FRFR - Finally Ready For Regent! [Archive] - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

Sirian

Jan 18, 2003, 06:20 AM

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

Sirian

Jan 18, 2003, 06:28 AM

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

Sullla

Jan 18, 2003, 08:40 AM

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. :)

LKendter

Jan 18, 2003, 08:53 AM

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

Sirian

Jan 18, 2003, 09:25 AM

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

Charis

Jan 19, 2003, 12:48 AM

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

Sirian

Jan 19, 2003, 11:53 AM

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

Sirian

Jan 20, 2003, 07:04 PM

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

Sirian

Jan 20, 2003, 08:22 PM

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

Zed-F

Jan 22, 2003, 09:29 AM

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? :)

Unique Unit

Jan 22, 2003, 09:53 AM

: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:

LKendter

Jan 22, 2003, 10:22 AM

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

Kazin

Jan 22, 2003, 10:23 AM

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

I was wondering the same thing.

Arathorn

Jan 22, 2003, 10:28 AM

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

LKendter

Jan 22, 2003, 10:55 AM

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 ;)

Rowain deWolf

Jan 22, 2003, 10:55 AM

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

hotrod0823

Jan 22, 2003, 10:55 AM

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

Hotrod

Sirian

Jan 22, 2003, 10:58 AM

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

Sirian

Jan 22, 2003, 11:23 AM

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

Arathorn

Jan 22, 2003, 11:40 AM

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

Skyfish

Jan 22, 2003, 01:15 PM

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

Unique Unit

Jan 22, 2003, 01:33 PM

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.

Charis

Jan 22, 2003, 02:40 PM

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.

Sirian

Jan 22, 2003, 03:08 PM

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.

Charis

Jan 22, 2003, 03:21 PM

> 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

Skyfish

Jan 22, 2003, 03:38 PM

Nice touch on the Jumbos ! Really well seen !

Sirian

Jan 22, 2003, 03:56 PM

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

Knightblade pDM

Jan 22, 2003, 03:58 PM

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

Sirian

Jan 22, 2003, 05:06 PM

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

Charis

Jan 22, 2003, 10:18 PM

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

Sirian

Jan 22, 2003, 11:07 PM

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

Sirian

Jan 23, 2003, 09:36 AM

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

Charis

Jan 23, 2003, 11:50 AM

: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

Sirian

Jan 23, 2003, 06:20 PM

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

Sirian

Jan 23, 2003, 06:23 PM

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

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

Charis

Jan 25, 2003, 12:47 AM

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

Sirian

Jan 25, 2003, 04:40 AM

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

Sirian

Jan 25, 2003, 04:48 AM

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

Charis

Jan 25, 2003, 11:05 PM

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

meldor

Jan 26, 2003, 01:57 AM

Can you guys chop the trees and then replant them?

Sirian

Jan 26, 2003, 03:35 AM

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

Sirian

Jan 27, 2003, 02:13 AM

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

Charis

Jan 27, 2003, 08:27 AM

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

Sirian

Jan 27, 2003, 11:16 AM

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

Charis

Jan 29, 2003, 12:50 AM

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

Skyfish

Jan 29, 2003, 04:28 AM

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: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sirian

Jan 30, 2003, 12:23 AM

Skyfish: Rome, China and Persia are messed, too. However, Charis likes "extreme variants" sometimes, so who knows what is actually going on there. :p

Inherited Turn: I got interrupted a few times trying to pore over the map to make plans, so a couple of HOURS got added to the end-of-game PTW timer while I was almost wholly AFK. That darn timer thing is going to show just how often stuff like this happens, too. I know I micromanage, I know I take time to scan everything six times and do my thinking while I'm scanning, but now must I be conscious of not going AFK with the game running, lest it give people the (FALSE) impression that I live and breathe Civ3 24/7? Sheesh.

OK, let's try this again.

Inherited Turn: We've bought saltpeter but have troops lying around un-upgraded and a big wad of cash in the bank? This must be rectified. Lessee here... ah, hmm. 20 pikes = 1200g to upgrade them? Sheeeeeeesh. She+esh, even. Well, OK. BAM. Insta-Musket (TM) brand military training. "We suck your treasury dry, but you'll be glad we did when the Russians come sailing in."

Ripoff artists! :lol:

Yeah, OK. I like the Charis Plan so much, I spend almost my whole round building muskets. (Me? Pass up infrastructure to train units we don't immediately need? Am I running a fever? Ha, who knows!)

Celts no longer at war with France? But Celts still at war with Korea, and France still at war with Spain? Scratch two weakly AI's, I'm thinking. Not much to be done about it now, except take bets on which of the AI's gets wiped out first. I gift invention to Spain and Korea with the (pathetic) hope that they'll fight a little better with longbows.

Hmm, one settler, one dot left. I load him up and off we go.

Early: Musket training. Unit shuffle to get vet spears from unconnected cities to barracks for upgrade. Charis suggested sailing south with muskets. Well, I decline. He can do it on the next round if he wants. I move to fully secure the homeland, and send our surplus ships out to bust fog.

Middle: Musket training. Unit shuffle completed. Democracy researched @2nd, after Joan. I obtain current map info and conduct surveys of AI Bach sites. Hmm. As far as I can see, none can possibly equal our 19 net spt at Delhi. I veto the "Free Artistry Backup Plan". If the AI researches it in time, they'll get it in the cascade. If not, we'll build it at the FP city from prebuild after the cascade dies, and nab Newton's in Delhi. Meanwhile... I run all cash to replenish the treasury, and wait for Joan to research @1st and follow her.

Late: Musket training. Rushed courthouses in 1shield core cities, topping off their tanks. Then rushed granaries at all-fishing sites on the west. Plan to rush aqueducts and then markets, too, and perhaps cathedrals. Worth it long term, at least for the two sites that are so near the FP, second ring. Someday these cities will get some offshore platforms, see... and... oh never mind. :)

Then I check our deals to clean up the round. All round long, AI's go from broke to broke, never able to offer US anything, as the instant their gpt comes available again, they make another new deal with France or Iro or Celts. WAIT! Check this out!!!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-french-deal.jpg

Joanie is so hard up for more lux, she will PAY US in addition to a lux for lux trade?!? Incredible.

Since we have some size 11 cities that can use the extra help to get to size 12 without stopping to build 120 shields of colesseum, I go ahead and make the deal. I also cancel the lux deals with the Celts, losing out on 26gpt they can't afford to renew payments on. However, this frees up 1 of each of our lux and gives Charis deal-making versatility if he wants. I could have made good profit selling more to Joan but didn't want to boost her too much. If we want more lux, we could trade old tech to the pathetic Aztecs.

We can reconsider in 20 turns as to whether we want to renew with Joan again.

Finally, I did almost all planting my round, only two new dots added to the lumber map. It seems to me that we have several towns IN NEED OF more forests, and have wandered off the trail in regard to lumberjacking. If a city does without a forest it needs for, say, 20 turns... losing 1spt the whole while, where is the lumberjack savings?

Bengal in particular needs a new forest (and could stand to have its current ones chopped down to see if bg tiles underneath, but only AFTER there are enough other forests to take up the slack). That's the biggest example. New Bombay, Dacca, and Chitta also need more shield tiles available, and need them yesterday. Lush Isle also needs to be more forested, although I rectified the situation at the north city.

Everything is on track with our wonders. I'm confident we have Bach in the bank, and since Magellan will complete first, it can't be a cascade casualty. If the AI gets to ToG first, we lose Newton. Nothing to be done except to do NO first-civ research, and have them slowed as much as can be. If Shakespeare's doesn't fall in the cascade, then might as well go for it at FP site (which will actually have more total food going than Delhi anyway, post-hospitals).

Here's our military situation, and yes, for the first time we are now significantly over our unit support budget, since I spent the whole round training more muskets. However, I feel quite secure, on the whole. And we've already bit the bullet, we will be able to upgrade all these vet units to rifles with only modest budgetary pain. I thought about researching metallurgy while the saltpeter deal is still alive, to build cannon and coastal forts, but decided not to do it. We were too cash poor and I wanted to rush a few key items before it got too late to be wise to bother.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1300ad-units.jpg

We're FINALLY ready for Regent... in 1300AD! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1300ad.zip)

- Sirian

Sirian

Jan 30, 2003, 12:27 AM

A fresh look at our kingdom. Note all the new tile improvements! ;)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1300ad.jpg

Rowain deWolf

Jan 30, 2003, 03:01 AM

Wow 300 gold income without any roads; That shows the power of coastal-tiles together with the Commercial trait

Good Luck with this Baby :)

Rowain

Sirian

Jan 30, 2003, 03:44 PM

The lack of commerce surely isn't the worst of it. Our capital has 19 shields, net, one wasted (maybe a courthouse would clean up that last shield? Might be worth it). Our FP site can mount 17 shields at break-even food. (Those cattle forests are great!). Our iron city can amass 15 shields, 4 of them lost to corruption.

Those are our only three cities with more than ten net spt.

:sheep: :fish:

- Sirian

Charis

Feb 01, 2003, 11:33 PM

Regarding Sirian's leaving the timer running... at least I can share the blame
in that one. It's going to be a long running game!

Good move on the massive musket upgrade. Looking at our shield output, the thought
of trying to hand build 100 infantry with shields is not pretty. I don't share your
enthusiasm on Bach's, but I really hope you're right! The no-sci at all seems odd,
but I'll stick with it for now, to avoid cascading wonder problems. We can research
new techs in 4-7 turns, so if we go and do 28 turns at 1 sci we'll not want to switch, eh?

Key players are the same, France, Celts, and Iro. England has dropped to second tier, with Russia.

[0] 1300 AD - Odd, Iro will give 1 gpt for our map. Most queue orders look great.
I think I changed one or two to muskets.

[1] 1305 AD - Plantin...
[2] 1310 AD - France shows up with Physics. So do Celts and Iro.
(IBT) The Rampaging French have destroyed the Spanish!!

Does the thought of beelining to Mil Tradition and hitting the French REAL SOON
hold any appeal?? When the saltpeter runs out, I'll start on some Jumbos for upgrade.

[3] 1315 AD and [4] 1320 AD - quiet

(IBT) England and Celts ally vs Korea. France starts Shakespeare's (darn!)
and our saltpeter supply runs out.

[5] 1325 AD - I note that island to the NE of Germany, and with one scouting boat
now back home, I load up a settler and musket to head there. The Celts as well as
French have Free Artistry. Not a huge loss is Shakespeare's as our cities don't have
food to grow large enough to need that.

[6] 1330 AD - Pune complete's Magellan's voyage! We're again masters of the sea!
Pune tries now to slip in a cathedral and will proabably head back to prebuild wonder
duty later.

[7] 1335 - So much for the settler, England has now settled that small island (Birmingham)
Instead he sails for some poachable land near Celts and Korea. Long goto, so stop him
if you want him elsewhere.

[8] 1340 AD - [9] 1345 - zzz
[10] 1350 AD. Quiet, no new techs.

Save file FRFR 1350AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-India-1350AD.zip)

You might have some adjustments in the queues, especially if you get an itch for
a cav invasion. Metallurgy took a single sci anyway. Feel free to stop, buy, or ignore
that. Bach's is due in 9 - I hope we get it. At least we can buy Free Artistry if not.
(then research ToG quickly) I've not sold any lux, too keep pace slow AND to reduce
shields in wonder building cities. You may want to trade some for tech later.

Good luck,
Charis

Sirian

Feb 03, 2003, 04:22 AM

Not much happening. Charis allowed Bangalore to sit on size 6 all round, even though I left it ready to grow to 7 early on his round. I change it to high food. That's about it.

Hmm. Well, we have a lot of dough in the bank. We have a number of fishing villages who either can't get any shields off the land, or can't get many, and most of these are in the midcorruption range, second ring. I decide to invest in some of them, so I rush a few markets, a few aqueducts, a granary or two. We have plenty of happy going, at the moment, and a number of cities that could sustain higher population. I decide to put every last one of these sites on max food. This causes our shield output to plummet, but I'm trying to think long term here.

Well, OK, that's about all that happened. :)

Oh. I went ahead and traded two lux to the Iroquois for Physics, then started ToG research. The next turn, France started on Newtons. :eek: So we're definitely not getting both Bach and Newton. To be honest, I think Newton is more urgent. I was hoping the tech pace would go slower and we could nab both in Delhi, but that's clearly not happening. Should I buy ToG and swap out to Newton's, finish it now, and get moving on a bank? I think about it.

The next turn, the Iro's also have ToG, and three civs (France, Celts, Iro) have metallurgy. Gah. England and Russia are lagging a bit, and the rest are small fry. This is probably my only chance here to grab a 2fer, ToG and Metallurgy for the price of one. Hmm. I decide we have to go for it, so I send a big wad of cash (over a grand) to the Iro's for Gravity, then trade that plus dyes to Celts for Metallurgy.

Hrrm. I now have the ability to switch to Newton's. But... what if France or Celts get Bach? That would not be good. Even though I prefer Newton for us, I want to deny Bach to France or Celts. I stick with Bach's.

I continued my nurturing of fishing villages. We still have (barely) half the turns in the game in front of us. Investment of ~700g now into a market plus aqueduct for these fishing villages is only seeing immediate return of about 7 to 9 gpt increase from each, but they will now also continue to grow, and they will also be building up shields toward something else, and each shield is worth something. I'm sure this investment is worth it, effectively picking up interest off an initial expenditure that will eventually overtake the price paid and generate profits. Eventually. Oh, forgot to mention, also pick up 2gpt per city moving from 6 to 7 in added unit support.

Then what do you know, Charis's worst fears come true! With help from the lux I traded them for tech, and maybe some help of some kind from the cash I gave them for another tech, the Iro's just barely overtake us and complete Bach's half a round before we do! I think it's a complete disaster! Except... France and Celts already took their turns this round, so they can't cascade. I get to switch to Newton and we complete that on next round. Celts complete Shakespeare, France is shut out.

:mischief: Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Despite my [pimp] I actually got what I thought would be the best scenario out of that mess anyway: We got Newton, and neither France nor Celts got Bachs, PLUS France was also denied the Theater. Our game results are blessed. Praise be to Shiva! :worshp:

Oh yeah, Korea was wiped out early in the round. I founded a city next to the former location of Seoul, at the end of the round. There are blasphemous "roads" in range, and we cannot use the tiles until these are pillaged. I founded on an iron, and it's on the coast, although this city is so far away that there's no chance we can defend it if we end up at war with any of the powers on the main continent in the next eon or two.

I suggest rushing an explorer down there, pillage our tiles, then as much in neutral land as we can manage. :) Rush a temple too? Up to Charis.

Late in the round, Iro and France made it to Industrial age. I waited for Celts to follow. On the last turn, they did, and I bought magnetism from them. We swap ages, and none of these leaders are scientific, so none start with nationalism! Too bad we can't really keep Russia from getting there, they aren't that far behind, and they'll positively clean up brokering their free tech.

I swap a taxman at Bovinus to scientist and start research on nationalism. There, we're doing research, Charis won't have to squirm uncomfortably while staring at a readout that says our next tech is due "shortly after never". :lol:

Oh, the combo of barracks and harbor at Yankee Doodle means we now have better troops there. Might be worth it on the other islands to have one town with both harbor and barracks, even if we have to rush, and then do a troop shuffle to get all those spears upgraded to pikes BEFORE nationalism would force us to pay to turn them into rifles. Just a thought.

I went ahead and renewed our lux trade with Joan. She's paying us 10gpt now, up from 4gpt.

Now here's one more thought. We can't exactly entertain plans for attacking anybody with gunpowder, but... we aren't going for conquest this game. We're going for domination. Perhaps we should give serious thought to waging war against the Arabs and Vikings? Would be nice to own all their lands before they can mount any kind of serious defense. Those Berserks... the Vikes still don't have feudalism, perhaps we can hit them first? I don't know. I'll let Charis think about it, examine our scattered offensive forces, and decide what he wants to do. Nobody yet has MilTrad, but maybe a few ships of mid-inf and a few muskets to guard them would be enough, you know? Maybe. All we'd have to do is give them a good crippling to start, we could mop up the rest later. ... The Vikes are awfully far away, though. Arabs are a lot closer. Well... Charis can puzzle over it, see what he thinks.

The lumber maps have been updated. I chopped some. Some spots currently being chopped may not be marked yet.

FRFR - 1400AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1400ad.zip)

- Sirian

Charis

Feb 06, 2003, 12:10 AM

Since the previous reign of the anti-industrious Charis X, we've made
a push on the low-shield high commerce coastal towns in second ring,
putting them on max food. In an unusual turn of events, Sirian pulls his
biggest :smoke: of the game yet gets stellar results! :goodjob:
Indeed Newton's for us, Bach's (and Shakespeare) denied to Joan is a very nice deal!
We even have a 'beachhead' city now, in the ruins of old Korea. Four of us in industrial
age, but none will have Nationalism until Cathy gets there.

The thought was raised about going after the Vikings and Arabs soon, to help with
our domination goal. We will not really have any big lag or increased bonuses with
the advent of Steam Power, and with MDI vs Pikes or a little later, Cav vs Muskets
we have decent odds.

Let's take a closer look...

I've been watching the histogram closely all game, and up til right now we've seen
a smooth increase in score with time. Now the rate of increase is decreasing, meaning
we're no longer 'pulling away', but starting to see the beginning of our decline. And
when folks get Steam Power we'll see our advantage start to fade away quite distinctly.
In fact, the power curve is worse, we've actually started to see our decline, as the
Celts grow in power (taking out the Koreans).

The Arabs lack Chivalry and their UU, and the Vikings are even further behind,
even without Feudalism (spear defenders!) If we don't attack them the AI surely
will, and be much harder to dislodge. Oh my, "The Arabians have the archer."
Same comment for the Vikings. It's time to strike.

:hammer:

I swap several cities off mktplace, library or bank where their commerce is only
so-so, leaving stronger cities on infrastructure (e.g. Bombay, Madras, Delhi)
So about 5 elephants and 4 MDI's in production. With move 2 and defense 3, upgradeable
to cav, the Jumbos are quite nice (although a lot of shields for our civ). Even though
not easy to build, we'll want some on hand to upgrade later anyway.

If we guess 5 defenders per capital, 3 per city, 2 per town, there would be at least
24 defenders in Arabia and 18 in Scandinavia. Our forces will be superior but not
tremendously so (and no artillery support), so I would guess we would want 8 full
galleons to take out a whole island. 3-4 Galleons would be enough to set up a beachhead
and to take a few cities. That means we'll need more ships, and a few settlers too.
This turn won't see any action, but hopes to set it up. (Depending on how aggressively
Sirian pursues it, and if he likes Vikings or Arabs first, it might come right back
around to me before we hit foreign soil)

BTW, if you wanted to change targets... consider Germany/Russia. Russia lacks Physics
and Metallurgy. That's four techs from Nationalism, when that slingshot will propel them
out of backwardness into major power status. We could strike Germany, likely very easily
as they lack Gunpowder (they lack Invention!) to establish a beachhead, then continue
right on to capture the entire Northern half of that island, capturing four Russian
cities (far from their capital, not a big flip risk) for quickest peace if we like,
and a convenient chokepoint in the middle of that continent. Put a major hurt on them
BEFORE Cossacks! It also relieves pressure off our 'strong' small islands. Think about it.

Also to note - Vikings have a *coastal* saltpeter source, easily taken. NEITHER Vikes
nor Arabs have any lux whatsoever. Too bad. If we had 1-2 more lux, we could go to
Democracy, given our solid infrastructure now, and probably gain +50-100gpt or more.
Without the lux, it would probably be a tie or near tie having to bump up the slider.
Sadly, Russia-Germany continent has no coastal lux either.

[0] 1400 - Bovinus gets put back on settler detail for native cities on whatever island
we go after. The troops and ships will be gathering in New Delhi, able to head in
any direction.

[4] 1420 - Movement of new troops and ships, some MM, some rushing

[5] 1425 - France and Celts now have Mil Tradition. Russia has picked up Metallurgy.
(The Iro don't yet have MT.) Vikes have picked up Feudalism (still lack Engr)
Arabs have made no progress.

[6] 1430 - More war preparation.
[7] 1435 - Delhi starts a courthouse, to try to turn 19spt into 20.
[9] 1445 - Germany has Invention, still lacks Gunpowder. England now has Chemistry.

[10] 1450 - France now has a monopoly on Nationalism. Joan is a tough cookie.

- If you want more MDI's, Madras can kick out one warrior per turn to upgrade
- Some cities contributed excess MP units and should get replenished with Pikes asap.
- An explorer has been made at New Seoul and is 'reclaiming' the land
- I followed the lumberjack map, but I think I might be marking at chop-start, while
you're doing it at-finish.
- There is the option of buying Mil Tradition, renting saltpeter, upgrading all the Jumbos
to cavalry. This would be expensive unless you brokered MT to Russia for the salt itself,
if deciding to ignore Russia in the near future, hitting the pinks quick then Germany
- The invasion force now consists of...
10 Galleons, 2 settlers on Cow Island, 1 loose elephant, and *ON* the ships are:
15 Jumbo's, 9 Muskets, 7 MDI's, 2 Longbows. This should put a world of hurt on the
banana republic of your choice (Vikings, Arabs, Germany), and with reinforcements would
likely do the job of taking the North half of "Prussian" continent. You could even go
for beachhead, take three cities, rush a native rax and harbor, on BOTH Arabia and
Scandinavia, and rely on rushbuys to create the units needed to finish the job on
both continents 20 turns later.
- I even left you *OVER* 1K of gold (and +361gpt) so you could rushbuy whatever you needed
to fill in the attack force. Two of the ships, for example, still need to be loaded.
- I don't often leave you with a whole unmoved invasion force (and spending money) for you
to use as you see fit, so enjoy! :hammer:

Save file FRFR 1450AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-India-1450AD.zip)

Because of the long distance involved in just reaching the targets, if you want to take 15 or 20 turns and actually HIT your targets, feel free to do so!

Good luck,
Charis

Sirian

Feb 06, 2003, 09:23 AM

Inherited: Charis setting me up with a vast army ready to attack somebody? *(faints)*

Actually, this is a very good job. I should be able to accomplish noticeable progress within ten turns. Only one ingredient missing from this recipe. "Hmm, needs salt." Charis has not supplied me with any explorer units, so I will have to do the pillaging with the combat units, and that will be especially awkward with the slow ones. I will try to rectify the shortage of "Environmental Engineers" but by the time I get any to the combat zone, it's going to be his turn! Ha!

Early: Our ships sail south. We declare war on the ecoterrorists in Arabia. Elizabeth decides she doesn't care to live any more, declaring war on the Celts the turn AFTER they have picked up nationalism. Looks like we're going to be facing down two superpowers on the main continent, Celts and French.

Middle: Vanguard lands near one Arab city. We attack and defeat two regular spears, completing our first action of the game in 1470AD:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1470ad.jpg

More ships arrive. More landings, more combat. Their counterattack consists of a few archer-spear pairs and we pause to mop these up. Then begins the work of returning this beautiful land to a pristine condition. More Arabian units pester us like gnats, but we swat them and continue our dedicated work on restoring the environment.

Here you see our first elite unit. We lost one mid-inf attacking at Kazan, but that was all. One jumbo retreated. They had six units in this town, so we needed all three boatloads I landed there at once.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1480ad.jpg

Late:

Razed Mecca, burning it to the ground, along with the Great Wall. I had to use a musket on offense vs an archer to finish the attack on the first try, he wins 4-0 and promotes to elite!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1490ad.jpg

We pick up five slaves. I capture a fourth town and settle a fifth. All resisters suppressed, some citizens lost to starvation, but I stop short of going all the way, as we can peel off a few slaves from these towns and have no-cost labor in ten turns.

I manage to purify all tiles within our control by the end of my round, but of course that slowed the offensive. It seems to me that avoiding any use of roads is unrealistic. Rather than torture myself to keep track of what was or wasn't getting road boosts, and rather than have to pillage roads in the area before taking a city, I would deal with the military priority first, then pause and wipe out the roads before moving on, along with ensuring no use of improved tiles by the cities. If there were a half dozen explorers on hand, the roads would become less of a problem.

Half of England is under Celtic control now. Iro's got Nationalism, and Joan has Steam. Russia has Physics and most of the small fry have moved up a tech or two.

We have a few elites now. If we should pop a leader at this point, I urge making an army, to better our chances for more leaders over the warmongering second half of our game.

Although we might have had a chance to really wound Russia, and that might have been better, I didn't think we'd have that much force scraped up that quickly. Even though our eight loads of troops overwhelmed the Arabs, they were still mostly wounded and somewhat dispersed by the end of the round.

Anyway, I made the choice to go for the softer, more distant target. I have some hope that there's rubber down there, somewhere near Medina. That or uranium, since the Arabs inexplicably decided to settle first in the tundra, if you know what I mean.

Vikings have iron and feudalism now, so they will be a little tougher. We shouldn't have any problem scooting on over there from Arabia. With Celts swallowing England, I'm thinking we should just keep going for the softest targets. Arabia, then Vikes, then Germany and perhaps Russia, then if the Aztecs are left, nab them, saving the Iro, French and Celts for last. We won't have to conquer both Celts and French, we can keep one as an ally and only go against them a wee bit if we have to to get over the hump, once all the others are gone.

If France doesn't get any of England, then the Celts may no longer be the clear second place. They might even catch up to Joan, and leave the Iro's in distant third. Now that everyone big already has nationalism, Russia will no longer be able to cash in. They might get a big boost in their own right, but they won't be raking in the sales.

I think it will be good for you to get some low-pressure combat with this "pillage asap" policy. It is interesting, the effect of wiping out the roads around captured cities, then having your healed units crawl out of there a couple of turns later, with the same sluggishness you'd have in lands under enemy cultural control.

- Sirian

Sirian

Feb 06, 2003, 09:25 AM

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1500ad.jpg

FRFR - 1500AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1500ad.zip)

Sirian

Feb 06, 2003, 10:44 AM

I had noticed that WLTKD plus two forests, on Yankee Isle, brought in 2spt. I then splurged on courthouses there and at Bovine Isle to get some income and spt going. We need to get forests up on those cattle at Bovinus, as that site now has 4spt (FOUR) on max shield config.

Please note, running WLTKD is responsible for half the corruption reduction. If that stops, we lose the shields. Better to rush one courthouse now, and let the sites bring in more income and a few spt on their own, than to be rushing units later. Let them build the units themselves.

Only these locations are enough in range of our palaces to make this worth it, though, and only after they got harbors and got connected up (the third element of corruption reduction: need all three to redeem these sites).

- Sirian

Sirian

Feb 11, 2003, 05:01 AM

"Up to His Eyeballs" (TM) brand SG feasting seems to have had a head on collision with real life contingencies. Charis is understandably absent, with Mrs. C (literally) off her feet and him having to take on extra load for a bit here. I just hope he doesn't have to drop any of these fine SG's and that everything stabilizes for him soon.

We're just getting to the best parts of this game! :D

- Sirian

ControlFreak

Feb 11, 2003, 06:13 AM

It's been an extremely interesting varient. I hope you guys can keep going.

Best wishes to Mrs. "C".

Charis

Feb 15, 2003, 12:38 AM

Not to worry... I'm catching up and this game is not in danger :P

Sirian did a good job with his (almost unprecedented) nice setup of an invasion
fleet ready to go, and socked it to Arabia. Next up are the Vikings, maybe just
in time before they get Berzerkers, but not quick enough to see no Pikes. We need to
'cleanse' the Arab land before doing much else down there. There are still five Arab
cities, so it's not over yet. (But I only see spear defenders)

Celts and French remain the two powers, Iro slipping to a distant third, with Russia
and England not far behind. The rest, Germany, Vikings and Aztecs are very backwards.

We can get Mil Tradition for peanuts from the Celts (Ivory and Dyes actually) Ah wait,
no saltpeter, we can wait until Iro or Russia can sell that tech.

[0] 1500 - Build orders look great. (Dacca was a single shield short of finishing last
turn, but that's minor. Sheesh we have a lot of cities)

(IBT) A cursed longbow uses roads to hit our Jumbo, but we win. That's it.

[1] 1505 - Movement and pillaging, heading to Baghdad.

[2] 1510 - Movement and pillaging, landing on Fustat island.
(IBT) An Iro ship seen not far from New Punjab.

[3] 1515 - Fustat, with two spears, falls. So does Baghdad. Harbor intact :P
Medina, the new capital, has three spears who lose to Jumbos. The city is ours.
I'm capturing, btw, not razing, as I hope to have Arabs wiped out very shortly.
In fact, I'm using ships to get several units to the south end quickly.
At Medina, granary and harbor intact! Najran's two spears are eaten by the
Jumbos. I'm *so* glad we're hitting these guys before 'Iron'.
We land outside Khurasan.

(IBT) The Iro ship heads back, a Russian one hits same spot. Patrols?

[4] 1520 - Khurasan, temporary capital, is captured over the protest of two spears.
Yet another harbor intact, nice! We land at Anjar their last city.

[5] 1525 - Anjar only had one spear. The rampaging environmentally pure Indians have
destroyed the earth defiling Arabians! :hammer: All aboard!! Don't miss the
next ship over to Scandinavia lest they get Invention! We can rushbuy units for
defense of Arabia, I want to hit Vikings hard and fast. Delhi2, Khurusan, and
Najran get to keep a Jumbo each for zone defense. We've bought a few explorers
to do most of the pillaging here.

[6] 1530 - Seveal Arab temples bought to fill in the many gaps.

[7] 1535 - Some ship movement in the south, and it's not the Vikings :P

[8] 1540 - I notice there's coastal saltpeter on East coast of Vikings! A settler
is rushed in Arabia to found on that site. It looks like a simul landing on the
hill outside Bergen, and outside Trondheim, will crush their two best cities
quickly (razing probably)

[9] 1545 - Getting in position.

[10] 1550 - Sets 'da man' up for a spike! :hammer:

Leader notes...
- Once again, *amazingly* I leave you with a half-dozen loaded ships ready to
land an invasion. There's also 4100g in the bank! :goodjob:
- The Vikings still lack Invention and Chivalry, and have 0 gold, so go-go-go!
There's only 8 cities an no reason to stop for peace, so decide on whether to
capture all or raze. There's really no sufficient garrison troops though.
- The three southern ships can land on a hill next to Bergen, or land on the saltpeter,
*or* land their troops just North of Birka. The two Northern ships can dump their
units on the hill next to capital Trondheim this turn. There's one more ship a turn
back that can go either way. Number seven just east has a settler (Arabian) and three
Jumbos. As soon as the ships can return to pick up more, there's a half-dozen
explorers ready to cleanse the land! :D
- Extra units awaiting a ship are in Calcutta. A shipfull just pulled out of Delhi.
- Map or not, the foresting is getting too burdensome except in new ultracorrupt
colonies. Several workers are unmoved this turn.
- New Seoul might do well with a granary before harbor?

- I didn't see til after upload, but New Karachi is unhappy, plz fix.

- Below is a map with our Arab holdings, and the main (red) or alternate (blue)
invasion routes into Scandinavia.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-Map1550ad.jpg

Save file FRFR 1550AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-India-1550AD.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

PS@ControlFreak - thank you :P

Sirian

Feb 15, 2003, 10:46 PM

OK, this was an interesting round. I need to cut the report short a bit, sorry.

I managed to make short shrift of the Vikes. They have one city left. Most of their towns were guarded by spears, not pikes, and yet we took casualties as if they had pikes after all! Sheesh. Two spears held off our entire jumbo force in one instance! Also, we got not a single promotion. Not a single one!

Frankly, our forces there are gassed. Lucky we don't have far to go. Should be enough to finish em.

France/Celts started Suffrage late.

FP site on factory prebuild.

I rushed cheap units across our colonies prior to losing chance to do so with Nationalism. So we got some extra cheap defenders.

I traded dyes, ivory, ~600g to Celts for Steam. WE HAVE TWO COAL CONNECTED! :lol: Wait'll you see where, too.

Coal = build clads. Maybe also coal plants in Game Isles/Lush Isle.

Our first ironclad done next turn in Delhi.

I traded dyes, 25gpt to Iros for MilTrad. Upgraded some jumbos.

(Oh yeah, got the coastal salt-p connected).

Russia went industrial, signed MPP with Joan.

England down to island fishing villa.

We still have ~500gpt income. Down to 1k cash tho.

Joan back to paying us slightly in the lux trade.

Any city with 8+ net shields should go for factory. Start prebuilds asap, buy in if you see a 2fer deal.

Plenty of good stuff to do now. Clads, rifles, cavs, unit shuffles, factory plans, etc. Maybe also time to go pummel Germany, or start thinking about it at least.

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

Reykjavik, Baghdad = jumbo upgrade sites.

Some isles blockaded now.

Uh... :hammer: :)

FRFR - 1600AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/frfr-1600ad.zip)

- Sirian

Sirian

Feb 15, 2003, 10:49 PM

OH ONE MORE THING (tm)

Birka needs to be moved south one tile. Can be done later, but don't buy anything there until it's been moved. We want to get all those coastal tiles in range for domination.

Charis

Feb 21, 2003, 08:09 PM

Spears defending Vikings?! Yeeeees! Glad we got over there before Invention.
Gassed forces? So they'll need to stay and (between there and Arabia) serve
as the island garrisons? I'll finish them off for sure this round. We've got the
salt online, excellent! There's also the option of continuing to make jumbos and
cheap defenders in the few non-coastal cities (or non-harbor colonies) for some time.

Let's see, you mention coal connected, where might they be? Lush central, nice, and...
Bovine Flatulence?!? HA!! :lol: Actually a third one under New Punjab but unconnected.

Next foes? Well everyone has Nationalism, and presumably a decent number of
rifles. Next up however is infantry, so we go now for a cav vs rifle blitz
or hold our peace until Motorized Transport. We'll most certainly want to have
a BIG push then against the weakest or largest target. The more industrialized our
foes get the more their advantage over us becomes. We'll get a big boost when we can
make commercial docks, and if it goes that long, offshore platforms :P
For now, yes, we need to build/upgrade rifles, keep up the strong economy, get a 2-fer
for new tech, and probably and offensive cav supply. With our lack of roads, they will
be very useful for a long time to come. OMT comment was move Burka south.

Germany is just too nice a target too ignore, I think I'll work on setting up an
invasion there. (Wow did England go poof!) Actually Aztecs aren't bad targets either.
If we do end up hitting Iro (or getting hit by them), taking Mauch Chunk is a choke
that lets us cleanly own the entire southern half of that continent.

[0] 1600 - The Flatulent city switches to ironclad. New Pune's taxmen confused me,
as moving a citizen to forest gets 2spt instead of 1. Basra, ultracorrupt city
working on a cathedral? It switches to clad (although at 78 turns for either one,
you'll get to change it back if you explain why :P )

[1] 1605 - MMOW. (More movement of workers, for those reading :P )

[2] 1610 - Down at Aarhus, jumbo retreats, jumbo beats pike, jumbo beats spear.
The last Viking city is ours. We'll take good care of it! :hammer:
We queue up the typical things, temple, harbor, and occasional barracks in
the colonies, final buildings or cav back home.

[4] 1620 - Settler moved to the forest on the coast NE of Birka to grab several more
nice coastal tiles.

[5] 1625 - Birka rushes a settler to move it south.

[7] 1635 - 'Birka Reborn' is founded.
(IBT) Interesting... France and Celts have signed an MPP?!

[8] 1640 - All is quiet. Until midturn. Then German requests an audience. MPP and RoP?
Lol, right. Then he lands a single Longbow on Forbidden Isle!!???

[9] 1645 - I have three loaded ships, waiting for a few more to hammer Germany, and
he comes to pick a fight with me??! He doesn't even have Chemistry or Education.
Clearly he is an unwashed Cretan. I've held back a bit on rushing, now I spend a
few on our eastern seaboard. My initial thought was to kick the bowman out,
but doing so losing our element of surprise. If he attacks next round, so be it,
he's tarnished as a sneak attacker. If he doesn't, Sirian can wait until there are
six boats off their coast ready to land, THEN let him declare war on us.
The Iro btw, catch up, and the big three all have Communisma and Industrialization,
and we continue to await a 2-fer. Most civs are annoyed with us for some reason.
Perhaps from wiping out two civs?! Two of our galleons get in position to reach
German soil in one round.

(IBT) Oh my, Germans declare war?? What a surprise?! :lol: Their lone longbow
impales itself on our fortified rifle. The Iro start Suffering... er, Suffrage.

[10] 1650 - Our ironclad sinks the errant German galley. At this point, one the last
turn and war starting, I'm passing off to Sirian (who is Finally Ready for Regent!)
I leave... (800g and about 500 gpt income)

Two galleons full of cav and rifle that can land on German shores this turn.
One more near New Madras that can hit them next turn.
Three almost full galleons off Lahore, with a clad. One more full one at New Kohlapur.
One full off Turkey which can reinforce New Seoul, or turn back if you want more
garrison in Turkey island.

Best I could do in a short time frame, but I hope you like your armada!! :hammer:

- Some of the 'blocked' small islands near home donated a cav or rifle for the assault
- *JUST* this turn Russia picked up Mil Tradition. I had been thinking a pre-emptive
ministrike before they got Cossacks might have been interesting.
- We might want to rush a settler in the east somewhere for a 'native' city on German
soil.

Save file FRFR 1650AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/FRFR-India-1650AD.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

widdowmaker

Feb 22, 2003, 06:20 PM

My god men..... Hey i just had an idea. Why dont you sign MPP'S with or MA's with EVERYONE and pay them to liek you. Then hit france. Trade embargo russia. And cause a havik. Seems liek you are trying to get ignored as a world power but wiping out 2 civs gets you the lime light. Also why dont you bend the ruels a bit. You can build a road ONLY to connect a resource to your civ. You may never work that square an dmay never walk on it. This woudl help you a lil bit. Good stuff here. In my game i jsut went commy and my ppl are dodging drafts.

Charis

Feb 22, 2003, 07:39 PM

> Hey i just had an idea. Why dont you sign MPP'S with or MA's
> with EVERYONE and pay them to liek you. Then hit france.

My initial thought was... I can't remember if this is allowed. Then I check the front of the thread and our rules aren't there (to keep some mystique).

The special rules we've been using are:

* 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.

If or when we end up fighting Celts or France, I would bet on an MPP or alliance, but we're going to pick the low hanging fruit first.
Trying to get ignored as a world power? No, we're ignored because we're so far out in front on land and score it's not funny. The AI doesn't know how much of an advantage they're getting with rails though...

> Also why dont you bend the ruels a bit.
:eek:

Are you suggesting we're not ready for regent?!?!?!!?? :lol:
You're also suggesting that to Mr. I-would-rather-die-a-horrible- death-than-bend-a-rule Sirian!

Try an OCC Deity game?? What are you, crazy?? We're now finally ready for regent!

Actually though, you're off. We've already won that one, and it wasn't overly hard. See RBP15, diplo win:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18047

Thanks for your input! I might name a city after you! :crazyeye:
Charis

widdowmaker

Feb 23, 2003, 01:14 AM

Thanks! ;)

Well you are a world power so if it was up to me i owuld say knock off the compition! I mean. If france and (was it celts) are the best comption you got then just turn them against each other.

Me. I am a warmonger and a consipor(spl?). When i got to war i go all out. When i capture a city a send EVERY SINGLE CITIZEN OUT as a settler and take them to a "Gas Chamber'. I then proceed to kill them all through grusome methods such as starvation. Nukes. Bombardment. MArtial law. Slavery. Selling the slaves, ICBM's, and then i disband the citiy. I pillage every tile i walk over that aint mine. I dotn raze the cities i jsut set them back to 0. The reinhabit them with my excess workers. I sell the slaves to the highest bidder but never their mother country. I jsut did this to america in my game and there is ONE american left. It is in a comunist gov so i fugre i shoudl toture it. But then again ti is a waste of resources. But i dotn go tmuch else to do. The only way to win is through militry dominance on my game. I treat THAT game as a 'sim' i dotn want it to 'end' I jsut want to keep building. Conquer the world and reloacte EVERYONE to a small island....

Anyways. just a thought. If you kill the compition then you got it made and can treat the rest of the world liek whores. Get embasises with everyone and sabotage the wonders. (i am sure you knew that but i got to say it). Also how did you tell when they STARTED a wonder?

Harleqin

Feb 23, 2003, 02:25 PM

I'm sure Sirian and Charis will appreciate the help :crazyeye: as they are both newcomers to Civ and struggling with the concept about how to win :lol:

:D

BTW.... are you ever going to try this variant on a higher level? Looks a bit rough.

widdowmaker

Feb 23, 2003, 03:14 PM

I thought those 2 were 2 fo the best players on this board! Damn in that case i must be helping. Dont trade techs unless you NEED to. If you can slow them down enoguh you will gain a huge wonder lead. I mean if you get 9 10 techs ahead liek i do then you got 120 turns to get wonders and mroe techs.

widdowmaker

Feb 23, 2003, 09:54 PM

bump bump if it needs it

Charis

Feb 24, 2003, 12:04 AM

Good luck in your game, maker of widows. No doubt the AI in your game trembles in fear, as you make Genghis calm look peaceful and serene by comparison. :p

Sirian and I will somehow manage here, probably in a slightly less aggressive fashion. We are not the Mongols, but the gentle people of India. We shall dominate the world with our succelent vegetable curries, our delightful biryani and delcious chai (not to mention the splendor of our temples). As Arabia and the Vikings have seen, when we set our sights on a civ, it's days left on the planet are few. The game pace is slower than others, so no bumps are needed, please. With no 'roads' in place, if such a bump on the noggin sent us to the hospital, I fear a contusion that would send one (or more) of us screaming into the night. Permit us a quiet thread.

Tnx,
Charis

widdowmaker

Feb 24, 2003, 05:59 AM

Indeed. Go about it as you wish but hwo bout a turnlog for an update! Comeon! Whos got it? Are they playing?

Griselda

Feb 24, 2003, 10:30 AM

One of the nice things about a two player game is that they can play really quickly when there's a lull in other game, or they can slow it down a bit when other things heat up.

If you want to see what Charis and Sirian are up to, I recommend visiting some other threads on this forum while you're waiting for this one to turn red. I'm sure the next turn will be posted here when it's complete.

By reading other threads, you might also be able to determine whether the "are we ready for regent?" attitude that they have taken has all been a convincing role play. ;)

-Griselda

edit- typo

ControlFreak

Apr 18, 2003, 02:27 PM

Not a BUMP just a gentle nudge.

It's been almost 2 months. I just wanted Sirian to know I'm still here lurking and waiting for the next turn.

Guess you're ready for Regent but not ready for R/L or MOO3 or whatever.;)

Sirian

Apr 22, 2003, 09:01 AM

Not ready for MOO3, not ready for day-long essays on war-related subjects. I did come looking for this thread, though, and I have played Civ3 in the last 12 hours, if that's to be read as any sort of positive sign. :lol:

- Sirian

ControlFreak

Apr 22, 2003, 09:50 AM

Yeah! I wait for the upcoming turnlog with bated breath.:lol:

Erik Mesoy

Apr 29, 2003, 12:46 PM

Has this been inactive a week?
I can hardly believe there is THAT much feast-mode going on...

bewareofgnomes

Apr 29, 2003, 12:49 PM

try 3 months.

Charis

Apr 29, 2003, 02:48 PM

Glad to see we have lurkers wondering if in fact we ARE finally ready for regent, or whether we have overstepped the limits of our capabilities??!!

It's not a feast per se, but the dinner table has been mooved! Once the tastier morsels have been digested, it is hoped that our intrepid FRFR host will be able to push our pristinely glorious civilization a step closer to victory.

There is a saying in our land... "No man may overstep his internal motivation toward achieving a goal, neither do external attempts at such motivation foster progress." (I don't know wth this quote means, but it's plastered up on the palace walls in Delhi!! :lol: )

Charis

PS@Erik - I'm honored by your sig :hammer:

Sullla

Apr 29, 2003, 04:53 PM

Originally posted by Charis
PS@Erik - I'm honored by your sig :hammer:

This may not be the most appropriate place to mention it, but I am also honored by Erik's signature. (Especially being listed before both Charis and Sirian! :lol: )

widdowmaker

Apr 30, 2003, 03:29 PM

!!! IU had given up on the thread. TURNLOG! NOW! I MUST KNOW! Also i think you should do a refresher by re-reading all your turnlogs. IF i go a few days without playing a game and come back to it, i forget all my plans. So i got to start a new one. PLEASE finish the game. Very interesting.

ChrTh

Apr 30, 2003, 03:32 PM

Bump and a question:

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

Would it have been possible in this situation to buy Education from France, and hope that the Great Library would pop Education before popping Gunpowder, thus denying England Gunpowder until they researched it on their own (or traded for it)? Or do we presume that the Great Library pops Techs in the order 2 Civs get them (so that Gunpowder would pop before Education every time)?

(I'm not saying it's what should've been done, I'm just curious if it's a possibility)

Sirian

May 03, 2003, 11:32 AM

"No man may overstep his internal motivation toward achieving a goal, neither do external attempts at such motivation foster progress."

Now that's wisdom. :)

And yes, feast mode is still on. :( I've got more piled on my plate than I can handle. Yes, I piled it all there, but there you go.

- Sirian

ControlFreak

May 03, 2003, 12:52 PM

Thanks for the update Sirian. I for one am patiently waiting.

Sirian

May 15, 2003, 11:11 PM

:eek: We're Finally Ready For Another Turn! :eek:

:jump:

Early: Invaded Germany, captured their southern cities.

Middle: Captured Berlin, popped a leader.

Late: Formed an army, Conquered Germany, started on the Epic.

Now get this. I got ONE promotion, and with the promoted unit I got ONE elite victory. In the wake of, erm, recent events, the irony is almost too much to bear! :lol:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/frfr-leader1.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/frfr-germans-gone.jpg

After removing the enemy infestation, the snowy lands of Germany were restored to a properly pristine condition.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/frfr-german-clean.jpg

NOTES:

* The 4-pack of Explorers at sea are Russian-bound on auto.

* I signed deals with France and Iro. We're set on lux.

* We have one spare dyes if a worthy buyer shows up.

* Workers are moving toward the capital for possible pollution cleanup. Also have some near the FP.

* War with Russia looks like the next step. I recommend defensive posture at German-Russian border until Cathy is gassed, then we can take her down. Emphasize force protection, as we're too late to get her "before she has cossacks and rifles".

* Most of our towns are buildings factories. The interior towns that can't get iron are still building rifles.

* If you pop a second leader, rush Suffrage (anywhere) and kill the cascade. Then we are sure to get the rest of the wonders.

* The Epic will be done in five turns.

* Delhi needs a coal plant. It may have to build Hoover from scratch, but in any case, we want it tooled up to the max.

* Don't leave our scattered holdings defenseless. We're a little thinner than I'm comfortable with in Scandinavia, for instance.

* I saved up some cash. More savings may be in order as we will have to buy our techs at fairly high prices.

* There is a sizable force in southern Germany. Our victorious army is not yet filled. Up to you if you want to stick a vet horse in there or try to hold out for another elite.

FRFR - 1750AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/frfr-1750ad.zip)

- Sirian

Sirp

May 15, 2003, 11:27 PM

One elite victory pops you a leader huh? :lol:

I'm starting to think that the game must have a builtin "Sirian-detector" which gives whacky/ironic combat results :)

-Sirp.

hotrod0823

May 15, 2003, 11:36 PM

The civ god just punished him in Epic 27 for being moooeed over and realized the error of there ways :lol:

Skyfish

May 16, 2003, 02:48 AM

:jump:

Great to have you back Sirian !
That leader must have been a desperate attempt by Civ3 to lure you back and apologize for the recent bad fortune ;)

Sirian

May 16, 2003, 05:42 PM

Oh yeah. The game was definitely sucking up. :o

widdowmaker

May 17, 2003, 04:07 PM

YAY!!! turnlog!!!

Gingerbread Man

May 30, 2003, 04:10 AM

*bump*

Plleeaaaassseeee an update! Realms beyond tales are always so cool!

ControlFreak

May 30, 2003, 06:25 AM

It's Charis's turn and I know he has lots of RL problems right now. Be Patient!

Ozymandous

Jun 17, 2003, 10:06 AM

Just checking to see if this game is kaput officially or not...

ChrTh

Nov 08, 2003, 11:35 AM

Charis posted in other threads :eek: is he back? Will this game continue?!?!?!

Charis

Nov 09, 2003, 07:18 PM

Round 13, 1700 to 1750 AD

I must say, it did not seem I was ready for Regent. In fact,
it's still not clear whether our brave Indian regents can pull
this out. But... let's take them one step closer if we can! :hammer:
(Kudos to ChrTh for his watchful eye predicting the turn!)

Reminder to self...
- No improvements (obviously)
- Must win by domination
- We're looking forward to flight, airfields, etc., for greater connectivity
- No RoP, no colonies
- Alliances are legal, afaik, although we've never used one
- Recently, I setup an invasion of Germany which Sirian executed flawlessly.
It's land are once again pristine!
- Explorers are heading to Russia
- Keep an eye out for buyer of dyes
- War with Russia may be next, probably starting defensively til she gasses
- If we can get another leader, Suffrage will kill cascade
- Try to shore up defenses in scattered holdings like Scandinavia
- Get a coal plant in Delhi, factories elsewhere
- The last game link is incorrect, the game turn year is 1700 not 1750.

[0] 1700 AD - We're in the lead, but time is against us as others will be building
and using railroads. Our shield production is obscenely low. France and Celts are our
competitors, but with 283 (of 208 supported) units we have a strong military compared
to everyone. The world is at peace though most are annoyed at us out of jealousy.
We're researching... Communism? Oh yes, we're taking the anti-knowledge route of
letting the tech pace go as slow as possible. We have all known techs except Communism
which is known to the Celts, and Corporation (France), Russia lacks Industrialization.
England is quite behind, and Aztecs are WAY behind. Iro's are fourth. The Iro and Aztecs
are on the same large island, and would be a nice morsel to swallow together.
It's really hard from the minimap to see how much land we would need to take for
our domination victory, but that path will either mean a large scale war with one of
the world leaders, or swallow up the other little guys and if we need more land,
slug out some section of the other continent. (We have about 73 cities, and good econ)

Last thing I notice... we're in Monarchy still. This is perhaps due to the nice support
bonus, and the aversion to war weariness when many cities aren't connected to luxuries.
Build orders seem fine, so here we go...

I see no reason not to go after Cathy, and soon, so I move some troops into better
position at the border. I'll hit what's weak and in the open, then absorb what
Cathy can throw at us. I fill the army with a vet cav and head it to the chokepoint.
Rax rushed in Leipzig.

(IBT) The Celts demand Dyes?? Not a chance Brennus!! Bring it on, bub! Waste your
resourses and throw them willynilly at us. Alas, it will only mean France will end
up with your continent. In fact, an alliance with France against you would be likely.
But it's a bluff, right?!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/FRFR-1700-CeltsDeclareWar.jpg

I had forgotten we DID have a city within their reach, new Seoul. The first
several cav redlined and retreated, then our rifles went down, finally our
cav. They sent over two dozen units at the city. It fell. War happiness sends
almost a dozen cities into WLTK day.

[1] 1705 AD - Hrmm... I see no reason not to ally with France and let our two
biggest competitors slug it out and slow down each other, maybe even slip into
Communism?! The only downside would be if France actually beat them and gained
more land. I dial up Joan and she won't ally for nuthin. Ah yes, she's in MPP
with Celts. We can however get an MPP with her, and she would pay 4gpt. This
would also affect the war with Russia, and could only hope France doesn't go nuts
and go to war with any other countries. Let's do it :P
Last action was to cash rush a few barracks and units in the small islands closest
to the Celts.

(IBT) For some reason the people expand the palace.

[2] 1710 AD - Phase two begins, after checking no deals active, we declare war
vs Russia. Up at Novgorod we saw just a musket on top, which a cav defeated
to show a spearman underneath.

(IBT) Aztecs and Russia sign an embargo against us. The Russians send four...
Knights (!?) against us. Amazingly, two win.

[3] 1715 - Novgorod's last spear was crushed, and Riga was defended by a
Cossack and two spears. It was captured with Harbor intact. Krasnoyarsk
had a pike and spear, partly hit. Our army crushed the two loose knights.

(IBT) The Russians send nine knights out to meet us, most can't reach us, but
one crossed the border to attack. Doing so triggers MPP and France declares
war on Russia. (Fortunately, Russia's rail construction has barely started)

[4] 1720 - Krasnoyarsk falls. Rostov's reg rifle fell, leaving a spear.
We pick off a few open units, but attack no cities on the Russian front,
prefering to defend and absorb there. A few rifles are rushed.

(IBT) Not much, a cossack taking out a rifle. Their knights all push North.
We're not trying to puppet them, but they're looking for a softer target.

[5] 1725 - Heroic Epic completes in Pune :P At 40spt we start on the Military Acad due
in 10, with the option instead for Univ Suffrage in 20.

It's been too long, and I couldn't remember if being attacked outside your
territory would trigger an MPP. I sacrificed a warrior by landing it in France
right next to Celts. (IBT) They slaughtered it, and no trigger. Or was there?!
Will they will actually have to LAND on one of our islands and attack to pull
in France. Do they have the brass ones to do that?! It matters not, when France's
turn came up (a good bit after the Celt's attack) France DOES declare war on
the Celts. So this was either a great sacrifice or an amazing coincidence :P

:hammer: Brennus is gonna eat some Escargo now!

[6] 1730 - The knights ended up going after some forest planting workers, which was nice
in that it took them off their hills. Our cavs then intercepted all five.
Vladivostok (down to size 2) fell, and outside we traded a cav for cossack.

(IBT) A knight and cav are traded.

[7] 1735 - Delhi's coal plant is done, also now at 40spt, so we put in on Mil Acad
(after swapping Pune to Suffrage) France and Iro now have Electricity, so they're
ahead four techs (Comm, Med, Corp, Elec). No immediate rush to catch up. Perhaps
in 13 turns when we finish Communism we'll buy Med and Electricity and start
on Sci Method. As long as Suffrage is done before they research Sci Meth we're good.

After ironclad bombing Odessa a Cossack is on top, so we take the opportunity
to press. Losing one cav we take out the sack, a hurt rifle, and a spear.
The last spear is taken out with a rifle and the city is ours, including harbor,
marketplace and rax. (Relying on a huge culture and a goal to eliminate Russia
to beat any flip chances)

Russia will now talk, btw, although it isn't saying much. Hrmm.... they have BOTH
Medicine and Corporation -- it might work to beat them down to a stub and if they'll
give them, take both these techs for 20 turns of temporary peace. (Just noticed
now, that England is OCC on island, Aztecs have five cities)

(IBT) France pulls Aztecs in vs Russia (which ends the trade embargo vs us)
All Russia can muster is one cossack vs Odessa which loses.

[8] 1740 - We had an ironclads in cities near approaching Celtic and Russian
Galleons, and it scores two kills before anything is landed.
(IBT) Zilch. Wow, Cathy was gassed *before* we even started the war!! :lol:

[9] 1745 - Our ironclad sinks a Celtic galley. This drubbing will bring them to
the table, and for peace they want... nothing! T'would be enough to kill our
rep with France. No thanks of course, but nice to know. They too have the four
techs.

Hrmm... France has taken Yakutsk, no time to dally. (Come on Joan, focus on
Brennus! He's taken Amiens!)

(IBT) Cossack loses to a cav (yay)

[10] 1750 - Smolensk is surrounded, and all roads cut off. Alas, it's size 12 and
no cannons around. (What a newb!!! Am I really ready for Regent?!)
Likewise Sevastapool is cut off from the world. A fair amount of pillaging is
still needed in Northern Germanorussia.

There are a few ship moves and settler/worker movements left. There are also
quite a few workers sleeping. So many workers, so little to do, it's no wonder :P
In the past decade our power has increased, the Celts and France about the same
(although Celtic score spiked up a bit), and the Iro are creeping up. Russia is
toast. Oh... the Celts have gone into Communism (bye-bye!!) France and Iro remain
Democratic for now. We and England are Monarchies. With 289 units we remain topdog
with a miliary second to none.

Thoughts for next turn: Prosecute the Russian war, catch up on pillaging to restore
the land, make some more cannons for their core cities - we're at war for at least
ten more turns for our MPP (after which if Russia can pay tech, they may live?!)
If we can 'land' a force to pillage their saltpeter, it's all over for Cathy
(or their iron and coal, both at Minsk)

There are 2-3 Russian ships between New Punjab and Minsk. I have two clads coming
up from the South at them, and two more above them at Tblisi, for a squeeze play!

Save file FRFR 1750AD -- PtW 1.21f (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/FRFR-1750ad.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

(PS If I've missed a window of opportunity for Sirian's availability by waiting this long, mea culpa, although if he's able to continue I should be available to complete this)

Gingerbread Man

Nov 10, 2003, 12:34 AM

Woohoo! Charis is back! But is it too late for FRFR?

Are you planning on taking as much desert/tundra on the coast as possible, so for the possibility of an oil on the coast? Or are you going to try to trade for oil? Or even better, planning on winning before that happens?

Reagan

Nov 10, 2003, 08:38 AM

I'm glad you've breathed new life into this game, Charis. :hammer:

By the way, an MPP is only triggered by an enemy's actions within your territory. An attack on you while your troops are in neutral or enemy territory doesn't work.

Sirian

Nov 11, 2003, 10:04 PM

Recently, I setup an invasion of Germany

Although technically true in game terms, I find such irony in this remark as to be rolling on the floor in a fit of giggles.

:rotfl:

Oh look, I'm up. :)

- Sirian

Sirian

Nov 24, 2003, 06:59 PM

I'm still up. :) I haven't forgotten or abandoned this game, but it has been so long, I'm experiencing a kind of "future shock". It's been difficult even to play my turns in LK55 because I am hitting all the wrong keyboard commands. What the "C" key does in Civ3, is done by the "F" key in Galciv. What the "F" key does in Civ3 is done by "G" in GalCiv. Right clicking means different things, etc etc etc. And, egads, I find I am now trained to the GalCiv commands! :eek:

I'll squeeze a turn in here soon, though. This week. :o

- Sirian

Caesar_Augustus

Feb 12, 2004, 06:54 PM

I remember reading this SG last year when it first started, and then today I was browsing this forum and thought to myself, "Hey, how did that crazy no-roads game with Charis and Sirian end up?" :)

Perhaps it's still a work in progress? Although I'm sure it would be hard to return to this variant type after such a long layoff . . .

Zed-F

Mar 08, 2004, 10:34 AM

I noticed a thread on the RB boards indicating that Sirian isn't able/interested in playing this one out. Perhaps Charis will finish things up since he's still playing Civ...

T-hawk

Mar 08, 2004, 11:46 AM

Hey Charis, if you want to just turn it into a regular 4-6 player SG to keep playing, I'm sure you'd have no shortage of signups... :D

Charis

Mar 08, 2004, 09:42 PM

On hearing from my regentmate that it was a most inopportune time for the
continuation of the epics of the Indians, not to mention some issues with design,
Charis Gandhi did not want to let the people come this far, and fall short.
Besides, he still had to prove himself finally ready for Regent! :hammer:
As far as he is able, he will carry the ball forward... (still PtW 1.21f, btw)

We're down Medicine and Corporation to Cathy, and Electricity as well to Joan.
We're also at war with Celts (a refused tribute), and an active MPP with Joan for 11.
Russia has nine cities, one of which is on an island.

[0] 1750 - IBT Cossack dies to rifle

[1] 1752 - Time seems to slow down... And good news, we're strong to France, Celts,
and the World, and France just went into Anarchy! Iro are the only democracy.
Cav vs fortified rifles in size 12 towns with no artillery... me no likes it.
So we pillage this turn. IBT - Longbow loses to rifle.

[2] 1754 - moving up
[3] 1756 - We take advantage of France's anarchy and Steal... Electricity, moving
us towards Replaceable Parts and ToE. No one has Sci Method. 8 turns left in MPP.
Trade with Russia who lacks Electricity is appealing. We get Med from Iro for gpt.

Alas, no whipping, drafting, or drop in size at Smolensk. Let's go. And armies
don't heal in PtW like they do in C3C, he's doing not much good here. We lose
3 cav and see the army fail, to kill 3 rifles and a spear, but the city
is ours. We'll try to hold it (but starve it) IBT - Resistance there ends? Nice.

[4] 1758 - IBT - Celts bring Iro into the war against us. While this may be unpleasant, it
just might drag Iro into Communism. If they attack us, France will attack them via MPP.
The Iro were however selling us incense. That will save us a lot of cash on recently
purchased Medicine. Silly guys. Russian longbows kill a rifle and cav, capturing
two explorers?! Yowza! Celts land ONE cav at Filet of Fish. We have zone-def
with cavs, and are able to kill it.

[5] 1760 - Sevastapool is down to size 7 now from ironclad fire. We kill the two
longbows. It's such immense irony that the Russians would think it USEFUL to
capture two explorers to use against a nation such as FRFR India :rotfl:
France remains in Anarchy and we press our luck... to get Corporation. France is
seen to have monopoly on Refining. We get Incense from Aztecs for Horses,
Metallurgy and Printing Press. IBT - England and Iro embargo us. Aztecs and
France go MPP. The world has lined up in two camps. Two bows die to rifles.

[6] 1762 - No progress bombing down Sevastapool. IBT - Mil Acad completes in Delhi.
EEP! Lugdunum completes Universal Suffrage! At least they're in Communism. We had
10 turns to go in Pune. It swaps to Palace prebuild, good for 16 turns. We'll need
to get Sci Method in that time span. We can research that in about 10, good.

[7] 1764 - Sevastapool is bomed to size 6, finally. Rifle killed there, another hurt
as we retreat, then it's killed. Now just a spear left. It's killed by a rifle and
the city is ours. IBT - Russia and France come to peace. So that's how little Joan's
word is worth, eh? I can either make peace with Russia now, or let her attack and
get her back at war with France. But Cathy won't attack me on Indian territory.
[8] 1766 - Or will she? She moved a longbow up next to our new border at Sevastapool. Let's
brace for an attack instead of killing it...
IBT - It attacks, and Joan is back at war with Russia :P Likewise she declares on Iro.
[9] 1768 - Tblisi and Kiev are totally cut off. IBT - Two longbows kill rifles 8-\
Communism comes in. PtW, we'll pass. Sci Meth in 8.

[10] 1770 - A lot more ships and enemies now, I rush 1-2 cav per island. We sink 3 clads.
IBT - Iro clads sink two of ours. Dyes sale to France ends.
Worse, Iro land 3 cav next to snowball's chance. What are our odds of holding?
The city name says it all!

[11] 1772 - We hunt down and kill the two purple clads. Our zone-D can't reach or
handle 3 cavs at once. We have only a snowballs chance! The power graph shows Celts
are now winning vs France, so re-newing the lux deal with them is probably good.
The MPP is over, and let's not renew it, to give us options when to stop wars with
Iro, Celts and Russia. Gah, Iro will not talk yet! Celts take 40g for peace.
We can't stop Iro, though if they send no more soon, we can recapture.
All Russian cities are down one size now, including Moscow at 5.

IBT - Cav vs Reg rifle loses. Second one... loses, promoting it!! Third cav...
does manage to win.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/FRFR-Indians-1774AD.jpg

[12] 1774 - Only a warrior left to defend Snowball's Chance. He has a shot at winning,
but, well... it's a Snowballs chance! Can't hurt to try... he gets yellow, then sends
the now-red cav retreating back a step, right next to a rifle in "Gold as Ice" :D
The rifle kills him, and we have defended our little island from invasion :goodjob:
The zone cav rides up on the mountain, astonished at the sight he sees!
France has Replaceable Parts. Aztecs are down to 2 cities.
IBT - Not much, just Iro ships encircling "Bovine Flatulence!"
On that note... I'll stop now for this turn :D

Save file FRFR 1774AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/FRFR-Indians-1774AD.zip)

To be continued... :hammer:
Charis

Dominix

Mar 09, 2004, 02:39 AM

Woot! Warriors own ze Iro! :D

Nice to see this one get back on its feet :D:D

Skyfish

Mar 09, 2004, 05:48 AM

At long last our addiction is soothed :D
Thanks a lot Charis for keeping the Jumbo crawling !

Charis

Mar 10, 2004, 09:36 PM

[0] 1776 - Still in context, we press on. Outside Moscow we lose a cav then kill the
injured rifle. Iro will pay us 200g for peace after their debacle at Snowball. We accept.

[1] 1778 - Kiev is size 6, and we attack now. Two cav retreat, two win, that's all?
Tis ours. IBT - Five temple expansions take the pressure off Russian cities.

[2] 1780 - Finally, a boat of reinforcements arrive, at Tblisi.
IBT - France and Celts come to peace.

[3] 1782 - It's time for Moscow. Army kills two rifles and almost dies. Two more
cav retreat, then an elite one tries... he beats the last rifle. The Home of the
Hanging Garden is in our hands. Do we capture... or raze? The prudent thing to do
would be to raze it, but since when are regent players prudent?! :P

At Tblisi, first cav loses, second wins, now spears on top. First dies to promote
our cav. The next is the last, and the city is ours.

[4] 1784 - With Sci Method now in, we let Pune swap to ToE, done right away.
We'll go 'standard' route of Atomic and Electronics. (200 shield waste, but still good)

[5] 1786 - We use ships to move up troops from Tblisi toward Minsk.
Joan is close to Sci Meth judging from prices, so we sell to Iro for Refining
and Sanitation and 298g. Celts can't pay for it, Joan gives 24gpt+50g+RoP.

[6] 1788 - Iro and France come to peace. Settlers are on the way. Minsk is a nice
Ironworks city, but too corrupt for us, and we could use neither coal nor iron!
Instead we'll found next to its current location, on the coal directly. Even the
saltpeter in its radius is moutainous and will be wasted. (I now remember we're not
supposed to RoP. I only did it for good relations, but will not use that again)

Do we have oil? Yes! They say 'near' New Bangalore. Of course for us that means 'on'.
There's one 'next to' Najran, non-coastal. Shoot, one coastal next to Damascus.
IF we need a second, it will have to be moved. Ah, there's another in the open near
Hamburg. We'll settle there eventually. France have none, Celts and Iros do.
Delhi swaps to Hoover Dam, due in 15. Iro also have Rep Parts, as does France.
All main powers are in fact in Communism now.

[7] 1790 - Pollution at Indus. At St Petersburg a bombed rifle doesn't "go under", so we
send a cav at it to see. One retreats, a second wins to find a conscript. Another
wins to uncover a pike. We promote on that and see a spear. Our last cav on hand
wins, promotes, takes the city. Can Sverdolsk have better defense? Let's see...
Pike on top! Wish we had looked earlier... Three pikes later, it too is ours.
This is really helping with support costs.

Joan will give a ton for Atomic. Next turn it's less, but still < market and very good.

[8] 1792 - Final troop movements to South of Russia. Bombatrussia Hills is founded.
Price continues to go down a bit. Seems like a decent time to sell. It will be good
to see where rubber is too before we plop down any more settlers. 99gpt+500g+Silks+Furs.
EEP! She has *five* extra rubber and we have none connected! Do we have any, period?!
Phew, yes, none at home but two in Russia, and one is coastal. One on Ice Brew
island, non-coastal. Celts have one or more, Iro do NOT.

Here we go, attack on Minsk. Two elites win, no leader, but we turn it to rubble.
Last city... Yakutsk. It's an epic battle, our finest elite Cavalry vs their
very last Cossack. We turn red, then come back, and...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/FRFR-Indians-1794AD-MGL.jpg

A silly longbow prevents that from being the last battle, but he dies and then...
nothing. Oh no... settler on a boat?!?!?! (Boo!!!!) Nope, tis a small island
to the east, her last city. Load up the boats, friends.
It's PtW, so I can rush a wonder with the leader. No need though, they're a lock.
Could jump the palace over to Russia and make the iron works city productive?!
That's kind of radical though. It's not a bad idea though, as in PtW you do get
two productive cores. We'll send him to St. Petersburg to form an army or otherwise.

[10] 1796 - Rubber Biscuit is founded, as is Russian Codfish and Working Iron.
[11] 1798 - France declares war on Celts! Good! I was just wondering if they were
getting too peaceful, and who the next victim of a sneak attack would be?!
We land on the island. IBT - Rampaging Celts destroy the Aztecs.

[12] 1800 - An auspicious year... Astrakhan on the island has its two spears taken
down, and the city is ours. More importantly, the Russians are finally GONE! :hammer:
We found the city of Rubber Band in honor of this. (France is making somewhat of a
comeback at Celts and have pulled up to 'avg' in Military)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/FRFR-Indians-1800AD-RussiansGone.jpg

Save file FRFR 1800AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/FRFR-Indians-1800AD.zip)

To be continued... :hammer:
Charis

Sir Bugsy

Mar 10, 2004, 11:10 PM

Glad to see this is started again. I still think it is amazing.

Charis

Mar 14, 2004, 03:14 PM

The world is forever changed... the Russians have joined the Aztecs and Germans
in exiting the world stage. We must pause and re-assess our situation, and our goals.
The goal remains as it ever has been - world domination. The problem is... we're really
not that close. Considering all the land tiles and coastal tiles in play, I think
we're probably just in the 40%-50% range in area, probably better on population.
That would mean we would need an area 1/2 as large as the total area we already have,
to win. Yowza, that's alot. Russia-Germany seems to be about 1/4 of our land, so we would
need about 3-Russias more of land. The Iro are only 1-Russia, and forsaken nasty slow-
moving land. So if we're around 40%, Iro 10%, then Celts and French would each be 20-25%.
We could 'just' do it by swallowing whole either France or Celts, although it might
be required to also the Iro or one-half of the opposite European power.

Celts lack Sci Method, and so also Atomic and Electronics, but they have Repl Parts.
France lacks Electronics, Iro lack Atomic. The power graph shows France is now pulling
away slowly from Celts, and they're still at war. We have 308 units, allowed 260
so we can use a dozen more small cities. We're strong to all but avg with France.
England lives, but they're on a two tile island, stuck in the last era. If they didn't
have the second tile covered we could eliminate them. The tech pace will be a tiny bit
slower for trailing civs if they stay in the game, so for now they live.

How to end this, militarily speaking??
1. Cav vs Infantry (ie press on *now*) - eek, this makes no sense
2. Tanks vs Infantry (ie beeline Motorized Transport and be rdy to move when they arrive)
3. Tanks vs Infantry with Flight support. The *huge* bonus of intercontinental flight,
and airlifting units. Logistically this is so huge it's worth the one-turn diversion
off the path to Tanks. Plus, we get to build airports around, and perhaps land a
poached beachhead city in between Flight and Motorized Tech.
4. Marines vs Infantry. Who cares about roads when you have boatloads of marines. Tempting!
5. Paratroopers vs Infantry and Tanks. Highly unconventional, but it seems fun.
6. Modern Armor vs Mech (or if very lucky on tech, vs regular Infantry). Along with
Flight backup, this is the biggest advantage, but our production base will be less.
7. MA powered by Offshore platforms - miniturization. I'm curious to see what effect
platforms would have on our *meager* production, but this is a looong way off.
8. Some combo of the above.

Ok, '1' looks like a real dog, the only advantage being that the AI has not yet railed
their nations, and our production doesn't trail theirs yet. We're 1st in GNP but *3rd*
in production as it stands now. Phony wars now are dangerous in that our ability to
respond on our small islands is very poor. If war is going on, it should be done only
when we're prosecuting it fully. If we can rule the seas, the bombardment power it
brings, the safety for our islands, and support for amphibious assaults is nice. But
the seas are so large that would take about 30 task forces, over 120 units. Ouch.
The alternative is air superiority, forsaking the sea for air travel. This fits better
with our inability to move units on land rapidly. Looking more closely at the Iro,
their land is actually two separate units, with Mauch Chunk a sole chokepoint connecting
the two. Grabbing that city would allow us to divide and conquer, to pare them down a
notch, and should mean that taking out just one European civ would be enough.

Charis Gandhi now has a vision of the future...

Phase One - Peaceful preparation: research 5-6 techs, found beachhead cities in Europe
in razed-neutral areas, and make these strongholds.
Phase Two - Short war with Iro to capture Mauch Chunk amphibiously. A marine army is
even an option. This will need several transports of troops, and a small number of
battleships and carrier/bombers. Simultaneously we'll boot them off their hold
on a few small islands. The war need not last long, although an alliance is possible.
Phase Three - Tank warefare in Europe (after several turns of airport/beachhead shift of
units to Europe). This may last some time - we hope to chew up a good part of one nation.
Phase Four - Airborne assault on Southern Iro island. They'll take to the air and the
mountains and seek to take the bottom half of their island.
Phase Five - Modern Armor in Europe - should get us to the brink of domination win
Phase Six - Miniturization, let's see how our production improves.
Phase Seven - Final blitz, taking the last few cities needed to cross the threshold.

Of course, we all know about the finest plans of mice and men?! :hammer:
Phase One will last a while as we have several techs to go and take about 8 turns per
tech. Flight is first goal, to aid logistics.

[0] 1802 - This and next several turns will complete pillaging in Russia, setup a zone
and city defense perimeter, and move all 'excess' units to the SE tip of Russia,
for deployment elsewhere or for an quickly assembled invasion force if someone
chooses unwisely. We're religious and expect no fighting for 40+ turns, dare we
try Democracy, or would support costs kill us?? We're net +59 now at 60%, with Steel
due in 8. It was way back in 750AD when we asked if we would ever leave Monarchy.
Our total shield production is: 40+36+2*16+2*15+4*13+3*12+3*10+3*9+3*7+5*5+4*2+61* 1 = 398
(As a test done after this reign, I came back and for curiosity jumped Palace to the
Working Iron city. Income plummeted to -34gpt, and shields dropped to about 360)

Being religious and at peace, it's worth a shot to see what democracy can do... revolt!
Our income actually increases to +135gpt in anarchy :P

[1] 1804 - Eep! We're now at -17gpt staying at 60% sci, due to a support cost of 308gpt.
But Steel would be due in 6, not 8. Shifting to 40% or 50% gives 9 or 6 turns
at +100 or +313gpt. 80% is 4 turn research, but at a -300gpt deficit.
Fortunately lux can stay at zero, but a few clowns are needed. Overall, for same turns
to research, income is higher, but if we go to war and need to raise lux, it won't last.
The only cities hammered badly are interior ones with no lux, like Jaipur.

[2] 1806 - Wall Street completes in Pune, for a bonus +50gpt.
[4] 1810 - France has Espio. (They'll give it and 111gpt for Electronics)
[5] 1812 - Steel comes in, Combustion due in 8 at minor surplus.
[7] 1816 - Tyre is founded, and Exxon Station on an oil deposit.
[8] 1818 - We landed in Europe, old England last turn, and now found "Heathrow"
Hoover is due next turn and France is still willing to pay full mono price for
Electronics, so we sell, WM+Espionage+961g+103gpt. Bombay starts CIA, Delhi an army.
[9] 1820 - This reign has seen France consolidate their position as #2 power, winning
the war vs the Celts, keeping up a good economy, and ahead of the others in tech.
Alas, they also set themselves up as the nation we shall defeat to win Europe.
[10-11] Quiet.

Phase one is still in progress, about 1/2 done.
Charis

Charis

Mar 16, 2004, 05:40 PM

We proceed with Phase one - buildup towards invasion of Iroquois and airport technology

[0] 1826 - Combustion done. Destroyers and transports are now options.

[2] 1830 - Quiet shifting troops over to European beachheads.
Siberia East is founded, as is Auric Beachhead.
IBT - Right in plain sight of us, Celts take out two French colonites, horses and furs.

[4] 1834 - Iceland Beachhead is founded. France can pay full market price for Combustion,
which is furs and spices (which expired this turn), all 783, and 133gpt. Sounds good.
Flight is due in 3 now (tada!) IBT Celts and France come to peace (boo)

[6] 1838 - European Fur is founded on the ex-site of the French colony.
IBT - Flight comes in - the only downside is the Colossus expires. Delhi completes
it's first built army and starts on an Airport. Mass Production due in 6.

[7] 1840 - Our first airstrip is laid down, right next to Iceland Beachhead.
[8] 1842 - Many workers head to airfield locations, several settlers and airports
are put into the queue. Celts move a small stack... heading for France?
IBT - NOPE!!! Sneak attack 8-\ Celts declare on us, out of the blue. They
capture an explorer and raze Auric beachhead. Actually, great timing on Celts
part. Within about 10 turns there would have been airports and a dozen infantry in
the beachheads. The loss of one outpost is no big deal. Having them buy France in
would be very bad news though, so it seems time for MPP or alliance with Joan. This
will have the side effect of Europe turning more pink, but c'est la vie.

[9] 1844 - They're both cheap, 5 or 7gpt. If we declare on Iro just before end of 20, do
we want France in on it? Sounds like a good way to keep them expending military units.
A Mutual Protection Pact it is. Wow, rushed airports are expensive, 640 a pop. We're
only just at 1000g, so that would cost us 30gpt interest as well. Can European Fur
hold until after the MPP kicks in? I think so, and if it falls it's not the end of
the world. Apparently we can afford to do good research *or* have some cash to upgrade
and rush, but not both.

IBT France declares war on Celts when they send a cav vs Fur town.
The Celts wipe out the defenders at European Furs to the last man! :eek:
Actually... to, but not including the last man! They leave a single *1hp* cav defender
to protect the city!?! Still, the city will likely fall next round.

[10] 1846 - Not much to do, can't reach Furs to defend it. We'll just have to rely on
France. IBT - our staunch French allies... do *NOTHING*. Absolutely NOTHING! Not a
single unit moved, not ONE of the few cav surrounding European Furs attacked. Heck,
they weren't even harrangued or taunted. Useless... Oddly, the city was captured,
not razed, so poor are the Celts. NOW watch and see if the French take it and poach?!

[11] 1848 - Continue the buildup, despite recent setbacks.
IBT - Franks capture European Furs. Sons-of-a-biscuit...
Mass Production done, now either Amphib war or do the Tank thing.

[12] 1850 - We stick to plan, Amphib war and prep for Iroquois war.

For a brief moment, I gasp and think "Oh no??! Are airstrips allowed?" :eek: A check
of the rules is helpful: "Building forts, outposts, radar towers, airfields is OK."

Phew! :goodjob:

Intermission for a little dance...

[dance]

OK... we're back. Two posts in one today!

[0] 1852 - New Indus island prepares a transport and will soon rush Marines to
kick off the Mauch Chunk invasion. Shivaji forms an army and moves along with
the cav army down in that direction. IBT - Ah yes, the Pentagon message?!
That is our third army, isn't it? IBT - Nothing.

[1] 1854 - IBT The Iro land a stack of cav right next to a Paris city. A sneak
attack is coming next round, and the MPP will pull us into war with Iroquois.

[2] 1856 - With Amphib due in 2 turns this is a hairs breadth too early, though
we're planning to go to war with them anyway. IBT - They do NOT attack! The 'stack'
was a cav-settler pair, which now moves. Surprise will be back on our side!
[3] 1858 - Amphib due next turn. The empty army just arrived, and we'll fill it
with Marines (an extra one if we wait for Pentagon to finish) A settler stack
heads to south Europe to found a beachhead. Alas, French took a celtic city and
coallesced borders to eat an open wine spot. IBT - France sign English vs Celts.
[4] 1860 - Swap New Bangalore which has been on Battlefield Med over to Pentagon, so
it's due in just 2. What is this? War weariness just kicked in from a single
ironclad shot at the Celts (done to avoid taking zero offensive actions in the war)
Sheesh, that doesn't bode well for our big new offensive coming up!
That shot will cost us 130gpt :eek: Well, at least 12 more turns til MPP expires.
I rush almost a dozen settlers and temples (planned at some point anyway). This
will set us back several turns on Motorized Transport.
IBT - France signs Iro vs Celts? Sweet! If they mobilize forces and un-defend their
homeland, so much the better! I'm glad it's an alliance, not an MPP.
Pentagon completes in New Bangalore. That'll be one more cav, one full marine, and
before long, a full tank army.

[5] 1862 - Gah, France has Radio. Some much for ideas of having a dominant research
lead. We're up Flight and Mass Production, but we're not about to help her get closer
to tanks! More upgrades, and low sci this turn.
[8] 1868 - Hmm, offers for Mass Production and Flight are similar, 1340g+168 or 180gpt.
Rivierra beachhead founded in Southern France. Radio still costs an obscene amount.
We remedy that the old fashioned way. Joan no longer has a monopoly on it :P
(Running high income for this reign has its advantages)

We can hit Iroquois this turn - boats and marine army are in position. Do we?? (Sorry for lack of pics, I'll post one next turn)

Save file (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/FRFR-Indians-preIroWar-1868AD.zip)

Thus ends 'Phase One'. Stay tuned for 'Phase Two' :hammer:
Charis

Charis

Mar 28, 2004, 06:52 PM

Phase Two - the amphibious assault of the Iroquois at Mauch Chunk.

[0] 1868 (cont) - We give the Iro the boot order, but they comply. So we declare.
Up North we land the cav army and a large stack on a mountain. Outside of
Mauch Chunk our army strikes. It kills one, taking dmg. Was I thinking this
was a C3C army or something? I could use about a dozen more marines here, not
too good. What a sub-regent move! :spank:

IBT - At Allegheny a Destroyer comes out and sinks an ironclad. Near heathrow,
just inside our borders, an unwise Iro ironclad fires on us. This triggers a
declaration from France, to their chagrine. They do at least sink two clads.

[1] 1870 - We brace ourselves.
IBT - They hit us on the mtn, but we win all. Destroyer of last turn loses to xport.

[2] 1872 - A third infantry is killed at Maunch, but they've got plenty more.
IBT - Not much, except Iro land something in Russia.
[3] 1874 - Lost supply of silks and furs, France's deal is up. The Iro landing is
more than expected! Three cav and a guerrila, close to Moscow. We probably can't
defend it either. Will they raze the home of the hanging gardens?!
We airlift over a half-dozen units to respond for next turn.
At Ganogeh on a shared island, our cav beats an infantry to reveal spears. Cav beats
one, and infantry the last one, capturing the city and sinking an ironclad within.
The very injured Marine army and its fleet limps back home to heal.
IBT - Iro capture Moscow, preserving the beautiful hanging gardens. They also
kill and infantry, and several WKTKD's end.
[4] 1876 - The Iro cannot defend Moscow, and we retake it. Being able to airlift is
great for this game! Having enough extra good units to lift... that's another matter!

Sheesh! The brief capture and recapture of Moscow has sent our nation into an absolute
tizzy! The WW is through the roof, and key cities like Pune have about 8 unhappy faces!
This just won't do at all. We had a good ride in Democracy I would say, but our fighting
days are so far from not over it's not funny. Time to revolt back to Monarchy, taking
advantage of our religious nature. Actually... the loss of the two lux was never
fixed either. MPP has four turns left if we do want peace with Celts (or Iro) soon.
In Democracy we're at 10 lux, 50sci, -69gpt, and MT due in 3. Eep, we're at 341 units!
IBT - They promote our Destroyer to elite. France buys England in vs Iro :lol:

[5] 1878 - We are pleased to once again be a Monarchy. Income is +0 gpt for same
slider settings, MT due in 4. More importantly we can slide lux down to 0, we can
continue the war without worry, and if we go similar deficit could see MT in 3.
IBT - A dozen WLTK celebrations in honor of the new Monarch.

[6] 1880 - So... how do we proceed with Iro? Hang tight til Motors comes in, send
in a Tank army and crush Allegheny? Or slow research a few turns, rush a dozen
marines, and take Mauch Chunk? While the former is objectively better, having made
the decision to go for Amphib Warfare as a tech and build a marine army, there would
be a certain satisfaction to seeing the plan work itself out. That then shall be
our path. IBT - Just one lone cav stikes inf on mtn and dies. Come on, promote me!

[7] 1882 - IBT MT comes in and we go low sci, in prep to rush some marines. We are
now in the Modern Era! :hammer: Computers will take 14 turns once we're ready to
run at full speed towards it.

[8] 1884 - Shifting, several marines due next round. Boy, PtW armies take forever to heal.
Our MPP is due to expire with France. We'll continue it with no moves to renew until
we're ready for peace.

[9] 1886 - Allegheny has a rifle on top?!!!? I look and see, sure enough, they have no
rubber at present :P One more prep turn rushing two more marines, and next turn
we hit Maunch Chunk.

[10] 1888 - Battlefield Med due in 3, that will be nice too. The marines are now loaded
on their ships! One full army plus six more - I hope that's enough with bomber/ship
support?! BTW, we're at 347 of allowed 316 units. I have excess settlers (cough, 19),
and should found a few cities.

[11] 1890 - Joan is doing well on cash, but nothing to spend it on if I'm not selling
(and I'm NOT). She seems to be working on Flight, down to an offer of 900g, while
Mass Prod would fetch 2100g. IBT - Celts and England come to peace. (How are the
Celts holding out vs France anyway? They're down to about 13 cities)

[12] 1892 - An auspicious turn, we hope!? Battlefield Med completes in Pune,
Army completes in the capital, we're back at 1000g, and we're 11 turns from Computers.
France did finally finish Flight - took her long enough in PtW Communism :P

[13] 1894 - It's working, several units outside Allegheny healed one pt.
It's time for the invasion of Maunch Chunk... :hammer:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/FRFR-AmphibInvasion1894AD.jpg

Our bombarding is poor, and sadly, the city stays size 13 although we do knock out
the police station. Army kills a vet inf, and now only regs show. Here comes the corps!
Marine promotes vs reg inf, marine redlines rifle but loses. Marine loses to guerilla
(ruh roh! only 2 left) Beats rifle, beats guerilla, and just barely, the city is
ours. It's kept for defensive bonus and probably to rush an airport/rax soon.
Near Allegheny, Battleship beats battleship, a few frisky cav attack but retreat.
Rax, Harbor, duct/hospital are intact.

Now... here's the question. There is a fortified infantry on the mtn next to us.
Do we try to kill him now and setup a radiotower or airfield there? If we don't,
or if we fail, they'll probably but two dozen on the mtn next turn. But we may lose
several units taking down this dug-in unit. Also next to us is a musket in a fortress.
If we don't take him out, they'll load many units in the fortress. Tough call.
We have 21 units in Mauch, including settler and two workers.
Or... we could pull the tank army into town - it's on a boat and could reach either
reach Allegheny mtn this turn or arrive in Maunch in a few. In a few isn't a huge
help, since if we live that long we can airlift reinforcements.

Just can't let the mountain be held, we attack. It takes 5 cav, ouch. Radio tower
goes there, and musket killed, airfield there. That wipes out the fortress, but we
airlift a few units right on in. About a dozen infantry actually. We've denuded all
other areas to do this, if it fails, it will be quite a setback.

IBT...

[14] 1896 - omg, they kept coming, and coming, and coming... After a mesmerizing round,
they lost *11* cav, smacked down 4 infantry, promoted 3, and had a frustrating
11 slip away with retreats. The attacks were split between city and airfield -
no one attacked the mountain tower. *15* infantry have stepped next to Mauch.
If it looked like we couldn't hold this would be a great time for peace, but
actually, I hope they gas themselves using 6 att vs modified 20ish defense.
Four 1hp cav are within range to hit too.

IBT... Phew! They lost six attacks, won a surprising three, and promoted one,
but there was no large extra stack showing up. The funiest part... they used up
two attacks to 'pillage improvements near Mauch Chunk!?! :rotfl: Thanks!!

[15] 1898 - Resistance in Mauch ends, and now I can rush Civil Defense, etc.
There's still a TON of fighting to do against Iroquois (shudder, don't want to think
about France), but after surviving those first rounds, things are looking up.
This seems like a good time to stop and report in...

The promised map:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/FRFR-1898AD.jpg

And the 1898 save file (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/FRFR-1898AD.zip)

Pressing on... :hammer:
Charis