The concept for this game combines two different ideas, that of a relatively low-pressure "builder's game" and the idea of a "naked" civ with no civ traits or unique units. Let's see how this one turns out! :)

Scandinavian Civ (by popular vote, not that this matters!)
Large Map, 80% water, Pangea, 7 Random AI opponents
Warm, Temperate, Flat climate settings
No Barbarians - it is a builder's game, after all
10 turn rotation, except a suggested 20-30 for the very first one
Exploits listed at RBCiv are out, anything else is game

Since I started the last succession game that I was in (RBP4), T-Hawk won't have computer access for a few days, and JMB has mentioned potential succesion game overload, I'm nominating reagan, one of the newcomers to this series, to play the first turns for us to start. :)

Proposed Roster:
reagan
Sullla
T-Hawk
JMB
JaxomCA

Here's the starting position; it's not on fresh water, but we do have lots of wines to provide extra food if we ever can bring irrigation to the capital. Looks like a somewhat challenging start; who can lead our drunken Naked Vikings to victory?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_start1.jpg

RBE6 start (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_start.zip)

What level is it? I'm finishing up another SG (which is pretty much in hand). Of course, it's only 1 SG at a time for me. :)

@ Cheiftess-Realms beyond emperor games are usually on diety ;)

I'd like a spot in this game, if you'll have me.

Originally posted by Kazin
@ Cheiftess-Realms beyond emperor games are usually on diety ;)

. . . and require proof of a Deity victory to be eligible to play.

Hi, Jaxom. This game is Sullla's baby, so he's setting the roster. FWIW, I'm cool with you joining.

@everyone -- I have the start and will try to get something posted today or tomorrow. Thanks for trusting/testing me with what looks like a very challenging start. I sure hope there is fresh water nearby. It seems to me like non-river/lake starts are rare indeed. Has anyone done any research into the frequency of getting a dry start?

Jaxom, I'm going to add you to the roster's fifth spot since I can't see any reason why anyone would object. As for the question of dry versus freshwater starts, I have no idea how the game generates those. There seems to be a good chance of getting fresh water somewhere near your starting position, but I've gotten enough dry starting positions to know that anything can turn up. This was the first starting position I generated, and I decided that there was no reason not to play. Sure there's no river or lake to be seen immediately, but there could be one nearby for all we know, and if we can irrigate those wines we will have a ton of 3 food tiles. And the RBE5 game didn't have a fresh water start either, but they did pretty well. :)

Originally posted by Kazin
@ Cheiftess-Realms beyond emperor games are usually on diety ;)

Ah, count me out then. ;) (Just didn't think what RBE meant..)

Checking in; I'm here.

There is one advantage to playing as the Vikings: we don't have to play against them :)

But we sure could use a scout here to look for fresh water...

hi, great idea! Do your opponents still have their civ-specifis abilities or are you playing with all civs being "naked"...
btw when i saw this threads title i was wondering why it hasn't been closed yet...you know the "no sex at cfc policy";)

No, the other civs all have their traits and unique units. It is supposed to be a challenge, after all! :)

There's no need to rush reagan, take your time with the first turn. Better a careful job than a hasty one, since we have to work from a pretty sizable hole to start here.

Historians trace the origins of the Viking civilization to one man's vision during a party involving a mixture of wine consumption and drunken debauchery. During the bash, a bearded giant by the name of Ragnar said “If you guysh inshult my mudder one more time, I’ll . . . Hey, whish one of yoush ish my mudder, anyway?! Awwww, shcrew it, I’m taking a nap!” Upon awaking from his slumber, Ragnar found himself somewhat more lucid than the previous night and decided that the vineyards where the Vikings were living would make a fine place for the start of a new, more civilized kingdom. Unfortunately, years of living purely on a diet of wine and grapes had eroded everyone’s memory of basic skills and diminished any hopes of being a scientific people. Because their physical activities were limited to lifting wine glasses, engaging in acts of carnality, and sleeping off drunken benders, they were in no way industrious. With their fighting abilities limited to throwing drunken roundhouse punches at each other, “militaristic” was hardly a label fit for a Viking. With their surroundings providing all they wanted, they had no need to develop an expansionist bent. Finally, their lack of marketable skills and shunning of clothing or other material possessions rendered commercial abilities unnecessary. With their interests limited to the worship of the mighty grape, the concept of being a religious people was foreign to the Vikes. Thus, they had to start from scratch and discover, through trial and error, how to do anything beyond the most basic of tasks. The following is a chronicle of their rise from the most humble of beginnings towards a fate that has yet to unfold. And so begins the great tale of the drunken and naked Vikings . . .

In the early years of their fledgling civilization, the Vikes began to explore their surroundings and study the secrets of storing the food they had learned to grow amongst the grapes. Because they so enjoyed (and were proficient at) the “task” of adding population to their kingdom, the Vikes needed to be able to better store food to fill their empty bellies. The development of granaries would aid that task. The road to that knowledge is slow and costly, but ultimately will prove to be well worth the effort. The Viking explorers made early contact with a neighboring tribe calling itself “India.” Their leader looked a great deal like the creatures the Vikings called “turtles.” Because the Viking envoys were able to keep a straight face while communicating with the one called Gandhi, he was polite towards them. He was quite the braggart and enjoyed reminding the Viking people of his superior knowledge of Bronze Working, Alphabet, and Ceremonial Burial. He was also quite possessive of his knowledge and for a long time would not share it with the Vikings at any price. All that changed when the Vikings discovered Pottery. Then, Gandhi was willing to make two alternative deals. He would take Pottery and 6 gold pieces for lessons regarding the Ceremonial Burial of those poor Vikings whose wine-ravaged livers had finally failed them. The Indians would otherwise offer the secrets of Bronze Working in exchange for Pottery, all of the Vikings’ gold, and around half of their GDP.

Alas, this historian’s eyes grow weary and his hands are cramping from recording his knowledge of Viking history. He will leave it to his scholarly successor (who apparently knows a little bit about Terrapins of a different sort) to continue the relaying of this tale.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6-2800BC.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/vikings2800bc.JPG

It looks like we can seal off the Indians with the two scouts by the landbridges. There is an Indian warrior drifting around on our side of the bridge and an Indian settler somewhere in the yellow ellipse. I saw the settler when our scout was perched on a hill during the previous turn, so I moved our scouts into position. Leaving the scouts on the eastern side of the bridge will seal off the city site to the north on the Indian side, as well. Bonus! By the way, were we supposed to be able to train scouts? If not, I apologize for not sticking to warriors.

We have a great growth opportunity in our immediate area, given all of the wheat squares. Red dot will be a nice city site, but will not be able to take advantage of the whale bonus until it builds a temple. The three green circles within the red borders are a whale, a fish, and a game forest. The purple circle by the river is a wheat that was difficult to see against the terrain background. All of the other bonus squares should be visible on the map.

I stopped at 23 turns because the discovery of a new tech seemed like a good break point. That will allow Sullla to choose our next research path and decide which trade opportunity he likes best. Running higher than minimum research does not speed things up, IMHO, enough to merit foregoing the extra income. My thought process for suggesting Alphabet for our next tech is that it is the most expensive first-rung tech and India is not likely to turn loose of it lightly. It will also allow us to trade for Ceremonial Burial and open up the greatest number of advanced tech choices to us. If we are going to conduct 40-turn research, we might as well get the top one, right? Alternatively, we could give a lot of our $$$ away, acquire Bronze Working, research Iron Working, and think about carving out some Indian territory for ourselves with a sword rush (assuming we have iron, which would be a gamble). Spoken like a true warmonger . . . errr . . . builder, huh? :hammer: If you feel our homeland provides us with enough land for the early part of our game, the first approach is probably best and more in the spirit of our intent for this game.

I snapped the pic prior to swapping the rax to a granary, BTW.

I'll quit rambling now. Have fun with your turn, Sullla! :goodjob:

This is one of the most interesting starts I've seen in some time. We've got some amazing fertile land here, almost all of which our capital managed to miss, heh. Blocking off the Indians was of course the only move that we could do if we want to have a chance at success. It looks like we are alone on this island with India; if that is the case, then sooner or later Gandhi IS going to come after us, probably as soon as he finishes settling his part of the island. This is a large map, don't forget; the amount of land on our side of the choke is NOT going to be enough to win. My suggested course of action is to trade for Bronze Working, min science on Iron Working, and PRAY that we have iron somewhere. Goal would be to attack with swords sometime around 1000-750BC. It's risky, but short wars of aggression are pretty much mandatory when crammed into a small starting spot with another Deity civ. Sorry it's not the builder's game that I thought so far, but we've got to play what we get in any case. :)

I'm going to be moving a lot of stuff today - going back to the "land of the turtles" as reagan alluded to ;) - and so will probably play tomorrow. I would like to see others weigh in here on our course of action and see what the group thinks. I'll push for the military drive, but there may be other ways to get out of this that I'm not seeing. By the way, I also think our second city should go right where the lower one of those scouts is sitting; on a river with two wheat tiles and blocking off both chokes in its cultural borders. With that spot secure, we could fill in our backlands easily.

We weren't supposed to be able to build scouts, but it's my own fault for forgetting to take away our access to them. We didn't start with a scout and won't get anything from goody huts, so I suppose it's not that big of a deal. One other thing I wanted to mention: Excellent introductory story for our Vikings! :goodjob:

Lurker question -

How can you goes get you GA?
Are you dependent of building wonders for it?

AFAIK, the first wonder they build will trigger their GA.

Sulla, I was thinking almost the same thing, but perhaps 1 tile to the sw (this way, I think there will be fewer wasted tiles... It is rather hard to say though as we don't have a full dotmap). we can then block off Indian access to our lands with 2 warriors (who will later be used for our sword rush...)

About the fertile land... I don't think I have ever seen a location with as much food as the one N, N, N, NW of our capital!

JMB

@Lee -- Hello! I have been operating under the assumption that we will not have a GA. If building any wonder triggers it, that will be an unintended benefit. Funny enough, I would consider it a disappointment if we get a GA because that would go against the spirit of our civ-without-a-trait naked Vikings.

@team -- I vote we take the BW -> min. sci. Iron -> sword rush approach. I am relieved that we don't have to stick with a builder "script" and wait to be attacked before entering a war, etc. With that off the table, it looks like we have no real choice but to gamble on having iron. Sullla's right -- if we are alone with India on an island (which appears to be the case, given the lack of any other contacts to this point), Gandhi will come after us sooner rather than later.

As to the choice for a second city, red dot will produce a bunch of uncorrupted shields early. We could build a granary, a rax, and a ton of warriors from it while Trondheim and our cities to follow could produce settlers. We are going to need at least one high-shield city pretty early to start collecting our warriors for upgrading. Just a thought . . . .

The amount of bonus food on this map really was a shock to me, too. It's unreal. If we only had water at Trondheim from the start, it would be almost too good to be true.

First of all, nice writeup Reagan, I enjoyed the read. This is a tight start. I have made 2 dotmaps, one for a defensive stance and one for an offensive stance. On both maps, the black Xs indicate wasted tiles and yellow Xs indicate an overlap tile. The numbers represent the order in which we should settle those cities.

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

In the defensive stance, we avoid putting pressure on Gandhi by not overlapping with his cities.Using this dotmap, I would not build the granary in Trondheim, I would switch to a settler right away since the next city will be making settlers. I would research the Wheel at maximum pace, as there is a much better chance we will have horses rather than iron. I would bring the horses online as soon as possible, even using a worker colony if necessary, and start building Chariots in the second city while we make our way to Horseback Riding.

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

In the offensive stance, we go at Gandhi right away. Again I would build a settler first to insure we get that number one city. I would research Warrior code at maximum pace and do an archer rush on Bombay to get those furs. Then we rush Delhi if we did well and extort tech for peace. Otherwise, we make a stand a Bombay as long as we can.

Either way, I would not make any deals with Gandhi right now. If he meets somebody, so will we. Actually, if there is someone else to meet on this island, chances are we will get the first contact. If there is nobody else to meet, there is no hurry in making a deal now.

I prefer the defensive dotmap, as it makes better use of the coastal tiles. As we have seen in RBE5, a strong coastal development is even more powerful in PTW in building a strong economy.

(0) 2800BC Oh boy, I have a lot of tough decisions to make this round. I've taken the advice from everyone else to heart and come up with my decisions. First of all, I want to point out that it takes us 40 turns to research either The Wheel even at max rate. That says to me that we should stick to the min-science move, and we would be better off selecting an expensive tech to do so. I also note that the only techs we can get from Gandhi from our discovery of Pottery are Ceremonial Burial or Bronze Working. CB is all but useless to us in this situation. Bronze Working will speed us along to Iron Working, but will cost us 27g + 4gpt to get it. If we trade for Bronze Working, we CANNOT produce a settler right away, as we will go bankrupt and be unable to pay G-man. With all this in mind, I decide to trade for Bronze Working at the stated price, start min science research into Iron Working, and continue work on our granary. The goal will be to seal off our territory, fill in our backlands with cities, then hook up iron (?) and attack sometime in the future. There's a lot of if's in there, but it could work out. It's a good thing that we're on a continent with a very low aggression civ, that's for sure! And if we really are isolated, we may even get to Iron Working before the Indians do.

(2) 2710BC India produces a settler and sends him north to found their 4th :eek: city.

(7) 2510BC Granary produced (finally!) in Trondheim. Our first settler is ordered up. In not-so good news, I believe India has six cities at this point, since they started next to a cattle tile. :(

(9) 2430BC Confirmation: we are on an island. Good news is that India will be no larger than us IF we can fill in all of the land we have blocked off.

(12) 2310BC First settler produced! He is sent up to the choke point to grab the spot on the river with three wheat tiles. Another settler is ordered up.

(13) 2270BC India settles aggressively close to the choke, forcing our scouts to retreat. Our dot maps look like they'll have to be redrawn a bit.

Having played 13 turns, I'm passing off to T-Hawk now. reagan played 24 turns and I played 13, so if T-Hawk plays 13 as well we will be back on track as far as the dates go. Our position is worse than bad at the moment; India could sweep us aside in a heatbeat if Gandhi so wished. Our military consists of 3 scouts, 1 worker, and 1 settler. :eek: India has EIGHT cities at the moment. But (and this is the huge but) if we can keep them blocked off, they will be no stronger than us in time. If Gandhi decides to attack us though... well, it was a fun game guys. T-Hawk, the position of the next city is up to you. I recommend putting it on the river close to India where it would be sheltered from attack from both north and east by the river's bends. That would be an aggressive settlement, true, but we need to seal off our part of the choke with a city and not simply scouts. I wish you luck; this starting position has been extremely challenging so far.

RBE6 2270BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_2270BC.zip)

Our VERY challenging situation:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_2270BC.jpg

:eek:

You're not only naked, you have your pants down!!!

Good luck!
Charis

The forty turns at max rate is an illusion. At the early stage, adding a couple of beakers is enough to go from 40 to 20. At min rate, it will take 40 turns for sure. At max rate, it would take between 15 and 25 turns, depending on how fast we settle cities. Anyway, what is done is done. This will be a tough game folks.

Wow. Not as bad as RBE2, but I'm reminded in no small way of it.

I think the first settler needs to make that choke and blockade ASAP. That's a strategic location, and the next one should claim those two cattle for a settler producer.

I can play Tuesday night (goes for RBE4 as welk.)

Let's not forget about the red dot city from our initial map. We are going to need military units soon because it is a question of when, not if, India will come for us. They have approximately three city sites left on their side of the landbridges. Those will likely be filled in a few turns, given the rate they are churning out settlers. They'll likely turn on us soon afterwards. Red dot has two game tiles within its initial 9-tile radius, IIRC. It should be almost completely uncorrupted and able to spit out a warrior every few turns. Just a thought . . . .

On a brighter note, just think of what sort of power we'll be able to project on the rest of the world if/when we boot India from our homeland!

Well, RBP4 took longer than I expected, and I don't want to play this one in anything less than peak form. I can get to it sometime tomorrow (Wednesday).

We can still discuss the placement of the choke city. I notice that at the river bend, as Sulla suggested, does not block much of anything. Units can walk diagonally due-west past the two lake squares. In fact, any position of the choke city more than two tiles away from Karachi will take the city plus three scouts to seal off.

The river bend is still a great site; it just doesn't do the whole job. So do we try and seal off the area with that city plus three scouts, or get a second city up here, or what?

At this point, I would take the bend city and make 2 other cities close to the capitol. Then the bend city produces workers while the 3 other go all military. Gandhi is out of room already so he will force his way past the choke anyway.

Be sure to send one scout to Bangalore. There is a bit of land across the water and if somebody else shows up there, we want the contact at the same time as Gandhi.

<end lurking>
I have very little experience on deity (translation: I have never played above Monarch), but with your situation, I would suggest building up a core close to Trondheim first (which is building on what reagan suggested) and holding the choke with units until you are ready for war or Gandhi comes in, totally against his RL style, and busts Viking ass. Rather ironic, the second situation. Reminds me of the Celebrity Deathmatch episode where Gandhi and Atilla the Hun were brought back from the past to fight, but their temperaments were switched. That was hilarious...

On the inherited turn, an Indian warrior appears out of our fog to the north. We can't go after him just yet, of course...

Regarding scout at Bangalore: The city is occupying the only land square that's within 2 squares of the other island. There's no other square that our scout could sit on to look for contact, so that plan won't work.

Bergen founds in 2030 BC at the river bend, same turn as Trondheim builds the next settler. Where should he go? Original red dot is a good site, but I think the cattle area is a more immediate priority (cattle being the single best tile in the game); the city will also have two bonus grasslands. Red dot should be next, I think.

Copenhagen is founded at the cattle in 1950 BC.

The Mongols complete the Colossus in 1830 BC. India had started it a few turns ago, and had no cascade.

I think our next city should be red dot. I left the worker active on the inherited turn; it's on the square that needs to be irrigated to bring irrigation home. Copenhagen doesn't need it much, but it'll make a WORLD of difference for Trondheim. The road over there looks a little weird; the Indian warrior was getting in the way.

LET COPENHAGEN GROW before you start building workers or settlers out of it. The larger Copenhagen IS, the faster it GROWS. Do not let it drop below size 3 once it gets there; it should always be working the three bonus food tiles. That's the +5 food threshold even without any worker improvements, so don't spend worker labor at this city yet. TRONDHEIM can make the +5 food threshold too once three wines get irrigated. That'll take a lot of worker labor, but pay off well.

There's still the one Indian warrior in our territory. Our scouts are holding the blockade for now, but that'll only last until Gandhi declares war. Also, Karachi and Jaipur won't take long to build temples and put the northerly blockade square into Indian territory.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-1750bc.zip

After we fill both red dots on the map, we need to focus on workers instead of settlers for a bit. Military won't help anything until we get Iron Working and some iron (if we have any, it'll take worker labor to hook up.) If Gandhi wants us now, we're dead no matter what we build. (Copenhagen's warrior on order is for police, which we will need.)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-1750bc.jpg

That picture is looking MUCH better for us, T-Hawk. :goodjob: Three cities versus a Deity civ's nine is still suicidal odds, but it beats one city versus EIGHT! :lol: As you said, we are still screwed if Gandhi comes after us anytime in the near future, but we are making progress. Keep your spirits up, o brave Viking people! If we win this game down the line, just think of how glorious it would be! (If we manage to survive this starting position, I'm going to FRAME that first picture that shows our one city against their huge civ.) Even if (when) the borders of Jaipur and Karachi expand we should be able to bloackade off all incoming units with our three scouts: one on the wheat tile NW of Bergen, a second on the tile directly N of that, and a final scout on the hill two tiles SW of the fish. We'll be fine as long as Bergen doesn't flip. :eek: I wish you good luck JMB - we're going to need it.

reagan
Sullla
T-Hawk
JMB <<< UP NOW
JaxomCA <<< on deck

That picture is looking MUCH better for us, T-Hawk. Three cities versus a Deity civ's nine is still suicidal odds, but it beats one city versus EIGHT!

No joke! Making it out of this spot would really be something to be proud of. If Gandhi lets us hang around for a few more turns, we just may be able to make him wish he hadn't.

The placement of Copenhagen is nice because it allows us to drop another city to the west without having to burn a wheat tile. I also agree with settling the cows before red dot. Even if the game and fish bonuses were reversed, as they appeared to be in the previous pictures, you can't beat two cows and a wheat!

Good luck, JMB! :)

Oh my, oh my!

The current lineup of deity games should carry a warning label to lurkers - not for those with heart conditions.

There is *serious* competition going on for who will be swallowed up whole, spit up, and the first SG loss, between the Naked Vikings, Defiant Nationalists, and the Warmongering Koreans. I would have sworn the latter had the lead, but I think the Vikings and Japanese have them beat as far as the brutality of their headlock.

And yes, that 1-vs-8 shot would be priceless
An odd thought - you have a backup plan. It would still be an amazing comeback, but there's something in your back pocket. If Gandhi goes to war now, if you can hold your capital, a OCC style Diplo win remains possible. NOT where you would choose to go, but keep that in mind.

Good luck!
Charis

I think this one is in the best situation, actually. I agree Korea/Japan looks pretty scary, but this is low-mongering India we're talking about here. I see the biggest threat to this game as being a flip of Bergen. There's still a LOT of game to be played here...and they're not nearly as hand-cuffed as the nationalists or as behind as the Koreans.

Not that either the Japanese nor the Korean situation is necessarily fatal, either, as far as that goes. We do, indeed, live in interesting times.

But who said dying in interesting times was fun?

Arathorn

0 - Worker begins irrigating.

1 - Not much.

2 - Not much. We produce a settler out of Trondheim. Begin producing a worker. Bergen completes a worker, begins a warrior.

3 - Copenhagen completes warrior begins another.

4 - Not much.

5 - Found Reykjavik (along the coast to the NE of Trondheim) and begin a warrior. Trondheim completes worker, begins barracks (can be changed to a settler or temple if desired (and if we have the tech...)).

6 - The Indians begin the Pyramids.

7 - Not much.

8 - Not much.

9 - Reykjavik begins barracks (can be vetoed). The Carthaginians complete the Pyramids.

10 - Trondheim will grow in four turns and can produce a settler in the same time. We should probably do so to ensure we settle all our lands... Copenhagen should also be able to produce a settler within the next 5-6 turns. The two workers are bringing water down to Trondheim, but should we have iron (and plan to go to war), they should beeline for our nearest source of iron.

Karachi just expanded its borders last turn. Currently, we are producing another warrior in Bergen, but a temple might also be desireable (although we don't have the tech and it'll cost us 60 shields to produce...). Due to the border expansion, the scout to the NW of Bergen should head E to help block access to our lands.

I held off on purchasing any techs as we don't really want to purchase them at 1st. IW due in 4 turns and Gandhi doesn't yet have it, so there could be some brokering opportunities. But, I think we should try some "pointy stick" research (that is, if we have iron...) as that would be in keeping with our heritage. With "pointy sticks," we could also reduce the cultural pressure around Bergen (Gandhi does appear to have several spearmen in the area though...) and hopefully gain a few techs.

Here's the save, http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1500BC.zip

JMB

PS - if anyone notices any :smoke: please let me know...

BTW, I forgot to include this in my last post...

reagan <<< on deck
Sullla
T-Hawk
JMB
JaxomCA <<< UP NOW

JMB

Trade Iron Working to Gandhi when we get it. Why? He'll eventually demand it, and we won't yet be in a position to refuse. We're not Naked Defiant Nationalists. :) Go, however, for as much cash as we can get in the trade, since we'll be selling at monopoly price; cash doesn't devalue when we meet more civs but tech will.

Got it

Preturn: Noting changed.


1475 BC ...
1450 BC ...
1425 BC Bergen completes a warrior, begins a worker.

1400 BC IW is discovered, traded to India for 132 golds (all he had) and ceremonial burial. Research begins on Mysticism at minimum pace for lack of a better tech to research. We have 1 iron and so does India.

1375 BC ...

1350 BC Copenhagen builds a settler and starts another one, the settler is sent to claim the iron. 20 shields is pop-rushed into Reykjavik barracks, which is then switched to a temple. Trondheim completes a barracks and starts cranking out vet warriors.

1325 BC ...

1300 BC England completes the Oracle.

1275 BC ...
1250 BC Irrigation reaches Trondheim.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6_nextcity.jpg

I believe the next city should go on the hill where the scout is. Another city is needed between the 3 wheat NW of Copenhagen. After that, Copenhagen should be setup to become a worker factory and we should get ready to do a swordsman rush on India. Bergen should build its barracks as this is where we should be sending our warriors to be upgraded. Trondheim now needs to be MM between 4-2-4 foods.

Here is the save at the end of 1250 BC. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1250BC.zip)

reagan <<< UP NOW
Sullla <<< on deck
T-Hawk
JMB
JaxomCA

We have iron!!! Woohoo! [dance] [party]

Every turn that passes makes this game look that much better. Irrigation brought to Trondheim is great news. Getting 132g (aka 3 sword upgrades) and Ceremonial Burial for Iron Working sounds good to me, seeing as how I don't think we could have gotten much more at 2nd civ prices. We definitely want to engage in some "pointy stick" research! :satan: Only thing I don't quite understand was the whipping at Reykjavik - was there an overriding need for the temple there? Bergen seems like it's the town that needs culture. Irregardless, we are in a vastly improved position compared to that in 2500BC. In another 20 or so turns, we might even be up to the status of cardboard cutouts! :lol:

Good luck reagan.

Expanded borders in Reykjavik will bring in a second forest game and a whale, I thought it was well worth the pop point who would have costed luxury to keep productive. The cultural battle in Bergen is already lost and it should be the home of our attack force, so a culture flip is unlikely if the other leaders do move our vet warriors to Bergen. We now have enough cash to upgrade 9 swordsman and another one every 4 turns. If we move fast, we should be able to strike a crippling blow to India in the next 20 turns. I wouldn't build any spearman at this point, the more warriors we built until the iron is hooked up, the larger share of India will be ours.

Got it. I'll play/post tomorrow.

Crippling blow? Not quite. This is still a Deity AI we're facing; Gandhi can build 2.5 spears for every sword we build. Swords can't get that kind of mathematical advantage in combat. We'll also have to withstand quite a stack of archers that's going to move in towards Bergen the moment the war starts. This will not be a quick war, nor will it be easy. I'll be thrilled if we manage to push as far as Bombay. (Delhi will be out of the question; Deity AIs always fortify their capital with 6-8 or more defensive units.)

And every dollar that India and us throw at each other is one less dollar spent in maintaining pace with the rest of the world, which could be well into the Middle Ages by the time one of us gets Map Making. If we get any Great Leaders, save him for the Great Library and pray we can get the tech in time.

I'd actually be quite content to continue building for a while. Keep the warriors ready in Bergen of course, but we might not want to press ahead with them for a while. When the AIs get Construction, Currency, and Monotheism is a good time to attack them, while their cities are assigned to build expensive buildings.

Oh, and the whip in Reykjavik was a good move. Also, get the game forests by the city cleared eventually for the extra food from irrigated grassland (this may wait until the city builds an aqueduct.)

Before I play tomorrow, I'd appreciate any input y'all would like to give regarding whether it's worth upgrading our regular warriors to swords or waiting until we've cranked out more vet warriors before hooking up our iron. I've always followed the school of thought that vets are a very important part of the human's arsenal against the AI production advantage. Is our situation dire enough that we can't afford to wait until we have a more veteran fighting force?

Vet warriors. Absolutely. We have no need to go anywhere with war until we're straining at the limit of our free unit count and have the cash to upgrade them all.

Having the swords as veterans does make quite a difference when attacking fortified spears (which even on Deity usually tend to be regulars.)

What we absolutely can't afford to do is start the war too early; if we don't have enough swords to fend off the dozen or so archers that India will have, we'll be in dire straits trying to scrape together enough cash to pay for peace...

Just a thought: if we have any means to get to Mathematics (albeit unlikely) we should definitely build some catapults. Here on Deity we will definitely have to absorb some incoming unit stacks and bombardment units can make all the difference in the world when it comes to defending against them. Of course it's unlikely we can reach that tech before our first war, but definitely stack up on some cats as soon as we can - we can ALWAYS find a use for them in war, and they'll upgrade all the way to artillery.

Ragnar the Despot, founder of the Viking civilization and shunner of clothing, surveyed his people’s situation. Ahhhhh, the procreators were doing well bt planting new Viking seed across the homeland. Except for someone who was building a road before clearing a forest, the workers were performing their duties efficiently. A scout who should have been scouting for water-borne signs of other civilizations needed a kick in the pants and an order to move to the coast, but the others were doing a fine job as INS (Indian Non-immigration Service) agents. Ragnar was distressed, however, to hear that his warriors were calling for an upgrade in their equipment. Those warriors wanted to be handed swords forged from the new-found source of iron on the northern part of the homeland. Ragnar refused because the warriors had been training with “air” weapons (Nerf materials having not yet been invented) and were only getting “regular” combat experience. No, those warriors were only fit for military police duty, which was pretty cushy because the people were so happy from their wine and baby-making duties that they didn’t have much reason to dissent. Instead, Ragnar decreed that only veteran combat troops would be handed swords at the appropriate time. In order to open the road to Mathematics and increase the number of techs (including Math) the Indians would be able to teach the Vikings in order to avoid further beatings once the swords started swinging, Ragnar ordered his scribes to shift their newly-begun work on Mysticism to the pursuit of Alphabet. With his survey completed, Ragnar ordered his people to keep up their good work.

With the founding of Oslo, the homeland was beginning to feel more like “home” and less like “land.” Ragnar knew that claiming territory would be meaningless without sufficient troops to protect it, so he ordered the bulk of the Viking cities to continue with military improvements.

Ragnar’s enemy (they just didn’t know it yet) to the east, the Indians, made contact with a tribe led by a cannibalistic fellow named Hannibal. Hannibal knows of maps, which apparently are a very precious commodity because he wants nearly a third of the Vikings’ treasury for one. Ragnar realizes that swords aren't cheap and knowledge of other lands is not worth much when he can’t even control his own, so he passes.

Stockholm’s settlement leaves the Vikings with only a small amount of unclaimed land. Ragnar thus orders the training of additional workers so that Viking cities can become much more productive.

Ragnar can see the Indian people are beginning to build roads to Viking territory. While that may seem innocent enough, combining it with the troops that occasionally gather along the border aroused Ragnar’s suspicions. He does not fear the battle that is soon to come, but he hopes it will be delayed long enough for his veteran troops to become proficient with swords so the Indians can be relieved of their lives more quickly.

The Stockholm scout was headed to the northwest mountain. Reykjavik’s rax will complete one turn ahead of schedule when the forest is chopped. It can be MM from game to fish for increased commerce during that one turn. With the use of the forest and the mining of its hill, Trondheim should be able to spit out a warrior every turn (assuming no corruption loss). Carthage knows Mysticism (I didn’t expect us to learn it first, which is part of why I made the Alphabet switch) and the Indians don’t. I see little value in buying @ 1st to trade with India, but wanted to point out the opportunity. India started work on the Lighthouse, which they will hopefully complete in time for us to relieve them of it.

Here’s the .zip and a map of our lands:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1000BC.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/india1000bc.JPG

490g and making 15/turn? That's pretty good for this stage; it should be enough to upgrade about 15-20 swords by the time we're ready to go. I hope that that will be around the end of my turn, 750BCish, but if we aren't ready there will be no need to attack. India won't get any better defenders until pikes, and they're quite a ways away from those. "Got it" and will look to play sometime tomorrow.

Looked like a quiet set of turns preparing for war, then I got more than I bargained for! Take a look.

(0) 1000BC Our situation is far improved from the first time I handed off, but there is a lot of work still to be done before we are in any shape to fight a war. It will be closer to 20 turns than 10 before we are ready to fight, but I'll see what I can do about that. On the other hand, we are actually #7 in land area according to F11, not even in last place! What crazy weed is someone else out there smoking, to be behind us Naked Vikings? I don't know, but I hope they keep it up!

Hmm, Trondheim is sitting at the very uncool 6 shields/turn level. We can get it to 8 by choosing a forest tile, but naturally in this situation it makes more sense to work the coast and get commerce instead. If we mine the hill in its range, it should reach the magic 10 shields/turn level. That will be a major priority for this turn! I agree with our builds in all other cities, looking good with a mixture of barracks, settlers, and workers. At the current rate it will take ~10 turns to run a road up to the iron, which is exactly what we want (nice!) I apologize for questioning the whipped temple in Reykjavik; upon actually opening up the game, I can see that was easily the right move. Plus the added culture it provides (it fully Doubled our out put from 2/turn to 4/turn!) will cut the risk of flip via national culture vis-a-vis India almost in half. If Oslo and Bergen do not flip (big if), we will be in very good shape here in about 15-20 turns. Let's pray for that. Without changing anything, I got to the next turn.

(1) 975BC The forest tile outside Reykjavik is cut down, speeding the completion of barracks by two turns, and a bonus grassland is revealed underneath! :D Mine and road for it ordered up. Warrior moved into Bergen to cut down on the flip risk, as there is a worker blocking the way in for India. G-Man is likely way ahead of us in tech (how far is impossible to tell since we are so far behind) but he still lacks Mysticism, at the least. Haninbal on the other hand has all techs that we can see on the tree.

(2) 950BC Vet warrior from Trondheim. Reykjavik produces barracks, sitting at 4 shields/turn it goes to SPEAR prodcution, of which we certainly will need a few. Worker pops from Oslo; I tentatively set it to temple, expecting/hoping that someone will veto it for something else.

(3) 925BC Yawn, not much going on.

(4) 900BC I begin mining Trondheim's hill, will take the rest of my turn to complete. Another vet warrior produced. Carthaginian galley appears in the south, probably has a settler in it. We should easily beat them to the last open land on our penninsula with the settler now in production at Conpenhagen (due in 3 turns).

(5) 875BC The Carthaginians finish the Lighthouse; they may be making contact with the rest of the world soon (that would be bad). Let's hope that all three of us stay isolated for a while yet. Reykjavik has now hit size 3 and can get a very nice 5 shields/turn, good for either spears or warriors. We need spears badly, so it stays on them for now.

(7) 825BC Copenhagen finishes settler, the last one we need for our little penninsula. I consider a worker factory, but we can use the more corrupt, food-high low-shield Stockholm for that, so I start Copenhagen on a barracks. Subject to veto in the future, of course. Bergen completes a barracks, and since it is getting 3 shields/turn, it starts work on a spear.

(8) 800BC As regular as clockwork, another vet warrior from Trondheim every two turns.

(9) 775BC Holy ****! The Indians jumped the gun on us! :eek:

]http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_attack.jpg

Good combat results for us though. The Indian warrior in our territory forever attacks the warrior we have in Oslo (fortified in a city on a hill) and dies. A scout is then killed by an Indian archer (no loss there) and an Indian horse attacks Bergen, across a river. Our defending warrior wins the battle, with only one lost hit point! Our only casulty thus far is the one scout. Now we need to hook up that iron, and I mean right away! I can get one worker to the iron tile this turn, a second there on the next turn. It should take them 4 turns then to hook it up, so iron should come online in 675BC. But we have to hold until then and keep as many of our vet warriors alive as possible. Spear whipped in Bergen, which I expect to see most attacks. Copenhagen switched to a regular spear - we can't wait for barracks. An archer/spear pair is the only unit in range to attack us, plus whatever horses come out of the fog. Hoo boy, this is getting interesting!

(10) 750BC Pretty good results for us between turns. Another archer dies attacking Bergen, which now has at least a tiny amount of safety with a vet spear in it. We lost a warrior to an archer in open territory (warrior was one of three covering an otherwise exposed worker) but a second horse died to a regular warrior fortified in Oslo. So far, we have almost no losses, which is very good. Bad news is that our tenuous road up to Oslo and iron is likely going to be pillaged next turn, and it will take serious time to run a new one up there in safer ground. Ouch! If we could just get our iron hooked up now... but that's a pipe dream. Getting a road to our iron is paramount; everything else pales before that. Since this is such a critical phase of the game, I'm going to pass off to T-Hawk with a number of units still retaining movement; he will need to coordinate our actions to be effective. Good luck - if we can get to our iron, we will be fine, but at the moment that is seriously in doubt.

RBE6 750BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_750BC.zip)

Here's the map and some more detailed comments for the next player (T-Hawk):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_750BC.jpg

Trondheim has now hit the magic 10 shields/turn level and can produce warriors, archers, or spears as needed. Reykjavik will pop out a vet spear next turn and can then be assigned as needed. After Copenhagen produces a (regular) spear, I would suggest whipping out some other unit as needed, since it has so much food. Birka was founded this turn, and if we're lucky will draw some attacks out into open country where we can kill them. Up at the front, I would probably whip something in Oslo when it grows in two turns as well. Bergen just whipped a vet spear, and it could probably be whipped for another next turn (we can deal with unhappiness later, once we're out of this mess).

Our only road to Oslo runs up on our border with India at the moment, and I expect the Indian spear on it to pillage it next turn if we don't kill it. I don't think we can save that road, so I suggest taking the workers who just finished at Trondheim and the worker that just finished at Reykjavik and running a new road up there to the west. A new road that covered the two tiles immediately south of Oslo would be much, MUCH safer for us. And with three workers on the job, we could road those two tiles at about the same time the iron gets connected outside Oslo. Iron will connect in 675BC, the issue is getting it to our other cities. With Bergen pretty secure, I expect Oslo to become the main target next. Maybe we should trade for Masonry with Hannibal, so we can whip walls as needed? Your call on that one.

You've got a tough, tough situation here T-Hawk, but I'm confident that you can pull this one out with careful management. Good luck, and may your Naked Vikings teach those cultured, clothing-wearing Indians a lesson! :)

I see it. Can play Wednesday, which should be within the allowed time?

Definitely don't want to take a skip here :) :hammer:

To the Bitter End! :hammer:

We survived in RBE2. Somehow. Good luck. :D


- Sirian

Maybe if we get enough hammers going, Gandhi will beg for mercy just to make it stop!!!

:hammer:

:hammer:

Go get 'em! Your situation has gone from abysmal to luxurious. (Ok, not even close to luxurious, but playable). Unbelievable - that was actually a brilliant stroke by the AI ??! If they let you hook up your iron unmolested they would have been wiped right off the continent. Now the game's afoot!

Charis

It's....Hammertime baby !
:hammer:
:hammer:

:hammer:
Go get 'em!
:hammer:

T-Hawk: You can wait until NEXT Wednesday if you think that will help. :lol: By all means, take your time here.

And our situation is bad here, but it's not impossibly bad. We have a small military, which is far better than the complete LACK of military that we had 30 turns ago. If we can get the iron hooked up, we go from a dozen or so warriors to a dozen swords in no time. It's not quite as bad as RBE2 status - yet.

This is a cause I’ll volunteer for!
:hammer:
Let's put together a good old Norwegian “leidang” to support the Naked Vikings!
:hammer:

Great Reading - Good Luck!

A hammerin' we will go, a hammerin' we will go...
:hammer:
:hammer:
:hammer:

While pondering his response to the unwarranted attack by the Indians, Ragnar decided to hold a press conference to clarify the Vikings' position on certain issues. The highlights of the press conference are as follows:

Ragnar: Thank you for gathering for this press conference. We will have to keep this brief because I have a great deal of war planning to do. Let's start off with a question from Grog.

Grog: Supreme Ruler Ragnar, I'm Grog of the Scandanavian Shopper. Our subscribers would like to know how you intend to protect our people from the invading Indian hordes.

Ragnar: We plan to hold our ground as best we can until we learn to train mighty Berser . . . er . . . er (whereupon Ragnar's military advisor gave Ragnar a whispered reminder that the Vikings have no unique abilities). Ummm . . . our war plans are a matter of national security and cannot be disclosed. Next question?

Ug: I'm Ug of the Trondheim Times. Ragnar, do you have any special means by which to rally the Viking troops during these trying times?

Ragnar: My soothsayers have told me of visions in which they have seen a certain sports team in the distant future relying on a thing called a "Rally Monkey" to provide them with inspiration. That is such a fine idea that I have decided to implement a ritual called "Hammer Time." Before each battle, our warriors and supporters will bang hammers in unison :hammer: and scream "can't touch this" at the top of their lungs in order to strike fear in the hearts of Indian warriors everywhere.

Ug: I have a follow-up question. More of a request, really. I understand that you shun clothes, mighty one, but would you mind at least remaining behind the podium for the rest of the press conference?

Ragnar: Why, you . . . :saiyan:

Ragnar could not contain his anger. He lept at the unfortunate Ug, grabbed the stone tablet on which Ug had been hopelessly trying to take notes (Alphabet having not yet been discovered), and thumped Ug in the head with it. The press conference was thus concluded. His urge to fight not even remotely quenched, Ragnar returned to his war planning shortly thereafter.

I am lurking here from the Defiant Nationalists game. It looks like the sh*t is hitting the fan in this game. We wouldn't want you guys to be left out of the "dire, hopeless, lost ..." fun that we've been having over in our game.

The AI is showing some spunk here, not wating to get rolled by a swordsman rush. You've got to give Firaxis or whoever credit for coming up with an opponent that doesn't just wait around to be killed.

Reagan's press conference was a real jewel
:lol: :lol: :lol:

More Norwegian Support:
La Vikingene gå fram og herske! Vi vil erobre i Odins navn, og Tor vil våke over oss!
Vi påkaller velsignelse fra Odin, Tor, Tyr, Loke, Heimdal, Frøy, Frøya, Balder, Skade, Njord, og alle Valkyrjene! Måtte Nornene klippe våre fiendes livstråder korte!!

Translation: More or less untranslatable or no point in translating.

The spirits of the Vikings are with you :)

La Vikingene gå fram og herske! Vi vil erobre i Odins navn, og Tor vil våke over oss!
Vi påkaller velsignelse fra Odin, Tor, Tyr, Loke, Heimdal, Frøy, Frøya, Balder, Skade, Njord, og alle Valkyrjene! Måtte Nornene klippe våre fiendes livstråder korte!!

I have no idea what this means, but I can spot the names of all of the major gods of the Norse pantheon in there, so I assume it's got to be something pretty good! :)

Not entirely sure whether we want to invoke the name of Loke though, that might be a bad idea here. :satan: Thanks for your support everyone who has posted - we will do our best to keep the Vikings alive and kicking!

Got it, will play shortly. Took me a while to find it back amongst the chattering and the press conferences... :)

(Sorry to those who got the "subscribed thread updated" email and were hoping for a turn report... have patience, I'll finish by, oh, about 4 AM Eastern :D )

Grab some popcorn and settle in for this novel-length report...

Well, Sulla did indeed leave me a tough one. There's an Indian swordsman-archer-warrior stack (one of each) two squares outside Bergen that he didn't mention. Also three other spearmen in the area.

We can trade wines to Carthage. How can this be? We haven't Map Making, much less any harbors. Is the game somehow using an Indian harbor for the trade route?

I'm a bit confused about the location of Birka? I'd think it should've been near enough to claim the fish. It's only redeemming one unused inland tile, and that's just a plain grassland.

Anyway, to business. We need that iron YESTERDAY. And that single road to Oslo has no chance of not getting pillaged. I interrupt the nearer worker building a road to Stockholm (why in the world are they doing that? They only started this turn, too) to get a road going there through Birka, which is safer than doing it by the lake squares.

Also, I don't want to risk our reputation trading Wines on a nonexistent trade route. But we need some way to damage Indian units until we get this iron. 106 gold to Carthage for Warrior Code, and Reykjavik and Bergen swapped to archers. Oslo is changed to a worker. We need all the labor we can get over there.

Inbetween turns, our defending warriors win against an Indian sword and archer, but lose to a chariot and a warrior. Heh.

But, more Indian units swarm into view. There are now four warriors and five spearmen next to Bergen. And there are three swordsmen two squares away.

=====

730 BC: Bergen whips a spear. But this looks grim. I can see one chance.

I ABANDON OSLO by building a worker, and use that worker to put a COLONY on the Iron. That saves us twelve worker turns of labor, which will make the difference. Oslo would be doomed to the incoming units anyway.

=====

710 BC: Our archer attacks the Indian spear that is next to Birka and could foil the whole plain. Our archer loses, by one HP! But I had brought extra warriors to the area (although they just barely made it in time) and the first one kills the spear.

Bergen is defended by three spears and seven warriors, and the Indians will be attacking across a river. Next to Bergen are now:

3 swordsmen
2 archers
1 horseman
7 spearmen
4 warriors

I didn't buy Masonry and whip walls; probably should have, although then the city would have only two spears instead of three.

Inbetween turns, the grand battle sees:

Our spear beats an Indian archer.
Another spear beats another archer.
Indian sword beats a spear.
Another Indian sword beats a spear.
Our last spear beats a warrior and promotes.
Three of our warriors hold off three of theirs.
India's third sword attacks; our warrior goes down to 1 HP but wins the last three rounds!
Then India attacks with a SPEARMAN, which our warrior beats.

Other Indian units go pillaging, but none more attack Bergen!

=====

690 BC:

Our iron road will complete at the end of this turn (three squares, each with two workers, all completing at the end of this turn, and the colony is on the iron itself.) Unfortunately, there's an Indian spear next to one of the worker stacks. Fortunately, Bergen's defenders can reach it, and the second warrior kills it.

India now has next to Bergen:
Swordsman (2/3)
Swordsman (3/4)
5 spearmen
2 warriors

Bergen receives reinforcements, and is now defended by one spearman (just arrived, not fortified) and NINE warriors.

But another Indian stack has appeared two squares away from Bergen, containing two swordsmen and two horses.

Since Bergen is safe for this turn, I now buy Masonry and whip walls. We pay 8 gpt to Carthage for it. We need our current cash to upgrade warriors. BTW, now we can't trade resources with Carthage; the road has been broken now. The game does calculate trade routes through Indian harbors even though we're at war. Was this a change from 1.29? :confused:

Between turns, our spear in Bergen holds off both damaged Indian swords and one warrior, promoting all the way to elite.

And we have the iron road connected, and I'm ready to do a pre-turn scroll-and-upgrade in Bergen. But NOOOOO! An Indian horse comes out of nowhere and scuttles the iron colony!!

=====

670 BC:

We have ONE chance. One warrior is in range of the horse standing on the iron. If he wins, I can move a worker onto the iron square to reestablish the colony and upgrade swords. He attacks... and wins with ONE HP!

The iron colony is reestablished. It will get overrun again at the end of this turn, but now we have ten swordsmen. (Unfortunately, six of our warriors can't reach a barracks this turn.) I can also change build orders to swordsmen, and double-whip a sword in Copenhagen this turn.

Bergen is now safe, with eight swordsmen in the city. But the Indian action has poured past where Oslo was, and now Birka looks rather doomed.

=====

650 BC: Birka has three swords and two warriors outside it, and I can't defend it with any more than two warriors and a (regular) sword. Birka is abandoned, and the troops pulled back into Copenhagen. I should have whipped walls in this city instead of a sword...

Sword (we don't have iron, but the build order was set while we did) whipped in Reykjavik.

Our swords bump off three Indian spears and one sword. I move our spare swords (all three that I can call "spare") to Mount Copenhagen.

=====

630 BC: India will talk, and would agree to peace straight-up. I try some combat; we lose three swords, but thanks to Mount Copenhagen, India loses five spears and three swords. Could the onslaught be petering out?

=====

610 BC: India loses three spears and an archer, but we lose two (still irreplaceable) swords.

But this turn everybody shows up on the F4 screen! Shaka, Elizabeth, and Osman bought contact with us. Communication with the Mongols is available to buy. The Celts (seen via F10) are still incommunicado. Everybody has Mysticism, Alphabet, and The Wheel, and we need those to see any farther.

Well, the Zulu are broke and didn't get the world map; we trade it plus 15 gold to get the Mongolian contact.

Mongolia lacks the Alphabet. We acquire that from England for 100 gold and trade it plus some change to Mongolia for The Wheel. We have no horses, though there's one under Jaipur, nearby. Everyone is on par with the now-visible techs except Mongolia lacks Writing and Mathematics.

=====

590 BC: A bit more combat. Carthage finishes the Great Wall.

=====

570 BC: Inbetween turns, India's only unit outside Bergen, a sword, kills our elite spear in Bergen, which was our only spear there.

=====

550 BC: Outside Bergen are four swords and a spear. Inside Bergen are two healthy swords and some damaged. Not a good situation. We're down to only six swords remaining, and it's clear we can't make a push to reclaim the iron in this war.

I don't really want to do it, but we have no choice. Peace with India is struck. Surprisingly, he'll give us the city of Chittagong, which isn't on our map currently. I'll take it - hey, RBE2 got Mpondo the same way and we won then :) We also get Mysticism.

Chittagong turns out to be farther to the southwest, on an island with a wheat and a fish. Odd.

We can now safely trade Wines to Carthage, getting Writing, which we trade to Mongolia for Horseback Riding. No further deals can be made. I sold our world map to everybody for 1 gold.

=====

Copenhagen can produce a settler in two turns (the map says three but it'll pick up a shield from growth.) This must of course beeline for that iron. No Indian settlers have gone past Bergen yet, so we should get there first.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-550bc.zip

And now I'm exhausted. Where's my pajamas?.... <T-hawk gets eviscerated by Ragnar the Nudist>

I ABANDON OSLO by building a worker, and use that worker to put a COLONY on the Iron. That saves us twelve worker turns of labor, which will make the difference. Oslo would be doomed to the incoming units anyway.

OUCH! That hurts :cry:

For the cunning plans of Loke and the love of Frøya - I think it is only the Hammer of Tor :hammer: that can revenge this atrocity!

BTW: In accordance to Norwegian history (even though the timeline will be a bit off track) a new city at approx. the same spot as Oslo should be named 'Christiania'...


An addicted reader is awaiting the next turns...

What a great way to start my morning :P (hugs his coffee)
In fact my secretary just walked in and said "We have cookies!"

:D

The competition for hairiest game continues, what a battle!! It does look good as far as turning the corner for you guys though.

:goodjob:
Charis

Wow, what a turn! :goodjob: Getting paid for peace was a pleasant surprise to what could have been a devastating series of events! Our situation is precarious, but India might have made a grave mistake by giving us a breather. I doubt we could have made it without all the hammers. Thanks for the support, y'all! :hammer:

By the way, I agree about the placement of Birka. Shouldn't it have been on the hill or on the coast? When we replace it, we should put it in one of those two spots.

Originally posted by T-hawk
And now I'm exhausted. Where's my pajamas?....

"Oh boy, sleep! That's where I'm a Viking!" - Ralph Wiggum on The Simpsons

I've been waiting to use that one at some point during this game. Credit T-hawk with an assist! :lol:

First, I must bow down to the efforts of T-Hawk, who singlehandedly has saved the Vikings from a sure demise at the hands of the perfidious Indians! :worshp: And not only that, we got a non-corrupt island colony from India in the peace treaty! :hammer:

The good news is that we are still alive. So long as we are alive, there is still hope. The bad news is that Liz, Shaka, and Hannibal are all sporting their Middle Age duds in the negotiating screen (ouch!) So we seem to be, um, a little bit behind. All that gold that was supposed to get us pointy stick techs was used just to keep us alive. Gandhi waged a pretty nice pre-emptive war against us, I must say. The very good news is that Mongolia is just as backwards as we are, and we should be able to pull 2 for 1 deals with Temujin that will help us climb back up the tech tree. We've got some rebuilding to do at this point, and we'd better be ready to deal with India again in the future (we know that it's only a matter of time before they come back again...) This game is indeed looking like the sequel to RBE2 - it's not much of a "Builder's Game", that's for sure! Good luck JMB. :)

Map:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_550BC.jpg

PS: Regarding Birka, at the time it was founded, there were a number of Indian and Carthaginian galleys sailing around our territory. The largest danger at the time was that one of them would land a settler on our continent and found a city there. Birka was put there just to fill in the cultural gap, so that our land would be secure and we could put more cities on the coast later. Things got real dire in a hurry right after I put it there; I wasn't expecting that attack, after all!

Congratulations on an awesome turn T-Hawk!! :band:

When people are exhausted after playing 5-10 turns of the game, you know you're in a good one.

Heh, the forum server went down RIGHT after I posted that; I didn't even think the post had gone through. I didn't get to add the rest of my comments and the map, which are now here.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-550bc.jpg

I'm not sure of the best site exactly to claim the iron, but don't put it on Oslo's old site; Jaipur's culture is too strong. I'd guess blue dot (one SE of the iron) for one city; or for two cities the two purple dots, N of the iron to claim it and W of the southern lake if you think a settler from Trondheim can get there in time (feel free to blockade India.)

I'm not sure what to build in Bergen or Stockholm; feel free to change those.

56 gold with -8 per turn looks pretty bad, but that's because we need 50% luxuries right now to ensure Copenhagen gets out its settler in two turns.

I should have gotten Mathematics instead of Writing. It'll take artillery - catapults - to win the war of attrition against India. Right now, all we can do is consolidate and build more swords for the next 20 turns, then I think we've got to hit him again for more pointy-stick research. I don't know how we can pull off getting Mathematics now, but that's up to the next leader.

I would vote for two cities on the purple dots; we need all the resources we can get here, so better to build a little denser and get all of our tiles into play faster. The wounded sword in the north can move along the road and block any Indian settlers who try to poach our land; once the Indian swords move out of our territory, we can block it off completely again.

Agree on hitting India again in the near future, ideally we get them before they get pikes, but that probably won't happen. Very simple goal for next war is to raze Karachi and Jaipur, eliminating pressure on Bergen and gaining us control over the choke. After that, we will need to do lots o' building up. Get cats as soon as you can! A stack of 10 cats will make our position infinitely safer. Playing the diplomacy game from this far behind should be fun as well; thank goodness the Mongols are back with us. And no more upgrading warriors to swords, we should just build them at 30 shields each. We will need the cash to buy techs.

Ok, got it. Will try to post tonight; if not, then tomorrow night.

JMB

Don't let the memory of Oslo die!!!

Refound there, forget research, you have all you need to know... the pointy stick!!! Jaipur should be razed long before you would see a flip. Swords will crush India -- you want to hit them and push them back all the way until you have their horses. If passive Gandhi has already sneak attacked you once, he'll do it again. Don't let him do it, YOU pick the time of the next battle.
Swords, swords and more swords, let him play the builder game and buy techs. Beat him within an inch of his life, extract all his tech and all cities but his capital, then wipe him off the planet 20 turns later.

If you own that island pair, with an FP in India territory, you've won. You know the AI can't mount a credible naval invasion.

Hmmm.... reading the above... have I become... a *warmonger* ??

:hammer:

Charis

Originally posted by Charis
Hmmm.... reading the above... have I become... a *warmonger* ??

Charis


:rotfl:

Is the sky blue?
This from the man who tries a occ conquest challenge in GOTM#15? :crazyeye:

The sky is not blue, at least it does not appear to be blue all the time here or in many places (think gray in bad weather or black at night) but becase it refracts the other colors of sunlight and scatters blue light it appears to be blue to our eyes when it really is like a prism, transparent. When it is transparent, it is colorless. When cloudy, white or shades of gray. Fog, hard to describe the color, gray? while raining perhaps silver gray?

So the sky is not blue, at least not all the time.

If you think we've got the time and settlers, we could even try three cities. Use south purple dot for one, the tile closest to the fish (SE of it) for another, and the northernmost tile in the area (three N of south purple) for the third. Stockholm might be able to put out a third settler quick enough..?

0 - Decide to change Stockholm to a settler (I'll probably whip in 9 turns...) Other than that, everything looks good.

1 - Have to increase the lux tax to 70% (-10 gpt) to keep Copenhagen happy. Both it and Trondheim will complete their settlers next turn. India really doesn't want to leave our territory...

(I) - Somehow (probably a settler on a galley), India got a settler in our territory and they have settled Punjab just to the north of our Iron deposit!! :eek: (where the northern purple dot was). I think we could be in deep trouble...

2- We are now down to 30% lux. Copenhagen changed to barracks. Change Bergen to a temple (it is one of the main reasons we have to run 30%; even at 30% we still have to hire a taxmam...).

3 - Not much.

4 - I use one of our swordsmen to check out Punjab. Fortunately, it is only defended by a single warrior.

5 - Grrr... Jaipur's borders expand yet again, and we have to vacate our choke preventing other Indian units from fortifying Punjab. :mad:

6 - Not much.

7 - Not much. I decide not to whip the settler as 1) there is nowhere to use him and 2) he will be complete shortly after my reign.

(I) - the Indians want to trade their TM for ours and 10 gold. I decline as we need our money for other things... The Carthagians begin the Hanging Gardens.

8 - Not much.

9 - Not much.

10 - Not much.

Right now, we can't afford any techs or resources :( (we could perhaps afford a Carthagian luxury...). A settler is due out of Stockholm within the next couple of turns. Stockholm's production can be changed, but since our peace treaty with India will end in 10 turns and we'll want to raze Punjab, I think we should keep the settler.

I produced several warriors for MP duty (we couldn't build swordsmen anyway...) and am currently producing archers out of Trondheim and the city to the east of there (Something should be done to this city to increase it's shield output. Right now it is producing 8 spt (9, with one wasted). It would be nice to increase it to 11. With that in mind, I am clearing one of the game tiles to increase our growth rate.)

The swordsmen, and spearman around Punjab are for our assault there in 10 turns (if the next leader feels that the swordsmen would be of more use around Bergen, move them and use the archers being produced to take their places). The units around Bergen are heading towards the choke.

All in all, I think we are in pretty dire straights...

Here's the file: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked350BC.zip

JMB

Here's what our civ looks like...

http://www.stanford.edu/~jmb/RBE6Naked350BC.jpg

JMB

Right now, we can't afford any techs or resources (we could perhaps afford a Carthagian luxury...).

If I read T-hawk's report correctly, the trade route with Carthage runs through Indian territory. If we are going to be at war with India sometime soon, we should avoid being in a deal where we give goods to Carthage (e.g., some of our Wines) that will get broken when war is declared. The last thing we want is to have our reputation sullied.

Reagan,

Right now, we already are exporting some of our wines to Carthage... I can't remember how many turns we have left on this deal, but I am guessing that it will probably end on the same turn our peact treaty with India ends.

reagan <<< on deck
Sullla
T-Hawk
JMB
JaxomCA <<< UP NOW

Jaxom, good luck with your turn.

JMB

Preturn: We have a huge happiness problem. Copenhagen is changed from barracks to temple. Trondheim is changed from archer to warrior to build its 2 MP. Reykjavik workers are stopped to build a road instead. There is no point in pushing the growth there until we can build an aqueduct, which will not happen this millenia. We do however need the commerce badly. A swordsman is moved in India to blockade Punjab.



330 BC Gandhi doesn't whine at our swordsman presence, poor sucker.

310 BC Trondheim has done 2 MP and begins a temple.

290 BC ...

270 BC Mathematics is acquired from the Ottoman for 8 gpt and 66 golds. Reykjavik is switch to catapult production. Trondheim also will get a couple out before doing its temple. Gandhi finally wakes up and boot me out of India. He has no units in range of crossing the choke, so I will just return to block it. Stockholm completes its settler and begins a temple.

250 BC Ah! Carthage drops a pair of horseman near Punjab. Gandhi asks me to leave again, ok Gandhi, I am gone :) Everybody has construction except the Ottoman but we can't buy in. Copenhagen completes its temple and begins a catapult.

230 BC Carthage kills one of the defenders but loose his second horseman. On counter strike, the remaining horse kills an attacker. The choke is still blocked. Why is Hannibal annoyed at us all of the sudden? I reload and see that we had a luxury deals with them. The bad news is the trade route is now broken, so our reputation is toasted. Whoever made that deal, that was weed. Don't make luxury deals until we have a secure trade route. At this time, only India would be a safe trading partner. I give 1 gpt to Temujin for 3 golds, that is our current gpt value. I hope this deal will restore our reputation.

210 BC Hannibal came asking for a tribute, I told him it wasn't my fault but he declared war anyway. The good news is, we can reduce luxury to 10% because of war happiness.

190 BC ...
170 BC Carthage lands a numidian and a swordsman right between Stavenger and Punjab, where will he attack? I move some swordsman on Iron Hill in case Carthage wins Punjab.

150 BC Carthage captures Punjab with a 1 HP numidian. Our elite swords jumps on him and...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6_leader1.jpg

Another swordsman promote to elite by dispatching the remaining swordsman. Punjab is razed and a settler is moved into position to replace the city. The leader is sent back to Copenhagen.



There are no wonders to build now but nobody has Literature. If we can get that single tech, we will get all techs :) Alternatively, we could start a prebuild in Copenhagen or Reykjavik and switch our min research to Literature. Unless someone gets Literature soon, we would have a very good chance to get the GL by hand building it. Currently, only Carthage is working on a wonder, the Hanging Gardens. But I think it is best to keep on building military units and take over India as soon as possible. There are 4 vet warriors in Bergen and we have enough cash to upgrade 2.

Here is the save at the end of 150 BC. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked150BC.zip)

The wines-to-Carthage deal was my doing; it looked safe, and we did get two techs for it. I figured we were safely at peace with India for 20 turns; it never crossed my mind that CARTHAGE might declare on India!

Even so, the game was allowing use of Indian harbors for a possible trade route between us and Carthage while we were at war with India. But it won't allow use of Indian harbors while CARTHAGE is at war with India. Very confusing...?

Don't worry much about Literature. We can buy it once it gets around to a couple civs; we've got plenty of time before anyone else will complete the Library. And it will show up long before 40 turns from now (everybody has had Writing for at least 20 turns presently) so changing our own minimum research won't help.

Definitely don't try to hand-build any wonder. We've still got a Deity AI nearly twice our size sharing our continent with us; we need all the swords we can get (and catapults if at all possible...)

Healfdene! :worshp: [party] :worshp:

I was cheering out loud when I saw that picture, prompting odd looks from my suitemates, heh. NO ONE is working on the Great Library (hey, no one has Literature!), and only Hannibal is working on the Hanging Gardens. That means we should see no cascade whatsoever, and the GL is all but locked down for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the AI civs for once again poorly prioritizing which techs to research. :goodjob:

We've got 5 cats right now and a couple more on the way. At the moment, I'd say we're about 3-4 turns away from another war with India, we need to move some units into position and allow our elite swords to heal back up to full hit points. When we sign peace with Hannibal, ignore techs and go for GOLD. We will get all techs free with the Library. Gold can go to upgrading more warriors and saving it up to buy Literature when it appears (since we can't get it on gpt credit). If Hannibal won't give us gold or doesn't have any, get us a world map so we can see what the world looks like! It's past time for that.

With India, all we want to do at this point is to raze and replace Karachi/Jaipur. If we can do more then great, but that should be the goal. There are horses under Jaipur, which we will want to control. Take the cats along too - properly guarded! - to defend against the inevitable Indian counterattack. This is looking better and better all the time, guys. reagan, it's in your hands now.

Oh, and one more thing: Healfdene! woot! :hammer:

Great turn! I am glad things turned out like they did... (wrt Carthage declaring war on India)

JMB

T-hawk, in one game I had a trade broken with a civ who had a harbor. The problem was, they had only one harbor and the city was destroyed by their enemy. Since then, I wait at least until the civ has 2 harbors far from each other before trading luxuries. It is tempting to trade them early on, but they are not worth that many gpt in the early game so this gets us a tech just a little faster. A stained gpt reputation will delay many techs for a very long time. However, it is true that hard cash will still work and is cheaper in the long run. We only have to save our cash until we can buy in, but I am more of a spender than a saver :)

Sulla, if we are going to save the leader for the Great Library, then it is probably best to keep the new elite in a safe place. No point in sending him into battle if we already have a leader.

Ragnar the Despot, founder of the Viking civilization and shunner of clothing, had a medical problem that even the doctors of modern times have struggled to understand. You see, he had multiple personalities. No, he didn’t “hear voices.” He actually had several personalities residing within (and controlling) him. He had recently been controlled by his animalistic side – two personalities with either the name of or interest in great creatures. One, T-Hawk, had guided the Vikings through a very trying time – the First Indian War. Another, with the heart of a dragon, had led the Vikes to a grand victory over Carthaginian troops and had trained a great leader, who was capable of aiding the noble cause of the Viking people. Ragnar had also given himself over to the secretive personality who preferred to be known only by the initials JMB, who had presided over a period of peaceful building. The remaining two personalities were named for a man Ragnar’s soothsayers said would be one of history’s great leaders and another named for an important figure in the history of a civilization that would be known as “Rome.”

Ragnar knew his civilization was still experiencing trying times, so he listened to all of his personalities at once before continuing with his leadership. Some of them urged preparation for the construction of something, anything, that would make the world marvel. Others argued in favor of continued concentration on the defense of Scandinavia and the prosecution of a campaign against the treacherous Indian people. It was the latter group that made the strongest case. And so, as he felt the personality named reagan come to the forefront, Ragnar turned his attention back to the preparation for the hammering of India. :hammer:

Ragnar immediately ordered all scientific work towards the pursuit of some religious hoo-ha called Polytheism ended, with the cost savings contributed towards the war effort. He also ordered a portion of his people’s treasury spent to purchase swords so a veteran warrior could be better equipped for the coming battle.

With those plans in place, Ragnar ordered his Viking people to push forward to whatever fate awaited them. They soon founded a new city at the site of the city of sacrifice – Oslo. Following the advice of the sage named Datsekkar, who assured Ragnar that such a thing would cause the gods to smile upon the Viking people, Ragnar named the new city “Christiania.” Despite the pleasant feeling the reclamation of a portion of his homeland gave him, Ragnar also felt his anger towards the evil Indians rekindling as he visited the site of the former city of Oslo. After bowing his head in remembrance of those brave souls, Ragnar looked to the eastern horizon and swore revenge. What Ragnar saw on the horizon only fueled his fury. Like unwanted ants at a picnic, Indian units were streaming towards (and into!!!) Viking territory. Ragnar sent an emissary to the despicable Indian leader and demanded that the trespassers leave at once. Gandhi, being a warmonger at heart, refused and declared war on the Vikings. Because he had anticipated this eventuality, Ragnar already had troops in place. They initially inflicted a great deal of pain on the Indians by killing two veteran swords and one spear at the cost of one sword and with the promotion of two elite swords within the ranks of the Viking military. Unfortunately, the Indian counter-attack killed two mighty Viking spearmen. The Indians also landed troops near Stockholm, but Ragnar expedited the training of a swordsman in the city by applying a little leather incentive :whipped: , which proved quite useful. After thumping the lone Carthaginian archer who dared land on Viking soil, Ragnar was able to gain an audience with the Cannibal. For 11 gpt, Carthage would declare a cease-fire with the Vikings. Oh, they would also give 5 gp towards peace. Peace couldn’t have come at a better time for the Vikings, because ships with brown sails were closing in on the Viking homeland and interior defenses were weakened by a multi-front war.

Did I fail to mention that, as a kind gesture, Carthage would also provide the secrets of Literature? Well, they did. Ragnar immediately ordered the hurried construction of a grand building -- the Great Barracks of Copenhagen. Ummmm . . . silly scribe. What that really should say is the Great Library of Copenhagen. That Wonder completed only two turns after the completion of the Hanging Gardens of Hippo. The Viking people were so pleased with that event that they spontaneously erupted into a frenzy of added production and commerce! Construction of the Great Library brought great knowledge to Scandinavia. [dance] Technology poured in and Ragnar made the most of it. He traded Polytheism and Literature to the Mongols for their world map and all of their gold (61gp).

The battle with India raged on, with about equal losses on both sides. Ragnar’s people valiantly fought off a significant landing force near Iron Hill. They could do nothing but hold their ground near Bergen, however. Ragnar knew a war of attrition was not going to benefit the Viking people. Although the stream of Indian forces was beginning to slow to a trickle, Ragnar knew the floodgates could open again quickly. When he saw the arrival of a great stack of Indian troops and compared them to his wounded, vulnerable units, Ragnar knew it was time to make peace with India. Because of the valiant fighting of his men, Ragnar was able to extort all of India’s gold (4gp), India’s world map, and the city of Dacca. He later gave India Monotheism for Furs and four workers, which saved 10gpt in luxury taxes.

As peace settled over Scandinavia, the presence of the one called Sullla began to overtake Ragnar, temporarily displacing reagan from the helm.

Talk about a harrowing set of turns! It was all I could do to hold our ground. Fortunately, we put enough hurt on Gandhi through defense and counter-attacks to make him talk peace. The inter-turn before peace was reached saw no fewer than eight fresh swords and four spears arrive in Karachi. We never would have stood up to that. It appears Carthage and India are at war, and were during much of my turn, which is likely the only thing that saved us. I had to whip Copenhagen and Stockholm to deal with the landings of India and Carthage, respectively. We’re slightly less than halfway through with their unhappiness.

We’re really pinned-down, kids. Thankfully the (I presume unintended) arrival of our GA should give us a chance to churn out some units (pikes and MDI, anyone?) and infrastructure from our productive cities. I missed the fact that the Trondheim hill needs to be roaded at some point. All of the build orders are very open to veto. I just thought the GA would be a good chance to crank out courthouses in the outlands, but more cats certainly wouldn’t hurt. Sorry I couldn’t do anything to gain ground on India. :( They appear to be using Jaipur as a combat port for their war against Carthage. In a few more turns, they will have shipped-out several of their swords, which should help if/when we get to launch an offensive against them.

Here’s the .zip, with a map of our lands to follow:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked50AD.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/vikes50ad.JPG

Great progress! Looking much better than it was on my turn. Nine cities and tech parity sure beats five cities and ten techs behind. :)

Why haven't we revolted? Losing Golden Age income to anarchy is undesirable, but a Despotism even in GA doesn't outproduce a normal Republic. (Did we get Republic from the GL?) Note that getting out of despotism will GREATLY boost Trondheim's food supply - that city won't even need irrigation.

Clear Reykjavik's game forests once the much-needed aqueduct is done. Stockholm also needs an aqueduct more than it needs a courthouse: with its vast quantities of food (especially out of despotism), increasing its population will boost its income and shields more effectively than a courthouse.

The newer cities need quite a bit of worker labor to irrigate the plains and get them up to speed. See if Copenhagen can build a few workers while it's still at the size-6 mark.

(You did excellently, reagan - I'm just commenting on future possibilities :) )

Thanks for the comments, T-hawk. I was/am really conflicted about the timing of a government change for us. I really hate to lose 33% of a GA to anarchy, even under Despotism. We do have both Monarchy and Republic from the GL. I was planning for us to revolt to Republic just as our GA is expiring. One drawback to this is that the anarchy period could well overlap the end of our peace treaties with Carthage and India. The AI smells blood when someone is in anarchy and might decide to tag-team us again. On the other hand, that timing might coincide with the point where we are ready to do battle again and we should get some positive WW from a declaration by one or both of those vile dogs.

As you can tell, I'm not dead set on either choice. What's everyone else think?

I would change to a republic on the very first turn of the next round. The sooner we are a republic, the faster we make real money. If we do switch to Republic, then I would build marketplace before aqueduct. The extra cash from the marketplace will let us rush the aqueduct and we get both more quickly. However, with our current low luxury count, it may not be a good idea to build aqueducts just yet, what is the point of having more population if you spend most of their revenue in luxury taxes? Until we have secured the Indian furs and establish safe trade with luxury exporting nations, then we could build aqueducts.

That is just my opinion, but I strongly believe that the more cash you make, the easier it is to win. As long as you have 3-4 cities that can build your top troops in 2 turns, you can pay for anything else when you have a strong economy. It is very tempting to push Trondheim to size 12 soon, but it will grow fast enough once we are in a republic, so we shouldn't rush it until we can make that population happy. Actually, all of our core will reach size 12 very quickly once we have some luxury to support them.

I somewhat disagree with Jaxom on that last point; more population will not bring in more commerce due to having to increase the luxury rate, true, but it will increase something else: shields! We do want higher population ASAP, and if we have to go to 50% luxuries to support it until we can get our markets and cathedrals built, I say so be it. The best thing possible for us would be a bunch of size 12 cities all running 10-15 shields/turn. We would then have even production power with India, and we'll need that kind of edge to keep pace with the G-man.

World map doesn't look that good for us, on the other hand. We really do need to put the hurting on India if we want to have a reasonably safe endgame. Once we get Republic and our cities over size 6 though, I think we will see an explosion of production out of our core cities. GREAT turn reagan, and if you weren't able to push into India, then it simply wasn't meant to be. :)

Will play sometime today.

Sullla is right about the population issue. We should not hold back growth for fear of having to pay luxury taxes. At the very, very worst, some population can be converted to tax collectors. I'd much rather have either 50-60% lux and full cities than 10-20% lux and cities stuck at size 6. If we can get our forces built up again, we might catch G-man with his pants down (i.e., a lot of forces overseas) next time.

By the way, 80% of the fighting during my turn took place cross-border between our troops stationed outside of Bergen and India's troops stationed on the grassland by Karachi. India can send troops from Delhi to that grassland in two turns. What happened on my turn is that India massed its troops on that spot and moved one sword into our territory NW of Bergen. I knew then what was coming and pressured Gandhi into declaring war so we could fire the first shots. Next time around, it would be HUGE if we could declare war honorably and then get a big ol' SoD onto that grassland tile on the first turn. That would shift the initiative to our side and allow us to take some cities, rather than making it an attrition war.

(0) 50AD Looking around the world... So much has changed and yet so much is still the same. We are in an impossibly better position than when I last handed off to T-Hawk, but victory is still a long, long way away. Now that we can see the other civs, I though I'd comment a bit on them. India is about average in power, and will remain our primary foe for the foreeable future. Eliminate them and we will be in good shape (ha, easier said then done). Carthage has its own island, a big one, and could potentially run away with this game. Long-term, they are by far our biggest threat. England/Zulus/Ottomans have their own very large island split evenly between the three, not much to say about them as they can't really affect us too much. Mongolia SUCKS bigtime - and island with no freshwater only large enough for four cities. OUCH! Temujin will be a backwards nonentity FOREVER. And out there somewhere in the fog, contacted by no one, is the Celts. I have no idea what their situation is like. I exchange some maps to pick up one or two gold, we are even with or ahead of everyone else in tech (duh, thanks to Library).

Agree with T-Hawk on getting to Republic ASAP. The anarchy turns will be good because they will help the whipping memory wear off, hehe. Revolt right away, drawing 5 turns of anarchy. About par for the course. Trondheim is in negative food unfortunately, but every other city can last through the anarchy without issue. Thank goodness for the granary in our capital. Our income has gone to -16g/turn, but we've got plenty to ride out the next five turns. No use changing build queues until we come out of anarchy, so I just go to the next turn. I also move three cats off of our front line back to safety; they would be too easily captured there. Upgrade one vet warrior to MDI, so we have a "strongest unit" for the AI to fear and because that's clearly the only use for a vet warrior. Finally go to next turn.

(1) 70AD A good eight swords and three spears move from out of our sight line and deeper into India. Wow - now I know why reagan agreed to sign peace! Trade Engineering to India for a worker and some change gold. Osman has a tasty deal for us: he'll take Feudalism (at 5th civ price) for 30g and 7gpt. We'll agree to that! Getting Osman's world map allows us to pick up another few gold from the other civs. It all counts, after all. Trondheim set to go into disorder this round; it has to go into disorder on one of the five turns or it will starve. Might as well be this one.

(2) 90AD Trondheim goes into disorder! :eek: Reset back to its starving happy form. Bergen grows to size 6, gets a taxman. Income now down to only -8gpt. Gandhi agrees to give us his WM+5g for ours. Pick up a few more gold so that we come out about even on income this turn.

(3) 110AD Osman comes demanding Engineering. Now he's on the other side of the world and can't really hurt us... but he could sign another civ against us in a military alliance, and that would be BAD. So we agree to give him the tech, which I believe is at 4th civ price. *sigh* It's actually better he demand tech than gold from us at this point. Nothing else going on.

(4) 130AD Now Shaka comes demanding Engineering. This is really frustrating, but I'm going to have to give it to him for the same reasons listed above. I guess when you're in Anarchy, the AI civs see the weakness and jump all over it. Between turns, India moves about five swords in Karachi and sends two more + a spear north towards Jaipur. I would assume they are going to be loaded onto transports to fight the Carthaginians. Also between turns, a Carthaginian galley attacks and sinks an Indian one, redlining itself in the process. The best possible outcome for us! One of our gpt deals must have worn off because we are only losing 3gpt now. Last turn of anarchy (I really am ready for it to end).

(5) 150AD Between turns, 8 Indian units (spears and swords) move back towards the east again. What is going on? Answer: the AI dilemma known as "puppet strings", where the Carthaginians keep landing on the east coast of India, causing their units to move back and forth like puppets jerked on strings. The AI only targets the most immediate threat at all times, so it can be paralyzed in times of war. I would like to go after India while they are thus paralyzed, but we badly need 20 turns of infrastructure first.

Viking Republic formed! Production and income skyrocket; we are now at +51gpt and our productivity has jumped to #4 (from #6) on the F11 screen. That's with us almost dead last in land too! Build orders shifted around a bit, most cities are on aqueducts right now. I say we need to use this opportunity to build acqueducts, markets, and cathedrals in most cities. Once we have some of those buildings up, it will be time to go to war with India again. We can now found embassies (of which we have none?) so I get one with India and Carthage. Delhi has all ancient age improvements, is running 12 shields/turn, 80/20 on gold research, and is defended by four spears and a cat. They have only one iron and one horses, so cutting off either would deprive India. Carthage has all ancient city improvements too, is running 14 shields/turn (with 2 entertainers, ha!) and is working on Sun Tzu (20 turns). Hannibal is running 30/60/10 on gold/science/luxury. Looks like he's dealing with war weariness issues. He also has Pyramids, Great Wall, and 8 Numidians in Carthage. Wow - we're staying well away from that at the moment! That eats up most of our income for now, so no upgrading of units this turn. If we fight India, we will want an alliance with Hannibal (who will likely give us nice stuff).

(6) 170AD This turn, 13 units run back into Karachi. Make up your mind, Gandhi! Carthaginians now have both Theology and Invention up on us, and start work on Leo's.

(7) 190AD Gandhi loads up a lot of his army on galleys and heads to the west, presumably for the Carthaginian colonies. Pike produced at Bergen, which at 11 shields/turn is a good place to pump them for now, and believe me, we need more pikes. Most cities are defended by warriors.

(8) 210AD Temujin demands Mathematics. Sorry, but we aren't afraid of you. He backs down. Gandhi appears to be moving his units randomly, and I have no idea what he is doing. Copenhagen and Reykjavik complete acqueducts; the former starts on a barracks (which we will need) and the latter at 15 shields/turn goes to produce a pike for itself. I am doing my best to beef up our sadly lacking defenses. I swing around world maps and make a few more gold. Whoa, didn't realize this! I check F4 and India is at war with not just the Carthaginians, but the Ottomans and Mongols as well. Interesting, and good for us.

(9) 230AD Trondheim produces aqueduct, goes to work on a pike for itself at 16 shields/turn. I move some tiles around so that Copenhagen gets its barracks this turn instead of next with tons of waste. I upgrade a number of our swords to MDI since we now have the money to do so. Our military is beefing up, heh.

(10) 250AD Nuts; the Indians and Carthaginians make peace this turn. An otherwise quiet last turn ends my round.

Notes to next leader (T-Hawk): I've got most of our cities on infrastructure; we should use the rest of our golden age to get some very needed city improvements built. Trondheim is building a pike for itself and then should probably build a market or cathedral; your call. Actually it needs a temple first, but you get the idea on the tradeoff between happiness or more income. Bergen is set to granary right now but it has no shields invested yet; it's running at 14 shields/turn but there's not much you can do to change that. Copenhagen is set to granary also, but that can also be changed if desired (no shields invested). If you do go with a granary there, make sure to delay growth one turn so the granary completes before growth to size 8. Christiana is on temple right now, and it needs the culture to prevent a flip to India (that would be a disaster). We should probably move more units into it on garrison duty. Reykjavik has just finished a pike and is also set to granary, can be changed since there are no shields in the box. Stockholm is still working on its acqueduct, could possibly be used as a worker factory if desired. Aarhus is still on a barracks, definitely subject to change if needed. Stavenger is working on a temple; also is highly subject to veto. Our overseas colonies suck and are not worth mentioning.

The idea with the builds right now is to emphasize growth, so we can get up to a higher size and produce more shields. Everything looks rosy right now, but will plummet when our golden age ends. I would personally favor going with temples/cathedrals over markets, since they will allow us to lower the luxury rate (now at 20%) and make more income while also increasing our pitifully low culture. Your call though on whether to go with markets. Oh, and somewhere along this point we want to go after and attack India again, preferably before they get the income to upgrade their spears to pikes (which G-man has not done yet). We have 10 MDI at this point plus a number of elite swords leftover. I would recommend getting pikes in our cities first before we attack Gandhi though, since he could land next to a warrior-defended city at this point.

A lot of choices can be made on this next turn. Sorry to put you up both here and in RBD19 T-Hawk; could be a busy night! :p Don't feel rushed to play this though, as we need clear decision-making and inspired leadership, just like on the last turn. The Naked Vikings are looking a lot better at this point; go get 'em!

RBE6 250AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_250AD.zip)

Agree with reagan on the issue of getting into their territory if we fight a war. If we take catapults and a large enough stack, we could easily raze Karachi on the second turn of war and be in position to replace it with one of our own cities. Now we are in infrastructure mode at the moment and a fighting is a little ways off, but the principle is good.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_250AD.jpg

Got it. I'll play RBD19 first, and get to this one later, so any more comments are welcome. :)

In any Indian war, I'd LOVE to push as far as capturing Bombay. That city has furs and India's iron supply. Also, look closely at the positions - it's far enough from Delhi that it won't have cultural pressure once a temple is rushed, so we can easily hold on to it.

BTW, what year does our golden age end? Although I guess I can check: 20 turns after the Library was built.

Edit: Ok, no more comments, playing now. Also, I have 4 turns of Golden Age.

Pre-turn:

What should we build in Stavanger? How about a harbor of our own, so we can safely trade with Carthage.

Reykjavik's game forests still aren't cleared - I guess I'll take care of that. Why's Trondheim working a mountain for shields it doesn't need instead of a grassland? Fixed.

I also upgrade Healfdene to a medieval infantry - don't worry, he's still the same unit, he kept his name :)

=====

Oh boy. In 270 AD, Carthage lands an archer next to Trondheim. Sheesh. By the letter of the RBE rules, I can't demand he get out, since there's two turns left on the peace treaty in which we got Literature: Phony Peace Treaty exploit. Then I decide that he's way more in violation than I am.

I trade Wines for his Horses, knowing the deal will get canceled, but that lets me set a couple of build orders for Knights (the Library just gave us Chivalry.) Then I demand he get out, and he says he will!

But on his turn, Hannibal declares war. Heh.

280 AD: How about this: The Library just gave us Theology, but India didn't get it. I give Theology to India for an ALLIANCE against Carthage. Let's have our two foes fight each other again! This should also keep us much safer, since India is between Carthage and us.

Instead of a harbor in Stavanger, let's build a galley, and see if we can take some of the fight to Carthage's islands to our west (where Chittagong is).

310 AD: Hannibal lands a Numidian and a longbow next to Chittagong, which has no chance with a single warrior. Chittagong is abandoned rather than taking the war weariness hit and giving our enemy a city.

320 AD: INDIA now moves about a dozen units near Karachi, and moves two units into our territory next to Christiania. Uh? I abandon plans to attach Carthage's island until I see what India is up to.

Inbetween turns, India leaves our land. Looks like he's trying to get his troops into boats to go over to the west Carthage isles. There's still a couple dozen units around Jaipur/Karachi.

330 AD: Carthage signs England to an alliance against us. That means Dacca, sharing an island with England, is probably doomed.

That's all that happened. The troops located in random spots around our land are playing "zone defense" against invasions; they've fended off about five Carthaginian galley-loads. The two knights outside Copenhagen are on that square because they can reach any space in our territory in one turn.

I built mostly military, not a whole lot of infrastructure. I think we still have to go after India again, once our alliance expires, 13 turns from now. India's still got a LOT of troops at the border, though. Also, Carthage has Gunpowder (they did even before our war), which will get around eventually (hopefully before Education gets around, of course.)

Next leader can try an invasion of Carthage's western island if you want. Stockholm has one galley and is building another, and the stack near Stavanger plus the two knights are available to take, if you want.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-350ad.zip

0 - I like the build orders, and leave things alone. Once the next galley is ready, we'll begin our invasion of Carthage's western island, hopefully taking Iol and Carthago Novo. Harbor completes in Reykjavik, begin galley.

1 - Increase lux tax to keep cities happy. Change my mind about Reykjavik, change to a marketplace. Also decide to change Copenhagen and Trondheim from Med Infs to a markets.

2 - Carthage lands a pike and longbowman outside of Christina. We redline them with cats and take them out with our knights.

3 - We land a pike, med inf and 2 knights outside Iol. The Indians and Ottomans sign a peace treaty. The Carthagians begin Cop's Observatory and complete Sun Tzu.

4 - Vet knight versus reg Num, wins, but only with 1 hp remaining. Second knight dies to reg num, but our mid inf takes it out and we capture Iol. IBT, we learn gunpowder (naturally, we don't have any... India has two sources (one unconnected) and Carthage doesn't appear to have any). The Indians and English begin Sistine and Leo's. Then the English complete Sistine and the Cartagians begin Leo's and Cop's.
5 and 6 - Not much.

7 - We have 1 knight and 7 med inf outside Carthago Novo; we'll attack next turn. Trond, Reykjavik and Copenhagen complete marketplaces, and begin more med inf for our upcoming assault on India.

8 - The battle for Carthago Novo: Vet knight vs vet num, dies inflicting only 1 point and promoting the numidian. Vet med dies doing 1 point to same num. Vet med takes out a reg num. Vet dies against 3 hp elite num, but takes him down to 1 point. Med takes out vet horse. Med takes out a warrior and promotes. Med takes out elite num. Med takes out reg longbow, and (finally) we take Carthago Novo (and a 2 hp vet galley with it...) IBT, The English request an audience, wanting peace and 160 gold. We decline and in response, they land a longbowman next to Dacca.

9 - Use the reg warrior in Dacca in an attempt to kill the English longbowman, but he loses and so I abandon Dacca rather than take the WW hit.