?)

The settler/spear combo founded Paegam immediately after your turn, as reported in my turn report ("Korea settled the cows.").

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant the settler spear pair leaving Paegam that I pointed out in my Jan 14th screenshot. Whoops, looking back I guess LK played after me not you. So... (LK?)

That pair dropped off the radar.
I have no idea what happened to it.
I have a feeling it is sitting in CowTown.

From what I can tell, they didn't settle anywhere near our territory. They may have ended up as one of those nomadic AI settler/spear pairs that ceaselessly wander in search of a new home until they are picked-off by the enemy during a war.

So maybe it is the same settler/spear pair that Sirian noted in his report? The fact that it is on the move again should tell us something, I'm just not sure what. Maybe Korea is going after some former Russan Territory.

Unless someone beats them to it, there is a site where the now-razed Mongol city was by our Wines cities.

Preturn: activate warrior fortified on ruins in south east. Send him to be a paper cutout. I look over the granary cities and notice they are allready MMed to build before growth. :thumbsup: I check diplo and everything looks good. Click...

The good news: we can now trade with India; the bad news: someone already sold them Iron :rant: Although there are brokering opportunities we cannot afford them at the moment.

I move some more troops east in case of Korean attack. I also hook up some SP and start some muskets. Russia demands wine, I refuse. Germany wants MA vs. Russia, again I refuse. I could trade wine/SP/108+20gpt to India for Navagation, but Banking is a better barter so I hold off. Next turn the mongols get Chem and Banking so I pull the trigger. Wine/SP/123+15gpt to India for Nav, then Nav to the Vikes for Chiv+16+2gpt+TM. I also sell around our WM and get 12 gold!

Our first musket completes, I start a Knight. The Korean mini SOD leaves our territory to the north, and the Korean spear/settler leaves to the south. :wavey: I swap Nora to a market because I am feeling better about Korea. There is a massive Mongol troop movement through our territory, watch out Germany! Persia starts Smiths.

Woah, the Mongols seem to have changed targets! Watch out Korea, there is a stack next to Kaesong now. Yup, next turn the Mongols declare war (dishonorably) and take Kaesong as well as the spear/settler pair on the ruins and another couple of workers. Germany and Russia come to peace.

We complete our first Knight! My trigger finger veritably burns with desire to declare war on Korea and take back what is rightfully ours (the light blue dot). I demure because this is my last full turn. The Persians, Vikes and Mongols all start Bachs.

Final turn, I left our Knight and a couple of other troops ready to go! There is a horse that can be upgraded in Utica. The mongols will give us 129+2 gpt for a MA vs Korea. I say.. go man go! :saiyan:

Oh yeah, the save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/lk38-400ad.zip

Enjoy!

I'm at work and can't view the saved game. However, I would like to register a vote against going to war at this time. We have a good chance of flipping Mooville without a war, although foregoing war for the chance of a good RNG roll is not my intent. I just think we don't gain a whole lot by starting a war at this point relative to upsetting Korea for the rest of the game.

Flipping mooville? I am guessing not. Here's why:
P=[(F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty) - G]/D.
We have 3 of their tiles under our control (T=3), but I am guessing they have more culture than us and will have for the rest of the game. So with a relatively small garrison (G) we will never flip them, because P=0 for G=3*(Cte/Cty) regardless of D (D=distance from respective capitals). The AI is currently pretty good about garrisons.

Now is the time to strike (IMO). We can upgrade our horse, get a MA with the mongols, and declare this turn. Next turn move in and take 'mooville' with our two knights (The Koreans just sent a settler and a couple of spears out of the city and probably don't have more than 2 defenders), thus satisfying our MA. Then we sit for 19 turns and hopefully get some concessions for peace! This would be an honorable war and we wouldn't even have to set off our Golden Age (although now might be a good time, i'm undecided). I am looking hard and not seeing a downside to this, Korea won't be too upset by an honorable war, and we will no longer have any cultural pressure with them. I am guessing we break even on Korean attitude in 500 years and as a bonus the mongols will love us!

Also, we need to get a leg up or we will be whipping boys to the mongols for a long time.

Not to mention that seeing another culture in our original dotmap and rightful homeland pisses me off.

You're right about the culture difference between our two civs. I was foolishly thinking of the Germans' blue on the culture graph, not the blue of the Koreans. :wallbash:

If we do go to war (and I don't strongly object), we should think about taking out all of the Korean cities near our homeland. If memory serves, there are three total. Do we have the firepower to do that? We need to have at least four Knights and a couple of NuMes to go after Mooville. Because of the variance of the RNG, I hate attacking a city with the bare minimum of offensive units. If we trigger our GA taking Mooville, I think the answer will be "yes" to the firepower question before the end of the GA, because we should be able to spit out several Knights during that time. Unless we think we are going to add to our second core of cities (attack the Mongols now? yeah, right) sometime soon, there seems to be little value in waiting to trigger the GA. I presume by now that we have markets and courthouses in our core cities and are in a good position to benefit from the additional trade and production a GA will bring.

What does everyone else think?

Of course the Mongols will pay us. We had an ongoing deal with Korea on my turn. Mongolia would love nothing more than to throw a few coins at us to pay us to dribble away thousands on future tech deals, because our reputation is in the drink. Paegam is nowhere near worth enduring trading penalties long term. I don't object to an attack or an alliance, but I do object to breaking a deal with so little at stake. Let the deal expire first, then decide whether to go to war, or to renew and wait at least another 20 turns.

If Korea had attacked us, then the stain would go to them. If we sign an alliance and declare with a deal active, we'll be unable to use resources or gpt as payment for tech: AI's will all demand cash, or worse, if they do accept gpt it will be at ridiculous prices. That's an even larger penalty on deity than at lower levels, since we're playing from behind. The cost can be more than just "waiting a little longer" to accumulate the cash to pay for techs. Brokering opportunities are usually a now-or-never option. Having credit on hand to make a bigger move can literally mean free techs.

I still think Paegam is worth acquiring, just not at all costs.


- Sirian

I've got the file and would like to wait to play until we can come to some sort of consensus on the potential war. I would