So the conversation went something like this...

Charis: "I'm long overdue in writing you and thanking you for all your encouragement to me, and for the fanatastic job you've done with not only the RBCiv Epics, but in kicking up Succession Gaming a notch with the RBE series. The Epic response was stronger than I expected, but you had a winner of an idea, and did the hard work necessary to see it fruitful. I've had a *blast* with the ones I've played so far."

Charis: "I definitely do want to play some game with you. Name the terms, since I'm in an unusually fresh state of 'everything is great fun and it's all new!'" :hammer: "So name the venue and the restaurant/soup, I'll be there with a bib on."

Sirian: "I'll have to get back to you after the current feast period quiets down, and I don't know how soon that might be."

A month passes.

Sirian: "You had asked me, last month, if I had any games I wanted to play with just us two. I said I had some ideas, but it wasn't a good time. Well, perhaps now is a good time."

Sirian: "There's this one difficulty level, see. I've only tried it once and there was no victory. ... It's called Regent."

Charis: "I love it, great idea! I'm not sure I've ever played Regent." :p

Sirian: "I know it's a daunting possibility, but I think we can pull it off. At least it's worth a try, right?"

Charis: "Feel free to generate the map and start it off whenever convenient."


WOOHOO! We're finally ready for Regent! :jump:

Civilization: India
Map Size: Large
Difficulty: Regent
Terrain: Archipelago 30%
Climate: Cold, Wet, Flat
Opponents: Eleven
Barbarians: Sedentary
Victory Conditions: Domination only, all others disabled

ROSTER:

Sirian
Charis

Hey, wish us luck! :hammer: :shotgun:

I think I'm ready for this one! It'll be new ground, so be careful and don't think this is going to be a walk in the park!

India... this reminds me already of RBD1, but this time, I promise I won't irrigate desert before cows! I think we can dispense with the dotmaps for this one though, I'm sure we can figure out where to put cities here.

:cool:
Charis

I'll be careful! If I get in too deep, though, you'll have to bail me out. :crazyeye:

OK, here's our position to start.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-start.jpg

I settle immediately, dial up Pottery for research, set the rate to max, and start us off on our way to military domination... with a temple.

Early turns: Temple completed. Pop one goody hut, we receive 25g.

Middle turns: Pottery researched, start Writing. Granary completed, start training settlers. That wheat sure comes in handy! :) Pop a second goody hut, we learn Bronze Working!
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-2670bc.jpg

Late turns: Hmm, no contacts yet. Our units have explored the western portion of our land mass. We have some dyes over there. There's a large fresh water lake just west of the capital. There's a grassy patch with some cattle in the southwest. I found a third hut in that area on the way back, and it supplied us another 25g.

Our second city is founded in a patch of ivory! :love:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-2230bc.jpg
There are a couple more dyes in the tundra to the north. Also another river up there. I found our third city on a small lake near the large lake, with a cattle in range. Both our new cities are constructing temples.


Game file from 1750BC emailed to Charis (no sense clogging up the file server for now -- though we'll probably upload some eventually. I remember from RBD SG9 how I uploaded a whole series of saves to show how I pulled it out vs the Persians, and nobody at all bothered to take a look! :lol: :o :p ).


- Sirian

Looking fine so far. (It wasn't actually mentioned, but this is being played under PtW 1.14.)

Early:
- Everything seems in good shape here. I think on this difficulty we can afford
to go after a wonder or two, so with two other cities to produce settlers,
our capital goes to wonder mode. In fact, I think we should target getting two,
probably Pyramids and Great Library, or if we're feeling extra commercial, Colossus.
Middle:
- Things are quiet, so I swap from settlers to granaries, thinking longer term
- We see a ton of dye luxuries, and will surely want to get a harbor or two going
before too long to get those lux to where they need to go! (And make some cash)
- As you might guess, our initial worker is quite busy. Thankfully he won't have much (any?) jungle to clear
Late:
- Aha, we are indeed on an island. There's another island barely visible to the SE.
Our eastern scout is keeping an eye for something to pop up and say hi there.
- Our military is better off that what you left me, but still light. It should be fine for our island start with sedentary barbs though.
- Colossus due in 3. (It will mean the GA, typically a waste, but might be useful
in zooming after Pyramids next)

Good luck,
Charis

oh dear, oh dear...

talk about biting off more than you chew....:eek: :D

I think you 2 newbies will need some real help to get through this one. Don't hesitate to ask for help when you need it:mwaha:

:lol: This should be interesting, seeing two very good players play on regent. :) :yeah: I played as Indian in Tourny 3-1, and had the game in hand when I saw this Chinese horsemen wandering too close to one of my cities...

OK, I opened the save file. Charis, how are we supposed to zoom after the Pyramids when our civ doesn't know masonry yet! :eek: Should I divert to masonry? Or continue the half-complete min sci on Literature? :lol: Well, I'll think it over. ... ... OK, I thought about it. We won't be getting the Pyramids. :)

It's been so long since either of us built the Pyramids, we don't know wtf we're doing! :rotfl:

The Colossus is still a good plan, though. I'll make sure we don't squander the early golden age. With granaries already built in our first two cities and almost done in the third, the lack of Pyramids won't stand in the way of a reasonable expansion pace.


- Sirian

IT1125BC: Nothing to change.

Early: We build the Colossus, first great wonder to be completed!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-ga.jpg

Middle: Madras completes granary, starts settlers. Founded some new cities, temples started.

Late: Founded more cities. Watched the treasury increase. Watched some grass grow. Did some fishing on the southeast coast, where Charis wanted a unit stationed to keep an eye out for any passing AI's. The only thing passing is a lot of Zzzzz's as the units try (and fail) to stay awake through their duty watch.

My round ends in 750BC, and from here out we'll be playing ten turns apiece.


Sorry for the boring report, folks, but we're alone on this landmass, nary an AI unit nor even a barbarian to harass us. We have nine cities, a couple more on the way.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-750bc-map.jpg

That's about where I was at this point in time for GOTM14 Deity, and I managed to win that. We'll just have to wait and see how it all turns out.


Charis is up. Amazingly enough, that means I'm on deck. :lol:

Hey, for an SG, this puppy is really sailing. ;) We've played ninety turns in the first twelve hours. :D


- Sirian

When I read the title I thought this was another training game...

An interesting game in that it introduces the concepts of doing your own research and building your own wonders... :)

Masonry??? I thought we could build the Pyramids with Elmer's Glue!!?? :rolleyes:
(That's what you get for playing at 2am!)

These turns flew by, more settlers, temples, and a barracks. In the middle Salamanca
finished the Oracle. We settle next to a trio of dyes, so looks like, as good Indians,
we'll have decent trading opportunities between those and the multiple ivory.
When the GA ended, we loose just 5gpt, not TOO bad. I settle a few more towns and
we're now eligible for the Forbidden Palace. I wonder if given our domination goal
we should hold off and rush it on another continent. Otherwise the dye spot 5 SW of
the chokepoint is a decent spot where it can be built naturally.

Hopefully we can snag the Great Library. That's what you're supposed to get
on Regent, right?

:D
Charis

:D

Like Arizona Steve, I thought this was a TDG when I saw the title. But this is even better! it's great watching two of the best players I've seen tackle the challenge of Regent!

:lol:

Another quiet turn. (I thought Regent was going to be more exciting than this. What's that? Just wait until we actually run into some AI's? Oh, OK then).

Early: trained two more settlers. Discovered Masonry (aha!). Started on mapmaking.

Middle: Got some granaries going, and some harbor prebuilds. (Which are which will be up to Charis). Trained some military.

Late: Increased the work force. Whipped some temples.


Well now, that was more exciting than last round! I actually had a few things to do! :)

Interestingly enough, we're now tops in the world in territory, population and shield production. (Truly shocking!) We got quite the boost thanks to that early golden age!

350BC. "Sill nary a sign of intelligent life down here, Cap'n. Aye, we'll send up some tricorder scans when we find anythin' of interest."


- Sirian

So do you guys find yourselves micro-managing as intensely here as you do at deity?
:lol: A thought just occured to me: turning on automated workers might make for a challenging game. Think of it as an un-modded way to implement a new form of government: federalism.

What is "micromanaging?" :confused: :crazyeye:

Last night I saw the second effect of getting a savegame file after 1am one night. The next night you see this happen:

"Honey, it's not even 9:00! You're not going to sleep are you?"

(from bed) "No, no, of course not, I'm just... resting for a minute"

.... .... ....

"Good morning! Do you feel well rested? You got 11 hrs sleep!!"

:eek:

This game is kickin' my rear! It's too grueling! (Although I better read some other threads and try to figure out what this micromanaging thing is all about)

Charis

(PS I'll get the game tonight. Glad you increased the workforce, a few more settlers, and started mapmaking. Things should really heat up when we meet some other civs! CharisGandhi was starting to wonder if there was a cuban cigar under his pillow?!?)

If there is one thing we simply WILL NOT ALLOW in this SG, it's automated workers! :lol:


- Sirian

If there is one thing we simply WILL NOT ALLOW in this SG, it's automated workers!

Ya just gotta draw the line SOMEWHERE! :lol:

By some miracle, everything looks to be in order. Early on, a settler is sent
down SW to a spot with two cows and a fish, and another sent NE toward coast with whale.
In the middle we get Map Making done, and I start Wheel, to see where the horses
are. It turns out later that we have three, so I hook one up at Jaipur.
Two of the temples are whipped, others grow quietly. No galleys out yet but one
due in Bangalore soon. In fact, a settler will be there as it completes.
New research just started now, so pick (Iron Working or Mysticim come to mind)
The Jungle tiles we've been working on will finish clearing this round too.

Delhi is the 'top' city, btw. We're dead last in military service, good thing we have some spears coming soon.

Charis

Inherited turn 150BC: decrease food, increase shields at the capital.


Early: Zzzzzzz...


Middle: Following the Charis Plan, settler boards our first ship. I also send a warrior. Yep, those are islands off the east coast. They are food-rich islands: a pack of game spread across them, and a few fish in range. I select a site to settle. Also spot a border for the first time, east of the islands. CONTACT! It's Russia. They also know Germany.

Um... on the same turn I made contact, in 50BC, France completes the Pyramids. Now get this: Moscow cascades to the Hanging Gardens! :eek:

The good news: Russia does not even know alphabet yet. With them knowing only one other civ, I decide not to buy contact and wait and see if I can find Germany on my own. They must be sharing a continent.

Back home, we've got some inland cities cranking spears for defense and MP. I trained a few regular wars at towns that had built their temples already, and were threatening to exceed their happiness levels. Most coastal towns are either on granary, settler, or harbor.


Late: Yep, found Germany. OH... MY... GOODNESS... Just *LOOK* at Germany! :rotfl:

When Charis asked me not to go with "too cold of a start", I think this is the kind of nightmare he was asking me to avoid! :lol:

After making contact with Germany, I bought embassies. Germany had alphabet, so I traded that and our territory map and some change to Russia for their world map. Then I traded our territory map and change to Germany for Mysticism @3rd.

Founded three cities in the west to close out my round. Charis is set up to grab another good spot in the Game Isles.


The cascade has not taken out the Lighthouse. Perhaps the cascade has ended for everyone but Russia and their early Monarchy tech. (I wonder if they popped Mysticism or Poly out of huts? Or did they just beeline?) I think this bodes well for our chances at the Great Library.

I finished researching iron working, then turned research off for a round. We have two iron, so that's good. Both are out in the boonies, but on a flat map like this, just having any is as good as we could hope for. Charis can decide what, if anything, to research next to start his turn.

Not really any whipping opportunities on my round. I've set up a bunch for Charis, though. Finally we are out of the snore fest! YAY! There are things to be doing!

I feel like we are doing OK so far, all things considered. :)

We've survived into the AD years. That's not much accomplishment considered no enemies of any kind pestered us, but at some point things are going to get harder. (Right? Right!) I am posting some screens below. One is largish, so I don't want it to widen my report and make some have to scroll left and right. The save file was emailed to Charis.


- Sirian

OK, here we are exploring the Game Isles when the first border was spotted.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-70bc.jpg

Between turns, Joanie built the Pyramids. Next turn I made contact with Catherine.


Now here you see Germany in all its splendor:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-germany.jpg

That is called an Epic Fourteen Dud Start (TM). :lol:

The worst part is the complete idiocy of Novgorod city placement! :smoke: [pimp] :smoke:


Now here's a shot of the revealed portion of the map at the end of my round.

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


- Sirian

Novgorod: very carefully placed to avoid getting a single one of those fish and whale tiles! :lol: But the truly amusing part is that you KNOW it was placed in that awful spot to grab an aluminum or oil resource that won't appear for thousands more years. You've gotta love Cathy sometimes. :)

I just want to know one thing -
What is the goal of this game, since you downgraded to regent?

I just want to know one thing -
What is the goal of this game, since you downgraded to regent?

According to Charis: "It'll be new ground, so be careful and don't think this is going to be a walk in the park!"

Wha...? Huh? Who us? :mischief: Up to something??? :eek: No, not us. :lol:

OK, the goal of the game is... (drumroll)... DOMINATION.

Whether or not we can get there remains to be seen. :) Stay tuned, though. You won't be disappointed. ;)


- Sirian

With still at least 8 sites I want to settle, I think we need more
settlers, so five cities get switched over to settlers. For our
next research path, I'm hopeful for library and try Math@40.

In 90AD, SONOFABISCUIT! English complete Great Libary in London! :eek:
Salamanca immediately finishes the Great Wall. Charis forgets that
Lighthouse is an option and so nervously buys Polytheism and Monarchy from
Cathy. Also gets Warrior Code and HBR from Bizzy. We were 14 away from Library
and now 3 from our choice of Lighthouse or Hanging Gardens. Based on reader
input, I try this "micromanage" thing and get them due in 2 :P
On this Pelago unsure where the other continents are, I choose Lighthouse.
Will the cascade kill it, with us one turn short??

I knew it, this Regent AI is tearing us up!! How on earth can we get beaten
to a wonder when we beeline to a tech (in fact, where Charis goofs up he goes
there so fast) We're getting our tail kicked!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-130adLighthouse.jpg

Soon after, I settle TWO islands, and both have warrior defenders. Some other
towns better order cardboard cut outs now that the AI had mapmaking.

With a half-dozen whippings visible in the next 10 turns, I hold of on
jumping to Monarchy, Perhaps Sirian will want to swap but in our current
setup I don't see it helping much.

In the end I find a lush new island to the SW, with room for 3 cities. I found
"Lush Central" in the middle.

You know, there's just something "not right here." I'm not sure what...
- We're building military, right? Check.
- Got lux, horses, iron online, right? Check.
- Working on temples, harbors, good stuff? Sure
- Exploring, treating neighbors nicely, right?

Maybe England and Iro just got lucky with a site as good as
Germany's was bad, or got a goody hut settler.

Good luck exploring!
Charis

I guess the Pyramids cascade caught us after all. England settlers from a hut? Maybe they got Literature from a hut! Or writing.

Bah. Who needs that steenkin old "great library" anyway. It ain't so great!

"Ah... the game's afoot."


- Sirian

Charis's unexpected settler push may indeed ultimately be wise. Certainly in light of him trading away both writing and mapmaking to Russia and Germany to get access to Monarchy @2nd, the urgency to grab remaining lands before the AI's steal them has increased manyfold!

My priorities for this round: secure the rest of our lands (mainly following through on all the settlers Charis set in motion); take advantage of our great lighthouse by exploring farther out, looking for either more contacts or more lands to grab; finally get us going on infrastucture in our core.

Inherited Turn 250AD: Head count. Hmm, we have a certain number of dots left to grab. We have more settlers in production than we have dots left to settle. I veto two of the settlers being trained. Bombay instead will build units while Bangalore goes back to building a harbor. OK, here we go!

Early: send the Lush Island ship home to pick up two more settlers. Build a galley out of Bombay, this ship sent west to explore. Our other ship, near Russia, turns south and heads out to sea. Settlers in the west head for last two dots over there, while the last two dots in the icy north will be cleaned up by settlers out of towns that just built their granaries.

Middle: Complete settlements on Lush Isle, then use that galley to explore the waters around the isle. All we found is ocean. Likewise to the west, nothing but ocean. Our ship going south past Russia's eastern shore finds sea currents, then a new uninhabited island that we can grab! I start planning for this island by continuing to train settlers out of Madras. Delhi completes library, starts harbor. Our first horseman unit is trained at Jaipur, start another. Our south ship sails past the island, finds more patches of sea current to its south, but these would turn out to yield nothing but ocean. (Wow, we're pretty well isolated from other land masses!)

Late: Hrm. Otto is being a bad boy! :nono: News at Eleven.

Our Lush Isle galley heads home to pick up a settler pair. A fourth ship trained out of Bombay is waiting on another settler from Madras. Bombay starts harbor. Several temples are whipped. Our lone scientist is running out of the town on far south tip of Lush Isle. We're halfway to mathematics. Sadly, looking at the portraits shown on the F7 screen, all the wonder-building AI's are in the middle ages and have been all my round. We haven't even started a prebuild for SunTzu or Sistine. Frankly, we only have a few candidate cities for such a project, and the only really good one is our capital. Some of the others that might have made it if they started early enough are responsible for filling in our pathetically undermanned military situation.

There IS room to our north. Would only be icy islands up there, if anything, but our western ship is moving clockwise around the island. I'd like to see a fifth ship built to go explore around the seas around Germany.

OK, time for a few screenshots. First up, our current world map and unit situation.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-350ad-units.jpg

An archer! A horseman! We're rocking now. :)

Four workers? That's not very many, is it? Perhaps not, but it was all we needed to clear four jungle tiles around Lahore.

:confused: :hmm:

Here's the pickup situation for our ships and settlers. Pink arrows pair a ship with waiting settler pair to head south. Yellow shows a ship waiting on settler about to be produced.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-pickup.jpg

Now for the dotmap. I call this Yankee Doodle Island. Good old red, white, and blue! Dots, that is.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-yankee-doodle.jpg

Note the sighting of more sea currents to the east! I hope that is an inhabited continent! We could really stand to make contact before we fall so far behind even Regent AI's start to snicker.


I'll be back in a little bit to post a full screenshot of our homeland.

Meanwhile, here's the save for Charis, and anybody who wants to have a look.


FRFR - 350AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-350ad.zip)


- Sirian

OK, here it is, our gloriously pristine homeland:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-350ad.jpg

The dot at New Hyderabad got shifted, thanks to German interference. Only two added overlap at the new location, though, trading away three sea tiles for one extra coastal. Ah well. At least I got to the site first, if barely.

We've got horses at Jaipur (lucky). Also at New Delhi, on the coast, where they're more useful. Iron at Indus. Ivory at Bombay and Bangalore. Dyes at Bengal, Chittagong, New Bombay and New Jaipur. Our first harbor completed at Chitta late in my round. Woohoo! Dyes connected! At least, they will be once there are other harbors to receive the shipments. :) Karachi also has dyes, but being inland, of course, theirs are less useful.

Charis postponed the government swap, and I did too, for my whole round. I suggest we only delay three more turns, though. It's a question of priorities. Hold up a stronger core to whip temples in a few more places? Not for much longer. Every turn we delay, is higher corruption, plus one food lost off of each wheat, cattle, fish and game tile, and we have a decent number of each.

The Lighthouse should make our game more fun, at least, with exploration and some settlement to be doing, rather than sitting back and waiting. Losing the great library over lack of masonry to sustain a prebuild through our golden age really was a huge blow, though. At least to The Plan. We're completely winging this thing now, and no idea if we'll ever catch up. :D


- Sirian

Interesting limitiation you're chosen for yourselves there, guys...

As for the rest of you, what's with the surprise that these two are playing on Regent? You didn't think they would be doing that without throwing some kind of wacky variant rules in the mix, did you? :)

:eek:
My head is spinning! Is this winnable? The implications .... economic, scientific, military (unit availability) .... :ack:
Don't forget to activate your friendly domestic advisor in tutor-mode -- just to drive him crazy. :nono: :crazyeye:

:blink:
I missed something here - what limitations?
:blink:

Originally posted by LKendter
:blink:
I missed something here - what limitations?
:blink:

I was wondering the same thing.

Take a careful look at the map. What's missing?

What I'm wondering is if they're gonna allow themselves to build a couple cities near Dacca to get some resources.

I should've known by the choice of India....

Good luck and PLEASE keep sharing results,
Arathorn

Good eye Arathorn - I didn't even see it.

What is more crazy, where is the work force?
I can't find any sign of terrain improvements.

It finally makes sense now - I knew there had to be a twist for these guys to play regent ;)

The effects are drastic. Just look at the time and what they research and at their income

I wonder if this could be won (and how they will do it)

Anyway that is really a Game Beyond anything.


Rowain

At least there won't be :smoke: worker actions!! :lol:

Hotrod

Resources near Dacca? The extra horse would only be good for trade, and the iron is inland. Maps tend to have plenty of horse resources around, so probably not worth it on the horse. We have one on the coast already at New Delhi. Might settle that iron someday... post-flight.

I've already played to 550AD, but waiting for Charis to post the public portion of his turn from 450AD. :) He has important news! Then my less interesting turn report to follow.


- Sirian

OK, time for a few pics I've been holding back on.

First, here's our original scout exploring the west part of our continent. Yes, that's a shovel he's holding. :lol: Part of The Plan was to hold off completely on military, give our worker a chance to safely pop huts. We only had three on our continent and all were in the west. Only got 2x25g and the one tech, though. (A free settler sure would have been nice!)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-3000bc.jpg

This was the second of the three huts:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-2670bc-a.jpg

Here's the dotmap from the end of my first round, 1750bc.

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

Charis had Bombay and Madras both build granaries early, so we still had only three cities (and no wonder prebuilds available) when the golden age started. All that I could do was build settlers, but I did get a bunch trained. Our original worker was merged back into the capital here to push another settler out the door quickly.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1075bc.jpg

Finally, the dotmap from the end of my second round, 750bc.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-750bc.jpg


All in all, we're doing better than expected. Tops in territory, second in population, economy and yes, even manufactured goods. How long those numbers are going to hold up, though, we have no idea. :)


- Sirian

Just a question out of curiousity, now that at least some of the Plan has been revealed....

When you go a-conquering (you can go a-conquering, right?), do you get to keep improvements other civs have made or are you going to pillaging those, too?

And my :smoke: for missing the mention of iron at Indus. Indeed, makes no sense to hook the other up now.

Arathorn

Wow amazing ! You really had me going there for a while I really fell for it....
This is going to be soooo interesting !

It's more like Venice than India.
Good luck, Doge Charis and Doge Sirian. May God and St. Mark bless your busy galleys, dhows, carracks and barges.

Hmmmm, Venice, I love it! You're exactly right! One of the early turns I told Sirian that the impact of the rules all came in sudden rush when a new spear was made and I started to 'goto' where I wanted him. "21 turns" just to cross our mainland! :eek: It will be NO faster when infantry arrive. AI invasions, should any come, will not be the utter joke they are now (especially post railroad), but potentially a major crisis.

What the map does NOT show is just how many resources we've settled on. Ivory galore, dyes and more dyes, horses, and an iron. The presence of a luxury/strategic resource was the dominant factor in our dotmap, in addition to the need to go almost all-coastal. Our inland barracks-troop-towns now making spears won't get any lux or any resources for better troops until flight! As Rowain commented, the results are drastic. Food and shields both in dire supply, the only commerce coming from river tiles, and much more.

At first I was as shocked as readers were to hear Sirian suggest Regent, but... I think he chose well.

Anyway... now for the latest turn. This is a MAJOR round, enjoy...
-----

64 shields. The ENTIRE shield output of our nation of 29 cities is 64 shields. In
350AD no less. I've had games where the capital alone cranked that much in that year.
Delhi isn't even hitting 10spt yet. Is there something the AI knows, automating workers
and such, that we don't know?!??! Is this some regent anti-player penalty? (This paragraph was written before Sirian's response and meant to be a 'hint' at lack of mining)

I look at the temple and shield situation, and plan a revolt in 5 turns. Er...
scratch that. The ones due for whip in 5 are just size 1! Make that 3 turns, for
New Lahore and New Calcutta.

I must say, our lands look just LOVELY and untainted! The Chinese environmentalists
would be SO proud!

BTW, what was that news at 11? How was Otto being a bad boy?
** OH CRUD ** Now I see! He's landed a settler pair next to New Hyderabad??!!
:eek:

[0] 350 - Our horse is just short of Otto's boys, and cannot protect, only watch.
What will happen?? Hrmm, wait. New Hyderabad was founded *THIS* turn?
You beat him to the absolute LAST square on our continent by a half turn??
There must be some *brilliant* guy in your SG who cranked out settlers earlier, eh?!

IBT - German pair fortifies!
(What's that phrase again? Sometimes's it's better to be lucky than good! :P )

[1] 360 - The horse next door enters New Hyderabad to defend, and asks for a spear
to make its way up here. One should arrive by the *END* of Charis' next turn,
unless it takes a shuttle boat. Someday we're going to have to airlift just to
move units on our own continent. Omg, helicopter shuttles... shutter...

Pink boat picks up settler and heads toward red dot of USA jungle island.
We're short a settler (for dots), but Madras can get the next one too.

Good eye on the sea currents, our South ships goes right there instead of finishing
its look around the other island. Bingo!!! Purple borders. And they lack Monarchy!!
They have Math, Philosophy, CoL, and communications with Spanish, Celts, French,
English, Koreans, and Aztecs! While in theory I could press on sailing and meet
most, that would risk our brokering chance. No doubt by trading right now we can
pick up all communications, all territory maps, and all techs. Here's how it goes:
- Monarchy to Iro for contact with Aztecs+TM+18g. (Tech prices will drop in a min)
- Aztecs, oddly, have Monarchy, but lack Lit, Map Making, and Poly. They seem to
be researching Lit, and I trade those three techs for French+Korean+TM+3g.
- Korea needs Poly, has the same 3 as Iro, while Joan has poly. Poly+18 to Korea for
Contact with English and Spanish+TM.
- Spain lacks Poly, England lacks Monarchy! Liz will give the whole Enchilada except
Philo, so we trade Poly to Spain for Philo+TM, then Monarchy for Celts+TM+93g+
Code of Laws+Math.
- Celts too lack Monarchy, but have Currency and Construction. Looking back at Korea,
they lack Monarchy (duh, just sold them Poly) and have just Currency. Spain has
neither and Aztecs are as backwards as Germany. So we trade Monarchy to Korea for
Currency+WM+21g. Monarchy to Celts for Construction+WM+136g.
- "Score" leaders are India (hey, that's us!!), France, Iro, Russia, England, Celts,
Spain, Korea, Germany, Aztecs. We have 2.2x culture of nearest civ, Iroquois.
- We're in the Middle Ages! NO one has any middle age techs. Two countries
are working on Hanging Gardens (Russia and France), so not much going on cascade-wise.
If Joanie finishes before SunTzu, the cascade will be broken. (She's building in
Marseilles - if it were Paris I would build embassy and see)

* We have *NOT* sold our world map, and certainly not any contacts. Our WM should be
worth a pretty penny, likely a tech, when they research one. When Korea gets construction
they will likely learn Monotheism (but have nothing to give for Constr. now).
Russia and Iro are ONE tile short of being able to reach each other, so we are the SOLE
communication brokers until Navigation. If we keep the tech lead and press things,
we could possibly wipe out both Russia and Germany before any other civs even know 'em.

Our main foe later could be Iro. They share a decent sized continent with the puny
Aztecs, while France is surrounded on a huge continent by equal sized civs. When the
time comes we all dogpile together on one AI after the other on that landmass, methinks.

It's just the end of the first turn, but it's a different world already! :P
(BTW, we're the only ones who can reach USA island before Navigation as well)
Looking at the map, there might VERY well be a LARGE island to the south of us.
Someday when we have a ship or two to burn, suicide galleys there could be most
beneficial. There's also an interesting small 'sea zone' south of USA island that
might be interesting to look at.

Our research is now Republic at 40 - if nothing else it should trade well.

[2] 370 - :whipped: New Calcutta whips a temple. Chittagong gets a double-partial whip towards
granary, Dacca a partial whip towards a harbor, Ganges partial towards harbor,
Pune a double whip towards harbor, New Delhi (with horses) a partial whip,
New Bombay a partial whip towards harbor. That's about 140 shields for 9 pop.

[3] 380 - Delhi finishes harbor, starts a Marketplace. At some point, Colosseum prebuild
for SunTzu or Sistine might be good. Bangalore likewise starts Aqueduct. A spear and
horse complete this turn.

(IBT-ish - announced in middle of our turn????) Moscow completes Hanging Gardens.
That's it folks, NO cascade, it's over. (Cool! Unexpected)

Four workers in Delhi, hmm... could add in two and keep happy with the harbor and
one lux now in Delhi. Until out of despotism though, that would give no shields.

New Bengal is founded where the settler goto arrived, near fish pair near dyes.

:whipped: Ok, people of India, LAST chance for a good :spank: ! New Lahore gets temple.
Calcutta gets a partial towards a harbor, as do Kohlapur and Indus.

The docile people of India, utterly sick and tired of all the despotic whipping,
hereby do revolt!!!

[4] 390 - Well that was a quick revolt! It seems they've chosen a King to lead them!
Income goes from +30 to +37gpt, but food is up a decent amount due to game and wheat
and the civ-wide shield total is 74, up from 64. A worthwhile govt change.
Korea does now have Monotheism, as does England. We're looking for a brokering
opportunity when another tech is discovered and a third country gets Mono.

[5] 400 - Forbidden Isle expands by culture and now all squares on the island are
under our control. Aha!! Our Iro-exploring galley sees currents.

[6] 410 - Indeed, another "seas-only" island for us to snag. The Lighthouse is a
MAJOR boon here, yet another brilliant strategic call! :D

[7] 420 - A spear arrives in New Hyderabad next to the German. (ok, it didn't take
a hundred years, but that's because I did a 'shuffle' maneuver with a few.

That settler heading for USA island, I take him around the unexplored east
coast, to see if there's an especially good spot. Also, I'll leave him onboard
so that if you prefer, you can continue him further on south to 'new island' ?

At new island, we see iron but in mountains (useless to us, but deniable)

Oops, better a few turns late than never. We can actually now slide the lux down
to 0% instead of 10%, so income is now +49gpt. Nice. (Pune the double-whippee is
sad either way, but he's providing our scientist) With this new income stream,
and with more harbors due before TOO long, we'll want to kick up research soon,
even now could go for Republic in 20 turns at even income with 45% sci slider.

[8] 430 - The top of 'new island' is seen, with a goody hut. It's a fairly large
but fairly icy island. Might we see a near monopoly on oil??

[9] 440 - More currents, and ANOTHER new island! oh my!! I'm not even done exploring
the first. You can forge forward or reverse and finish as you please.
Hmm, Pune is no longer utterly sad. Scientist moves to New Madras for now.

[10] 450 - No change on the diplo or tech front. Well, one. France has Republic,
but still lacks Monotheism. Our income now +60gpt... Huh, wait...

RUSSIA HAS MONOTHEISM????????? They lacked MATHEMATICS and CoL just a few turns
ago?? They have contacts with all? All have contacts with them and Germany???

:eek:

Inconceivable!!!!!!!! Suicide galley??? There's just NO route!!
THEY CHEAT ON REGENT?!! :wallbash:

Notes to Sirian...
- Spear and horse are unmoved, I was thinking maybe horse to Pune and Spear to go
with the next settler. With all these islands we need even MORE settlers!
- The ship near Forbideen Isle just finished going CW around our mainland, and should
problem grab a settler for one of the newly discovered islands.
- The settler pair in boat JUST north of USA island can see a 'sea square' two tiles
directly west. Might be worth going over there to look.
- I showed amazing restraint not spending cash on our colonies, I'll let you do that.
But I would suggest rushing the warriors, or even spears, on the island colonies
near us. Also perhaps the iron or lux harbors.
- I'm still in shock over Cathy. She just went from hopelessly behind, we crush at the
advent of Chivalry, to major world power. 8-\

Save file 450AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-India-450AD.zip)

Good luck in this brave NEW world!
Charis

PS Curiousity is killing me. I figure that I must have mis-clicked and given someone
communications with Russia. But no! I load the end of 360AD file, and Russia is
backwards, NO ONE has communications with her. Hit next turn. She has Monotheism
and all contacts??!! I try to sell communications with Russin and Germany instead
to see if she remains backwards. (It also nets us several hundred gold). End of this
alternate turn, everyone has contact with everyone, Cathy still lacks Math, CoL,
Construction and Currency. Hit next turn. She has all but Construction. Now mind you,
she had NO cash, no techs to trade. Ah... light goes off... sold world map.
Test number 2, GIVE everyone our WM and see what happens. Nope. That's not it, she
still lacks just construction. That's three techs on one turn with no means to pay for
it that I can see. The bigger mystery is still, how, in the actual game, did she
ever make contact with the rest of the world?! Test number 3. Load 350AD file and
do NOT make contact with Iro at all. Now what happens? "Next turn". Poof, she's
got a new hat and contact with all seven civs. And we suddenly somehow know the
French. There's clearly a tiny coastal route under the fog, or they DO suicide in PtW,
but in any case, it turns out that...

We beat Russia to the 'new world' by half a turn! :eek:
It didn't hurt her, was somewhat beneficial to us, but overall, just a
surprise that it was so close.

Here are the rules:

* Workers may not build tile improvements: no mines, no irrigation, no roads. (No railroads).
* Clearing jungle, forest, pollution is OK. Planting forests is OK.
* Building forts, outposts, radar towers, airfields is OK.
* Our cities may never make use of improved tiles. If we come into control of improved lands, we must pillage the tiles before we may use them.
* We are not allowed to sign Right of Passage agreements.
* No colonies.

> Our cities may never make use of improved tiles. If we come
> into control of improved lands, we must pillage the tiles before
> we may use them.

You know those strategies with "sappers", having a half-dozen or so workers on hand to instantly turn a road into a railroad on the turn that your cav/blitz units take a city? We're going to have to have a dozen "anti-sappers" (aka Environmentalists?!) who rush ahead and DESTROY the roads before we can move forward! With railroads taking a double pillage, if we use regular troops to do this we'll lose have the assault force as we move forward.

It occurred to me this would have been fun to try as Spain, and use conquistadors for this purpose - to go into enemy territory and pillage like crazy. But in reality, the insanely high cost of the conq. would be awful with our low shield output. Right now it would take the entire civ's output for a turn to produce enough shields for one conquistador, vs 3.5 explorers.

In case anyone is wondering "Why India??"... :hmm:
... Jumbos take no resources! :groucho:

Charis

Nice touch on the Jumbos ! Really well seen !

It's more than the jumbos. Commercial trait gives us less corruption, which is important when we have less total shields and food and commerce with which to work. Religious is cheap happy people, plus ability to swap governments quickly. Militaristic would have been nice, though: cheap harbors, airports, barracks, and the chance to save the golden age until later.

Frankly, the jumbos aren't going to be as big a deal as originally planned. We have a lot of coastline and almost all our cities on the coast, which will have most of them connected once they can build the harbors. Spears, Longbows, Rifles, Artillery and Guerillas are all no-resource units as well. Rome or Aztecs may have been easier choices than India. Then again, who knows. Combo of Commercial and Religious might be best after all.

Charis, I don't know that we HAVE to pillage ahead of our units. We can choose not to use the roads. Move our infantry stack one tile, then spacebar away the rest of their movement as if the road wasn't there, that's one example. We will need a pillage detail, though, both for us and offensively. (Hey, if we can reduce them to stripped lands like we have, that ought to even things up nicely!)

OK, now for my turn report.


- Sirian

Hey Charis, where did you get that Wonder Overlay? I've seen a few of them but don't know exactly which one that is...Thanks

IT 450AD: Swap Bangalore to Palace Placeholder. Ooh, at 7spt and city size 6, the palace (at 800 shd) is due in only 108 turns!

Plans: Karachi will switch to producing veteran warriors. We NEED more MP's! At 5spt, I can produce five such MP's from this site on my turn. Jaipur producing vet horse 6spt. Bombay 5spt will produce spears once its harbor completes.

(Charis said we had gobs of Ivory, but in fact we only have two on the coast. The rest are inaccessable, but still good for adding commerce to tiles. We have four dyes on the coast and one inland, plus two inaccessible).

England has the Great Library, I plan to keep that in mind.

I see Yankee Isle as being closest to AI's, and also closest to home of the expansion isles, so I want to establish our presence there quickly. I ignore the horse tile and continue with the original dotmap. If we can actually use more horses for trade later we can send another settler and hook it up. I doubt it. So I unload the advance galley settler pair on the south end of Yankee Isle.

Oh, and Charis has Stoplight Island borrowing a game tile from Ganges. :nono: This is corrected, seeing Ganges increase up out of the drink on spt. Both Ganges and Forbidden Isle will be GOOD locations, capable of barracks and their own defense, after harbor and courthouse. Of course, now Stoplight is in the drink, but them's the breaks.


Early: Delhi is finishing a marketplace. After that will be colesseum, or else cathedral if we get to the tech. With our palace prebuild now over 600 shields, we're sure to get a wonder out of the prebuild I've started in Bangalore. The question is, which one will we get? Smith's may be the most urgent, it would pay for our harbors, markets, banks, airports, stock echanges and commercial docks. That's a lot of moolah! Next most urgent might be either Sistine or SunTzu. I question if we can get these, though. We'll just have to get what we can get. I think our best bet for Smith's is with a leader, believe it or not. We'll have to plan that carefully, perhaps with a leader fishing expedition vs a weak, close target. (Ahem: *Germany* Or possibly Russia, though that would be riskier).

Our advance scout ship checks west, finds Arabian borders. We make contact with the Arabs, they are alone. Trade them Philosophy @2nd for their world map and entire treasury (~115g). They have icy lands, just enough fertile terrain for a couple of good cities. They have one small fertile island, which with maps they researched themselves, they have already settled. These foes will never amount to much and will be a drag on the tech pace worldwide.

Our trailing galley with settler drops off on the north end of Yankee Isle. Then both settler ships head home, but explore out into the oceans a bit along the way, and the south ship finds that isle Charis discovered is another tall, narrow one like Yankee Doodle, and in fact is reachable for us from Yankee Doodle, giving us a shorter path there without going along the Iro shores. All galleys now heading home, exploring seas along the way to bust fog and look for any surprises. No other surprises found.


Middle: Delhi completes market (adding much to our gpt income) and starts colesseum. Harbors are completing in some second ring towns now, and I start them ALL on courthouses next. That has got to be the priority for all second and third ring towns: temple, then harbor (if not inland) then courthouse. We never every last shield and commerce saved from corruption that we can manage. Only expanded borders (cheap culture) and being connected, are more important.

In fact, I decide to spend big to rushbuy the rest of the harbor at Pune, then spend HUGE to rushbuy the last 79 shields on its courthouse. That site is our most fertile in the entire kingdom, and I have come to the conclusion that we should build the FP there. It can muster 3spt, probably 4spt or even a chance at 5spt, at size 6. That would be 45-55 turns to self-build the FP, and once build, with three food bonuses like Delhi it could be a strong no-corruption city. The down size is that there aren't 12 or 15 cities in the area to benefit, but frankly, we're so far away from attacking Russia, we can forget about that, IMO. If we DO get a leader in war vs Russia or Germany, it needs to go to Smith's. Smolensk also has three food bonuses, but Russia's lands are mostly grass, with few other food bonuses. Plain grass is WORSE for us than sea and especially coastal tiles. Bonus grass is the only thing preferable to forests. I don't know that Pune as FP site would help out as much as we'd ideally like to see, but getting it built in 1100AD or so, vs waiting waiting waiting and praying to be able to do it in Russia, and then having to defend THAT vs the other AI's while we built it up from scratch... I just see the dates rolling on and on without us having an FP and I think this is a safer bet. We can sit back and build up our economy with a lot of strong fishing, and be ready to take advantage of two built up mostly-connected cores plus mobilization come industrial age.

Charis, if you like this plan, it's all set up to go. If you have another idea, I'm all ears.


Late: Another settler pair is heading south. Sacred Cows Island has revealed itself as a fertile site (and MAY benefit somewhat from the Pune FP idea, at least to the level of WLTKD + courthouse and harbor bringing shields up out of the drink. Might be a pipe dream, as it is pretty far away, though). Here's a dotmap for Sacred Cows. I urge current shipboard settler pair head to pink dot and temple rushed at 29shd. If borders get to 100 culture before AI's arrive, then we'd only need orange and white dots on the horse locations to lock the whole island up with just three cities, to fill in red and green dots later for sea coverage toward domination.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-sacred-cows.jpg

MP's spread out. Delhi gets a third. Madras is getting some (being unconnected inland, it's hurting more than our other core cities, now all the best ones with harbors completed). Jaipur gets to 6spt and stops building horse, switches to spears every three turns. We still need lots of military. We have almost none in the west, and not enough in the Game Isles, right on Russia's doorstep.

Celts discovered Feudalism mid-round, finally sell to France on the last turn. England will have it next turn, as they have the Great Library. I take the chance to GIFT Germany four techs, putting them into the middle ages, then trade them our extra dyes and our extra ivory, plus Monarchy @late, plus 134g, for Monotheism @middle. Delhi swapped to Cathedral, due in 2, THEN it still needs to do the colesseum. Now pulling in 4fpt, and with cathedral and col, can reach and sustain size 12 by the end of my next round (less than twenty turns away, if Charis stays vigilant with the high food rate).

I swapped a lot of cities to reduced food to increase shields. Our civwide production now over 100spt. That comes at cost of food and commerce though. But I figure we can run higher food once markets are in place and enough happy to sustain us.

Iro's lack Monotheism, but need Astronomy to be able to trade away their 7 spices and 4 furs to the rest of the AI's. So they are trade-poor now but will become powerhouse post-astronomy. They are also likely to grab that far southern icy island, and I say let them have it. It will cost us too much off our core to go after it at this point, and too much to try to defend it. It's a whole world away. I'd prefer to concentrate on settling Sacred Cows and the last dot on Yankee, and ship them a few extra troops, and not stretch our neck out too awfully far.

Oh, and there's an EASY connection out the back of Moscow. It's not quite coastal all the way across, like it is from our land to Russia, but it's close. There are small islands on both sides of the Russian main core. See the map below:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-550ad.jpg

Because of this, though, we have a LIVE trade route to every civ on the map except isolated Arabia. I didn't exactly want to sell our lux to France, though, and support them growing larger. They have the Pyramids and so of course on Regent they are dominating the other AI's. We don't want them rolling up the others too soon. In fact, an all-vs-France war at some point might be just the ticket.

We could trade Monotheism to Iro's for one of their lux (not both) for 20 turns, but we'd get so little benefit out of it with so few cities connected and even fewer of those in need of the lux, that taking the chance it might take them a while to muster the cash to buy could be worth it. Each turn of delay is one more turn longer before their religious cathedrals start to be built. Each passing year means less 1000yr bonus on their culture for those, and enough delay could kill the bonus altogether. Plus keeps their cities smaller for longer. Normally, I wouldn't think they'd wait much longer at all, but this IS Regent. I think it's worth waiting, unless they can come up with cash or gpt, or Feudalism, to make it worth our while. Up to Charis.


Three recommendations for next round:

* Courthouses! All except first ring cities need these after temple and harbor.
* Get vet units out to Game Isle. The west is sad on defense, but much more insulated. ALL AI's except Arabia CAN reach us with ships and units RIGHT NOW, but only Russia and Germany are within true striking distance. No matter who it is, pre-nav, they would come from this direction, and our front line needs more and better units. Besides, Stoplight Isle needs more units for flip suppression, and the others are good enough to deserve three MP's. That could be two vet pikes (eventually) plus the war's already there. That would stop any single landing, if we were to be attacked.
* Decide on my FP suggestion. If yes, then after the third MP unit completes at Pune, get crackin.

Oh, and heh, will the AI units know what to do with themselves with absolutely NOTHING inside our borders for them to target to pillage? Maybe they'll have brain embolisms from the confusion and just keel over and die. :lol:


FRFR - 550AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-550ad.zip)


- Sirian

Roger on comments and the general plan...

Very strong agreement on the courthouses, high Delhi food, etc. Just a few other comments -
- They all have a route to us?? It must involve passing through a very key
and vulnerable sea tile. Blockade that one tile :hammer:
I look and it's actually three sea tiles. Three sea tiles are the spigot
holding off infinite New World units from ever reaching our shores. I suppose
it will be said that's unnecessary and we don't have 3 ships to spare sitting
idle, but you know I just HAD to point out the option :p (Remember you can't veto or nono mentioning an option which I have no intention of doing! ;) )
- Newsflash??! There's one more civ left out there, and I see where it is! The pinkish
borders of the Vikings are SE of Oxford, west of Arabia by quite a bit. It's
reachable NOW, although neither Vikings nor English have done so. I might try
to get a ship over there asap. It's just a *SHADE* darker pink than Arabia,
almost impossible to tell the difference. But one civ IS missing, and that's the
last big 'black spot' on the minimap! Actually, we would have to circumnavigate the
globe to get there, and with 3 moves from coast to coast, if the AI doesn't find
it during my ten rounds they're smoking some :smoke: They're going to redefine
'backwards', in any case.
- The Iros can NOT reach Icy island pre-Astro, so I concur, nevermind any attention there for now
- I look over the FP situation and with Delhi's highly central location, there is
no better FP location in our territories. New Madras is a good location, pulling all
of Russia in first or second ring, but would take far too long to build. Post flight
and with FP in Pune, it might work to re-'build' the Palace in Jaipur for better
spread (but probably not worth the shields.) If we were going to wipe out Russia
and Germany earlier I would prefer Russia. Yes it's not super shields and quite
coastal, but with an FP there the income increase would be VERY useful. I notice
Aqueduct in the queue for Pune, but size 6 is all it needs to get going on FP,
in two turns when it finishes its warrior.
- Sirian never mentioned selling our world map at all, and since some AI are considering
it of value, I'll assume it's still never been sold, and will not do so on my watch.
(Although, there's not much value in keeping it secret now, as Russia can trade theirs
and any lands we're looking to colonize are beyond their reach anyway)

[0] 550 AD - A few minor tweaks on laborers, but no changes in queues

[1] 560 AD - Settler-pair on boat heads to pink dot. But if I let machine pick
the goto it takes 13 turns. I can get there safe in more like 5, with a pause.

I urge the people of Bombay to cough up one more settler, as we have several good
spots left to fill. Yankee island-1, four on sacred cow after pink. Ships can only
get there so frequently, so Madras can handle the rest.

[2] 570 AD - Delhi finishes cathedral, starts Colosseum on high food. Celts start Sun-Tzu.
Pune starts FP! With jungles on Yankee island and Sacred cow, I wish I could include
a worker along with the settler and defender, but no room on little galleys.
Instead the workers start to spread out to key spots in preparation for Engineering
someday - one at capital, one at Pune, one to NE tundra, one to Bangalore.

[3] 580 AD - Dacca starts courthouse with its harbor now done. (Harbor brings in lux
which lets us fire a taxman) I continue to check diplo each turn, but no openings.

[4] 590 AD - Lahore also transitions from harbor to courthouse next. So does Hyderabad
(if you want, one of these might be switched to a galley for more ships)
Indus completes harbor, bringing Iron to coastal cities :P English start SunTzu.
(Kind of nice that our rax city pumping warriors is inland with no harbor)

[5] 600 AD - Settler pair disembarks onto pink dot of Sacred Cow island!
With more harbors online, less and less taxmen. In fact, we start to carefully
move around the single scientist to a place where each turn he loses nothing.

[6] 610 AD - Punjab, now with granary, temple and harbor and looking like a real
city, starts a new galley (maybe aqueduct next). Sanctus Bovinus is founded at
Sacred Cow pink dot, starts temple, which is rushed next turn.

[7] 620 AD - Not only is that temple rushed, but a few places get some mini-rushes, and
a few undefended cities needing to get going on harbors get a warrior rushed.
We're still over 600g, and now +60gpt.

[8] 630 AD - Ganges harbor finishes, courthouse badly needed and is started.
Bovinus can handle its own settlers for that island with its huge food bonuses,
so the settler about to arrive will be the last shipped from homeland.

[9] 640 AD - It's 640 AD, and we're still awaiting our second middle age tech!?
Bombay upgrades our first warr-> Sword, to give the AI's something to 'fear' :P

[10] 650 AD - There's a new galley sitting unmoved in Punjab, and a spear-settler on
galley ready to disembark on last site of Yankee island (unless you have other plans)
The galley just off Sacred Cow island can come back home for more shuttling detail,
OR head west and bust some more fog, and maybe even meet the Vikings? The settler
pair on Sacred Cow is standing on white dot ready to found as well.

Nothing has happened at ALL on the tech front. England now has Republic, but since
France is the only other civ with it, they got it by self-research rather than
via the Great Library :P Glacial tech pace... Even with no libraries we could
kick science on and without deficit research new techs in 12-15 turns.

England has STILL not discovered the nearby Vikings (OR... I'm color blind :P )
Our treasury at 715g+69gpt. WM not sold.

Save file 650AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp4-650ad.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

Yeah, I saw the last civ, too. Forgot to mention that? :o Also forgot to mention that I haven't sold the world map to anybody. I have sold territory map, though, although I won't any more to keep Sacred Cows in the dark. Not that the AI really cares, it can "see" the map anyway, as most of us know.

We can self-research @first in "only" 15-20 turns? Ooh. :crazyeye:

I guess that's faster than the AI's! :lol:

Well, bottom line, great library not as big a deal after all because we got a lot of value out of brokering upon contact, and we can pay for the few techs we won't get for free. I can't say that these islands are all that valuable, except that they are territory we won't have to conquer later (we hope) and add to culture and power ratings, etc. Could also be resources. (Imagine if our only rubber pops up on one of these rocks? Ha!)

OK, got it.


- Sirian

Well, obviously I don't have it after all, since that's not the correct SG save file. Is Charis involved in too many SG's now? :crazyeye: :p I await the FRFR 650AD saved game.

- Sirian

:spank:

There Charis goes again...

:wallbash:

The irony of it all, I'm not *IN* the SG of the file posted!

My upload failed but when I went to the upload directory to look for my 650AD save, and sorted by date, there it was, an RB file of 650AD.

Second irony, the name of the save file in the zip was...

P.T.Barnum of the Romans, 650 AD.sav

TRUE SaveFile for *FRFR* 650AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-India-650AD.zip)

Charisucker

IT 650AD: Minor tile shuffles. I decide that granary ought to come before courthouse in a few second ring cities that can manage three good shields out of four, especially ones on fresh water that can get to size 7 quickly.

Speaking of size 7, a friendly reminder: city center tile gets BONUS COMMERCE at size 7 for commercial civs (another reason why commercial was surely the best trait for this variant -- religious or militaristic a tossup for second).

We're hugging the unit support limit under Monarchy. This is excellent news, no cost waste. Any units that DO go over would be extra MP's that enable higher population in large cities, which would then pay for the units, so we're in good shape.

Delhi is pulling in 43gpt income. Our next best... is producing 6. :lol: I kid you not.

I offload the settler pair to Yankee Isle and here we go.


Early: Charis did not get spears out to Game Isles, so I vow to take care of that myself. Incredibly enough, the Iro's still have not acquired Monotheism, so I'm so very glad we held off. Charis said settlers could be rushed out of Bovinus, but I think this isle has long term potential while Ice-olation Isle in the far south is just space we have to occupy to win by domination. I intend to fully settle Sacred Cows before sending anything to the deep south. I will, however, explore down there, and in fact "borrow" a vet spear from Sacred Cows to pop that hut I see and help explore.

Continued max food growth at Delhi. It WILL be size 12 by end of my round.


Middle: Aha! Iro's finally acquire feudalism, probably researched themselves then traded for monotheism, as they have both. I'm still glad we passed on the lux trade with them, bought almost a couple dozen turns delay on their cathedrals, and surely cost them most if not all 1000yr bonus they would ever get. Not much else happening on tech movement. Arabian cash has stopped increasing, so I sell them Math for what they have plus their updated world map, which was better than I expected as they have ships out roaming the edges of their coastal waters.

I start a pack of cathedrals around our core in cities with the Basic Three items.

Oh? Hmm. Russia has researched Engineering and sold it to France. I wait for England to pop it out of the library, then buy from England @4th for dyes and ~490g. (Ouchie) Still, it was a good deal. Trade to Celts for Feudalism and 26g and updated world map (maybe another dozen g worth). Then all our workers, already in position, start planting forests on various food bonus tiles: wheat plains at Delhi, cattle grass at FP site Pune, tundra game in the north. Train a worker out of Madras and start planting a regular plains tile (that city has NO two-shield tiles, and it has been, like, the mother of our civilization with nonstop settlers since its granary was done).

Now that we can plant, we can get more of those uber forest tiles! :jump:

TWO SHIELDS ON THE SAME TILE! [party] :band: [dance]

Nobody else can afford to buy, so the trading ends there. Lone scientist will finish Republic on Charis's first turn. I suggest we give him a pink slip after that. We can't afford to and won't be able to wait 40 turns for any of the next row of techs: invention, theology, chivalry. So... no use starting an impossible project. It is psychologically easier to start a new project than it is to wipe out 13 turns of lone sci on a tech you need NOW. Gunpowder is a tech we might wait 40 turns on. (Even if we have saltpeter, I don't know that we want to lose the option to be building pikes all that soon). That's the only one I can think of that we'd want to wait on until Democracy. We want invention for access to no-resources longbows that we could train inland. Basically, they are low-defense midieval infantry, but same value on offense. Oh, and we might want Leo's, or have to fall back to Leo's if losing in other races.


Late: Explored most of Ice-olation Isle. The first hut was empty, but there's one down there Charis will get to pop. I have made a dotmap.

I did rush one spear on Sacred Cows to replace the one I sent exploring to Ice-olation Isle. I also rushed one settler out of Bovinus after it got to size 3, and settled. Dropped off a settler pair, too, so we now have four cites on the isle and culturally have the whole thing locked up. We might as well grab the last dot next anyway, though, as each city ups our unit allotment, and another temple would add culture, and these are the cities that may get some benefit out of being somewhat in range of the FP.

There are two loaded galleys heading south. One just dropped off a vet sword on Yankee Doodle. I figure we will eventually be attacked here and I wanted to beef our defenses. The galley still has a settler which can take itself south. Charis CAN still rush more settlers out of Bovinus, that's better than further delaying Madras's climb. Just keep a couple ships down there and ferry back and forth, rushing spears for defense where needed.

I did indeed get vet spears out to each of the three Game Isles, if barely on the last of them. We have a few cathedrals all due to complete in time to get SOME 1000yr bonus starting in the early to mid 1800's. It's now or never on such bonuses.

Delhi completed its colesseum and also a barracks, and I upgraded its spears to pike. Now the city can pull 15spt and could train a horse or a pike every other round. HOWEVER... I see another possibility I like better. Only two AI's had any work on wonders coming in to my round, and both were in low-yield sites, not their capitals or best core cities. France started a wonder very late in my round, also in a second ring city. :smoke: With Delhi now at size 12 and 15spt (will become 16 as soon as the first wheat forest is done planting) I think we can beat all the AI's to SunTzu! Imagine how much good that would do us! And we'd still have the slow-going palace prebuild at Bangalore to grab a second wonder, possibly Sistine or Leo, or could be a later one. (It's got a long way to go yet, longer than Delhi from scratch!)

I think it's worth a shot. We may possibly be beat to SunTzu, but there is no way we'll be beat to all three of the early wonders, so this will get us one of them, and that ought to be worth it long term, as all three have perm effects. Also, we have to think in Regent terms. We can END these cascades, perhaps, if we finish wonders quickly enough. The AI's will just hang around forever if we don't, and nab everyone in one big rush later on. We don't want to see Smith's get built in some second-rate city that's been building since the Great Wall. Heh.

Alternatively, Charis can veto and go with the military production out of the capital. Horse for upgrade to Jumbos, or pikes.

We still need more workers, but most cities are tied up in long projects. Madras can crank a few workers, just start micromanaging its food better, so it will grow in three turns instead of four. It can train workers in three turns also. I keep working to build the town up on my rounds with running higher food and keep coming back to find it down to size 3 again. Well, bah. This time I've left it at size 3 myself. Charis's turn to do the fertility dance. :p

Some cities now at size 7: Calcutta, Karachi, and Indus, all on fresh water. One aqueduct due to complete to add another size 7 and several more due to start after cathedral completions.

Incredibly enough, we are still second in population, economy, and manufactured goods, and now that we can plant forests (plains and tundra especially, but also perhaps some nonbonus grass) we can actually increase our shields a little bit. Of course, then we'll be maxed out, while the AI's still have rails in their distant futures.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-ice-isle.jpg

I recommend priority to pink and orange dots, for being on hills to better defend, and also centrally located to dominate culturally. I still say get the last dot on Sacred Cows with next rushed settler, though. And definitely no more settlers from home. We need to get Madras up above size 7 and get it improved, now that it can have some shields of its own.

Still no contact with the final civ. France discovered Chivalry late in the round. They have not sold yet. Still, I shudder at the thought of what even two galleys of knights could do to us. It's almost painful to pass up the chance to build big military in the capital, but I think it's for the best, long term.

On the last turn, our lux deal to Germany expired, freeing up one ivory and one dyes. We could trade two for one to Iro's, or we could wait and try to offer them as part of the purchase price of our next tech deal. Charis will choose.

FRFR - 750AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-750ad.zip)


- Sirian

Modern-day India in all its semi-connected splendor! :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-750ad.jpg

On opening up the game, I just had to blink on seeing the worker sprinkling
acorns on the wheat. Can't say I've ever seen that!

Things look pretty good. The comment on 'Bovinus can create settlers' was with an
eye towards filling Sacred Cow island first, so yes that will get priority over
the southern ice rock.

I like the Sun Tzu idea, as I've not thought Sistine was a big deal for us. Relative
to other games we'll be limited on food and probably won't have a bunch of size 20
cities to worry about for happiness. OTOH, given the cost of barracks and the small
shield production, that would save us a lot.

[0] 750 AD - Delhi is at size 12, running +1 food surplus, Sun Tzu due in 40?
Was Sirian tired? Move a laborer and it's due in 38. Bombay can grow in 1 instead
of it's current 'in 2' and net more shields. Sneak a worker out of New Bangalore
to plant before resuming courthouse.

Republic completes, and although it would normally be a good choice for a relig
civ it would be awful here - low commerce per city, few marketplaces, a large number
of cities not connected to capital/lux, loss of MP happiness. With a domination goal
we may never leave Monarchy?!

The scientist goes on Chivalry, although if he gets fired on Sirian's watch he will
stay unemployed :P Going for Sun Tzu instead of military now means there is no rush
to Chivalry, or if there is just buy it. With our low shields we'll likely prefer to
get around to making a few dozen horses and upgrading than build Jumbos from scratch,
so a delay of 40 might be feasible if pace continues to be slow.

[1] 760 AD - Looking at our 5 galleys, we need one for shuttle service to Forbidden
Isle, one for shuttle from Cow to Icerock, one hanging around or shuttling to
Yankee island, which leaves one to fog bust and go in search of the last civ :P

The only tech 'out there' is a Chivalry monopoly by France.

Our spear hut popper releases 3 barbs. It's PtW so one attacks and two disperse.
(IBT) Iro start Sun Tzu.

[2] 770 AD - Regarding our lux sales, we want cash, not a lux back as we're running
zero slider anyway. Also I don't want to speed up the other civs. The slower tech
pace and growth goes, the better for us. I'll hold on to our lux for now since
I don't see anyone with cash but will keep an eye out.

[3] 780 AD - Plantin' and sailin'
[4] 790 AD - Ah, Korea finally has met the Vikings. That figures, as soon as I start
to send a ship over there. I could buy now, or later, no biggie. May as well keep
sailing. They might even buy contact to us :P

[5] 800 AD - The French start Leo's, proving they are by far the biggest threat.
A see a BIG dogpile in their future. It's a monopoly tech right now. It's actually
good there is one tech leader not two. France is bearing full cost of research, and
it keeps England from getting the tech instantly.

[6] 810 AD - Celts start Sistine. Of course they Theology that to France for Chivalry,
so England will get Theology next turn. Hmm, Korea has Theology too. Sounds like
a twofer chance. Theology from Celts would cost Ivory+Dyes+19gpt. Chivalry from
them costs Ivory+Dyes+11gpt. The only downside is I don't much want Chivalry yet,
but I don't think we'll have time to build mass horses anyway. That would only come
after snagging SunTzu, due in 32. Our scientist will have Chivalry in 35. That pair
is good timing, IF we can wait that long. The backward civs are doing nothing to
get out of their backwardness, so maybe we can. A better twofer will be Theology
Invention (after monopoly), so I wait. (IBT) France and Korea start Sistine.

[7] 820 AD - Plantin' and sailin'
(IBT) Almost every turn someone asks to trade maps. I never have so I don't start.
(Feel free to, just let me know when it's ok to sell around)

[8] 830 AD - Ganges courthouse finishes, and it's raking in 5spt! It's at high food
and stuck at six for now, so I peel off a worker to have it work a plains that
it's using over on nearby Stoplight Isle.

Frosty Ferrous is founded on ice island next to the iron. Despite being useless
land, there's a good chance of oil or some resource down there.

[9] 840 AD - As he promised... the Vikings have been met directly by our intrepid
exploring galley! :hammer: (I had to vindicate that the shade of pink was in
fact slightly different from Arab pink) I didn't buy his map yet because we can
sail around his island and see most of it in a few turns. (Half the civs have contact
with Vikings thru Korea, so selling should be ok. No one else knows Arabs)

[10] Karachi finishes Cathedral and finally gets back to spear production.
(Jaipur might want to swap to Horse, else rush the aqueduct)
Three planters in NE are not moved yet.

Dacca is short on MP - it's on zero growth right now, but a warrior is on the way near
New Bombay.

If you like, can trade Feud or Engr to Wang Kon for Theology. I've not done so just
because I have no immediate use for it and like the slow tech pace. Feel free to
trade/accelerate as needed. Also feel free to spend some of our growing treasury
to rush a few things (hrmm, like cathedrals). I've let it accumulate to 1540g.

Our forbidden Palace is nearly done in Pune. Three planters have been helping speed
it up. They were heading to the cow next.

BTW, with forest planting, when possible I'm trying to leave gaps where jumbos or
cavs can run through. It will be slow enough without roads to have forests blocking
ourselves too!

Sun Tzu is due in 25. Given where it's being built and when they started, our chances
look excellent. But I'm not sure we'll have the shields rdy for Sistine before that
finishes or before Invention gets around. If that prebuild fails though (Palace) we
will probably have a lock on Smiths. If you want, override my slow path to Chivalry,
or if you like that, we'll rush a decent number of horses around the land after getting
Sun Tzu, then get Chivalry and upgrade them all. It would then surely be time to
start a war. Spend the entire treasury on Jumbos would be my plan, then save up for
the next upgrade, to Cavs. Looking at those comments, Leo looks useful (though
Sun Tzu is the most important)

Save file FRFR 850AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-India-850AD.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

Inherited: A few minor tinkerings. I decide to hold off on tech trades.


Early: No tech movement. Sell contact with Vikings to France for current map and 39g @miser. No one else can pay diddly for squat. Temples rushed. Should have been done asap, for more bonus later, but oh well. As for rushing cathedrals now, I'm not going to bother. If that was going to be done at all, it needed to happen pre-750AD, to enjoy max bonus. We had the cash then. To have sat on it only to rush now that the bonus is kaput is a little poorly planned. So we'll save the cash for deals or military upgrades. Come SunTzu, we can upgrade scads of stuff immediately. With the spears especially will be worth it, though we might hold off and see if we end up with Leo's first.

I'm kind of liking your other observation, though: that if we hold out/wait for Smith, we'll surely get it.


Middle: Oops, there goes the tech pace. Iro's jumped in tech, so did Celts. Not talking one tech, either. The backward cousins are all still pathetic, though. This game is going to be played @middle, at best.

I agree with the "leave a path through all these forests" for faster land movement of units. Not at all costs, though. For one, I am wondering why you are ignore plains tiles on the river at the capital, with its Colossus and improvements, only to have us working no-commerce plains tiles you decided to improve first. I am reminded of a certain move on a certain first-ever turn where the best tiles were ignored so we could go improve the worst tiles first. :crazyeye: OK, nuff said. :D


Late: OK, the tech pace is flapping along now. Even Korea has picked it up. I opt in to making some trades while the trading is still good.

Feudalism and Engineering to Korea for Theology. Theology and Dyes to Russia for Invention. Dyes and Ivory and 12g to England for Chivalry. Scientist not fired ONLY because I could only change him to a taxman anyway, so what the hey. Start Printing Press @late, but don't be greedy in sticking to this. Fact is, I should have traded for Theology right off the bat and started lone sci on Printing back then, but hindsight is always 20-20.


Hilly towns on Ice-olation are working on walls. So are towns on Yankee Doodle.

Got some horse out to Game Isles.

MM Delhi to minor food deficit, speeds the wonder by two turns. Our economy is not doing as well as expected because Delhi is on high shields low commerce. So it's not as bad as it may look.

FP will complete in 1000AD exactly. Nice job!

Forests on Ice-olation could contain rubber, so I prioritized that region next after the hills.

I sent some galleys fogbusting. Might as well.

Since this game is going to go on a long long time, and we'll rely so much on airports, I think Smith's is the end-all be-all for our long range chances. It will pay for all the improvements we will mostly be building, and will beat any other wonder for THIS game plan. It already has been beefed up to where it beats any wonder if your game plan takes you past the UN, but for this game especially it is a very big deal, and you're right, we should have it locked up with that prebuild, even if we go over and waste a hundred or two shields waiting on the tech. Hey, someone must have had great foresight! That or it's better to be lucky than good. :p

All our isles will still need barracks even with Sun Tzu. This is especially true for Game Isles and Lush Isle.

Oh, and here's a crazy thought. Rush the aqueduct at the FP site once the FP is done (don't pay double though) and then start right in on another wonder? Is that wise or too stupid? :lol: Maybe we can snag Magellan over there? I dunno. You can see how things develop. Rushing the aqueduct might be weedy if we don't get a wonder there, but it wouldn't be the worst investment in its own right. There would be time to switch off to a colesseum or something later, if need be. Can you believe it JUST occurred to me that the FP will be done in time to compete for another wonder with it? Heh. Those cattle tiles with three shields are going to my head. :o

Oh, and there is a worker heading to Jaipur plains as that site badly needs some forests. And the Dacca situation is stable, as I have an MP on the way. (Where have you heard that before?)

Finally, I say river tiles override jumbo right of way plans. Got to get that commerce into play! Shield concerns at some cities may also require a forest or two in inconvenient spots. Otherwise, though, I agree, and implemented a checkerboard forestation pattern. Uh... more or less. :lol:


- Sirian

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-950ad-map.jpg

That's the world map, above. Below, our gloriously pristine Forbidden Palace region, complete with Johnny Appleseed x 10. Whoa, look at em go! (Remember, only you can prevent forest fires. Plant a tree, plant a tree for all the world to see. O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree... Has anybody ever figured out why George chopped down that cherry tree?)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-950ad.jpg


:sheep: :fish:

We're FINALLY ready for Regent! In 950AD... (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-950ad.zip)


- Sirian

The enviromentalists of India are in rapture at seeing the forest planting program
going on, all over the country! The warmongers are happy Sun Tzu is due in 12,
and the businessmen love the 1.5k treasury and nearly 100gpt income. Even the
statisticians are happy, as the second derivative of the score vs time curve is
non-negative! (ie the growth of our growth has not slowed) The religious leaders are
in glee that the Forbidden Palace is due soon. I like the idea of another wonder
prebuild there after its completion.

To say some of the civs on the planet are backwards is an insult to the word.
The only 'players' are France (with gunpowder!), Celts, Russia, England, Iro and Korea.

[0] 950: The orders look great. Forehead hits 'enter'

[1] 960: France alone gets Education. That's TWO monopolies for them. They're pullin'
away! Celts have Gunpowder, so England will next turn.

[5] 1000: Despite mm, Pune can't pull one more shield to get FP this round, but...

[6] 1010: Our Forbidden Palace now arrives in Pune, starts Aqueduct.
Pune hits 15spt with zero growth. It will do aquduct next. All the western
cities have at least some benefit. Lush island also becomes productive :D
Income goes from about 106 to +130gpt. SPT output of nation is 163. Better.

[7] 1020: I rush a few spears in newer undefended cities to let them get on their harbors.
With no wonder prebuild available, I don't rush aqeuduct in Pune (360g for 6 turns)
To make best use of 15spt on a 100s bldg, I let it build 30, rush-buy longbow, swap
back to aqueduct. Perhaps a granary in middle instead for a slight speed up.

[8] 1030: Russians start Leo's, making the potential cascade worse. Calcutta starts on
a War Elephant on assumption SunTzu completes first.

[10] 1050: Several workers unmoved. No new techs. We're still waiting for a second
civ to get Education, then England, then buy Education and broker for Gunpowder
to Celts or Koreans. (Or buy Gunwpowder and do opposite.) Sun Tzu due in two, even
if I fix the deficit, so back to no growth. We're fortunate in that the Palace
prebuild can last 77 turns, but with it Sistine or Leo due in 20. (We don't plan
to grab those, but it means we can take Smith the turn after we get the tech.
If, and only if, none of the ongoing civs with long-running-shields have Astronomy
could we take one of those two and prebuild for Smith's in Pune. It would take
Pune 40 turns to build that, and it's likely to take 40 turns or more to reach
Economics.)

A note on forests, max size, etc. Many cities have max size limits approaching,
and I don't think we need many more forests up north. We'll want them to get
as many shields as they can, and max the size for that output unless there's
no commerce bonus. For coastal waters more (coast) is better, but for pure grass,
you just cause unhappiness with no extra shields or commerce. Size 7 is good for
defense bonus, drafting, commerce bonus. Take Jaipur. It's now 7spt, 0 growth,
just finished its aqueduct. After that it will pick up two two river grass,
but then it need grow no further, switching back to its two forests. No additional
forests are needed, unless to have an extra on hand if you need an extra occasional shield.

If you're ready for war, when Sun Tzu arrives, upgrade to pikes, swap several projects
to war elephants, rush some jumbos, recall some ships, and go kick some tail.
Russia/Germany's whole continent makes sense, especially if Cathy lacks gunpowder.
Instead of that, or right after, a dogpile on France would be good, but right now
they're rather far away. One last comment, New Bangalore will need attention as or
before it grows for happiness.

Foes all continue to pester frequently for a world map.

Save file FRFR 1050AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-India-1050AD.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

Can you guys chop the trees and then replant them?

Yes. We even have a lumber dotmap to show which tiles have been chopped, so we don't lose track and rechop. I don't think we'll start that, though, until we have enough workers gathered in one stack to do it fairly quickly. And the fact that it takes time to move the workers around without roads... arg. :)

- Sirian

Inherited: I made very few changes. Some cities with happy to spare got food increases or minor MM action.


Early: I sell dyes to the Celts for a worthwhile enough price, a wad of cash and 16gpt.

SunTzu is completed in Delhi! :jump:

I upgrade all our coastal spears to pikes and upgrade all our horses on the mainland to jumbos.

Ack, France cascades to Cop! They have Astro. This means they will start roaming around and the value of our maps will slowly bleed away. If there is a time to sell, it's now or never. Also, Celts and Russia have Printing Press, but France does not!

I buy Printing @3rd from Celts for our world map plus contact with Arabia and ~130g. I then buy Education @6th from France for Printing @4th, contact with Arabia, our world map, and ~80g. I trade Education and contact plus our world map to the Iro's for Gunpowder. I sell our maps to the English for enough to make it worth doing, though definitely a diplo price. I sold contact with the Vikings to the Aztecs for their treasury.

We have two saltpeter sources! Both are on the western segment of our continent, north of the FP. Sadly, one is on a mountain, the other is inland. We'll never connect the one, and the other can't be connected until we reach flight, and by then, likely not worth it.

Russia has two sources. One is on a mountain, the other is inland. Arg. Iro's have a source, it's on a mountain. I look around, and there is saltpeter inland, or on mountains. The only one I see that is NOT on a mountain and IS touching the coast, is a hill in the heart of French lands. Bottom line: if we're going to use any saltpeter in the middle ages, we'll have to trade for it, probably with Russia.

WE START RESEARCH FOR THE FIRST TIME IN EONS. Banking. Due in 11 turns? @50% science? Hmm, we have two libraries. The palace prebuild will reach 600 shields in less than 20 turns, though we have plenty of time before it actually runs out. We have a lot of markets in progress, but chances are this won't be the only time we need to do our own research. Hmm. Libraries bring in culture, and if we're ever going to build them, there is more cultural benefit to doing them first. Plus they are 20 shields less than the markets. We'll be running max affordable science for at least 20ish turns, to beeline to economics.

I decide to shift to library emphasis. Every town building a market is shifted to library. Delhi is changed to university, as is Calcutta, our two towns with libraries already done. Some other sites that can afford to do library start on them, including Pune (FP city) which postpones its granary to do its library first.


Middle: Lumberjacking, tile micromanagement. Train one longbow out of Karachi. Barracks complete at Ganges, units upgraded. I add one settler to Ice-olation Isle.

France DECLARES WAR... on the Celts. I sell ivory to the Celts to help support their cause. We pulled about 130g cash and 10gpt, hey not bad.


Late: France signs Korea up to be their ally. Not good, but the Celts have gunpowder and two saltpeter, and they're militaristic and religious. I expect both France and Celts to experience their golden ages now, which is NOT GOOD for our cause on the wonder building front. We'll have to see how it works out.

Ooh, France completes Sistine, and on the same turn, Iroquois complete Leonardo! That leaves only Cop's as a live wonder!

Next turn, France's Leo attempt at Paris cascades to Cop's, stealing it from their less ideally located site at Toulouse, and completes THAT immediately, killing the entire cascade! :)

Sirian gets visions dancing in his head about nabbing not only Smith's, but also Magellan and Bach. :hammer: :cooool:

Here's how it might pan out. We're researching banking, and almost there. (Shaved two turns off the ETA with pop growth and library construction). In fact, I had upped research speed to 60% science for a while, thanks to added income from Celt purchases of our fine dyes and ivory. I can lower back to 50% for ONE TURN now, and have the tech come in when Charis hits next turn. Then it's on to Economics at 60% science (or thereabouts), with Smith's to complete perhaps on the same turn the research comes in if Charis lines up a way to finish something and scroll ahead. If not, then the turn after the tech arrives.

Meanwhile, prebuild starting with university in Pune (not immediately, finish granary first, then maybe cathedral too), aiming for Magellan's, switches to using the palace once that has been freed up by Smith completion. Delhi completes its university and SAVES the option to build a bank so the bank can be used as a starter prebuild toward Bach's, with Music Theory researched at our best rate and timed to come in just before the bank would run out of time. This gives us the jump on Bach's, and in our best city. We ought to be able to get both Bach and Magellan this way. That would be huge! More happy for our homeland, plus continuing our bonus movement from the Lighthouse for the rest of the game, here on this big naval map where ships will be so important and movement speed of ships could make the difference if we run up against the clock in trying to win.

Heh, and get this. It takes SO LONG to walk across our landmass, that we'd save time to have some ferry ships around, and load them up and ship troops along the coast, they'd arrive sooner. How sad is that? :crazyeye:


Bottom line, I skipped the war idea. Russia was on the doorstep of gunpowder and would surely get there before we could mount any kind of offensive. (They did, in fact, get to gunpowder before my round ended). Germany isn't worth taking, frankly. AND they developed feudalism as I was considering it anyway. Since they have iron, I did not relish the idea of going up against pikes and midievals just to fight for control of some blocks of ice. I went the library route instead.

Cities with happy to spare saw high food rates this round. Not all of them max food. Some where a lone forest netted two shields, no corruption, saw that happening. Still, population equals power, and every coastal tile we work is two more commerce in the economy. Almost all of our entire economy is coastal in nature. The rest is rivers, with tidbits from resource tiles.

Oh, I rushed a pack of harbors in there somewhere. All three on Lush Isle, and some on distant corners of the homeland. I spent nothing on the colonies this round, and in fact I swapped many of them from working tiles to collecting taxes. What's the use in having the population climb to max, leaving no food in the box, and gaining absolutely nothing at all from the worked tiles? All we get out of the population is higher prices on any goods we buy from the AI's (we PAY MORE, that is) and the scoring value of an extra content citizen or two. Blah and Hlumbug to that, says me. I pulled the Jaffa Tamarin move and hired a pack of tax collectors to improve our yields out of these colonies. The fact that starting our own research caused the income to dry up meant putting a halt to impulse purchases. Everything that got rushed had to bring in definitive returns. I thought about rushing some of the courthouses, too, but decided we couldn't afford it.

What to do with our monopoly on banking (whether to sell to France and others) will be up to Charis. Most of these customers can't pay a fair price, so the strategy of selling to the AI's and using their payments to fuel more of our own gains doesn't work so well at this level. He'll have to decide what to do on the fly.

I sold our world map to Korea for ~100g. Yes, it's worth more than that! Russia is the only significant power left who has not bought the map yet. None of the small fry, either, of course.

I started barracks on Yankee Isle. I considered rushing, but we didn't have the dough to spare. Although we can't produce pikes and such, we can produce spears, cats, longbows and jumbos, at ANY city, and actually those ought to be enough unit types to fend off minor invasions. More dedicated invasions of, say, a couple caravel-loads of knights and midievals could be a problem, though. I was tempted to declare on France and try to sign England up to fight for us, give Joanie two targets and two opponents, and help out the Celts. However, if France sent even small shiploads of units at our colonies, which they CAN now reach if they want, we might lose the ground. Or worse, be able to hold on to it, but at the cost of huge amounts of dough spent on rushed units and improvements. I passed on the opportunity. It seems to me that the Celts just may be able to defend themselves adequately. Only if they start to collapse, having cleared become gassed and in serious danger, do I think it would be worth it at this point to get directly involved. We're already supporting the Celts with two lux, which should enable them to field more tiles and better production.

And if Joanie should be the one to collapse, well, in this case I would not be shedding any tears. :lol:

No cities need MM tile attention THIS round, but I have some doing odd things like max food min shields, to grow faster, or the opposite, max shields to build something faster, and these will need to change once the immediate goal is reached. Some cities are also working on happy or granary, and need changes to higher food OR higher shields, as applicable, once these are done. Ganges is in danger of riot, keep an eye on it.

Oh, and there's one crucial city that is currently EMPTY, because the neighbor location needed an MP unit urgently and none were nearby. Wth SunTzu, we can build units anywhere, so slip some extra pikes in there when convenient, especially in the west. I have Lush Isle on barracks now too. They need pikes, and soonish. I have them all on high food, but that will run its course when they get to size 6.

Cathy wanted about 1000g for saltpeter. (What is she smoking? :smoke: :lol: )

I figured that with the window now apparently closed on going for early attack, that we should slowly slip some military in there to avoid too much weakness, but otherwise press on toward maxing pop and economy, and continued pursuit of peaceful wonder-building. All of these wonders are big time long term boosters. Smith's especially, but SunTzu is also a biggie. (Imagine if France had gotten it! :eek: ) Would be nice to get some more, though.


I THOUGHT about gifting the Iro's a round of dyes. We have two spares. Anything to get rid of that scowling face they have, with them now inches away from having the means to invade our distant, poorly defended colonies. You can think it over and decide whether improving relations is worth that much.

I did sell contact with Arabia to some civs as part of the brokerings early in the round. A couple others bought the contact from somebody, don't know which, so I gifted the last few contacts to Arabia to get something out of it: improved relations.


A lot of lumberjacking took place. I updated the record, and started a new lumber record for our five island regions, one graphic covering them all. Both are included with the save file.


FRFR - 1150AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1150ad.zip)


- Sirian

Looks like a great turn! I'm very glad we got Sun Tzu, and it's also quite nice that Copernicus wiped out the cascade. I've gotten so used to the extra sea movement that Magellan's would be great. A trio of late middle-age wonders would be a real coup.
In fact, Cops may have been the AI's last wonder, period.

With so much good peaceful stuff to work on and with the very limited advantage of jumbos, I agree that war anytime soon won't be our choice. In fact, holding such games on foreign soil would be quite difficult right now.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the implications of our limitations for war.

- Until Tanks our need for saltpeter means that we might be snuggling up with Cathy for a long time. Leaving her for a final foe wouldn't be a bad thing, shortening the supply chains (although by that time it will be air-based anyway) Domination is our victory path, so actually we need never fight her.
- Hoover is very important for *CLEAN* power. How does pollution control sound when it takes workers 18 turns just to get TO the site of the spill? So apart from having coal once to build one or two coal plants, coal will be of no real use to us, and if we have built cities on one, will be nice to sell.
- Rubber. We'll either be sitting on it, see it on a coastal spot on the land of a weak foe, or only coastal under a strong foe, or just plain non-coastal. Hopefully our only rubber isn't 'next' to a city that we don't want to relocate. A weakly defended rubber site can be taken by cav and held by rifles. Vs a strong foe it would have to be done before that AI actually had any infantry. Flight *could* be as early as our seventh tech, depening how much of a beeline we make towards it.
- Oil and Aluminum. Same issues, we might well have some given our tundra, and hopefully we won't need to relocate a city to get it.

If we lack rubber, unless we have a trusted friend selling it, we'll likely go to war for it even if inland, as taking it from rifles will be easier than from infantry even if it's several more techs before we can fly it home.

Without the ability to use rails, on the big continents we may well be purely blitzing. Without the typical capture-rail-moveForward slingshot for the slow troops, our artillery would take a few DOZEN turns to move across from one end of a big civ to the other! Except for a smaller island, our main bombardment in the game won't come until bombers. There might be some use of dropping off a small SOD on a hill next to someone's capital and let it siege it slowly while the cav blitz elsewhere. In that respect Jumbo's aren't bad at all, able to defend themselves fairly well.

How weak and behind ARE Arabia? If we don't attack, someone will swallow them whole at some point. It's a fairly large chunk of land and good chance for extra resources. Unfortunately probably not easy enough that we could defeat them and stay on track with our building (unless they're well before Gunpowder and lack iron)

We won't be able to dominate without hitting the 'other mainland'. With it all we would still need one of the other double-civ large islands to win. With all of the Iro/Aztecs island plus Arabia, we would probably need half to 2/3 of the other mainland.

Another advantage to building our research capabilities is to get to find out where the resources are before anyone else can use them. If we were to have a near monopoly on Oil, for example, with the only other source in Germany, we take that and the game is practically over. Or if luck goes the other way, we'll lack it and have some time to rectify that before it's too late.

Final comment - in a normal game we could continue to delay war indefinitely then sweep the world with Tanks or Modern Armor. But as the other civs get fully railroaded land and factories, our production abilities will be dwarfed by others. Purely from the perspective of the power curve, the time to hit them, or at least hit the 'top power' in the game is right when Steam Power arrives, before the rails are actually in place. In fact... as potential tech leaders here, if we get to Mil Tradition *before* they're in next era with nationalism, we'll have the biggest advantage in the whole game, from the combined power of Cav vs Musket and a production lvl that's still stronger than the AI. This is definitely worthy of consideration.

Charis

There's one vital use of coal you're overlooking, Pardner. Clads.

You've seen how (in)effective even BOSOF's are vs a few clads in the Infantry game. Even if we beeline to Flight, there will still be a window in there where war could shut us down at sea. I know it's not like we need to fear the AI bombing all the improvements along our shores :lol: but what if they target the CITIES for lack of other targets? Everything we have of value is on the coast and they could rip us a new one.

I thought about the resource problem. We only had a few jungles, four tiles south of Bombay, and most of Lush Isle. Not a lot of chances there for rubber. What little forests we had in the tundra region were thick with dyes, so unlikely to have rubber there, and what little we had elsewhere was also either thick with dyes or thick with ivory. It will be a miracle if we have rubber on the mainland in any place where our dotmap still allows us to grab it.

As for oil and aluminum, we'll just have to cross all these resource bridges when we come to them.

We're at the stage of the game where our commercial bonuses are kicking in as lots of cities get over size 7. We've been enjoying the religious trait all along. Now we nabbed SunTzu, meaning even less pain on the military infrastructure front. Come airport time, and Civil Defense time, and SAM Missile time, and late game wars to the end of time, we'll feel the lack of military attribute more keenly. Up to now, only the full price harbors and early or offland barracks have pinched us on that one.

Also, I do not intend to "save" Cathy. I don't think we can afford to buy saltpeter over a long enough haul. All we could do is have a lot of jumbo and horse around to upgrade. I'm not sure how we're going to do this, probably heavy on the bombardment. Sure, might be ungodly slow to move artillery around, so I guess this is going to be "the ultimate aircraft carrier gambit". We might also need to make VERY VERY heavy use of copters and paratroops. (Do you realize we can use aircraft carriers as helicopter bases?)

We're completely off in lala land with this one, my friend. Should be interesting, both the strategizing, and then the restrategizing when all our "on paper it looked good" plans go to the dogs. :lol:


- Sirian

Now we have SunTzu, a lumbermap, and food for our elephants, what more could we want?!
Well, ok, sure, world domination, but beside that, we're set! Well, world domination and
saltpeter. Oh wait, World Dom, Salt, Smith's and Bach's. Um, Magellan's too! Ok, those
would be good. We would be happy then. For now we're learning how to read and study.
We need to, just to understand our plots to capture all three. Let's see...
Banking to come in now, Econ around 60%, to time it's completion same time as Palace in
Bangalore. Pune to aim for Magellans taking a granary and cathedral first then using Palace
for prebuild. Finally, Delhi does univ, not bank, and gets ready to have bank (not) finish
when Music Theory (researched quickly) comes available. MT after Econ, then Nav later.

The 'players' in the game are: France (distinct top dog), Iro, England, Celts, Russia.

We have monopoly on Banking, to be used if we can get a lot of money for it, but otherwise
frankly, fast tech pace is our worst enemy. If Celts implode, watch Joan.
(These are just reminders to self, condensing many earlier comments)

[0] 1150 - Despite having 44 cities, the build queues are impeccable.

[1] 1160 - We're 61 shields from enough for Smiths at 7spt, or 9 turns away, so we
set Econ to research in 9. (60%, still surplus)

Celts have Astronomy, lack Banking. No one else has banking. At some point I'll want
to sell that to Joan and suck her cash. Right now she offers 37gpt+140g or more.
I'll watch that. Actually, Celts offer 100gpt (!) and can't go higher. Joanie will
offer 117gpt as fair price (i.e., she can go higher but won't) Can't beat that with
a stick! Then can get Astro from Celts. Delaying a few rounds should receive similar
payments unless something odd happens, and keeps things just a tad slower.
Neither Russia nor Iro nor England can manage a single gpt. Waiting also puts a further
lock on Smiths.

[4] 1190 - Joanie shows up with Chemistry. Celts can't afford to buy it at mono, but
both are still interested in paying alot for Banking. Seems like gettings something
nice for Econ on the turn before Smith's is due would be nice.
(IBT) Arabia and France ally vs Celts. Oh puleeeze Joan. (I've not seen her make progress
yet though)

[5] 1200 - Small price drop in what Joan offers for banking. She's likely researching it
herself. Only 98gpt now. We could instead give about 200g+Dyes+Banking for Chemistry,
but that doesn't slow her down. We can wait til Chemistry not monopoly to buy it.

Banking to Joan for 87gpt+199g. Banking to Celts for Saltpeter+2gpt. Banking+Dyes
to Iro for Astronomy. I could have taken cash from Brennus instead but wanted to
leave him some cash to fight Joan. Hiawatha is now polite.

Saltpeter is expensive, and I don't plan to re-purchase except for a cav upgrade,
so many cities switched to Muskets.

[6] 1210 - Bah!! The French cur has Navigation! Not to worry (??) as we can self-research
BOTH that and Music Theory in about nine turns. The problem is, will she start Magellan's
in middle of war? And where?

Pune was 1 turn from Cathedral, instead switches to University. With possibly one
slow down turn, we can make it there if we research Navigation next.

(IBT) Spain joins Celts in alliance vs France.

[8] 1230 - Iroquois and Celts have Music Theory (and lack Econ)
Now it's going to be quite a race! France does not. If Delhi knew last turn it could
have gotten more ready, didn't expect it so soon. We swap to Bank, and will buy
in a turn or two (So we start Democracy, maybe Shakespeare!). Smith's is due in 2.

(IBT) France and Celts come to peace, seems a stalemate.

[9] 1240 - Celts and Iro both start Bach's! France picks up MT and the Celts both
Navigation and Chemistry, as expected. This will lower the price of both Nav and
MT, and with Smith's due next turn, great timing. Iro for MT last is suggested,
with Navigation before that from Celts, hence Chemistry and cash from Joan.
Econ to: France for Chem+WM+238, Celts (+2gpt) for Nav, Iro for MT+27g.

Smith's due next turn, Bach's in 27 to 30 in Delhi, Magellan in 17 in Pune.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-Smiths-1240AD.jpg

[10] 1250 - Smith's is ours! Income jumps up about +30gpt higher :P

Where is our competition for Bach? Entremont, Lyons, and Niagarra Falls.
The first two are serious competetors, with good chances to beat us.
If we can get Free Artistry (monopoly) before they do, there will be no loss
in Delhi and a nice wonder there. If we lose Bach's, my fault, but it didn't
seem obvious at the time. No indication that MT would come so soon by AI, and I wanted
to research Navigation first to keep Joan from snagging Magellan. Of course, now
the AI's are fully mined in wonder cities and if the prebuild isn't solid, we'll lose.

[10] 1250 - The world map has now been sold all around. If it was worth more to a small
civ, I didn't want Joan to get any :P

- Possibly upgrade galley to caravel in Punjab and send a musket or two south.
- If you want more muskets while we have saltpeter, can rush a few more, I didn't.
- Similiarly, some colony cities with harbor should get a barracks and built a musket

Save file FRFR 1250AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-India-1250AD.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

Hey Charis !
Real nice screen on that wonder, however when I look at that chart giving all the Civ traits, I see that :
Americans are E(xpansionist) and E(xpansionist).


Is that right ? maybe I should check my Civ manual again :lol: :lol: :l