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.

10 - Due to poor planning on my part, 2 num mercs, 1 horseman, and a warrior land on our homeland and we can't take them out this turn. All our cities and workers should be safe, and there should be (RNG permitting...) enough units in the area to take them out next turn.

Last turn, the Indians seized Malaca from Carthage, and there are 6 units fortified in the forests outside of Iol fortified to take Malaca from the Indians once our Alliance with them ends and we declare war. It also appears that India has recently learned the secrets of gunpowder and has hooked up both sources. However, Gandhi has no gold, so he shouldn't be able to upgrade his pikemen anytime soon. So we need to attack really soon...

Once our alliance with India ends (3 turns) we should be able to make peace with the Carthagians and get Rusguniae and some gold from them. As we have a lot of gold right now, we might want to upgrading a couple of our reg warriors to med inf for our upcoming war with India.

Here is what our territory looks like...

http://www.stanford.edu/~jmb/RBE6Naked450AD.jpg

Here is the save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked450AD.zip

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

JMB

Good progress against the Carthaginians, as those cities captured on the western island should be uncorrupted and could be useful in the future. We can indeed get that small city in the south from Carthage in the peace treaty when we sign it in three turns.

3 turns; that's how much longer our alliance with India lasts. I suggest peace right away and an imminent attack on Gandhi. That should let us get Malaca and complete control of western island, plus hopefully we can push deep into India itself on the offensive. India has no fewer than three saltpeter sources though, so don't expect to disconnect that easily.

Watch out for some of our workers on a mountain tile, they are indeed subject to capture from the Carthaginian horseman. And why did we build any longbows when MDI cost the same amount of shields and have twice the defense?!

The longbows were all upgraded archers; that mostly happened on my turn. (I knew somebody would ask. :D )

How many units has India been moving around the border area? I saw at least 8-10 units move around on every turn when I was playing.

Good Playing! What a weekend! I had to set aside the first hour at work to "self-studies" in order to catch up :)

...those cities captured on the western island should be uncorrupted and could be useful in the future. Good Viking style! Settling the islands in the west! I just love when the game copies history :D

...so I abandon Dacca rather than take the WW hit This tactic was new to me? :confused: Could some one elaborate?

Thanks to reagan for the naming of Christiania :goodjob: This is what interactive reading is all about!

Datsekkar, Devoted Reader

Datsekkar: War Weariness is increased when certain events happen, things like you declaring war on another civilization, fighting taking place in your territory, and most of all, when a city is captured. Abandoning a city that is almost certain to fall is a good way to avoid having the war weariness increase.

-Sirp.

Got it. I will look for an opportunity to gain some grounds on India on my turn.

Whoops, I forgot about our workers on the mountains... I hope we'll be able to protect them.

JMB

Preturn: MM Trondheim to get MedInf in one turn. Move a pikeman on the mountain to cover the workers. We lack the basic infrastructure and our golden age is over, Stavenger's aqueduct is vetoed in favor of a harbor. There is no point in making a fishing village grow past 6 pop until it has a harbor. Lot's of MM let me drop the luxury tax to 20% and still get everything built in the same number of turns, this brings us to 84 GPT from 50. A diplomacy check reveals that our gpt is still worth only 3 golds. I'll give wines to the Mongol but I'll wait until we make peace with Carthage. England and Carthage have knowledge of Education, so our free ride is over.



IT: Carthage horseman pillage a tile. Mongolia and India make peace. India moves 5 MedInf and 2 swords near Bergen. Education comes out of the Great Library.

460 AD Trondheim completes a MedInf and begins a temple. Copenhagen completes a MedInf and peel off a worker since it will be in disorder when it grows next turn. Reykjavik completes a MedInf and builds a wonder. Reykjavik was going to produce a worker but the Carthaginian troops are destroyed and this happens...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6_leader2.jpg

IT: England cascades to Copernicus completing it while Carthage changes to Magellan, ending the cascade. Hannibal recruits Temujin to fight us. More brown troops land near Trondheim.

470 AD A galley is rushed in Lol to facilitate the invasion of Mongolia. Carthage troops near Trondheim are destroyed without loss and without promotions. Troops are moved to Bergen for a future strike on India. Gandhi is told to take his filthy troops off our territory, he complies for now. I realize we have very few pikes so the temples are changed back to pikeman. Reykjavik reaches 15 SPT and is set to mass produce pikes.

480 AD I could make peace with Carthage, but he won't give the small city on the west island, I have the troops ready to take it next turn.

IT: England declares war on India.

490 AD The city of Rusguniae, on the western island, is captured. Hannibal is willing to talk peace and I obtain his world map. Now Elizabeth will accept peace at 60 golds instead of 160, I offer her 4 GPT and sign a peace treaty. The map is sold around for 80 golds and 3 gpt. I made peace because we need luxuries and I'd rather import them from England and Carthage so that we can strike India. Carthage gives us ivory, gems and 4gpt for our wines While England trades us silk for wines. This let me drop luxury tax another 10%, recovering 15 GPT. England and Carthage have astronomy up on us, India is on par, the Zulu lacks Theology and gunpowder while the Ottoman lacks education and gunpowder. I sell theology to the Zulu for 4 gpt and education to the Ottoman for 8 gpt. I could import horses from either England or Carthage, but the both value our gpt to 1 golds so they want 26 gpt for them. I'll wait a couple of turns to accumulate the cash.

500 AD War is declared on India and our whole stack moves near Karachi. Carthage wanted us to pay them for an alliance and an embassy with England would cost 140 golds to find out if they pay us, so we go in alone.

IT: Carthage and India make peace.

510 AD Our catapults redline a regular pike in Karachi and reveals a regular spearman. A veteran longbowman takes him out and another veteran longbowman takes out the pikeman, promoting to elite. There is still a longbowman in Karachi and a regular longbowman takes it out, razing the city. The rest of the stack fortifies and awaits the Indian counter-attack. Carthage now has printing press, we are still 16 turns away.

IT: Our brave regular longbowman redlines a veteran MedInf before falling. Our pikes repel 2 veteran MedInf and an elite swordsman but we then loose 3 MedInf, redlining 2 of India and giving them a golden age if they didn't have it yet.

520 AD Our counter follows and we destroy an elite elephant, a pikeman, a spearman and 3 MedInf, without losses but without promotions.

IT: India kills a longbowman and a regular MedInf but they loose a veteran swordsman.

530 AD Quite incredible, each of our catapults score a hit, redlining everything around us. We kill a pikeman and a Medinf and a pikeman is sacrificed to take out the redlined elephant. A settler is arriving to replace the razed city. England and Ottoman have learned of printing press. Education is sold to the Zulu for the low price of 4 GPT and 49 golds.

IT: Our brave pikeman dispatches a MedInf before dying to a longbowman.

540 AD The settler reaches a hill to create an advance fort in Indian territory, troops are healing since there is no target within our grasp. Gandhi seems to be out of attackers.

IT: Gandhi found a couple of elephants and kill one pikeman with them.

550 AD The assault on Mongolia was a bust. An archer kills our only pikeman, who was fortified on a hill. A few horseman and archers are killed but a MedInf falls. Since there are 2 elites in the bunch, the troops are recalled to be put to better use in India. Fort Bergen is founded and walls are rushed. A few catapults enter the Fort to shoot at the elephants and redline both of them. A couple of MedInf destroy both elephants and the rest of the stack move on Jaipur with blood in their eyes.


Gandhi is willing to talk, he is not very willing to pay for peace. We are beginning to suffer war weariness but India seems to be gassed. You probably can take Jaipur on the next turn, but it might be better to drop it down one pop size first. There are 5 catapults in Fort Bergen that can be brought to the assault on the next turn. Don't forget to keep a good garrison in Fort Bergen, it is a high flip risk. Keep at least 4 defenders at all time. A look at the very small gain we made on India...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6_fort.jpg

There is a settler coming out of Reykjavik next turn to replace Jaipur either on the horses or on the hill where our stack is standing. Fort Bergen is meant to be abandon once we have secured India, so don't rush anything else in there, except maybe a barrack. If the team decides to keep Fort Bergen, then it would be better to replace Jaipur where it is already. Otherwise, it is better to settle on the hill.

Here is the save at the end of 550 AD. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked550AD.zip)

Great progress!

It's fine to keep Fort Bergen rather than waste another settler. I didn't look at the map for sure, but I think if the Fort has a temple, it won't have cultural pressure from Delhi or Bombay -- assuming we don't capture them; my previous desire for Bombay still stands, in spades :)

BTW - we can't starve Jaipur as it looks like you're trying to do - it's got a harbor and so pulls 2 food from all the water squares. Can't cut it off from luxuries to starve it due to unhappiness either. I'd say to get the catapults in there and knock it down a size.

Also, if war weariness just went up a notch, it means we've got plenty of time before it goes up again (unless we lose a city.) So press on. I want Bombay! :)

And hey Sulla, now do you agree with the power of catapults, as if my Epic 22 game wasn't enough? ;)

Hey, we're making progress! :goodjob:

Are we playing under any restrictions regarding throwaway cities? If we have to keep Ft. Bergen where it is, then I agree with settling on the horses when Jaipur is removed from our rightful homeland. :hammer:

Nice work, guys. At one point I didn't think you were going to hold on. Now it seems as though you have yourselves in position to survive, and from there, who knows. :)

- Sirian

T-hawk: I figured it would not really starve the city down, I am counting on catapults to kill off one pop, but I thought I might as well deny the shield production with those units who could't take part of the battle anyway. About Fort Bergen, I am pretty sure it has much overlap with Bombay and maybe even Delhi. Since we will probably build the forbidden palace somewhere in India, it could still make a decent fishing village but founding a city on the hill next to Jaipur would reduce overlap with our own cities and make Fort Bergen useless, so we might as well leave the distance slot to FP to a better city. I did not look in depth at the situation, but it seemed to me that the 3 southern Indian cities are just fine where they are, they only need to be replaced with naked viking cities :)

Reagan: founding a city to expand your cultural border and allow your troops to move further on the same turn is an exploit. Fort Bergen is not such a city, it is an advance fortification that we may or may not abandon once we have gained control of everything south of Delhi.

I misunderstood your intent, Jaxom. I agree that if we wait until we've consolidated our positions in India before abandoning/relocating Ft. Bergen that there should be no problem.

T-hawk,

I have recently been using more catapults and have found that they aren't particularly useful for taking selltements/cities, but they are great when taking out would be attackers in your territory...

JMB

JMB, catapults used offensively require patience. They may all miss on one turn, then all hit on the next. I did not mention it in the turn report, but almost every attackers on our stack was doing so with one less hp. On counter-attack, I would almost always reduce them to 1 hp, allowing for loss-free counter-attack. The troops I lost were sacrifice to take out important enemy without proper cover. Now if we had some knights available there would be no loss on counter but I thought the horses were too expensive for our purpose. Once Jaipur is gone, we will have our own horses.

Woohoo, awesome turn from Jaxom! [dance]

Getting Leo's could save us tons of money in the future, though since we have lots of MDI it won't be immediately useful. Gandhi looks like he's on the run - go get him now, reagan! If war wearniess is hurting us, it must be far worse for him, since he's losing cities left and right. Fort Bergen is only two tiles from Bombay, so we will want to raze it if at all possible. We should probably continue fighting as long as we possibly can stand it; this is the best possible time to put some hurting on Gandhi before he gets rifles.

Oh, and I never said catapults we're good in warfare, just that most of the time they are too slow and don't pack enough punch to make a difference. In an extremely tight game like this, they can be a huge benefit. :)

EDIT: I'm sure everyone was thinking this, but if we get another leader, we should probably use him for a Forbidden Palace in the eastern part of our territory, or in India if we get lucky in warfare.

Unless we can take the whole of India quickly, I think it is better to raze any Indian city and replace them with our own. Maybe raze the 3 southern India cities and make an FP city were Bombay is right now and then make peace, hopefully gaining a tech or two. Buildup again and 20 turns later remove India by capturing all his remaining cities.

My first choice for the leader was a forbidden palace, but we didn't have enough city at the time to build one. With the foundation of Fort Bergen, we can now build the FP.

By the way, catapults are not any slower than medieval infantry :)

Speaker Ragnar of the Viking Republic, founder of the Viking civilization and shunner of clothing, took pity on his poor scribe (who was sleeping off a hangover) and kept his own very rough journal during the years 550 through 650 AD.

(0) 550 – Christiania needs to build a courthouse or aqueduct before it needs a harbor. Lol swapped to temple. That Mongol fella isn’t such a bad guy, so I’ll play nice with him for awhile. The rest of the world’s leaders (well, the civilized ones (not that dog Gandhi)) will trade maps with me for a net total of 14 gp. I will continue to grace those leaders with map trades from now on. Resguniae’s citizens are pleased to report a surplus of food in what was once a stagnant-growth village.

IT – India moved several troops into Ft. Bergen’s lands, with one elephant defeating a pike.

(1) 560 - Bergen completed a marketplace, which allowed a clown to be put to work. It began work on an MDI. Reykjavik formed a settler party and then started an MDI. Carthago Novo trained a worker and began temple construction. Ft. Bergen completed its walls and began work on a rax. Aarhus trained a pike and began another. Stavanger trained a pike and began an aqueduct. Our catapult operators must be drunk – only one shot hit Jaipur. It costs five valiant MDI troops and promotes the mighty Healfdene, but Jaipur is ours for long enough to raze it. We move our remaining troops into Ft. Bergen for support. They beat up on the Indians as much as possible.

IT – lost one MDI, forced an elephant to retreat, and killed one while promoting a pike to elite.

(2) 570 – Bombarded/killed elephant.

IT – lost a pike and killed a longbow.

(3) 580 – Trondheim completed an MDI and started another. Ditto for Copenhagen. Ft. Bergen completed its rushed barracks so our wounded troops could heal and begin an assault on Bombay.

IT – nada

(4) 590 – Reykjavik trains MDI and starts another. Stockholm completes its temple and begins a market. Churchill Downs founded at Jaipur’s old site. MDI production changed to knights in three cities. The Bombay assault force moves into place.

IT – retreated an elephant, saw Indian troops position themselves outside Ft. Bergen

(5) 600- Aarhus completes pike and begins MDI.

IT – killed two elephants and retreated one. Lost one pike.

(6) 610 – Bergen completed MDI, started settler. Phase two WW hits. Lux to 40%! Embassy established in London.

IT - England and India are now at peace.

(7) 620 – Two redlined elephants thumped in the tusks, ten workers and two cats captured, and Bombay is now dust.

IT – Lost a pike and MDI, killed an elephant.

(8) 630 – Bergen completed its settler, began a pike. Copenhagen produced a knight and began another.

IT – Killed an elephant and redlined another.

(9) 640 – Trondheim trained a knight and began another. Ditto for Reykjavik.

IT – Killed an elephant and redlined another.

(10) 650 – Aarhus completed MDI began market. We lost a knight and MDI attacking an elephant that landed on a hill by Christiania. As retribution, we went leader fishing and had the right bait. An elite MDI knocked off a longbow that trespassed by Ft. Bergen and created Hubba the Great!

I moved Hubba into Aarhus for safekeeping. I’m not real sure we want to build the FP on the border with India. It would be horrible to lose our FP city to a culture flip! Even the Mongols have us beaten in culture by a 3:1 or so margin. We should consider making an army with this one and using the next for the FP. There’s still plenty of combat ahead for our naked Vikings.

We might want to think about making temporary peace with India once our next city is founded where Bombay used to be, which will be on your first turn. They will give us a discount on Astronomy and take gpt for the rest of it. Our credit is no good outside of peace deals now. :( I have left us with a pretty hefty treasury – rushed temples on the Indian border, perhaps? The build orders are certainly open to veto, especially if we make peace. We lost a lot of troops assaulting Bombay and Jaipur and defending Ft. Bergen, so there’s some rebuilding to do. The cats helped some, but I can’t wait for cannons.

Good luck next turn, Sullla.

P.S. Sorry for taking so long to play tonight. I am not feeling well and had to play a turn or two at a time and then rest in between.

Here's the .zip and a pic of the leader/front lines:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked650AD.zip

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

Nice work Reagan. I think we should try to raze Calcutta before accepting peace. That way, we could be free from India's cultural influence in the area. We also might be able to get Astronomy for free that way...

JMB

Bombay - excellent! :goodjob: :hammer:

If we can get one more city of Calcutta, the Bombay location becomes 100% safe from a flip to India. That's what I'd suggest trying to do now, and save the leader for an FP in a new city refounded in Bombay's location. Then make peace, outproduce India for a while, and eliminate him in another 20-40 turns.

I'd also suggest keeping Calcutta rather than burning another settler. It too would be free of infringing Indian culture once we have it. Starve it out and rush workers; it won't flip, and it'll be a better city for us because it'll come with some infrastructure (including the aqueduct; those are never destroyed upon capture.)

I wouldn't worry about ever building an army with a leader. After India, I don't expect we'd go for any more combat in this game. Mongolia's too far away to matter, and we can outbuild everyone if we can secure this island to ourselves.

Got it, will see how far I can push the war. Would like to get all the cities up to Delhi (since Bangalore would also be safe from a Delhi flip and would give us saltpeter) but we'll see what can actually be done. Ft. Bergen will probably need to be moved one tile back towards us, then it would have no overlap with Delhi. As it is now, it will be cultural toast sooner or later. That's a project for after we get peace though.

Shouldn't our credit problems trigger us to decide now what direction we would like to take with the game? In particular, doesn't it make it more likely that we will have to shift to a military focus rather than building? I have never been in a game where credit could not be used to purchase techs this early in the game. Any thoughts y'all have regarding this will be very helpful.

Sulla, do no move Fort Bergen, just keep at least 4 troops in it. I created the city to get a strong defensive position against India. Once India is gone, or at least once Delhi is ours, it becomes a useless city.

Reagan, there are other ways to buy tech then using credit. You can pay all cash, you can get credit through peace renewal, you can steal tech. So the credit problem doesn't have an impact on what direction we want to go. Once India is a goner, I'd be happy with a peaceful space race :)

I understand that we have other methods of acquiring techs. The reality is, though, that not being able to use gpt can hamper pulling 2-for-1 deals and other techniques that allow some semblance of tech parity. Likewise, stealing techs requires a strong cash flow and the military ability to fend off the war(s) that will be triggered by failed steal attempts. Going for a military victory should allow us to play from behind easier because we will need fewer techs than a space race game would require. Just a thought . . . .

Pre-playing: Bah, reagan you're being far too pessimistic. :) We don't need gpt credit to win this game; as Jaxom said, there are many ways of getting around that. Going for a military-related victory may be an option, but I would say that the space race would be by far our best way to achieve victory. Do you have any idea how hard it would be to mount an invasion on Carthage's island? We could do it, but it would require 100+ troops at the minimum. I think if we secure our island, we will be in pretty decent shape to lift off in the spaceship. And I have no plans to move Fort Bergen at the moment, but if we are going to have a long peace with India, it should be considered (assuming Delhi is still there). Our culture does suck, after all.

(0) 650AD Change tiles in Trondheim to shave a turn off of knight production; I don't care if the city stops growing for the moment, this is more important. Copenhagen has tiles changes as well to shave a turn off of a knight (it's at size 12 so lowering its food doesn't matter). Churchill Downs temple rushed; I want to eliminate cultural pressure there, and a cuture border expansion will do that. Stavenger, stuck at size 6 building an acqueduct, goes to max shields even food to shave off 5 turns of building. Why are 8 workers sitting around doing nothing? I send three to go change some tiles around in the west, keep the others on standby to improve tiles near the front (OK, that's probably what they were doing). Diplo check reveals nothing worth noting. Now let's play! :)

(1) 660AD A jumbo attacks Ft. Bergen and does no damage, retreating from the city. Two other elephants attack the exposed pike we had guarding our injured elite MDI; the first kills the pike with no damage and the second kills the injured MDI with no damage (sigh). Bodo founded and walls immediately rushed; we now have furs! Our knight cuts down the elephant that retreated first and can safely return to the protection of Fort Bergen (using a longbow or MDI would have exposed the unit to an easy counterattack). 6 cats bombard a jumbo down to 1hp and then an MDI finishes the job. Another MDI cuts down the other jumbo, also taking only one damage in the process. Nice! Gotta love those cats. :love:

(2) 670AD Between turns, a jumbo kills itself attacking the Fort and another retreats. Our exposed MDI was attacked and killed by an Indian longbow; there was nothing we could do about that. We are still coming out way ahead in shield costs so far. Our "Jonny on the Spot" knight again kills the 1hp jumbo that retreated last turn. I rush a pike in Fort Bergen at 84g because we need some more defenders. This was a setup turn, hopefully I can begin bombarding Calcutta with a stack of cats within the next few turns.

(3) 680AD No attacks from jumbos; is India running out of steam? A musket and two longbows are pretty exposed to attack this turn, so let's see what I can do. Musket is bombarded down to one hit point and attacked with an MDI; he loses three straight rounds (yikes!) and wins on the fourth (phew!) After hitting with two out of three shots against a musket, out cats miss 5 out of 6 times against a longbow. Good thing it didn't matter and we wipe it out easily with a knight anyway. Another knight effortlessly tramples a longbow into the ground. I get some money from selling world map; hopefully can move on Calcutta next turn.

(4) 690AD Between turns a longbow attacks a knight, who fortunately retreats on us. Trondheim and Reykjavik produce knights and go to work on more. The offending lowbow is cut down easily by one of our knights. A pike that is clearly going to reinforce Calcutta is bombarded down to one hit point and killed by a MDI.

(5) 700AD We renew our luxury deal with Hannibal and renew peace with Elizabeth. Between turns, the Indians drop off two jumbos in the middle of our island on a hill; ouch, this could be trouble. This is ugly city here; no choice but to charge in with the two knights that can reach them this turn. The first one attacks... and WINS! The second loses, but cuts the Indian ugly down to a single hit point... which goes to two when it promotes to elite. But all of our cities should be safe now, barring some really freaky RNG luck on their turn. The land route to Calcutta has been cut off now thanks to pilaging, so that should cut down on reinforcements to that city. Our elite knight then cuts down the an injured musket in the field without a scratch! Our catapults fire at Calcutta... and none of them hit. Why am I not surprised? I will be building up an attack force to take that city; about 10-15 units should do it.

(6) 710AD Renew our deal for English silks. The injured jumbo goes after one of our cities and fails, retreating with one hit point. The sacrificial MDI who pillaged the Indian land road to Calcutta is taken out by an Indian longbow. All of our cat shots miss again; why am I not surprised? Almost enough to attack Calcutta. Oh, and India started work on Bach's this turn in Delhi. Nice for us!

(7) 720AD Another jumbo goes after the Fort, another one gets redlined to one hit point and retreats. I get tired of the 1hp jumbo wandering around our territory and kill it with a pike. I bombard a longbow to 1hp... and our knight that attacks it loses 4 straight rounds and dies. Wow... the odds of that are 1/256. Does that suck or what? He is then cut down and killed without a scratch by the next knight.

(8) 730AD Remarkably, we get two hits on units at Calcutta, revealing that there are only two vet muskets and one regular one on defense. Charge!!! The first knight kills the regular musket, bringing a 3/4 vet one up. :) An MDI goes down to one hit point but takes out the next one!!! :D That one kills our elite longbow without a scratch, but goes down before our elite knight - now the last defender is a longbow! Healfdene charges in, and we have taken Calcutta!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_calcutta.jpg

Calcutta is razed to the ground. Yes, I read the argument for keeping it, but I am not going to fool at this point with a city that has 11 dang resistors in it. The Fort is now size 3 (I have been having it work high food tiles) and a settler is rushed to occupy the empty space. We still are not seeing major WW, so I think we can get Bangalore and our own supply of saltpeter before making peace with Gandhi. Temple rushed in Bodo this turn, something I should have done earlier. Once Bodo has its temple done and Bangalore is razed, it will be completely safe from a flip. Gandhi is also now willing to give us tech for peace; maybe in a few more turns, big guy! :lol:

(9) 740AD Bodo completes temple. Counterattacks from India seem to have dried up entirely; the fact that their best city is tied up on a wonder is not helping of course. A positioning turn; shuffling and healing units at the moment, plus moving workers to road an important hill tile.

(10) 750AD Bergen in disorder, what? Apparently war weariness escalated between turns, which is interesting because we didn't fight a SINGLE Indian unit last turn. I normally check at the end of all turns, but not when we don't fight a battle or even see an Indian unit. I escalate the luxury rate to 50% in response. T-Hawk will have veto power if he wants to end this war, but I really think we should get Bangalore first. Hannibal also jumped into the Industrial Age this turn. :eek: I hate having to pass off with cities in disorder, but my time is up.

I heaily recommend RAZING and replacing Bangalore (no need to take any chances) and signing peace with Gandhi. We've got the units to do it and India is gassed at this point. We could push on even further, but frankly we need to do some massive infrastructure in our core. Next turn, highlight the workers on the hill east of Bolo and use them to build a road (there are enough there to do it), then move all our offensive units from the road east toward Bangalore. From there, it's just a little hop, skip, and jump to Bangalore, which we should be able to take in 780AD. I'm sure T-Hawk can handle it. Then, when razing that city makes Bolo flip-proof, rush the FP there with our leader. After that, it's time for some of what Dwip called "The Eternal Infrastructure Christmas" :) There is a settler at the former Calcutta location who can found a city next turn or be moved as desired. Good luck T-Hawk, we're getting closer to a winning position. :goodjob:

RBE6 750AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_750AD.zip)

This was one of the most entertaining succession game turns I've ever played; lots of units to move around which could achieve big gains againt few losses if used properly. I still think we should consider moving Fort Bergen just one tile backwards to keep it safe from a culture flip; it only has city walls and a barracks in it, after all. Well, deal with India first and then we'll decide what to do.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_750AD.jpg

Sweet turn! :goodjob: We're getting ourselves into a great position. Just wait'll we get the FP rushed.

You were right about the "loitering" workers. They were waiting for the founding of our new city on your first turn and then could be moved into position to start improvements in our new cities. Granted, we had a ton of Indian slave labor, but at non-Industrious speed, slaves weren't going to be sufficient to do all we needed done.

I had a bout of inter-turn WW that caused one outlying city to revolt. I check happiness every turn and had things in good order when I hit "enter." That's a flaw in the game because it doesn't give an attentive player the opportunity to correct a problem.

Got it, will play now.

There's also the option of taking Delhi itself - that would make darn sure we don't risk any flips from its influence :D :hammer:

Inherited turn:

Why's lux at 50%? 30% is all we need for every city except Aarhus. I understand keeping lux higher than it needs to be in the case of a WW increase, but you can scroll-ahead after the first riot and fix all the rest. Aarhus will require a clown for 3 turns until it finishes its marketplace.

The idle workers begin some reforestation around Copenhagen and Bergen to get those heavy-food cities a few more shields.

Anyways, I was thinking we were closer to capturing Bangalore than we are. It'll take a couple turns to get there. Still, the prize is saltpeter. And Calcutta only had three defenders; I expect Bangalore to have four or less.

I also decide we're keeping Fort Bergen right where it is, and a temple is rushed there. We can stomach one square of cultural overlap until we raze Delhi about 25 turns from now. Also, note that Fort Bergen will control the forest tile two NE of it, which is only two tiles away from Delhi, meaning knights can attack Delhi from the Fort in a single turn's movement.

Diplo check: We have furs available to trade. Carthage will take them for 27 gold/turn. Not that I want to help the game leader, but that's a big chunk of cash. Since our rep is already toast, I'll take the risk on Bodo flipping on this one single turn before we make it flip-proof. :)

=====

Inbetween turns, we see no Indian units!

760 AD: Forbidden Palace rushed in Bodo - the culture from the FP itself will cause the city to expand this turn and become flip-proof.

Karasjok founded where Calcutta was.

Between turns, our stack gets attacked, but we kill a longbow and retreat an elephant.

770 AD: Our Stack of Doom is next to Bangalore.

No Indian counterattacks, again.

780 AD: YEOUCH, war weariness just took a giant leap. This war will have to end at Bangalore. (Would someone please tell me how group bombard/auto bombard works? Ctrl-B seems to just do the same thing as B.)

But our catapults inflict NO damage on Bangalore's defenders, so I'll wait one turn, which will also get two more medieval infantry into play.

An elephant kills a pikeman.

790 AD: Our catapults score enough hits to reveal that there's only one musket in Bangalore. Unfortunately, that musket then wins FOURTEEN STRAIGHT hitpoints worth of battles, and then kills two MORE units. But it eventually dies, and the two pikes don't win any battles. Bangalore razed. I would keep it if it wasn't for this detail - it would be under cultural pressure from CARTHAGE!

Then:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-leader4.jpg

Healfdene knocks off a stray elephant and we get another leader! He shall henceforth be known as Healfdene Bloodaxe!

Well, it's time to make peace, since we don't have enough forces left to take Delhi nor do I want to waste 50% luxuries until we do.

Taking advantage of the fact that you can get credit on a peace deal, we get Banking, Astronomy, and Chemistry for 148 gold/turn. Yes, it's a lot, but we still have 50/turn left and now we'll build banks. I do this to get maximum visibility up the tree for any brokerage deals - Carthage is in the industrial age so we've gotta catch up.

Unfortunately, no tech brokering can be done now. We could buy and resell Physics if we had the cash, but we don't (and we won't for at least 20 turns now.) Well, it was worth a try - we did get three required techs. I had been hoping to net a brokerage deal for Music Theory to rush Bach's with the leader, but it just wasn't there.

==========

Well, lots of banks are ordered, and Bergen builds a settler to reclaim the Bangalore land. Our units form a blockade until our settler can get there.

And we trade Wines to Osman to pick up Dyes.

Between turns, Carthage declares war on England! FINE WITH US!

800 AD: Heh - England will accept credit for a tech! Our reputation was lost in betraying Carthage, which England now doesn't care about. :)

WE SEND: Furs, 95 gold/turn (all we've got), and 280 lump-sum to England to buy Metallurgy, at 3rd-civ price.

I do this because India doesn't have Metallurgy. We give it to them plus 230 gold and get Physics. Then we give Physics to the Ottomans for Music Theory. :goodjob:

So all our income is mortgaged for a while, but we got SIX techs, and now JS Bach's Cathedral. In Aarhus, which would lose the least progress towards a bank by rushing a wonder now.

And then the Ottomans ally with England against Carthage! :D Osman will now also accept credit, although he doesn't have anything we'd want to buy.

Carthage MPPs with Mongolia :lol:

==========

And that's all that happened (but that was plenty!) Tromso was founded two squares SW of where Bangalore was, and had its temple rushed, which it needed to be safe from cultural pressure and claim the saltpeter.

To amuse myself, I sent out a galley to look for the still-missing Celts. (What if we had started wherever they are? :eek: )

Stockholm's in food shortage at the moment due to planted forests; build a harbor after the bank and it'll be fine.

Carthage is moving about 1.2 gazillion boats around our island.

A few of our knights are back on Mount Copenhagen to play zone defense, if needed. The rest of our troops (and there aren't that many in fact) are hanging out in Fort Bergen. We can upgrade our catapults (with Leo's) once the saltpeter comes under our control. Cannons hit cities much better - and ours can reach Delhi after only one turn's movement from Fort Bergen. We should be ready to go against India again once our current deals run out.

In the meantime, Priority One is to ramp up the productivity in our FP area. Population is everything to start (Karasjok keeps reassigning itself away from the game tile, don't let it do that), then the aqueducts.

Carthage is still several techs ahead, though....

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-850ad.zip

And the map:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-850ad.jpg

Wow, what a turn! :worshp:

SIX techs, another leader, another wonder, and Indian battered back to 5CC status. We're still quite a bit behind, but things are improving with every succession game turn. Our income will dramatically improve once we get those banks completed too. Carthage will be the biggest longterm threat, so we'll have to do something about them in the future. And where are the Celts? That's a good question! I can't remember a game where I got almost into the Industrial Age before contacting one of the civs.

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

EDIT: When re-reading T-Hawk's description, I realized something incredible: it was HEALFDENE who produced our latest leader (!) The same unit who produced our first leader as a sword produced a second leader as a Medieval Infantry! Now that's just an incredible warrior - I've never seen the likes of that before.

Healfdene -> :viking: :worshp: :worshp: :worshp: <- Us

Nice! The hammer of T-hawk thumped Gandhi hard! :hammer:

During my turn, Lizzie wouldn't give us any credit. What'd you do to curry favor with her, T-hawk? Did you make a video of it? :groucho: I don't even want to know what you had to do to Osman to make him take gpt! :vomit:

:lol: :rotfl: :lol:

Originally posted by Erik Mesoy
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.

Well, here is a try:
May the Vikings march fourth and reign [suprime]! We shall conquer in the name of Odin, and Thor will watch over us! We call for the blessing of [lots and lots of gods and goddesses] and the Valkyries. May the Norns (“the Weird Sisters” or “the [Three] Fates") cut the lifelines of our enemies short!

Good luck! And this far: well played!

Man one learns so much from reading these threads its amazing... Although I do often feel myself rooting for the underdog (the AI that is), as bleak as things look sometimes it seems you (where you=elite SG players) always seem to pull some kind of rabbit out of the hat, or in this case perhaps its a vole from your horney helmets...

Anyway, I had a couple of questions that I hope someone would either answer or point me in the right direction. Yes I have scaned the other forums, but can't seem to find the answers I'm looking for, so here goes... be gentle with me...

First in many of these games I see the term 'renegotiate peace with XXX' I'm not sure exactly what this means, or is a euphamism of some kind? Also if someone could point me to a place where gpt deals are discussed in more detail I'd appreciate it, I just can't seem to get the hang of them in my games.

Anyway, this isn't really the right place for these questions perhaps (I apologize), but I find these SGs so compelling that I just had to delurk and laud the players, while hoping that they would point me in a direction to improve my own play.

Thanks for the write ups, keeps me out of trouble at work ;)

Renegotiating peace is when you go to the diplomacy screen and click on Active for active deals, then remove the peace treaty and see what you can get for continued peace. If the other civ wants something and you won't agree, then you are at war with them.

I love it when someone likes a thread so much they "de-lurk", and show up with post #1 !! :hammer: Welcome licker!

Peace renegotiation as a tactic - I don't think it's discussed anywhere in strat articles. I knew you could but didn't think of it as a highly useful tactic until very recently. In this thread, the RBP3 game...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39225&perpage=20&display=&pagenumber=5

Cartouche Bee, at a time where we were at peace with the whole world, and 'renegotiated peace' to pull in all sorts of gold and goodies. My amazement at this and question appears at the bottom of page 5 there, and his answer which you should read is at the top of the next page (6).

Basically, if your "Power" rating, off the histograph, is greater than another civ, you can have them PAY just to be at peace with you. Go to the normal diplomacy screen, click on "Existing Deals" and if it's a plain "Peace Treaty" you can click on it. Your advisor will warn you and ask if you really want to do this, say yes. Be advised that if you cancel out of the peace negoation then you've just declared war, so don't do this unless you're ready to deal with the consequences.

WHY would you do this? Let's say that due to a difference in power the AI values being at peace with you at 800g (or 40gpt). If you trade for a tech and he won't sell it except for 100gpt, if you force the deal at the peace table, you can get it for 60gpt (a 40gpt discount in this case). A real benefit is that when there is the threat of war hanging over their head, that "gpt deal" that they have been avoiding suddenly is acceptable, even if you reputation is a bit stained. (If the stain was against THEM, I don't know if they'll still cut you slack) In RPB3 CB made great use of us being at the top of the power chart, despite having no military whatsoever, to not only get money and discounts, but get a 20 turn promise of peace from some civs that were starting to worry us.

If your questions are about a specific tactic used in a SG game, and especially if you've tried to get an answer on your own, don't feel bad about asking in here, I think folks would happily respond. For general questions, also try the "Strategy and Tips" forum, which is the best place, and which I try to watch at least once in a while.

Charis

(PS Just before submitting this I see bengood has given the correct short answer :P )

reagan: I explained it in the report. Our reputation betrayal was against Carthage. England is now at war with Carthage. Therefore, we have a clean reputation as far as England is concerned. :) Same with the Ottomans.

Sulla: I can remember a game where I launched a spaceship without having contact with several of the civs ;) (Epic 14 :D )

Wetterlind: Thanks so much for the translation. I'm sure it will inspire our troops during their (hopefully) last march against India's blight on our homeland. :hammer:

T-hawk: My sense of humor is dry as dust. I was just using our newfound credit line for an opportunity to make a crude joke or two. :D

licker: Glad you're enjoying our naked exploits! :) It's great that we have a place where we can discuss Civ3 and share ideas. Charis and bengood22 gave you a good description of the benefits of peace renegotiation. There's a potential downside to consider, though. Be careful that you don't use it with a civ you might want to attack within the following twenty turns. [phaser] Renegotiating peace locks you into twenty turns of peace, which will stain your reputation if you break it. Also, I believe that peace renegotiation is listed as a "dishonorable" tactic in the Realms Beyond rules, so there might be certain tournaments or SGs where it is improper to throw your power around in that fashion. :mischief:

Originally posted by Reagan
Also, I believe that peace renegotiation is listed as a "dishonorable" tactic in the Realms Beyond rules, so there might be certain tournaments or SGs where it is improper to throw your power around in that fashion. :mischief:

Are you sure about that? If the peace is for honorable peace it would be considered "dishonorable" because you were paid for the agreement. Just want to clarify it cause I'll stop doing that if it were the case.

[Edit:] Sorry for the off topic question.

Cartouche: From the Realms Beyond site: "Renegotiating ongoing peace treaties to squeeze more concessions out of weak civs is dastardly." I presume, because there is a separate heading for "honorable" diplomacy, that this is considered dishonorable, which doesn't mean it's prohibited (like an exploit would be). If I have confused the intent of the rules, hopefully someone more familiar with them will correct me.

By the way, I was/am not commenting on your (or anyone else's) use of renegotiation. I was just pointing out that everyone should remain cognizant of the rules of the game/tournament in which they are participating. :)

Such an action is allowed, along with many others, in any of our games that doesn't call for explicitly 'honorable' rules. It's not an exploit, just 'dastardly'.

BTW, I loathe those phrases. :P
Basically, exploit = so very cheap only the weakest or cheapest of players would use this, never allowed.
Dastardly = 'normal' :hammer:
Honorable = a ball and chain to add to whatever other handcuffs are in place for the game. = 'goody goody' rule set.

The norm is not otherwise specificied is: exploits: no, dastardly tactics: allowed.

;)
Charis

Thanks Reagan, I guess if you over use it, it's not too effective anyway (that would be the dastardly part); kind of like going to the well to often. It's that first negotiated peace when you really want something from them on the cheap that it works best anyway. I can live with that. ;) Good you brought it up. :thumbsup:

Thanks for the confirmation, Charis. That's precisely how I was interpreting the rules, too.

The AI makes demands on you, the renegotiate peace is an effective way to make demands on it.

Wow, thanks for the answers guys (and gals?). I didn't even realize you could do that... bah maybe I should read a manual or something :)

Heh, looks like I inadvertantly caused a bit of commotion too, ahh well, my work here is almost done then :p

Charis, I actually had read through the RBE3, but I must have skimmed the part you refered me too, thanks for bringing it back to my attention. I just gotta say again though, all these RBE and other 'handicap' diety games amaze me.

Thanks again guys, and maybe I'll actually stay delurked for a bit, if you all don't mind some questionings...

By the way those questionings would be via the French Inqusition, so tremble in fear indeed! ;)

By the way those questionings would be via the French Inqusition, so tremble in fear indeed!

The French Inquisition isn't so scary. On the other hand...NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! :eek:

Sorry to threadjack. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Got it. Will try to post tomorrow night (or Saturday morning).

JMB

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the way those questionings would be via the French Inqusition, so tremble in fear indeed!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the perfect opportunity to share one of my all-time favorite Civ3 lines. The following is an excerpt from a certain Civver's Web page regarding the French: "The cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys make an appearance in Civ3 as well, . . . ." I truly laughed out loud when I read this. :lol: The only problem was, I was at work at the time. Thankfully, I work in a pretty relaxed atmosphere!

Well since I doubt none of you have met my wife and daughter (yes wife is French, daughter is Franco-American) I'm not sure that you fully appreciate the devistating force that the French Inqusition, well at least it has a stong effect on me... :)

Another aside... my daughter who is 4, likes to play what she terms 'Heros games' as we used to play Heros III quite a bit with her doing some of the actions. When I introduced her to Civ III she first only allowed me to play Civ's with a Female leader, and furthermore, she really really liked Isabella for some reason, so most of my games (at least starts) are with the Spanish (yikes).

Ok, I'll try to keep my thougts more on subject from now on.

0 - Change Stravenger from Marketplace to Temple. IBT, exchange TMs with the Ottomans.

1 - Not much. Carthage is really pulling away techwise... India and England sign a military alliance versus Carthage. What is Gandhi :smoke:ing? Carthage begins Smith's. Indians and English begin Newton's. Mongols declare war on the Indians.

2 - Not much.

3 - Not much.

4 - We see the Celts borders! Renegotiate wines deal with Carthage. Unfortunately, we can only get ivory and 7 gpt for them. IBT, Mongols declare war on the English.

5 - Contact the Celts... Brennus' greeting: "A hundred thousand welcomes! Is it not a coincidence that I, Brennus, have found you? I think not!" That must be some good :smoke:... :) Brennus lacks Engineering and Theology, so I trade him Theology for his WM and 1 gold. Brennus has a lot of spices and some nice uncultivated land right in the center of his landmass... To keep receiving silks from Liz, we have to pay her 85 gold in addition to supplying her with our fine wines...

6 - TOG from the English for contact with the Celts, 83 gpt, and 295 gold. TOG, contact with the Celts, and Furs to the Ottomans for Magnetism, their WM, 14 gpt, and 36 gold. Contact with the Celts to India for 93 gold. Contact to the Zulu for 21 gold and 3 gpt. Contact to Carthage for their WM and 10 gold. Our WM to Liz for hers and 110 gold. Carthage already has Steam Power and Nationalism... The Ottomans drew Steam Power as their bonus tech. Begin single scientist research on Medicine. IBT, Ottoman's begin Newton's, and Carthage completes it.

7 - Decide to give Brennus Printing Press for his Spices and 3 gold. Carthage begins sufferage...

8 - Not much.

9 - Not much.

10 - Not much. Our furs deal with Carthage expired this turn, but when I tried to renegotiate it, I can't get very much for them (and we can't afford a tech from him...). India, England, and Carthage all have Steam and Nationalism; Carthage also has Industrialisation, Military Tradition and perhaps a couple of other techs we can't see... The Ottomans are missing Nationalism, so since we should be getting ~ 243 gpt within the next few turns, hopefully we'll be able to swing a 2fer1-tech deal with the Ottomans.

Also, I didn't build up our military very much during this set of turns, but we should probably strike Gandhi again soon... (even though he has Nationalism, there is still a musket defending his capital...) While the forested area to the NE of Fort Bergen will allow our knights to strike on the turn we declare war, we will be attacking across a river, so we might want to reconsider where we launch our attack from.

Here's the file: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked950AD.zip

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

JMB

One important thing:

Because of the terms of the peace deal with India, he is going to ask to renegotiate it as soon as it ends. Try and make sure we're ready for war right away at that point, instead of waiting another 20 turns.

Good point about the river at Delhi, too.

T-hawk,

I thought that as long as we didn't try to extort anything from India, we weren't bound to honour the peace treaty for 20 turns...

JMB

Yes, we're allowed to break a straight peace-for-peace deal, but that's another reputation hit within the game context. We're already having a tough time finding trading partners.

Dastardly does not equal "normal", it equals dastardly. :) We're not talking about the player, though. We're talking about the action taken in the context of the game.

What would it actually mean, in real life terms, to "raze" a city? We're talking mass murder and mayhem, here. Aggression, "might makes right", using force and intimidation to impose your will, taking what you want from those who are weaker just because you can.

Well, doing these things in real life is one thing. Pretending to do them in a game is something else. Civ3 doesn't judge or care. Its victory conditions do not include such distinctions.

The exploits are game elements that unbalance the game or defy reason. They are taken off the table to make the game more fun.

The honorable/dastardly tactics are distinctions between "good" and "evil" for role playing purposes or specific scenarios. Where role play is not involved, and you are "just playing the game", the distinction is not important. You as the player could play a very dastardly game without yourself being an evil person. I hope that distinction is clear.

Sometimes we may lose touch with what the game itself represents, though. Civilization? History. I don't believe it's at all inappropriate to remind ourselves, as we play, what it is that we are pretending to do. If we are playing as a bloodthirsty, warmongering, deceitful, tyrannical, genocidal despot, we ought to be able to acknowledge that's the role we've taken on. Maybe we could sterilize it, detach more from it, ignore the details, but I am not inclined to put on and wear such blinders. You can ignore the distinction if you like, but it's there as a reminder to those who care to notice that war and conquest are, after all, not trivial or joking matters, even in the context of a game.


- Sirian

Preturn: Diplomacy reveals the Ottoman have Steam power but not Nationalism. However, it is unlikely we can afford Nationalism during my reign. Our catapults are upgraded to cannons for 280 golds in preparation for war on India in 4 turns. I sell some furs to Carthage for 7gpt and gems. That is not much but that insures an extra luxury in case the war on India drags on. A settler is ordered in Reykjavik as it is our highest food city, the settler is meant to replace Delhi after our troops cleanse the area.



960 AD Thanks to the extra luxury, We love the Nudist's day breakup in many cities. :)

970 AD Stockholm completes a harbor and begins a courthouse.

980 AD ...

IT: England completes Smith, Carthage cascade to Universal Suffrage.

990 AD Aarhus completes a bank and begins a courthouse. Time to either renew peace with India or declare war. Delhi is still defended by a musket. War is declared on India and Military Tradition is bought from Ottoman for 113 GPT. This may seem like a lot but our Knights won't be able to break through rifles, so we do need cavalry to get rid of India. Our SOD move near Delhi from the forest square. All of our knights are upgraded to cavalry.

1000 AD The musket in Delhi is now a rifleman, as expected. Our cannons fire away, destroy a barrack and granary and kill 2 population. Our cavalry spread out to starve Delhi, no signs of India counter-attack.

1010 AD Delhi grows back to size 11, our cannons drop it to 9. More cavalry and musketman take control of food tiles. The indian saltpeter is disconnected.

IT: We loose a cavalry to a wandering rifleman in the field. I am unable to start an embargo against India, I guess they will still be able to make cavalries.

1020 AD Our cannons drop Delhi to size 8 and bring all 4 defending rifleman to 2hp or less so I decide to launch an attack. We loose 2 cavalries but Delhi is destroyed.

IT: 2 regular Indian cavalries kill 2 of our veteran MedInf lacking cover.

1030 AD One of the Indian cavalry is dispatched, the other is too deep in india. Our cavalries are healing in Fort Bergen. Vadso is founded on the former site of Delhi and walls are rushed right away.

1040 AD A cavalry climb a mountain in India to get a good view. Madras is defended by a musket so a group of cavalry move within striking distance.

IT: Elizabeth recruits Temujin and Brennus in her crusade against Hannibal. Hopefully Carthage will destroy the useless Mongol. An Indian cavalry tries to kill a musketman on his way to Vadso and retreats.

1050 AD Our cavalries attack Madras and raze it to the ground without losses. It was defended by 2 musket and a pike. An elite cavalry kills the India cavalry and Leif Eriksson makes a showing. He is sent to Vadso for the next leader to decide what to do with him. A settler is sent to reclaim former Madras.



India is down to 3 cities, it is likely the next leader can destroy them, or get 2 more cities and get Nationalism at a big discount. Carthage is still at war with India and are landing cavalries regularly so be careful of what type of peace deal you make with India if you do make peace. My opinion is, we should get rid of India now and start trying to catch up with Carthage and England, tech wise.

Here is the save at the end of 1050 AD. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1050AD.zip)

The new political map:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6_map_ad1050.jpg

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

Saving the leader for TOE wouldn't be a bad idea, unless we think we can have a prebuild up and ready for when the tech appears. If we are confident of nailing that wonder, would could use the leader for an army, although I don't think we will be seeing enough combat remaining in this game for a Heroic Epic to make much of a difference.

As for peace with India, a lot of it would depend on how much of a discount we can get on Nationalism. If we can get that tech at a huge discount and then trade it for another tech to someone else, then signing peace with India after reducing Gandhi to one city would be a very good move. On the other hand, if he is only willing to cut the price from 200gpt to 150gpt, it wouldn't be worthwhile. Agree that we need to get Steam Power and our rails up ASAP, but fortunately once we get rails + Sanitation we can irrigate our cities up to size 20 much faster than the AI civs and really start competing with Carthage. And our colonies on West Isle can add some serious income once we put some work into them; they are easily close enough to serve as marginally corrupt fishing towns.

By the way, we don't want Carthage to kill Mongolia or any other civ for that matter. Every shipload of troops that Hannibal sends out is shields that he's not spending on factories, power plants, hospitals, stock exchanges, etc. Keep on fighting baby, and let's hope that the workers of the world unite to topple the democracy and throw a big red party all over Carthage. ;)

I did not mention it in my report, but the best price for steam power was 171 GPT from India in peace renegociation. Ottoman, England, Carthage and India are up to at least industrialization. Celts are up to banking and Mongol were still in the ancient era the last time I checked. At this point, neither Celt nor Mongol can be a trading partner and both are raising the price of tech for us, that is why I'd like to see the mongol gone.

At this point, no deal with India will lead to a 2-for-1, hence my opinion of just getting rid of them so that we can concentrate on building up our island.

Keep We Love the Nudist Day (heh heh) going in the western island cities to get their production up. Run entertainers if you need to - better a city working 8 laborers in WLTND than 10 without. Also ship some riflemen over there when we get a chance - they'll probably be the first thing targeted the next time somebody declares war on us.

Also don't neglect our FP area. That's what we worked so hard in all these wars to get - let's take advantage of it! Keep those populations churning. Get those marketplaces and banks going as fast as we can. That's going to put our economy over the top more than anything else - and it's almost time for Wall Street, too.

Eliminating Mongolia would take more resources than it would save us in cheaper tech costs. I wouldn't mind seeing India eliminated, though (remember we can keep instead of raze his final city or two.) As for the Celts - we could gift them up to just before modern technology to maybe get them to be a trading partner.

Finally, remember to skim workers off the size-12 cities, since we'll want more to build the rails.

I'm three turns into my current reign, but thought I'd give you a sneak peek at our progress before I go to bed. What item(s) of importance do you see in this snapshot?

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

Items of importance - Stavanger should've had a marketplace for a while by now. And Aarhus probably doesn't need a cathedral at only size 10.

Oh, wait, you mean the rails; we got Steam Power. :)

Oh, wait, you mean the coal; we have some of our own and don't have to buy it. :goodjob:

Oh, wait, you mean Aarhus is about to build an Iron Works! [party]

Well done, T-hawk. We have Steam Power, we have coal, and Aarhus is going to build the Iron Works (I just changed it for the purposes of taking the screen shot). :band: The military railnet should be completed before the end of my turn.

By the way, you're right about the marketplace in Stavanger, too. Those folks have been denied the opportunity to shop for far too long.

I plan to complete my turn sometime this morning.

Very nicely done! (I would have responded to the screenshot, but I saw last night that T-Hawk had already beaten me to it). Aarhus, the lousy city that we stuck in the middle of our territory just to plug a cultural gap, now has the potential to be one of our best cities. We will probably want to shift the tiles of other cities around it so Aarhus can get its full 21-tile radius and hopefully go well over 100 shields/turn. Who would've thunk it? :D

Speaker Ragnar of the Viking Republic, founder of the Viking civilization and shunner of clothing, surveyed his country’s position. He set as a goal the final expungement of India from the Vikings’ homeland or the extortion of discounted technology from Gandhi. In order to do so to the best effect, he took the following actions.

(0) 1050 – A diplo check allowed the addition of 207gp from map trading, which I will do every turn for ~20+gpt. 159gpt+400gp+furs to England gets us Steam Power. We have coal! The great rail project begins. Oh by the way, Aarhus can build the Iron Works and immediately swaps production! Our great leader, Mr. Eriksson, is brave but not foolish. He is more than happy to retreat to an interior city in order to avoid capture and/or revolt. Our Forbidden Palace city is building a settler? Not on my watch! :nono: New Oslo swaps from a’duct to market, with a settler to follow. Ft. Bergen swaps to market. Bodo swaps to a bank. Vadso’s rax is rushed to speed the healing of our front line troops. Troops are shuffled to allow a few MDIs, including an elite, to move towards India. All military production shifted to cavs, with a round of workers to follow in size-12 cities. MM a couple of cities.

IT – Ottomans and Carthage make peace. England and Carthage do likewise. India does not counterattack us.

(1) 1060 - Vadso: rax->library. New Oslo: market->settler. Rusguniae: harbor->’duct. Trade Chemistry to Zulu for Navigation. Send galley out to bust oceanic fog. Move our wounded troops into Vadso to recover.

IT – Carthage took and then lost Hyderabad. Whew!

(2) 1070 – Farsund founded. WW kicks up a notch for some unknown reason.

IT – nada

(3) 1080 – Carthago Novo: temple->market. Our 10 cav, 5 MDI, 2 musket, and 14 cannon SoD moves into India.

IT – Carthage and India make peace.

(4) 1090 – Tromso: ‘duct->market. Copenhagen: cav->worker. The SoD inches forward.

IT – We lost the 7gpt kicker from our Wines-Ivory deal with Carthage. India and Zulu agreed to a trade embargo against us.

(5) 1100 – Trondheim: cav->worker. Karasjok suffered a WW riot, which was uncontrollable. Bergen: cav->worker. Copenhagen: worker->musket. New Oslo: settler->’duct. Reykjavik: cav->worker. Stockholm: cav->worker. MM every worker-building city to max commerce. SoD is now on Kolhapur’s doorstep.

IT – Zulu and Carthage signed a MPP. Our Wines-Silks deal with England now costs us 17gpt. England is at war with the Ottomans.

(6) 1110 – Trondheim, Bergen, and Reykjavik: worker->musket. Stockholm: worker->cannon (I just realized it doesn’t have a rax, so “my bad” on the regular cav) :smoke: Kolhapur is shelled down to size 6 and is defended by only three wounded riflemen. Charge! One cav retreats and the others win, defeating not only the three riflemen, but also a conscript rifle and a cav. :hammer: We keep the city (complete with rax, bank, ‘duct, and harbor) and capture a cannon to boot. All of our cavs and the elite MDI move into the city for our flip-free turn in order to try to reduce some of the six resisters. With the military railnet effectively complete, our new workers start lumberjacking duty rather than laying rails over forests.

IT – We lost a musket and a cav defending Kolhapur. The Mongrels lost their third boatload of units trying to take Malaca. Trade Chemistry to the Celts to renew our Spices deal. We quell three resisters and put Kolhapur on breakeven food and set to produce a worker.

(7) 1120 – Pick off one of the two cavs India left exposed. Moved our SoD to the hill two tiles south of Lahore.

IT – Mongols and Carthage make peace. India and England ally against the Ottomans. We force an Indian cav to retreat.

(8) 1130 – Copenhagen: musket->musket. Pick off the Indian cav with our regular cav, but don’t get a promotion. The SoD, with the cavs now added, moves to the hill next to Lahore. Mongols give us 6gpt+10gp for Monotheism.

IT – Mongrels and Ottomans ally against England. One Indian cav retreats.

(9) 1140 – Reykjavik: musket->courthouse. Carthago Novo: rax->market. Stockholm: cannon->rax. Lahore, still size 7, now has three redlined rifles guarding it. Charge! One lost cav later, we take and keep the city, complete with a ‘duct, market, six resisters, and another source of Saltpeter. :hammer: Most of the SoD moves into the city for our free suppression round. Our regular cav promotes while killing the stranded Indian cav. Mongols give us 83gp for Theology. Lizzie gives us 28gpt for Saltpeter. Physics to Zulu for Econ.

IT – nada

(10) 1150 – Risor founded. Kolhapur suffered a round of suppression unhappiness.

Comments: Buying SP from England seemed like a worthwhile move for a few reasons. Namely, we purchased at the lowest realistic price, given that none of the low-tier civs were going to get it soon; England gave us an extra 4gpt credit for our furs as part of the trade; we got to work on our rail net sooner; we got to pay gpt for it; and, finally, getting SP will allow us access to a later-tier tech from India if we decide to go that route. I left us in a position to eliminate India. I’m torn between doing that and making peace so we can cut a discounted gpt deal for Industrialization. Nationalism can wait, I think, for our next 40-turn research round. That would let us save our cash to get SciMeth when the time comes. Thus, my vote is to pound India down to its last hit point and then let Gandhi live another twenty turns. The cathedrals are pre-builds for factories, but can be swapped to muskets or other orders if you’d like. I’m assuming we can buy Industrialization for cash soon if we don’t get it from India. At some point, we need to start building some naval support because you know a fight with Carthage will come sooner or later. We are more powerful than England and, thus, should be able to renegotiate peace to get a gpt deal on Industrialization or another tech if we decide to finish India off. Most of our military on the Indian front still have movement left. There are loads of MM opportunities, especially in the FP core cities.

Good luck next turn, Sullla.

Here’s the .zip and maps of our lands:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1150AD.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/core1.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/core2.JPG

What kind of discount are we talking on Industrialization? If it's any less than about 30 gold/turn, I'd say just bump off India and save ourselves the headaches.

Great turn! (Seems like we say that every time somebody plays, but it's true! :D )

IIRC, we'd have to give ~75gpt for Industrialization from India. I'm sure it's much more from England through peace re-negotiation and it's impossible from anyone else. Getting rid of India should reduce the price further, right? So perhaps the combination of taking Hyderabad and then strongarming England is the best. That even assumes Industrialization is a valuable tech for us at this point. If our whole goal is to build ToE, then we might be better off saving our $$$ for Electricity and SciMeth. We aren't exactly an economic powerhouse, so we need to use our money judiciously. We also might consider taking Richmond in order to reduce the cost of tech in a peace deal. We could have the colony taken and sue for peace before England could get troops to our shores.

I also forgot to mention that building a city on the unroaded coastal forest by Bodo would reclaim that tile and a few water tiles. Is that worth it? It would be uncorrupted and would be a good fishing village if nothing else. The tile north of the Tromso saltpeter would make a good city spot, but would get culture pressure from Carthage. The BG tile north of the Carthaginian riflemen would reclaim a couple of lost tiles, too, but probably isn't worth the hassle. There's also room for another fishing village on the forest to the west of Carthago Novo.

Oops, double post (hit reply again when I meant to edit)

I think I'd take the price discount from India, and hope that those last two Indian cities don't flip for the 20 turns. We might need every penny we can scrape together to catch up to Carthage. It's up for any further discussion and to Sulla, though.

Remember that getting rid of India right now will RAISE the price for Industrialization, since India has it. Eliminating them reduces the proportion of civs that have it from 4/8 to 3/7, a lower fraction. Finally, it's possible that India might manage to buy in to another tech using the payments that we give them, which would make them a potential 2-for-1 trading partner. I think that's enough reasons to let India live for now.

City on the forest by Bodo isn't worth it. No use in having a fishing village bump every one of the cities to the east farther down the corruption chain. North of the saltpeter probably is worthwhile; it does reclaim one other unused land tile, and once it expands borders it'll only have one square of pressure from Carthage, which is quite tolerable.

BTW, have we really been on Medicine for 24 turns already? Can we wait another 16 and be safe for ToE, even with the leader? Remember that cascade from Suffrage can eat ToE at the drop of a... err, what would a naked viking drop? :eek:

And I guess Aarhus should be the site to build Hoover, probably starting the prebuild right after the Iron Works. (A factory will take 6-8 turns to build and won't get Hoover that much sooner, and I don't think we can spare the cash to rush a factory.)

Haha, T-hawk -- we posted over the top of each other. :) I was just editing my post to question whether we even need to chase Industrialization right now. I'm actually inclined to take the deal with India if we go for Indust. and to wipe them out if we don't want the tech right now.

Hmm. Is Electricity around yet? If not, I think we can get Industrialization safely. Factories are quite a bit more important in PTW, with stock exchanges and commercial docks to build here in the industrial era. If Electricity is around, then we need to pour everything towards ToE.

(I'm off to dinner now, no more real-time posting between we two :lol: )

We did it again. This is almost like a message board chat session.

We were too far along towards Medicine when I inherited the game to switch away from it. I generally will go for Nationalism with a 40-turn research choice but it looks like we just might get away with this approach. This is unlikely, but would be sweet to be first to research Medicine.

edit: Nobody has Electricity yet, which is the only reason why I think it might be safe to pay for Industrialization at the moment. Without the ability to pay per-turn for tech, though, we need to save our cash in case the research pace on the bottom of the tree accelerates. By the way, I'm not advocating passing on Industrialization completely, just delaying it until we're sure we have the juice to get the SciMeth techs and put our leader to good use.

Wow, lots of trickey diplomacy going on. I won't be able to make a decision until I open up the game and see what's going on, but I think I'd favor getting Industrialization now so we can get started on our factories as soon as possible. I wonder if it might not be more productive to rush SUFFRAGE with the leader after trading for Industrialization so as to break the cascade? I don't know whether Suffrage has even been built yet at this point though; if it has, disregard that point. :D

I've got some tough choices to make in this round, let's hope they play out in our favor.

Suffrage hasn't been completed. Shake's hasn't even started yet. Part of the delay by the AI in getting to Electricity might be accounted for by research towards Free Artistry. If that's the case, snapping the Suffrage cascade might or might not work, because another could begin with FA. You're right, Sullla, it's really tricky right now!

(0) 1150AD The game looks fabulous right now, like in the category of "Is this the same game we were playing earlier?" In checking diplomacy, I notice two things: 1) as reagan mentioned, no one else has Electricity yet *phew* and 2) we will be getting back 113gpt in just four more turns as a deal with the Ottomans expires. That clinches it to me; our income is only going to go up as our new cities grow, and we will be making well over 200gpt when our deal with the Ottomans runs out. We shouldn't have any trouble being able to afford Electricity/Scientific Method when the techs appear. And there is even an outside chance that we will be the first ones to pull Medicine (though unlikely). So making peace with India and getting Industrialization would seem to be the best call here, so our production can go up to compete with the AI civs. If it looks like Suffrage is going to cause a cascade to TOE, I will consider using our leader for Suffrage. Hopefully, that wonder will be finished by the time Scientific Method appears.

OK, now I can actually start my turn! Cavalry pillage all of the tiles owned by India (which Carthaginian units are not standing on). I'm going to pound India's last city a little more since our cannons can't fire until next turn; will hold off on peace until then. I shuffle a few tiles around in our heavily overlapped core, but things looks great and there's not much to do. The colony city of Rusguniae is swapped from an acqueduct to a temple, since we need some culture there, but that's it! Our civ is running like a well-oiled machine. After the incredibly tense opening, we've finally reached the fun part and can afford to "build" a little. :goodjob:

(1) 1160AD A number of forests clear out thanks to our workers. Carthage and Celts sign peace (they were fighting?) Hannibal comes up to renew our lux for lux deal, only now instead of giving us 7gpt he wants 3gpt from us. We have 6 luxuries at the moment; we can get by without his gems (offer declined). Instead, I get 27gpt for our furs without the gems. Celts and England sign a military alliance against Mongolia. (ha, take that Temujin!)
Oh, now WW has kicked in without any warning, sending Trondheim into disorder (sigh). We had something like 8 happy faces there last turn, no sign that WW would jump up a notch. Well, I make a few entertainers for one turn of production, war with India will end this turn anyway. Several banks and marketplaces finish to jump our income up to 182gpt. Down to two resistors in Lahore and one in Kolhapur.

Now it's time to deal with India once and for all (well not "for all", since I intend to let them live). Our cannons shell Hyderabad, destroying the harbor, killing one population, and redlining the defender. Yes, there's only one rifle in the city, so I can't attack with our cavs. G-Man give us Industrialization in the peace deal for 68gpt. Note: bombarding the city and pillaging his tiles made a difference, because last turn Gandhi wouldn't sell for less than 74gpt. Now that we have Industrialization, we can see that Hannibal has The Corporation - he's researching the TOP half of the tech tree! :lol: Liz and Osman have it too, so no chance to broker for it. All across Scandinavia, designs for cathedrals miraculously turn into factories. Just removing the entertainers from our cities (when using scroll-ahead to prevent disorder) increased our income by 30gpt! That's why you don't use entertainers, readers. :) I get some change for our world map and end our turn. Finally at peace once again!

(2) 1170AD Resistance ends in Lahore; it is still being starved down. Resistance ends in Kohlapur as well. WLTND celebrated in several cities. More banks and marketplaces finish, increasing our gold by another 30gpt. Move some cannons to safer parts of our territory and moved cavs to just outside our recent Indian conquests, so they won't be lost in the event of a flip. Our expendable MDIs are doing flip suppression duty. I notice something: INDIA has the Corporation tech too. Should be able to broker something there when we pick up another tech. Interesting point #2: Carthage, world superpower, is in a MONARCHY government. Thank goodness for the stupidity and pointless warmongering of the AI civs! :worshp: Trading world maps is only bringing in pennies each turn (3-4 gold) so I'm going to spare myself the hassel and stop doing it.

(3) 1180AD Lahore and Kolhapur still starving down, almost at size one. More shuffling of tiles to try and achieve greater efficiency in our core. No more new techs that we can see; that's right, research all the way to Combustion Hannibal, baby! We'll catch up to ya with a little TOE slingshot. ;)

(4) 1190AD England starts Shakespeare; oh great, another wonder to worry about. I just hope it gets taken out and ends the cascade (at 400 shields, the Suffrage cascade should take it out). Our gpt deal with the Ottomans has worn off and we are now up to a whopping 286gpt (!) Osman has Medicine this turn and no one else has it. Of course he won't trade it for anything, and we really have no use for The Corporation anyway until our factories finish. Better to keep stockpiling cash for when Electricity and Scientific Method show up; what can wait, should wait after all. Celts jumped into the Industrial Age this turn; I will be watching them closely to see if they pick up a tech we can trade for.

(5) 1200AD Celts sign a MA with Ottomans against India. Gandhi will be toast eventually regardless of what we do. Renew a lux deal with Osman, though we have to kick in an extra 4gpt. Lahore and Kolhapur both to size one now, and relatively safe from flips. We can trade Steam Power to Brennus for Democracy; since we have no plans to go to a democratic government, I decide that we will benefit more from the Celts not having rails than from having a tech we don't really need. Stasis on tech front; no one other than Osman has Medicine, and no one has Electricity.

(6) 1210AD England and Ottomans sign peace. Sometimes a picture says it all:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_ironworks.jpg

At size 12 and with no factory/power plant, Aarhus is already getting 38 shields/turn. When we get that city built up... look out! Ha, good thing I held off on the Democracy deal with Brennus, I get Democracy this turn from the Zulus for TOG and Magnetism. Interesting... the Carthaginians lack Medicine but the English and Ottomans both have it. For that matter, the Celts have Free Artistry which the Hannibal lacks too. Hmmm, I should be able to swing something here. I don't want to trade for Medicine though when we will get it for free in just 10 more turns. So a more limited trade follows... Steam Power to the Celts for Free Artistry and 8gpt. Free Artistry to Carthage for 92g and gems. I am still trying to conserve our income for later purchases; I could have gotten The Corporation from Carthage for FA and 2000g, but again we don't need stock exchanges until we finish working on factories. And I expect to get Corporation for free from India in a brokerage deal. So in sum, I make only two trades despite thinking about over a half-dozen. I'm playing it conservative here guys. :)

(7) 1220AD Borders expand and link Kohlapur culturally to our civ. A number of cities go into WLTND celebrations. Everyone starts work on Free Artistry; none of those cities will get it, of course; Shakespeare's will be a consolation prize to someone working on Suffrage right now. India gives us a worker for Free Artistry. No new techs on the diplo front.

(8) 1230AD Brennus demands furs. Sorry, but we don't cave to threats, especially not from nations that far away. He backs down, as expected. India and Ottomans sign a peace deal. Shaka gives us 22g + 11gpt for the worthless Free Artistry tech. I found embassies with the Zulus and Celts (since we don't have them...) and, just for fun, with the Mongols as well (hey, it was only 39g). Karakorum is still stuck in the ancient age, with horses and spears for defense and no medieval city improvements. The city is size 6, but still running an entertainer anyway. :smoke: The Celts will finish Suffrage in 16 turns (ha! not likely) and are in a golden age; I have no idea how they managed that. Must have attacked something with a gallic sword.

(9) 1240AD England completes Shakespeare's in London (good rittance!) Our first factory rolls off the production line at Copenhagen; the city is on a cathedral prebuild for a stock exchange or hospital, whichever we get first. Electricity has finally made an appearance this turn; England, Ottomans, and Carthaginians have it. They will not take lump sum gold for it, but we can probably renegotiate peace to pick it up. Since we will get another 159gpt from England next turn, I will take care of the trade then.

(10) 1250AD The Celts land a motley force of ancient age units next to India, which will probably kill Gandhi next turn. Gotta make deals NOW! And Hannibal builds Suffrage at Utica, killing the cascade. THANK YOU, we love our new "Little Brother" Hannibal! :love: Some routine worker movement, and then it's time for some marathon trading sessions.

Electricity obtained from Osman while renegotiating peace for 217gpt (this is less than half of our 515gpt income). Then we send Electricity to Gandhi for The Corporation; I would love to get Nationalism too, but there's no way to do so. G-Man chips in 6gpt too; I doubt he'll be around long enough for us to collect though! Reykjavik and Copenhagen, fresh off their factories, start building stock exchanges. We can now see the techs above us, and surprise! ENGLAND, not Carthage, is the tech leader(!) Liz has Refining and Steel, Osman and Hannibal lack Steel. We should have an opening there soon.

With that, I pass off my turn. It was nice and easy - a welcome change for this game! I've pretty much taken care of our financial problems, as we have 3760g in the bank and are making +304gpt. We have Electricity and await only the discovery of Scientific Method to rush TOE. There are no wonders in production anymore. :goodjob: Next ten turns should see us grab that critical wonder and rocket ahead on production; Hoover's will proabably be started in Aarhus just as it finishes its factory/power plant. Within the next 30-40 turns, we should see the completion of Hoover's, plus factories, hospitals, and stock exchanges all over our two cores. And when we reach that point... just try and mess with us, AI civs. Good luck T-Hawk, you should have a pretty fun turn - tons of stuff to manage here.

RBE6 1250AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_1250AD.zip)

Bah, the server said I had too many smileys in my above message and I had to cut some out. So here's a few to make up for it:
:hammer: :egypt: :beer: :santa: :band: :sheep: :jesus: :tank:

T-Hawk gets to see if India suvives the Celtic assault of ancient age units! It's a bunch of horses versus one or two rifles - who will win?! :eek:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_1250AD.jpg

Excellent work! I've got it, though might not get to play until Wednesday.

You said we're only awaiting the discovery of Sci Meth? We don't have Medicine yet. :confused: Though I guess it's unlikely that an AI will complete the wonder in six turns. What techs should we take?, though I assume the standard Atomic Theory and Electronics.

Aarhus would be wasting time if it built a power plant before building Hoover (Hoover itself is a power plant, of course.) Even building a factory is close to a wash on Hoover build date, although that'll have the city's production maxed out once Hoover finishes.

Great job turning this one around guys! :goodjob:
I love reading these succession game reports. One of these days soon I will have my play level at a point where I can participate instead of just observing. ;) Reading these threads is one of the main things that is getting me there. My play has improved tremedously since I started reading these exploits. Keep up the great work!

BTW, if you haven' checked in on the Defiant Nationalist game, you should. The fecal matter has hit the fan! :eek:

Inherited turn:

What's that buzzing sound? There's this whirring noise that won't go away. Oh, it's our nation humming along splendidly. :)

Between turns, India survives the Celts' attack by one hit point! THEN two Celtic frigates bombard the city. :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

We catch the Ottomans attempting to plant a spy.

1255 AD: I notice we have a Furs deal with the Ottomans up for renegotiation. It was 14/turn; he'll pay 22/turn now. Given that he's now the game leader (did anyone notice that Zimbabwe is Ottoman and has been for some time judging by the cultural radius? Another half-dozen cities with Zulu names are also Ottoman.), I think we're better off withholding the luxury; and he going to have hospitals soon too where it'll matter even more.

1265: Aarhus finishes factory, starts the Palace for Hoover.

England and Ottomans have Replaceable Parts. That's a tech we'd really like to have our hands on. Carthage doesn't have it. I know a brokerage deal when I see one. We renegotiate peace with England to buy Rep Parts for Furs + 223/turn, and pay Rep Parts plus 2400 (higher than I was expecting) for Refining from Carthage.

And we can even bring in India (hey, thanks for surviving!) for a three-fer deal. Rep Parts plus Refining to India gets us Nationalism (plus 30 gold/turn, hey, maybe he'll live long enough to pay it off.)

We have one rubber. I splurge a little bit and upgrade some of our motley pikes and muskets. Leo's is still working. :D

India's also got Espionage - can he live another 3 turns for us to trade Medicine for it?

=====

Brennus lands four fresh Gallic Swords to skewer on India's riflemen. The Celts do have Military Tradition and the resources to build cavalry; what's wrong with this guy?

England allies with India against the Celts. (How in the world did Gandhi pay for that?)

1280 AD: Yup - Medicine to India gets us Espionage. And oops, now I think I was a bit overeager in that last brokerage deal; we've only got 1500 gold now and +200/turn, not enough to buy Scientific Method right away. Fortunately, though, no one has it yet. :goodjob: And we do have some more stock exchanges coming, and eventually Wall Street.

At the end of 1280 AD, though, England starts Theory of Evolution. In London, so we've got a time limit here.

=====

1285 AD: Or we could buy Scientific Method now by renegotiating peace with Carthage. Hmm. The problem is that we can't see how much it's going to cost except by actually renegotiating peace, and then if I don't like it we have to sign peace straight-up and thus can't buy Sci Meth.

Between turns, Osman demands Furs. I decline right away, since if he declares war that gets us back 217 gold/turn that we paid for Electricity. He knows it, though, and was bluffing.

Ottoman and Carthage also start ToE this turn, both in productive cities. We can't count on more than about 5 turns before we have to buy in to Sci Meth.

We also buy Oil from the Ottomans for 1 gold! :D (Oil doesn't cost anything for a civ that doesn't have Combustion yet. This way we'll have Oil for free for a short time after we get that tech.)

=====

1300 AD: Whoops, one other detail that I didn't realize: Aarhus's Palace will finish this turn, so we need to buy in now.

Heh - I have no idea how the heck this happened, but India acquired Scientific Method. Unfortunately, the only brokerage available would be to buy Communism from Carthage by renegotiating peace, and trade that to India for Sci Method.

Well, I go into negotiations with Hannibal, and we can get Communism for 260/turn or Sci Meth for 145/turn. Hmm, is it worth it to pay an extra 115/turn to get Communism? :crazyeye: We settle for Sci Meth.

I set Aarhus to not finish its Palace this turn to be safe. The next leader will want to have Trondheim finish ToE, take Atomic Theory and Electronics, then scroll-ahead to Aarhus, set the city to max production, and swap it to the Hoover Dam. Then we should be able to trade our new techs for Steel and Combustion (we can in fact probably do that with just Atomic Theory, and hoard Electronics.) and also Ivory from Carthage. Don't research anything ourselves yet - it won't be worthwhile until we build libraries and universities, but we can probably start doing that soon.

Total haul on my turn: six techs again. :D With two more coming from ToE. :goodjob: Current treasury is 2061 + 133/turn; we are paying out a total of 682 to other civs!

Wall Street and the Intelligence Agency are also under construction. Any city with nothing else to build is on a cathedral; they can be changed to hospitals or commercial docks when those come available.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-1300ad.zip

Und das Map:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-1300ad.jpg

Uh, it looks like it was a good idea to keep India alive, as we got no fewer than THREE techs from his pathetic OCC behind. How did he manage to get Scientific Method? :confused: :lol:

Nice work T-Hawk, it looks like we will be able to kick into research mode soon and go flying past those warmongering AI civs. :)

Reading about our progress brought a big ol' smile to my face. :D

The "T" in T-hawk must stand for "trader!" :goodjob:

"Thunder", actually, but close enough. :) (And it ain't the Street Fighter character; I had the name long before. :yeah: )

We won't go flying by them all just yet; ToE will put us no better than one tech ahead, and maybe not even that. I checked how long it would take to research Sci Meth ourselves; it would've been 16 turns, and even a cheap tech like Sanitation would be at least 10. We need hospitals, commercial docks, libraries, universities, and time for our cities to grow past 12 before we can start researching. It'll happen, but probably not till the modern age.

Thanks for the nice setup T-hawk! :) It's really nice to have an easy set of turns with no problems...

0 - Not much. IBT, we complete the TOE, taking Atomic Theory and Electronics as our bonuse techs. Scroll ahead to Aarhus to swap to Hoover. After rearranging the tiles, Hoover is due in 6 turns...

1 - Change entertainer in Christiania to a scientist (we are still at +6 fpt) to begin researching Radio. Atomic Theory to England for Communism, 310 gpt, and 712 gold. Atomic Theory to the Ottomans for Steel and 1325 gold. I don't bother trading it to Carthage as it would only get us 24 gpt and Ivory. I guess I should have first traded with Carthage (for Steel, Communism, 24 gpt and Ivory), as both England and the Ottomans have Combustion. I could trade Electronics with them this turn (the Ottomans are offering Combustion, 94 gpt, and 1275 gold), but I decide to hold off until someone else (hopefully Carthage) gets it. IBT the Celts and India sign a peace treaty. I accept a peace treaty with India straight up since we have a couple of ongoing deals with them (they are paying us, probably for techs), and even though our rep is stained, I don't know if declaring on them at this point would increase our rep stain. We complete Wall Street in Copenhagen.

2 - Not much. I decide to rush an aqueduct in Rusguniae (392 gold) so that it can grow... IBT, England and the Mongols sign a peace treaty.

3 - Not much. IBT, nothing.

4 - Not much. IBT, nothing.

5 - Not much. No advances techwise, so I swap several of our cities from cathedrals to libraries. IBT, we complete the Hoover Dam.

6 - With almost 7000 gold in the bank, I rush a marketplace in Rusguniae (376 gold). IBT, we complete the Intelligence Agency.

7 - I give Brennus Communism for 78 gpt.

8 - Rush a granary in Rusguniae. Carthage got Combustion, so we trade them Atomic theory for Combustion and 19 gpt.

9 - The Ottomans and England researched Mass Production and Flight and then traded them this turn. We can easily get both of them (and a fair bit of gold) for Electronics, but I think we can still get more... I'll leave that for the next leader to decide.

10 - Not much. We can get 95 gpt and 290 gold from India for Atomic theory. The next leader can decide. We can also trade Electronics to the English and Ottomans for Flight and Mass Production. The Ottomans have more money (and gpt available), but I think England is currently researching Electronics as she wants Electronics and over 5000 gold for both Flight and Mass Prod. The Ottomans will give both techs for Electronics and 400 gold. Hold off on the tech purchase until England has just about discovered the tech and then trade it to the Ottomans (who are hopefully researching Sanitation...). The Ottomans have over 300 gpt income, while the English only have around 75 gpt.

Here's the file... http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RRE6Naked1350AD.zip

[EDIT: sorry about the filename typo (RRE instead of RBE)]

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

JMB

Preturn: A diplomacy check reveals that England is buying saltpeter from us at 28 GPT so I cancel the deal for now. Temujin finally reached the Middle Ages and would pay us 2 GPT for feudalism but that is peanuts and I pass on the deal. The Zulu agrees to pay 34 GPT for Communism and I take that deal. Ottoman wants 350 golds with Electronics for both Flight and Mass Production. Our peace treaty is about to expire so I renegociate peace and guess what? They pay us 1200 golds as well as their 2 techs to get Electronics and maintain peace so I take the deal. England would pay 104 GPT for Electronics, 105 being too much for them, so I sell them back the saltpeter for 28 GPT and hope they don't have enough to buy it from the Ottoman.

An airport is rushed in Carthago Novo while Bodo and Copenhagen are switch to airports. I don't plan on building more but we need a way to adequately protect our only source of rubber.



1355 AD England bought Electronics, oh well.

1360 AD ...
1365 AD We now have a spy in Ottoman's palace. Universities are completed in the core, commercial docks begins where available.

1370 AD India is still alive and only at war with the Mongol so I sell them steel for 79 GPT and 400 golds, where does he get the money from?

IT: Carthage request Mass Production, I refuse and war follows. Ottoman declare war on the English and Elizabeth asks us to help her against the Celts, which I refuse. Our shores are bombarded and the Carthaginian troops on our Island make a run for Kolhapur.

1375 AD It is a good thing I had upgraded the cannons before. Our artillery redlines all Carthage troops and many ironclads. Some destroyer are ordered to clean up our national waters. 3 of our cities were all done with buildings so they are set on military production. A few infantries are drafted in food rich cities, they are sent to cover our resources. Some cavalries and infantries are shipped to Lol in order to remove the ugly city of Malaca.

IT: 4 Carthage cavalries land near Carthago Novo, 4 guerrillas land near Christiana.

1380 AD Malaca is no more, burned to the ground by some naked infantry. We loose 2 cavalries taking out the 4 brown cavalries. We take no loss removing the 4 redlined guerrillas, no luck leader fishing. A couple of airports are added so that we can build vet bombers while we still have oil. The cities with airport already do switch to bombers.

IT: Ottoman and Celts enter a MPP. Carthage is moving a lot of boats off our shores, this is creating a huge pollution problem :)

1385 AD Ottoman now have motorized transportation. We have 3 turns left on the oil deal, having this tech before the deal expires would be sweet. Our naked spy in Ottoman's palace is invited into the first lady private quarters. He comes out with a huge grin on his face and the plans to build tanks in a certain body cavity. We bombard many ironclads and sink one. A couple of barracks are rushed on our main island so that everybody gets to build tanks on our last turn of free oil.

IT: Carthage land a single cavalry near Stockholm. Our troops fight over who gets to kill him.

1390 AD More bombing of ironclads and 3 more are sunk. We get sanitation from the Celts for Atomic Theory but all cities are busy taking advantage of the last 2 turns of free oil, so no hospitals are ordered. A spy is inserted in London to take advantage of our nakedness. Another spy is caught by Hannibal and he is returned to us with some missing body parts.

1395 AD More ironclads bombed and sent to the bottom, we will have a rich coral shore :) Hannibal is willing to talk but I will leave the peace negotiation to the next leader.

IT: One of our destroyer wandered near the coast of Carthage, he sinks 3 ironclads before being destroyed.

1400 AD A transport and a galleon are sunk, nothing else is moved so the next leader can best decide what to do from here. A spy is successfully inserted in Carthage.



Be careful about the build orders, we have no more oil and cannot build any of the units currently under construction. Osman wants 5k golds to ship some oil our way, I don't think it is worth paying for it. We will have 5 bombers, 1 fighter, 13 tanks, 7 destroyers, 2 battleships and 1 carrier once the current orders are completed, that should be enough to see us through the end of the game. Carthage has no oil but is getting some from either the Zulu or the Celt. The Zulu have signed an embargo with Carthage against us.

The settler coming out in Carthago Novo is intended to make a city on the wheat where we have an infantry and an artillery. This city is only to cover our island culturally.

Here is the save at the end of 1400 AD. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1400AD.zip)

England would pay 104 GPT for Electronics, 105 being too much for them, so I sell them back the saltpeter for 28 GPT and hope they don't have enough to buy it from the Ottoman.

100+gpt for an old tech is worth taking. At this level, there's no such thing as hoping the AI can't acquire the tech from another civ. They discount the snot out of it to each other and can, as Gandhi's done, pull money out of their @$$. I'm not picking on you, but that's a lost 76gpt that could have been put towards a tech steal or other fun stuff.

Got it, by the way. I should be able to play/post tomorrow night. And I thought I might get to play at least one turn without a war . . . .

75 gpt is pennies at this point of the game. For a while we were making 1400 gpt, so waiting a turn to sell to England in case I got a better deal is not going to hurt us that much. As it turns out, England got electronics almost for free since Osman declared war on them a few turns later.

You can play a turn without war. Hannibal is willing to talk and there is not much point in staying at war since he has no oil we can capture.

Our income increased by a factor of ten over the past two rounds (see T-hawk's 133gpt screenie at the top of the page)? Sweet! Still, 75gptx20=1500gp that could have been put to use. Gold runs many, many aspects of this game and I like to have access to it as much as possible, even if it seems like a trivial amount. Also, as I'm sure you've experienced, once you get second-tier civs hooked on gpt payments, you often can keep them there. When the deal expires, they will frequently have the freed-up cash to buy another tech from you. When you let another AI civ get that streak going, it's tough to pry them loose (Osman's foolishness in this case notwithstanding). So, passing on 75gpt once has the potential to operate as if you passed on 75gpt (or more) multiple times.

There's no inflection on message boards, so I want to confirm that I'm not picking on you, just offering a different point of view. :)

Our income increased by a factor of 2, T-hawks screenshot doesn't show that we were paying about 650 gpt to various civs. The 1400 includes receiving around 600 gpt from various civs.

I understand your point of view, I am also offering a different perspective. In my games, I rarely trade Electronics away since Atomic Theory is all I need to catch up on all missing techs. If I can afford to buy the techs without trading AE, then even better. I keep both, research Radio first, and use that one to pickup all the available cash just before entering Modern Times, if I feel I need more cash to finish the game. In this game, we have all we need to launch a space ship first, unless everybody starts making war on us.

In any case, what is done is done, I was hoping England would come up with Sanitation soon and I really didn't think that 75gpt was enough to buy electronics at 3rd civ price, even for a deity AI. Some gambles succeed but this one failed, oh well better luck next time :)

Speaker Ragnar of the Viking Republic, founder of the Viking civilization and shunner of clothing, surveyed his country’s position. He set as a goal the championing of a great literacy and health improvement project in his fair country. In order to do so to the best effect, he took the following actions.

(0) 1400 – Bombed Saldae and killed a citizen and destroyed their lie-berry (our literacy program is in its infancy). Shelled a Carthaginian ironclad to redline status. Moved some workers and artillery to the western side of the continent. Begin moving our transport around from New Oslo to the Carthage side of Scandinavia. MM tiles so Bodo’s taxman can be more productive. Why do we have so many conscript troops? Many of our cities still have unhappy citizens from the draft.

(1) 1405 - Any city without a library/university gets one. All others get a hospital. After that, they’ll get wealth enhancing buildings. Strafe Saldae again, destroying their coastal fortress. Killed an ironclad and redlined two more. Made peace with Carthage. Sold MotorTrans to England for 484gp+177gpt.

(2) 1410 – SciMeth to Zulu for 28gp+7gpt.

(3) 1415 – Mongols declared war on England. That they are still alive is testament to how poorly the AI manages overseas invasions. Fauske settled, begins library. Teach Temujin Chivalry for 186gp.

(4) 1420 – zzz

(5) 1425 – England and Celts make peace. Brennus demands Combustion and I tell him to stick it. He foolishly declares war. Leader fishing has no luck. Aarhus is now at 90+ shields and can crank an infantry each turn. When the time comes, we can add some workers and it’ll be an insane production machine.

(6) 1430 – India and Englad ally against the Ottomans. England then immediately makes peace with Osman. :lol: Combustion to India for all of his newly found cash – 367gp+68gpt.

(7) 1435 – Celts and Ottomans ally against India. Draft unhappiness requires a bump to 10% lux tax. As a result, hazing complaints by the conscript soldiers increase dramatically.

(8) 1440 – Build Battlefield Medicine? Perhaps we should . . . NOT (unless/until we decide to fight overseas)!

(9) 1445 – zzz

(10) 1450 – Sunk a Celt ironclad.


We have deals with Osman and Lizzie up for renegotiation. As our cities complete their infrastructure, building more artillery would be helpful. The tech pace is slowing down, apparently. We’ve had a lot to do with that through our economic gassing of the AIs by trading away our tech lead. Unfortunately, we don’t have the juice to research much faster than at min. pace. Building libraries/universities helped a bit, but not a huge amount. Won’t taking out the Mongols and/or Indians speed things up a bit? If we decide to go after the Mongrels, then we should acquire oil from Osman and start cranking tanks. Something to think about . . . .

Good luck next turn, Sullla.

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

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1450AD.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe61450ad.JPG

Everything looks pretty smooth from that picture, we are in great position to emerge with a victory here.

Originally posted by reagan
The tech pace is slowing down, apparently. We’ve had a lot to do with that through our economic gassing of the AIs by trading away our tech lead. Unfortunately, we don’t have the juice to research much faster than at min. pace. Building libraries/universities helped a bit, but not a huge amount. Won’t taking out the Mongols and/or Indians speed things up a bit?

No, there is certainly no need to go attacking any of the AI civs. Invading another island protected by radio towers, civil defenses, and all of the forces that they can throw at us would not be a pretty picture. We would need at least 100 units to have a good chance of establishing a beachhead; fighting would be more trouble that it's worth. Mongolia is too far away to be of any real benefit to us; better to leave them there for the other civs to waste their resources attacking.

We aren't researching that fast because our cities are still small in size - none of them are over size 13! Once they start maxing out in size, our reasearch capabilities will greatly increase. I will probably be irrigating a lot of tiles to increase our population more quickly. Should have the game back sometime late tonight.

No, there is certainly no need to go attacking any of the AI civs. Invading another island protected by radio towers, civil defenses, and all of the forces that they can throw at us would not be a pretty picture. We would need at least 100 units to have a good chance of establishing a beachhead; fighting would be more trouble that it's worth. Mongolia is too far away to be of any real benefit to us; better to leave them there for the other civs to waste their resources attacking.

We just traded Mongolia Chivalry and the Indians are squatting on the northeast corner of our homeland. We could be rid of both within thirty or forty turns if we built some more cavs, artillery, infantry, and transport ships. We would not need a ton of troops to establish a beachhead in Mongolia and their cities would fall quickly once we started attacking with cavs vs. pikes/muskets. I'm truly a builder at heart, but I can see the elimination of the two civs helping speed our research sufficiently that it would be a beneficial move.

If we're going to be the lead researchers, eliminating other civs doesn't change the research cost.

Only if we are in second place - researching a tech that someone else has but that we can't buy at monopoly price - does it make any sense to eliminate civs to lower our tech costs.

And it isn't that much anyway. The difference in tech costs between 1/7 of the civs having a tech as opposed to 1/5 is very little.

India's probably worthwhile to eliminate whenever we don't have an ongoing deal with them, just to grab that city's worth of land and eliminate the small flip chance in the other few cities. Mongolia is absolutely not worth attacking; we'll spend far more resources attacking them than any marginal decrease in tech costs would gain us.

Remember we are on Deity, where the tech costs are high. Once we get the populations up for the cities to work all the water tiles, and get the Commercial Docks build, research will speed up a bit.

(0) 1450AD I'm somewhat confused as to how our civ is configured. reagan was gearing us up for all out war, with most cities on break-even food + high shields and a number of cities building tanks rather than things like libraries. It's not bad planning, but we have nothing to gain from attacking our nearby civs, except for India of course. We already have more than enough forces to kill Gandhi, for that matter. So here comes the massive veto stamp, designed to turn us into a research powerhouse...

Wake our fortified workers and put them to, umm, work. Lots of tiles get irrigated to increase growth. Aarhus is stuck at size 13? That's not what we want! It grabs some nearby tiles and gets irrigated to grow. Even with every worker put to the task, we are nowhere close to the job needed; I get three of our cities upgraded up to snuff, the rest still need attention. Farsund switched from tank to Library. Karasjok is sitting at size 12, unable to grow? Hospital rushed (we have 25,000g!) Courthouse rushed in Lahore. Kohlapur gets a hospital. Copenhagen still needs a granary (I guess we always skipped it!) New Oslo needs a lot of stuff - hospital is rushed first so it can keep growing. Christiania gets a library. I make more switches, but don't want this to run too long. We were missing a lot of needed courthouses, for some reason. I trade Hannibal Motorized Transportation for Amphibious Warfare; on this map, we may potentially want to build marines. We're researching Radio at the minimum rate, not much I can do to change that at this point. Let's see how good we can be at researching by the time I finish this turn.

(1) 1455AD An insane amount of stuff completes due to my heavy spending, and I keep right on doing so. There's just too many things to build right now, and if we have a huge cash surplus, I'm going to put it to use. Celts sign Mongols to a trade embargo against us; oh yeah, we are at war with Brennus. That's not exactly a threat. Hmm, why is our FP city the one running the scientist? Shouldn't we be using a corrupt one for that? For you lurkers out there, here's what it means to reconfigure cities with workers: Aarhus was on max shields before, running 95 shields/turn and not growing at all. After reconfiguring it with irrigating, Aarhus now is getting 40 shields/turn and running +20 food. That's customization! :D

(2) 1460AD Tons more stuff built, we are down to "only" 18,500g. We are making 1300gpt but I'm spending closer to 3500gpt right now. Lots of fun moving workers around. At least with changing so many tiles around our world map is worth lots of cash!

(3) 1465AD I sink a few Celtic ironclads, just waiting for Brennus to talk. After 4 worker turns, I manages to irrigate our whole continent to my content. Now, in another few turns I will have to start mining it over again. Good thing no one else has hit Modern Age yet. F3 reveals a good reason why: England and Ottomans are in Communism (Carthage is a democracy though, so look for the next breakthrough to come from them).

(4) 1470AD Brennus lands some obsolete units in our territory (and yes, I let him do so). As some would say, it's clobberin' time! We sink 3 ironclads, kill a rifle, musket, and 6 other ancient age units. (Why don't the AI civs upgrade more?) A regular archer though does kill our elite MDI, in a truly bizzare strand of RNG luck. I do promote two tanks to elite status though using their blitz ability. Healfdene Bloodaxe wins a battle as well, but does not promote to elite. :( (Note: try to produce another leader with Healfdene if at all possible. He's already produced two leaders, and it would be incredible if he popped a third one as a guerrila!) Now we can sign peace with Brennus, getting 60g in the deal. Don't mess with us again! Bergen is the first city to max out in population at size 14 (small because it has to give Aarhus a lot of its tiles) and it gets mined back to high shields. Stavanger and Christiana also max out at size 12 due to the "Aarhus" effect. Liz has Radio this turn; since we will get it for free in 7 more turns, I'll pass on buying it. Another side effect of our massive growth rate is to be #1 in family size on the F11 screen (5 children!) End of war "happiness" means I have to increase luxuries up to 20%.

(5) 1475AD Ottomans land two tanks next to India's last city. Will Gandhi survive another turn? Ottomans, English, and Carthage are all in Modern age now. They all want 7000g for Radio which we will get for free in 6 turns; no deal. I'm going to shoulder T-Hawk with the responsibility for catching us up in tech on his turn, as it simply would not be worth it to end the min science research right now. Aarhus starts a prebuild right now for a wonder, just in case the AI civs beeline to Fusion.

(6) 1480AD The Ottoman tanks attack, and:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_indiadead.jpg

Farewell Gandhi; you were a worthy foe, but never a true match for the Naked Vikings! Stockholm maxes out at size 15, though since it has those wheats it will still keep growing even at max shields. Copenhagen maxes out at size 16. A lot of our core cities will be stuck at a fairly small size due to the way they are packed in there.

(7) 1485AD Carthage sneak attacks England! Could get interesting. Pretty slow turn otherwise, just mining the tiles of cities which have finished their growth.

(8) 1490AD Not much, just watching some nice naval battles between England and Carthage. Reykjavik maxes out at size 17 this turn.

(9) 1495AD More cool naval battles that we can see. Bodo reaches its full size at 16.

(10) 1500AD Quiet last turn. I've got a lot of notes on how to proceed though...

I've left T-Hawk just under 14,000g and us making +1257gpt. We will discover Radio next turn and enter the Modern Age; where to proceed from there will depend on which civs have which techs. Obviously we want to get the UN and then race for the spaceship as much as possible. Aarhus has a prebuild going at the moment; it probably is a premature one, but I wanted to have one in place just in case. Aarhus will hit size 18 next turn and then should have its tiles mined to break-even food; it should hit about 130 shields/turn after this is done. :D I've left about 10 workers fortified next to Aarhus to do anything I might have missed this turn. Our military is similarly stacked next to coal mountain in the heart of our homeland.

Many cities are on artillery right now for lack of anything else to build; if we are short on money, they could go to wealth (though I don't like that option much). Obviously if we can trade an outdated tech for some oil, it would benefit us greatly and let us get an airforce going again. We should be able to research at a reasonable rate now, as I poured a ton of money into developing our civ. Trading will be the key for the next round. I certainly had fun reconfiguring our civ, and I want to THANK reagan and others for not getting rid of our workers once the continent was railed. They were all needed, and then some. Good luck on the next turn!

RBE6 1500AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_1500AD.zip)

With the defiant nationalist going down in flames (yet proud, defiant flames), you guys are our last hope! :eek:
Although... you've more than got it under control, you're kickin' some booty! :hammer:

Good luck and finish strong!
Charis

Here's some more pics, first of our now somewhat larger cities:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_1500AD.jpg

And now here are the F11 statistics from before and after my turn:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_stats.jpg

Our population has gone up tremendously, and our GNP (the total commerce we are generating) has gone up likewise. The Manufactured Goods (total shields) has actually gone down due to some of the remaining irrigation, but it will quickly return to the previous level as the last tiles are re-mined. Literacy is way up though, and productivity - the overall measure of you civ's production - climbed every single one of my turns. Not too shabby considering I had only 10 turns to work with! :lol: This last turn shows the ultimate power of manually controlling workers versus automating them; there's no way the kind of configuration I did would have been possible with automation. You've got to love the little guys - always control them yourself if you can manage it! :king:

EDIT: Charis, the fate of your games was sad indeed, but at least both the Defiant Nationalists and the "Insane" Warmongering Koreans went out in heroic blazes of glory. And while our game wasn't exactly easy :mischief:, we weren't playing under restrictions nearly as difficult as yours. Still, it looks like the Naked Vikings will "lose" the competition of most insane succession game by posting the only win of the bunch. You can't say that Gandhi didn't try to make it interesting though. :)

Excellent.

I've got it. Does anyone mind if we take a diplo victory if that becomes possible? (Although it's not all that likely considering the wars we've had.)

I vote to take a victory however we can get it. Whether we can get a diplo victory is another story entirely. I'm disinclined to even allow a vote unless we can get ourselves really well set-up for the vote ahead of time.

Going for a space ship would be interesting since 1 or 2 AI can actually compete for the race. That would let us see if they did improve the AI strategy about the space ship.

Inherited turn:

Rush Stavanger's university. All else looks good. We have large luxury deals with England and Carthage that are up for renegotiation; I'll handle them next turn when we've got Radio and will be trading for tech parity.


1505: The Great Re-Mining of Aarhus occurs this turn. We can leave the city at size 18, since the lake tiles don't produce shields (don't affect the Iron Works productivity) and can be given to other cities. Aarhus is producing 132 shields now.

Diplo time; well, there just isn't much to do yet. The only modern tech anyone has is Rocketry, and the Ottomans have a monopoly on that.

Zulu have 32/turn available to pay; we give them Steel.

With England, we renegotiate to trade only Saltpeter for her Silks. At this point in the game, we definitely want to withhold our luxuries from other civs. Slowing their space research will be more likely to help us than any incrementally small cash payments.

I drop the deal to trade two luxuries for one of the Ottomans.

Instead, I buy both Ivory and Gems from Carthage for 61 gold/turn. (Remember buying two luxuries at once is a better deal overall.)

Then I buy the Ottomans' luxury for 45 gold/turn, and we can drop our own luxury tax to 0. (Why were we letting it sit at 20%)

That gives us the oomph to go 100% science on Computers to get it in 9. (Getting Computers makes future researches go faster, of course.)

I swap Aarhus to a colosseum to give it a little insurance for happiness, and then start a UN prebuild anew.

Between turns, the Ottomans ally and declare war on England.

==========

1510-1545: Nothing happens except that Carthage and England make peace, and several more of our cities receive mining optimization. I put some workers on automatic pollution duty just to speed things up, hope nobody minds that.

==========

1550: We've got Computers, and many Research Labs are ordered while Aarhus swaps its prebuild to SETI.

Usually, I avoid trading away this tech. But 1, it's clear that we're going to be the research leaders from here on; 2, Rocketry has finally been traded around; 3, England has 323/turn to offer; and 4, we can grab Oil for free. I trade around Computers and obtain a total of: Rocketry, 3300 lump-sum, 522 gold/turn, and Oil.

Research set to Fission, due in 9 but will be probably 7 after the Labs complete. I'd suggest letting Aarhus finish SETI now, and then start a new prebuild for the UN which will proceed just about on time.

8 techs to go, at 7 or so turns each; at that rate, I'll get to win this puppy on my next turn. :goodjob:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbe6-1550ad.zip

Hey T-hawk, I think you posted the incorrect/a broken link...

I am not quite sure where to browse for the file, otherwise, I'd try to find it.

JMB

Oops, had a slash where there should've beeen a dot. Fixed.

Got it. Will try to post tonight...

JMB

0 - Wow, I can't believe that Temujin still hasn't gotten Education or Gunpowder yet... To improve relations with him, I give him Education for 80 gold and 5 gpt. Change our two scientists in Karasjok, the 2 in Reykjavik, the three in Stockholm, and the one in Copenhagen to taxmen. Everything else looks good. This should be a nice quick set of turns... IBT, the trade embargo against us between the Mongols and Celts ends. Carthage wants to trade TMs, sure. Palace expansion.

1 - Hurry courthouse in Fauske. Other than that, not much. Carthage begins Seti. Hurry courthouse in Carthago Novo. Rush University in Farsund, research lab in Kolhapur and New Olso. Stock Exchange in Rusguinea and a university in Risor. IBT, the Ottomans begin the UN.

2 - Combustion to Shaka for 22 gpt and 30 gold. I give Temujin Banking for 11 gpt and 30 gold. Rush the hospital in Fauske. IBT, we complete Seti.

3 - I decide to investigate Tugela (254 gold); it will complete the UN in 11 turns (at 54 spt).

4 - Not much. IBT, palace expansion.

5 - We learn the secrets of Fission and begin researching Ecology. Palace expansion. Fortunately for us, the Ottomans, have no Uranium.

6 - The UN is due in 5 turns. Fission to Carthage for 77 gpt and 100 gold. Hurry several more buildings... IBT, the Mongols want an alliance versus the English. I decline.

7 - Carthage begins the UN and the Manhatten Project.

8 - Not much. Flight to the Celts for Spices, 42 gpt and 60 gold. Flight to Shaka for 59 gpt and 70 gold.

9 - Econ to the Mongols for 10 gpt and 5 gold.

10 - Not much. I decide to upgrade our Inf to Mech Inf.

Here is the file: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1600AD.zip

JMB

Good progress; we're in a winning situation from here. Just one question - why Ecology? We want to get on the Space Flight track :) (It'll come soon enough anyway, don't worry.)

T-hawk,

I chose Ecology because I figured the Ottomans were researching Space Flight and that we could trade for it later (or research it at reduced costs once the Ottomans had discovered it). Also, since Ecology is necessary for Synth Fibers we would have needed it pretty soon anyways.

So, we are still on the Space Flight track... What are the reasons you'd head directly for Space Flight?

JMB

What are the reasons you'd head directly for Space Flight?

T-hawk probably said that because he expected the AI civs to head for Ecology. :D I have noticed that a lot. It never hurts to get started on the Apollo Program though, and Space Flight allows you to see progress on Superconducters and Satellites, which enable more parts. I like to go for Nuclear Power a lot after Computers and Fission, because the AI civs essentially always ignore that tech, and you can frequently put nuclear plants in your highest production cities to help build the rest of the spaceship parts.

Not that this is a big deal, we look to be in pretty good shape regardless. :)

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

In this game, nuclear power will not help much since we can build only 2, maybe 3, nuclear plants. Getting to ICBM early in the race helps because you can then put all your cities on ICBM and switch the highest accumulated shields to whatever space parts you can build from traded techs.

Got it.

Preturn: A couple of tiles are mined in max pop cities.



1605 AD We loose an uranium. Luxury deals are negotiated anew with a slight price increase for us.

1610 AD We get the U.N. Hannibal learned of space flight, we don't have enough cash to attempt a safe steal, where did our 20k golds go?

1615 AD ...
1620 AD We discover Ecology, a massive public transportation program is initiated throughout our nation. Hannibal is doubtful for a trade even with our 5k golds. Of course he still doesn't trust our GPT payments. Nuclear Power begins at 60%, eta 11 turns, so that we can build up our cash reserve again. A naked spy girl flirts with Hannibal and send us the plans to the Apollo program, a bargain at 4400 golds. Aarhus gets on the program right away and will be done in 4 turns.

1625 AD Carthage completes the Manhattan Project and their first part. Bodo switches to the Apollo program, loosing 150 shields. Aarhus switches to a Solar plant as a prebuild to the engine.

1630 AD Carthage adds another part, our best cities get on the job of building the ship.

1635 AD Space flight is sold to England and Ottoman for a total of 300 GPT and 1600 golds. We complete our first part.

1640 AD ...
1645 AD We complete 2 more parts.

1650 AD Carthage completes its 3rd part. We are up on them by ecology.



Our previous deals with England, Carthage and Ottoman just expired this turn. Ecology can be sold for about a 1000 gpt, I recommend you do it. It is much cheaper to steal techs safely than to try to trade for them at this point, so a 1000 GPT would insure a safe steal every 4 turns while doing maximum research. Many workers are on auto-pollution cleanup, another group is fortified on the iron mountain near Bodo.

I don't think the game will get back to me, thanks for the game guys and gals :)

Here is the save at the end of 1650 AD. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1650AD.zip)

P.S. Don't use our cash to rush improvement, we don't need more buildings but we do need the ability to buy or steal any tech the AI research and we can only do that with hard cash.

Thanks for the answers about researching Space Flight.

JMB

(0) 1650 – Bump science 20% to shave one turn off our research. New Oslo shifted to police station from mass transit (we have plenty of workers to clean up the muck). Vadso goes from wealth to palace, as a nuke plant pre-build. Risor switches from mass transit to police station. Ditto Kolhapur. Faukse from mass transit to university. Carthago Novo from mass transit to research lab. Damn the environment, let’s squeeze out some more commerce! Ecology nets us: 438gpt+198gp from Carthage, 327gpt+153gp from England, and 163gpt+247gp+Oil from Ottomans.

(1) 1655 - Lahore: research lab->wealth. Aarhus: research lab->nuke plant prebuild. Five conscript MechInf are disbanded to complete Fauske’s university and Stavanger’s research lab.

(2) 1660 – Karasjok: stock exchange->wealth. Fauske: university->wealth. Stavanger: research lab->wealth.

(3) 1665 – Nuke Power discovered. Begin researching Synth Fibers (three parts possible) @ 7 turns. Stockholm: battleship (I hated to waste the shields)->wealth. Vadso: nuke plant->pre-build. Aarhus (166 shields!): nuke plant->pre-build. Kolhapur: police station->factory. New Oslo: police station->factory. Carthago Novo: research lab->comm. dock. Lol: stock exchange->factory.

(4) 1670 – Ottomans are fighting the Zulu. Christiania: police station->wealth. Riscor: police station->wealth. Carthage has Superconductor. 4600gp later, so do we! Two parts, coming right up!

(5) 1675 - :sleep:

(6) 1680 – Carthage adds a part and we add two. Celts land a motley force of two infantry, one guerilla, one cav, two MDIs, one archer, and one spear next to Christiania. Whatever made me think I could go a turn without war, anyway?! Dial up Brennus. What’s that? You won’t remove your troops? Well, it’s HAMMER TIME! :hammer: We lose spices, but gain a war happiness boost to compensate. Let’s go leader fishing, shall we? Whadda you know – the second elite tank battle against a redlined infantry produces Mr. Canute II. :) I try to promote Healfdene “Badass” Bloodaxe to elite against the redlined archer but it didn’t happen.

(7) 1685 – Carthage catches up in the space race, but we still have a one tech lead.

(8) 1690 – Five tanks promote to elite against the second motley invasion force. Alas, no promotion for Healfdene.

(9) 1695 – Mongols and England kiss and make up. What kind of ugly kid would those two have together?! :vomit: Celtic bombers are concentrating on Lahore’s tiles.

(10) 1700 – Synth Fibers completes and Satellites research begins @ 6 turns. One part completed through use of pre-build with two more due next turn. Three Celt bombers are intercepted. Three Celtic ships are sunk.

Not much to say. I left a Celtic b-ship and t-port at full health outside of Christiania. If you want to get cute and let Healfdene have a shot at promoting, let the troops land. If not, there’s a ton of arty and two ships available to make the Celts swim with the fishes. We can trade Superconductor to Ottomans, but I decided to hold off until our Dyes deal expires next turn so he can give us that in addition to the ~67gpt he has to offer now. We have good ol’ Canute available, too, but there’s not much to do with him.

Have fun next turn, Sullla.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6Naked1700AD.zip

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

Got it, this turn shouldn't take very long at all, especially compared to my last one.

(0) 1700AD Umm, we're researching at max rate and building the only available spaceship parts. What else is there to do? Nothing, and I must say it's a good feeling. :cool:

(1) 1705AD Between turns, we intercept and shoot down 4 out of 5 bombers! Never seen that before, nice work jet fighters! Whoa - some automated workers run by on my turn. That's a no-no for me; I understand the idea, but I find it easier to clean up pollution by hand than by automating workers to do it. And now I have to chase them down to repair the tiles that bombers attacked! Even worse, when I go to activate the workers, they have all used up their movement already because they didn't have "tasks" appointed to them by the game's AI. Well I have jobs for them to do - they need to go clean up the pollution on West Isle! :rolleyes: Please, don't automate the workers even in the endgame. It's LESS work to clean up pollution yourself, and if you do have a real job for the workers, you get this kind of mess that I'm in now. In other news, I kill a battleship/transport pair and move bombers to attack the carrier assaulting us next turn. I also upgrade infantry to mech infantry and non-elite tanks to MA. It probably won't matter, but you never know.

(2) 1710AD Our bombers pound the Celtic carrier/battleship pair after a jet fighter identifies them with a recon mission. Our destroyers then sink both without loss. Heh, I rarely get to fight modern wars, this is pretty cool. Now Brennus will talk for peace, we trade him wines for spices in the deal. Pretty good stuff for us.

(3) 1715AD We get hit with a triple pollution this turn and do not have enough workers to clean it all up. Who got rid of our native (Scandinavian) workers? There is never a good reason to do this. We are making +567gpt at 100% research, so really, what was the reason to get rid of our 20 or so workers? Come on now everyone, really, don't get rid of our workers just because there might have been a few turns when they were idle. Don't make me get Sirian in here to have a talk on why getting rid of workers is bad. :)

(4) 1720AD Aarhus builds a tactical nuke, umm, because it can. :) Our top three cities are producing nuke prebuilds, the rest are mostly on wealth.

(6) 1730AD Satellites discovered, researching The Laser (due in 7). But wait, we should be close to a faster time than that... I go through our cities swapping every tax collector to a scientist - and cut the time down to 6 turns! :goodjob: I'm so proud of myself, he he.

(7) 1735AD Next to last part completed in Aarhus. Carthage has 5 parts to our 9, England has 2, and no one else has any. This is a pretty pathetic space race showing from the AI civs.

(10) 1750AD Quadruple pollution this turn means I can't clean it all up. Such is life. Deals running out sends us to -749gpt; I make some trades for old techs and send that to +406gpt. Not that it matters. With only two turns left to play, there's no reason to pass off to T-Hawk, I'll take executive priviledge and finish the game. I won't pass off a turn to someone else if there are 3 or fewer turns remaining; just not cost-effective.

(11) 1752AD On this final turn I gift wines and furs to Mongolia. Temujin is the only friendly face on the diplomatic screen. He never got past Chemistry/Astronomy in tech...

(12) 1754AD Discover The Laser, Kohlapur builds a Mass Transit system allowing me to scroll ahead production and switch Aarhus to the Planetary Party Lounge. We win! Pictures to follow! :D

RBE6 victory (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_victory.zip)

First our map right before launch:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_1752AD.jpg

Here's our victory snapshot, with our time on the clock (a lot of that was me :mischief: )

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_victory.jpg

And some replay pics, showing how far behind we were at the start of the game.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_2070BCh.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_10ADh.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_1000ADh.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBE6_1754ADh.jpg

If you want to put this game into your HOF (and I expect you will), copy this line into the High_Scores text file in the PTW folder:

Ragnar_Lodbrok 19 3906 5 4 1

Too bad we only got a crummy 3906 points, but hey we played a much better game than that. My thanks go out to all of you, it was a rough ride in the beginning but we managed to pull it out! Long live Nudist Ragnar and the Naked Vikings! :hammer: :viking:

(And I hope T-Hawk doesn't mind that I finished the game... :p)

Woohoo!

:goodjob: :goodjob: [party] :wavey: :band: :saiyan: :thumbsup: :love:

I must say it looked really bad way back when we had an iron colony overrun on two consecutive turns... :D

Way to go, guys! Thanks for letting me tag along. :goodjob:

After all the excitement during the first half of the game, I'll take an uneventful space race any day! :)

edit: Except in one dead-horse-beating-discussed case in another game where I made a flawed strategy decision, I am not in the habit of retiring workers. I am unsure who got rid of 'em. As to the automated ones, I seem to recall that someone's previous turn report mentioned pollution-automating some workers. When nobody objected, I assumed everyone was OK with that so I didn't un-automate them.

Congratulations guys! The game looked pretty bleak to this lurker, but I am very impressed with how you pulled it out and won without any struggle at the end.

Great game guys! The picture in 2070 BC is really scary... I am quite surprised that we were able to dig ourselves out of that hole! I couldn't have done it myself that is for sure... :)

JMB

Hey guys, congrats!!! I'm glad you didn't catch the "implosion flu" that was going around in the other games, and pulled out a very nice win after what looked like an oppressive start!!

:hammer:
Charis

A bit (:confused: ) late, but I want to congratulate you all on this achievement. I reread it today (3rd time) and I can only conclude that this magnificent game-play is well-beyonf me.

But I am learning to play Emperor and Deity. Love to see more of this quality of game play. Who knows; i might be able to play like this in the forthcoming future.