Starting this thread to hopefully initiate a new SG. I haven't formed any clear ideas yet about what type of SG. The title 'Von Münchhausen' I chose as doing an SG in Civ 5 seems a little 'fantastic', considering the many SG's that have stranded.

I'm fairly new to the game myself, just got it couple of weeks ago, and have yet to play a full game. I like the idea of an SG for me to get to know the game better. I hope a team of 'young and old' players in terms of experience will form for this SG.

What the game parameters an objective will be will depend on your input. Voice your ideas!
Here are my own - very scant - thoughts:
A small map should be easier to finish, so my suggestion is to go for a small map. What I should mention here also is that my system is below specs for this game, and although I've had little problems yet, larger maps could prove a problem for me.
I'm thinking of a conventional map type, so fractal, pangaea or continents.
Victory condition; perhaps Domination? Ideas welcome, also about variants.
Civilization: any for me, again, this'll depend on your input.
Difficulty level: something average; Emperor perhaps? That can be rounded up or down, depending on what people feel comfortable with.

How I like to start: I like to roll a small number of starts, put them up here and let the team pick one of them. I find discussions about start positions interesting.

Important further notes:
DLC's: I believe - please correct me if I'm wrong - that DLC's in the game at start-up means all players must have these DLC's. I got the Spain/Inca package and the Vikings. If someone doesn't have those, but would still would want to be in, I think that person should probably start the game, for compatibility reasons.
If you're interested in this SG, please state which Civs you don't have. Extra map packs don't matter, but civs do.
Mods are off. I believe even InfoAddict has given trouble with SG's? I'm open to input on this, but unless I hear someone make a convincing point pro certain mods, this SG will start without mods.
Steam: I don't know for when a new patch package is expected, but it might be that we need our game to be set to working offline by then, considering the hugely disruptive impact that previous patches have had on games in progress. I've also read somewhere that there is the option to set Civ 5 to 'never update' or something, which would also do the trick. Anyway, just warning here that doing something like this at some stage could be crucial to keep the game going.

The only other thing that I'd like to state for now is that lurkers will be very welcome!

Okay, you can sign up now... :)

You may not be surprised to learn that I'd be up for another SG.

I agree about map size and speed of game, so small is good IMO.

I quite like Fractal maps as they tend to be pangea type but with a more random feel. Indeed some times they aren't pangea like at all!

I play emperor level so that what I'm going to suggest.

I have all of the DLC civs so me rolling the game is out the window.

On the mod front I feel that its ok to use UI mods as long as they don't affect the save. You can find this info in the mods description.

Patching should be decided upon when we see the next set of patch notes IMO. Its hard to call this till we know whats going to happen.

Now for the more fun bit!

There are a couple of civs that I'd like to try since the last patch.

Hiawatha of the Iroquois. His resourceless Mohawks should kick arse in an early war. Need I say more?

Egypt. Better odds of grabbing those beefed up early wonders (GL and HG) and the potential to rinse out some culture to play with those new SPs.

Actually I wonder about Persia as well. Keep the number of core cities down concentrate on culture and :) then smash some people up during those long golden ages.

You can count me in, always wanted to do one of these. I play King level but I think I could handle Emperor if I've got a team to back me up (also I guess I would put more effort in).

Info addict may make progress more transparent for the team to discuss, but I never used it. I just know the BAT and BUG mods from Civ4 helped a lot.

I think we have some time before next patch. I've got all DLC civs but totally fine with somebody else rolling. I'll be up for inputting a fair amount, I've seen how these work, read many an old one from Civ4. Fractal sounds nice, any Civ I don't mind. From the 2 above maybe slightly leaning towards Egypt.
I think it could be nice learning to pick up some newer players from the steam sale, but maybe make it King then.

Excellent!
I'm penciling in 'Iroquois? Egypt?'
With a 4th player I would start rolling, 5 team members is ideal, 6 possible. It would be nice to be able to put some pics in this thread, and rolling starts = pics! So a 4th player would be very welcome at this stage, to get things going.

I'd really like to get in on one, but I'm on a cruise from the night of the 18th through the morning of the 22nd this month. If nobody else pops up and you guys want to work around that I'm down for a shot. I've got a pretty good record on king and emperor is pretty tough but I figure city specialization has to be the way to get better. Let me know, It's a busy month at work for me but I can make some time and after my cruise it will be back to normal and lots of civ time!

You're very welcome, Ernstinson! Holidays, work commitments, illnesses etc. will always be there, but don't need to be a problem for an SG in my opinion.
I don't feel like putting up a strict 24 hrs to say 'got it', 48 hrs to play kind of rule. I've never seen it work like that.

Communication is key, though. Speaking to the whole team here, if you're next on the roster, I would very much appreciate a post from you within 24 hours. Most people have regular internet access, so that seems a reasonable ask. But if someone needs more time to take a proper look at the save or to play, then I have no problem with that.
I normally prefer to wait for someone rather than to go for a swap or skip.
Although it depends on the team, if most of you like a quick moving SG - a turnset being played every couple of days or so - than we can try to meet that. But personally I don't mind if it's like a turnset once a week or so. Although at a slug's pace like that it's sometimes nice if you get a day with 3 people doing a set in day - hey, we're moving again!
I'm more worried about a lack of posts; lack of discussion and stuff. Input is always a good thing. Even if it's not your set you're still playing - your opinion will always be valued; it's a team game.
If I may speak for myself, I will probably need your advice often, as I don't know Civ 5 too well. I have a reasonable post count, but it's all Civ III. Also my SG experience is just Civ III.

roster:
1. Optional
2. Ermstinson
3. grandad1982
4. Brichals
5. ?

I've put you second, Ermstinson, considering that cruise coming up in the second half of this month.

What I'm used to from Civ III SG's is that each player does 10 turns, but the first one takes 20. But that's Civ III, where you don't even have a unit for scouting to start with, so the first turns you're often just waiting for your first warrior to finish. There's more to do at the start of Civ 5, so 15 turns seems better, perhaps just 10, I'm not sure yet.

I'm thinking of rolling some starts tomorrow. Any last thoughts on our civ?
Default amount of AI's and CS's?

Well not a huge amount happens in the very early game so the first set being 20 then subsequent sets being 15 works ok. When more is going on then dropping to 10 is a good idea (makes writing up and note taking less of a chore as well).

Default civs and CSs is good. We're going small right?

Well I've stated my 2 main civ preferences, Egypt and the Iroquois. I'm easy over which one. They are both civs I haven't played much so its going to be good to bounce openings and general strategies around for either of them.

EDIT:
What do people think of turning quick combat on? I'm in favour.....

All looks good. If we get some possible starts we can maybe discuss the roster then. I'm really happy going 4th as it's my first SG but I'm away at a wedding in Wales 15-18 July. I guess depending on how fast we start my turn will fall after that or I could go earlier if me being 4th would put my time during 15-18th. After that I am free though, don't have any holidays planned soon.

Quick combat is also good for me. Also if we are trying not to put too much pressure on the computer system maybe it's necessary. Combat animations have actually slowed my turns a bit in the latest patch (never had much problem before that).

I'm quite excited to see the starts :)

Which game speed are we going for, I normally play epic but is standard speed better?

Yeah that works, I have no problem with any civ, I'm a random player anyways. quick combat is a -ok, I spend most games in the strategic mode with no combat anyways. And however we divvy up the turns is fine as well. I've got a pen and note pad from work handy so I think that should be fun and I check in on the site all day at work anyways haha... working from home this weekend so it shouldn't be trouble at all to talk strategy! Yeah my goal in my first one is to learn to deal with the team work issues so feel free to yell at me with whatever is needed.

I enjoy reading the SG's for the tech discussions and decisions on how large of a standing army to have and the like, All my losses to the AI are within the first 100 turns it seems outside of one game recently so the choices at the start seem to be the major ones. I should be up around 7am est tomorrow so I'll stay glued to this forum whilst I get some fuel in me...

@ Brichals

I'm guessing standard speed as epic is just to slow for SGs IMO. Its funny I was an epic player of civ4 but I just don't feel right playing civ5 epic speed. The one main thing about the slower speeds I guess is you actually get to use the different era units for a more satisfying number of turns!

@ Emstinson

I wish I had a job where I could go on CFC!

Here are 5 starts! Brichals' slight leaning towards Egypt meant I swung that way, so Egypt it is!

I was hoping for 5 starts that would be significantly different from each other, but it didn't work out that way;

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/EgyptSG1.jpg

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/EgyptSG2.jpg

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/EgyptSG3.jpg

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/EgyptSG4.jpg

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/EgyptSG5.jpg

Egypt has a starting bias that makes them avoid forest and jungle, and incase you're wondering upon seeing forest everywhere, no, I didn't turn starting bias off!
They all look quite reasonable at first sight to me, only number 4 is a bit different with its coastal start. Number 1 has coast 4 tiles to the north, as you can see.

So can we pick a favourite form this?

Starting bias is less effective the smaller the map size. Works best on standard upwards.

I'll start with the ones I would rule out (lets call the top 1 and the bottom 5).

1. Its up in the tundra and the lux resources require different tech routes (AH>Trapping and Mining>Masonary). Also doesn't look to be an extra lux to sell (might be in the fog). Low food. On the plus side it may have horses due to the lack of resources we can see.

4. The only coastal start. If it was the only start I wouldn't object but since we have 5 to choose from.... Also a bit food poor.

Now for the one I'm on the fence about.

5. On the face of it a nice spot. Lux are both opened by Calendar. Also the stone will let us build the Stonework's for :c5production: and the :). Good food to. The downside is low production, and since we are likely to want some early wonders this is a downer.

Now the ones I like.

2. The lux are opened by the same tech. Going to be good gold with the riverside lux. Food will be good when the riverside is chopped and those chops will be great for an early wonder. Later production may be a bit weak but I can't tell till the warrior moves south. If we settle where the warrior is then we can build Machu Picchu later in the game.

3. Good food and good production. Not a spare lux we can see but we have a mining resource that is fast to hookup and the insentive to go mining early will let us chop in to a wonder early. I'm not totally sure what appeals about this start but it just speaks to me as a solid long term location.

Those are my thoughts. Lets hear everybody else's.

Marble in No1 looks interesting to go with Egypts wonder building. We can't build a stone works on plains though unfortunately. There's not loads of food around but that could be a good Hanging Garden city maybe.

2 and 3 could be interesting, I don't see anything too unique they just look like decent starts.

No 4. well I don't often see double whales, could be a good start for a maritime civ but we have no fresh water there unless moving to the oasis and settling 1 turn later.

No. 5 is also very good, double wine monastery, stone and lots of green and river.

I think I prefer 1 to go for a wonder based tall empire with HG in that city. That's just my first quick thoughts. I'm quite sure we could get HG without the marble also though, then some of the other starts are maybe even better.

yeah 1 caught my eye, but no grassland/flood plains tiles always scares me... The good thing about Egypt is the Marble is just added bonus to them. So I suppose we don't have to have it. It's also the only one we probably wouldn't need to hit the top of the tech tree right off. The wheat will help and I don't get the marble tile having two food? did they change that in this patch? It looks like tundra...

2 looks good as well, and if we move to the warrior do we lose the river tile start or does the start tile not have it either? I can never tell with how they bend around tiles. If we do move we have two forest tiles out of the gate to chop and a good mix of food and production around. Not to mention a resource to peddle pretty shortly in.

3 looks like the surprise start, we'd probably move SW one to get resources closer and give us one more hill farm tile? Bound to be some hidden strategic stuff in that start...

Yeah getting whales may be the most rare one that I ever see. But the only thing I like about a maritime start is less tiles to be attacked from at full str, and this only has one and no fresh water as you mentioned. Although the oasis would give us a hill farm which is my favorite!

and 5 looks like the culture start indeed, get lots of population fast and give it a ghandi AI go with defensive buildings and lots of monuments...

I've never set myself up to pick from a group of starts so I don't know how to prioritize, but I suppose... in top to bottom order... 2, 3 & 1 are tied, 5 then 4.

But I do agree 1 with the HG would be powerful especially after civil service river farm boost, but our start may seem awfully slow, should be interesting!

If we moved in 2 its still riverside (the gold on the tile gives it away).

Didn't think about the monastery in 5.

oh haha the river bends south wow... didn't even see it, yeah the gold should have given it away as well as the BIG BLUE RIVER heading south... good times, guess I should have a beer and wake up a little..

I think we could hit big problems if there is not a good patch close to 1's start as we are luxury poor and as Grandad said we need 2 tech paths to hook up the luxuries we do have. It will also take a while before that city gets going with low food. I also just thought about it, of course marble is good for Egypt, but conversely Egypt don't need it, they have the UA for that.

A SW move on 3 actually does look good, we have a variety of thing there from high growth to high production and a jungle for university, and next to a desert hill so solar plant can be used. It might be needed to buy an extra floodplain tile if this is the case as with a SW move we get only 1 good food tile in the BRC (big round circle??, just made that up) and the cultural expansion will probably go to the dyes first.

4 on closer look would give us a hill farm and an irrigated wheat from the oasis.

Actually it's hard to decide. If I had to pick right now I'd say settle SW in 3. Maybe hook up the gold to give us production for the 1st wonder and cash. Am I right in thinking we don't lose a turn for moving there?

Just a silly observation, I like that red/orange river plains tile colour in 3 :) I'm not sure I see that often.

Let's see what Optional thinks after our musings.

3 sounds good to me, southwest shouldn't cost us a turn and it has the added benefit of removing possible desert tiles hidden up north from our working tiles. And mining is a needed tech to clear the forest on the dye so no outrageous tech patterns for our happiness yeah. So I'm down with that one if that's what we'd like to do!

I think the wheat next to the oasis is on desert tile and thus pretty weak (max 4 food I think - irrigation, granary and civil service).

If we did go for 3 then where to move the warrior before settling? NW of the Dyes or into the desert to see if we lose anything by moving the settler? I don't think there is anything in that desert (barring oil at a later date potentially) so I'd go for the hill NW of dye.

Are we aloud to see warrior moves in the other starts before we decide or is that just silly :shifty:

For me there are 2 starts here that seem clearly less than the rest, and that's number 1 - too little food - and number 4, I don't mind coastal at all, but it's the only start without a river, it can't match up to the rest.
BTW, Ermstinson, the marble in start 1 is on grassland, I zoomed out a bit when I made the screenshots, you'll see it much clearer in-game. So the marble only adds 2 gold, the 2 food was already there from the grass.

There's not much between 2, 3 and 5 for me, they all look good.
Number 2:If we settle where the warrior is then we can build Machu Picchu later in the game.I had the same thought, it makes that start a little more interesting. Also brings the sheep within the city radius. And there's an extra cotton we can trade away. That southern cotton is also on the river, otherwise it would have a gold less.
There are a couple of desert tiles, but I can't argue against this start.

Number 3: Best thing for me here is the hill-start. No, I would never move a tile SW to settle, settling on a hill is an extra shield every turn and a better defensive position. Those luxes, and also the sheep, are just a few automatic border expansions away, I don't see a reason to move for them.

Number 5:
The downside is low production, and since we are likely to want some early wonders this is a downer.It would be, but I'm not seeing that low production; 3 hills and 4 woods in the screenshot, I guess that's more than what we want to be working.
I think the one thing that makes this start at least as good in terms of production as the others is that stone. Working that tile doesn't compromise food, and that is a problem with hills and wood. That stone tile, improved, worked and with Stone Works gives 4 hammers on its own, without compromising other interests.
I'm also noticing the 2 wines each give a hammer, while still also having at least 1 food. I'd rather be working something like that than the gold tile in start 3.

The Monastery, I don't know how big a thing that is. It's a bonus, I guess, 2 culture per turn, it doesn't cost maintenance, so if you can squeeze that into your build order, than yes.
I just looked up Egypt Burial Tomb; also maintenance free, +2 happiness, +2 culture and an artist point. Even better than a Monastry! I can't see us skipping those things either.
It could be hard not playing as a builder!

To answer that last question: I would prefer to make a pick before making any sort of move. I'm not in a rush to start, though, a 5th player to make up the team is still very welcome - although of course we will start with 4 if no-one else shows up.

well i have no issues with doing anything that doesn't sound like it will ruin our experience... and I'd agree with moving above the dye, and then with any luck move down to the sheep and see what kind of move we made. Do you all start with a scout on small? i usually do, and skip it on the smaller sizes and go right to the worker unless there is nothing I can do with a worker right off.

For map 3, written before I saw Optional's thoughts.
I'm not sure how much we would see extra by moving the warrior into the desert. By that I mean I can't figure how many new squares would get revealed. I did notice that there is a fork in the river on the east side. This could be useful to explore for 2nd city placement, maybe a lot of flood plains there or other good stuff. The warrior could move to the hill NW of the dyes to give us a good view, but then we would not be able to work out if there is something in that desert, before we settle.

For map 5, monastery will also give extra culture (I think 3) for each wine worked. Not a deal breaker but it's pretty nice to have.

For me the difficulty in choosing is because Egypt are a bit versatile. For some other Civs we would have easier choices like 4 is a maritime start, 5 is a culture start, 2 is a gold start etc. Although it is fun and enlightening to discuss.

The extra hammer from the hill is very useful for the first few builds but I don't rate the extra defence in general. By the stage of AIs being a real threat they shouldn't be getting near our capital. A warrior and an archer or two can hold off most AIs early DoW.

I was meaning early production from mines for 5, the hills are all in the third ring apart from the tundra hill. If we moved to were the warrior is that would make them second ring but I think this reduces our early production through losing the tundra hill to start with. Your right about the forests (could be chopped for early wonders) and the wines. Monastery gives culture for each improved wine and incense as well (+3 I think).

Look, it's our SG, if the most of us want to see a warrior move first, then we'll move a warrior first.
Although is it a good idea to make a shortlist of 2 or 3 of these 5 starts first? Obviously start 3 would be on this shortlist, personally I'd like to see 5 on there as well, but as I said, I can't come up with much against start 2 either.

I wouldn't mind if someone could put forward what the strong points of start 3 are, because for me it falls slightly short of 2 and 5...

I think 5 is quite low on production if we go early chops, although it makes an amazing great person farm. I think if we go for Hanging Gardens then Freedom for mass specialists might be very powerful. That city could grow very large whilst running many specialists. That being said, if we settled where the warrior is in 5 it brings some more hills into play, there is a floodplain down on the river also. Might be decent. It also moves us slightly away from tundra on the west.

Start 3. Hmmm. I still find it hard to articulate what it is I like about this.

Lets give it a go. First off I am basing this on moving the settler SW.

We would start with 2 hills, 1 riverside for the potential to farm it and one with the gold on it. The gold is a good lux as it only requires mining to unlock. The river, and I know this can be said for some of the other starts to, gives strong food and gold. Plenty of hills in the second ring so production from the mid term onwards is going to be good.

The downsides are the no apparent spare lux to sell, and compared to 5, no stone to build the stoneworks and less gold income due to less riverside lux resources. This gold can make quite a difference if you intend to rush buy anything, including a defensive unit.

yeah, I'm game with more tried and true experience with initial set ups. I just have this built in fear of moving my settler nearer to any desert tiles, but if it improves the start I'm down with it! And yeah I don't care between 2,3 or 5. 5 is definitely going to be a game money should be no problem. I find the selection process of free tile expansion likes to avoid hills and forests, but if we are getting good cash we could just buy the tiles. Anyways, if 5 sounds like a good challenge perhaps we should start with that and move the warrior on the hill next to the settler?

Start 5 could of course be awful if there's really a huge desert south. But yeah, in that start I would move the settler to where the warrior is for settling, a bit away from the tundra, and that river-hill and floodplain just south is nice to get in.

I'd like to move on with this. I was hoping a 5th player or a lurker would come in and shed some light on these starts, but it looks like it's down to us.

Reading the responses to the starts everyone gave, most of us said things like 'this start has got this, while the other start has that, whereas number x is nice for having this', and so on. Pretty tough if you have to pick one.

Perhaps making a warrior move first would be good after all. I'm not normally a fan of that, but if we're having a problem making up our mind just now, maybe that's the best thing to help us make a decision.
So that's my suggestion just now; I make a move with the warrior in each of the saves, revealing a bit more of the terrain, post the screenshots, and hopefully then we can make a better call.

Suggested warrior moves:
Start 2: 1W, 1SW, onto desert hill. North is a desert hill as well, that move seems just as good, actually.
Start 3: Hill above Dyes, we spoke a bout this one.
Start 5: Maybe 1W, 1SW, onto river-forest. Could move to the tundra hill as well, but in itself the tundra isn't really were we want to go to.

If someone makes a request for 1 and/or 4 I'll include those as well, no problem.
How does this sound?

Start 2: 2N for me
Start 3: dye hill
Start 5: W>SW seems good

Alternatively to moving the warriors we could just list the 3 starts in our order of preference. 1st get 2 points, 2,nd 2, 3rd 1. Like you I'm not a huge fan of moving the warrior before choosing the SG map (despie the fact I think it may have been me who brought it up :shifty:)

If we did just vote I'd vote as follows:

Start 2
Start 3
Start 5

Anyway.... off to cut the grass now.

I agree with Grandads warrior moves.

my current preference for starts is

3
5
2

But then we can revote after the warrior moves and then just go for it. In the event of a tie I would be happy giving optional the casting vote as he is starting anyway. Or we could just remove the 3rd palce and revote between 2.

We could always add a lurker before the first round is out (and even after is fine with me). Maybe you could add a line to this extent in the OP. 5 is a really good number I think.

The moves are fine, and it seems we'll all be able to roll with whichever start we choose so I'll put 3 at the top of my list since it has the higher average so far, then 2 followed by 5 to hopefully simplify it :D! Back to work, ill try to check in today, little less nuts then yesterday....

Number 3 wins!
I can now safely do that warrior move. So he runs up that hill in the west, reaches the top and what he then sees is ... this:
http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/EgWarMove.jpg
EDIT: It's a bit hazy in the picture, but that's definitely shoreline in the north - much clearer to see in-game.

Hahaha thats as sick sick gold city over there somewhere!

I think this makes me think settle in place and then get a settler on to the hill between the gems and the sheep.

This is what I think for an opening build etc.

Opening build scout > worker

Tech mining > AH

I bet the down side I Monty and Alex next door!

Where that warrior is standing right now, he's got 4 lux at this feet, I don't know if I've ever seen anything like it!I think this makes me think settle in place and then get a settler on to the hill between the gems and the sheep.That can't be right... a tile nearer is on the river and still uses some of the river-farms. Only thing is you would need to put the current settler 1 east, to stick to the minimum distance.

Mining, yeah, that's logical.
Scout first as well.
After the scout I usually have a good look. We don't need to pin ourselves down just yet.
I can't see myself playing 15 or 20 turns without asking you guys advice inbetween. I'll probably stop after the first scout is out to report back here.

OMG that's quite frankly insane. Hard to find a tile to settle on which can't get a special improvement on it. It's a tough call whether to pencil in a city site SW of the warrior in which case settling the settler 1 hex to the East. There is a fork in the river there, so maybe some decent riverside tiles for the capital. Maybe you can do a quick calculation where to settle and get enough food to work all those luxuries comfortably. TBH I can't remember if a pasture on sheep gives 1 food or 1 hammer (I think food but not sure).

I'm really interested to see how this plays out.

Well settling on the river isn't all that important IMO. The only useful building we'd give up is the Watermill.

The main reason I didn't suggest on the river was if we moved the starting settler E we lose a turn.

I'm not that bothered by losing a turn so if that's what people want then I'm more than happy to agree!

Here's some more of my wandering thoughts.

If we could get a settler over to that second site really quickly we could potentially build the Hanging Gardens there for a super gold/production city. I'm even pretty sure that the marble would be the first tile to be taken by border expansion. Having said that that's another tech and that means cutting one out somewhere else to get to Mathematics before the gardens go. I guess calendar could be sacrificed with the second mining resource and the marble itself.

I've been playing a warm up game and I managed to get both the HG and the GLib with out marble (I did use Aristocracy(?)).

Well settling on the river isn't all that important IMO. The only useful building we'd give up is the Watermill.It's got more to do with what Brichals was saying: where do we settle that gives us enough food to work all those luxuries? If we settle that second town on the river it can still work a couple of floodplains, a river-grassland and a river-plains, added up those tiles give 15 food with Civil Service. Settle a bit further and you lose a couple of those tiles, and it'll become harder to work those lux-hills.
Although it's not even a bad place for growth, despite the hills. There's quite a lot of sheep, that's 1 food + 2 hammers when unimproved, a farm adds a food, so those tiles become food-neutral (the citizen on the tile eating as much food as producing). Same for the Marble tile, food neutral. Not sure about the wheat, I would need to check in-game what the underground is, but there's a good mix of food, hammers and gold here.

I'm very tempted to go down the Liberty tree for policies. Putting a monument quite early in the capital to get that free settler and free worker as early as possible. I wouldn't mind having that second town there before we've actually hooked up a lux - a bit of unhappiness is not a big deal, and it would just be a short term thing with all that lux around.
So I would build a monument after a few scouting units.

I agree with that plan. I often open scout-monument and get the settler from collective rule as the fastest way to get a 2nd city down. If you want to get an extra unit in there before the monument maybe thats better for safety, we will have a good production city tile on the hill anyway so they can be built fast.

Throw a screw ball out there, how about we move east one, settle, then with the policy settler go with the spot where the warrior is. We lose the river, but put the wheat tile one closer, puts every resource we can see with two tiles. So we'd probably have to buy the wheat early. Just an option, I don't think instinctively I would pick that but just throwin it out to see what you guys think! And the fork in the river does make moving east more tempting, more money and likely food that way to leave more river tiles for our second city wherever it goes. yeah scout start with mining to clear river forests and start our resource getting. I like the sound of that so far, can't wait to see which sociopaths we end up having closest to us!

And of course we reserve the right to change our minds as our warrior moves around haha... and i picked an avatar in case we pick up some lurkers like me in the last few, hopefully it will help stick out haha!

Your posts are often the catalist for the game to move forward, Emstinson.
With the 3 starts it was a perfect stalemate between them after grandad1982, Brichals and me, so it was completely up to you then. Yeah, I hadn't posted my vote explicitely - although earlier I had already said 3 was a bit short of 2 and 5 for me - but it was only your vote that put 3 ahead.

Okay, I saw enough consensus to play 6 turns - at turn 6 the scout popped and I'm not sure what Thebes should produce next.
But here are the first six turns:

Turn 1: Send warrior west exploring, Settler a step east, there's another fork in the river there.
Turn 2: Found Thebes > set to build scout.
Turn 3: Warrior meets Harald!

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/WarTurn3s.jpg

Harald has 88 gold in the bank, so he has found a ruin before us, grumble.
Turn 4 & 5: Since Harald is to the west, warrior takes a turn south, nice terrain, but nothing of interest.
Turn 6: Thebes pruduces a scout, send scout exploring east.

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Explore2s.jpg

Okay, what next? Harald is close to us, I feel we need to have that settler out as soon as possible, to beat Harald to the spot. That spot is unbelievable, it hasn't got 4 luxes in its radius, Sugar popped up as well, so it would have 5 luxes in its radius!
I feel like throwing out any 'normal' strategy, whatever that is, and to do whatever is needed to grab that spot. 5 luxes is serious business.

Well as you said before you played going down Liberty seems the way to go here.

A monument now will speed us towards collective rule and citizenship nicely.

After the monument maybe get a warrior going since we're going to take a free settler and worker. An extra warrior is also good to help if any AIs decide on an early doors DoW.

I guess you selected mining as the opening tech yes? I suspect AH would be a good choice after as that second city will have plenty of sheep to pasture early on. With a stable, and much further down the line, with fertilizer those tiles become 3:c5food: 3:c5production:. Nice.

We should try keep in mind that if we block Harald there is a high chance he will DoW sooner rather than later.

5 sheep, 5 lux with a duplicate gold in that city, I say we just get that ASAP so monument and warrior as Grandad says is good for me. Hopefully the scout pops a culture ruin. I noticed we got another gold in Thebes aswell. If we get that city stabilised we will be flying soon enough. It seems Harald is close so we should keep in mind a warrior rush.

I guess you selected mining as the opening tech yes?Yes, I should have mentioned that... tiredness I suppose, and I haven't played an SG for ages. It came up as 9 turns to research, so that should be 3 turns from coming in now.We should try keep in mind that if we block Harald there is a high chance he will DoW sooner rather than later.Very true. I don't think we can avoid an early war with Harald. He looks to be at Land's End there, perhaps he can only expand towards us. Somehow I don't see us building many early wonders...Hopefully the scout pops a culture ruin.Just what was on my wish list...

Yes, very hard to not like what we see, and yes, it may be wise to keep the warrior nearer to NorseLand or whatever his capital is called to see what he is building. If he builds a settler we may want to attack it early since when we settle that second city he will more then likely be guarded for "wanting our lands". Of course we still have to find out who else is close to us so I guess no need to go crazy over him yet. Yeah AH may be the way to go, unless we want to suck it up and get archery early if we expect a brawl... I suppose if we watch his building habits in the next 40 turns or so we can throw it in if need be. I love having a rowdy neighbor, usually shows you if you are destined for greatness early on if you can stem the tide in your favor. I've yet to have him as an immediate neighbor in any game that I can recall so this could be fun.

I get the impression he's a bit friedlier than you would think, but then, he hasn't got those early warmonger units like the Aztecs or the Greeks. I don't know how he is once he's got his Berserkers.

Quick question: I played a couple of turns further, and I'm unsure of something. Our scout has hit a mountain range. The only gap in that range consists of Kuala Lumpur. Can you actually walk straight through a friendly city, I mean not just their terrain, because I know that's no problem, but straight through the core? Then it's either that or turn back.
As I said, I'm rather new to the game and I haven't been in this situation yet. Hmm, this somehow sounds like a stupid question...

I don't think you can walk through a city but then I've never tried :P Chances are he might stick a unit in there anyway and then you would definitely be blocked.

I just tested it on some other save and it's no problem. Also not with a unit in the city. I think I'll go that way, there's land beyond Kuala Lumpur, and I'm getting anxious to find a ruin. It never happens to me that I can't find a ruin within 10 turns, why can't I find one here?!

Other question: Mining is in. Animal Husbandry next has been suggested by grandad1982, I would find that a decent suggestion normally, but it'll be a while before we have a worker available to improve those sheep-hills, and we have two barb camps sitting close to us just now. You couldn't know this, of course, the last screenshot had only one showing, but I'm more inclined to take Archery first now, do some pinging (okay, pinging will be next player).

As long as you don't end your turn in the city I think its fine.

AH or archery isn't a problem. I was going to suggest archery after AH anyway so swapping them is fine IMO.

I still think we should try for one of the early wonders. Some times GLib goes quite late and you can get it after you have a couple of cites up.

yeah those two may as well be our next, and it would be great to get that scout upgraded to an archer with those hills between us. the upgraded scout archers are so nice for that kind of warfare... Anyways on my way home soon so I'll seeif I can wrack my brain for any good insight... I've got a great game going on emperor as hiawatha, as he was our other option, and it was really easy to expand with him, peacefully and forcefully. ironless swordsmen are crazy....

I still think we should try for one of the early wonders. Some times GLib goes quite late and you can get it after you have a couple of cites up.The AI is not quick to research the prerequisite tech, Writing. I know that, because I'm always checking to see whether I can sell my borders, and that's often a long wait. But I'm also seeing that at least one or two are often a bit quicker with it. Someone like Wu can have it a bit earlier, I suppose this has to do with her Paper Maker.

I'm no keen on building a wonder - any wonder - with everything on the map looking like we're heading for an early war.
Anyway, for keeping the possibility of an early wonder open I think I should have gone for a worker after that monument, because we need much better improved terrain to stand any chance of a wonder. I didn't go for that worker.

I played the rest of my set, I played until Archery came in, 15 turns into the game now, here's where I would like to pass the game on to the next player.

Turn 6: Thebes produces the earlier mentioned scout, Monument next.
IBT: Our warrior gets attacked by a barb from the camp, loses 4 hitpoints.
Turn 7: Moving the wounded warrior south, away from the camp.
Turn 8: Northern scout meets Kuala Lumpur, Cultured & Hostile. Not the best. Their lux is Pearls.
IBT: We meet Catherine! One of her scouts popped up next to Thebes.
Turn 9: Our northern scout runs into a dead end, as mountains block his progress - why is it that I always seem to be going the wrong way when I'm exploring? Anyway, summorizing turn 9, 10 & 11 for our scout; for a moment I'm thinking I can still get beyond the mountains by going through Kuala Lumpur, but that turns out to be not the case:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Kuala.jpg

There is land beyond Kuala Lumpur, but we need Optics (embarkation) or a boat to get there. Apart from that, you see in the pic that north of Thebes there's basically nothing.
What's becoming pretty evident, looking at the pics, is that we're playing on 3 billion years old terrain - young terrain. Good for defenders, not good for attackers.
Turn 10: Mining comes in, Archery next.
Turn 12 (yes, 12): Our warrior in the south now spots another barb camp, okay, next turn I'm letting him rest to heal, as I hadn't done that yet. BTW, a couple of turns earlier this warrior spotted a Russian border, I forgot to write this down as it happened, but Catherine is south of us.
Turn 13: Warrior rests.
IBT: A barb enters Thebes territory from the south.
Turn 14: I use some city bombard against the barb and park my scout against him - deliberitely inviting an attack. Yeah, the scout was back from shopping in Kuala Lumpur and had nowhere alse to go but back.
Thebes has completed the monument, I'm setting it to a warrior next, reluctantly, I wish I could build an archer.
IBT: Barb attacks scout, barb redlines, scout yellow.
Turn 15: Both our units healing now. I would have scouted with wounded units if there was unexplored terrain, but I'm assuming Harald and Catherine will already have snapped up any ruins.
Turn 16: Archery comes in, this might be a good moment to pass the game on. This turn still needs to be played.
This is Thebes, there's a decision to be made about what to do with the barb:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Bombard.jpg

No problem to just end his life with city bombard, of course, but that means missing out on any XP.
And this is our warrior in the south:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/South.jpg

He's back to 9 hitpoints now. That City State we haven't met yet. To meet them and explore further seems the most useful thing, to avoid a barb attack is the tricky bit. Perhaps we should just park him on that hill, belonging to the City State for a turn. It'll make them angry for a while, but they'll cool down with time.

Now I want to add the save, but every time I'm pressing 'manage attachments' an add pops up and I can't do anything. I think my browser is playing a trick. I'll just post this now and see if I can sort that problem out after.
EDIT: Opened my Microsoft browser, that's better, no sponsor message popping up when I want to attach a file, so here's the save:

Well played Optional. The scout should win if the barb attacks it next turn wouldn't it? Although lately I had a lot of bad luck with RNG against barbs. Poor KL has a pretty poor location there. I thought CSs normally got really good starts. I guess we got all the luxuries for our 2nd city. The east portion of our continent is rather barren, I have a feeling we might be getting squeezed into a small area of workable land for 3 civs so tensions might be unavoidable.

Just as note, I am away from tomorrow over the weekend so I can make my turns on monday evening. So Emstinson and Grandad have like 3-4 days. If you think that's too long to wait, I could take over 2nd place on the roster tonight. It's up to you guys.

The scout should win if the barb attacks it next turn wouldn't it?The previous turn the barb -already redlined - moved from the gold-hill to where it is now. I don't think it's suicidal enough to attack with so few hitpoints left.

Indeed guys, war is definitely going to be unavoidable as we expand. I really want to keep a unit over between us and Viking on a boat to ensure he doesnt squeeze out a settler with his emperor super powers so I may keep the scout over there after the battle and after he heals. Or perhaps the second warrior depending on how long that takes. So are we definite on liberty tree? free settler and worker will be helpful indeed. I can start my turnset tonight if everyone checks in and we agree on everything. Wish I could scope out the save here at work haha... Anyways, what else do we need to hammer out? builds after the warrior? techs? I'd imagine we'll build our first worker and get the second one free after the settler. then perhaps a archer unless Viking man isn't massing an army and we can do a granary or something if AH is done after archery... yeah I wish I lived closer to work I'd race home and look at the save on my lunch haha...

Warrior-worker-archer maybe? I think it's good to keep an eye on Harald with that scout, maybe you can make a bit of a detour through the fog SW of him, there must be a ruin somewhere. In this case maybe it's better to finish the barb with the city attack as it will take some more turns to heal that scout before you can safely kill the barb and regen to make it safe to go scouting possibly. EDIT: I did just open the replay and saw that the city might not kill the barb outright so it could be finished by the scout for XP. I guess Cathy went into that fog already, so my idea was probably a bad one. I was happy to see that we can see Cathys borders and Haralds too but he is mighty close to our city site. We should get that settler before him. Otherwise we will have to get nasty :)

So you will take the 2nd turn Emstinson. I would prefer that too but I will be back monday evening (lunch your time) so you have a bit of time.

yeah I'd like to go second because I'll be gone most of next week so the three of you will have time o'plenty as well. I suppose I'll have to hope he doesn't go crazy and blitz us with a dozen units too.... Alright, so we doing 10 or 15 turns for now, guess I'll have to go back and have a looksie... maybe 5 hours and I'll wait for grandad to see if he has any preferences too!

well actually if you can get your turn set done before you leave for the weekend then I don't see why it would be bad to let you go second. I can do mine over the weekend I suppose, I'm going to be working from home most likely... So if that sounds good to folks I don't mind, whatever works best, I read your post wrong on my reply above so if you can squeeze in some turns its probably best for that!

well actually if you can get your turn set done before you leave for the weekend then I don't see why it would be bad to let you go second. I can do mine over the weekend I suppose, I'm going to be working from home most likely... So if that sounds good to folks I don't mind, whatever works best, I read your post wrong on my reply above so if you can squeeze in some turns its probably best for that!

It's OK actually I could use a bit of time tonight preparing for my travels tomorrow so you can go. Also you will be away like you said so you can get your turn in now. I will check in before I leave tomorrow to see whats new :)

Roger that! still hoping grandad checks in before I get home from work. If not I'll probably do the turns to heal everyone up and status in. I've got to practice taking screenshots, is there any average program to do the cropping of the screenshots? i might actually have something on my computer haha Fun stuff! back to work....

I don't think we need to be afraid Harald will send a settler any time soon. I normally play on Immortal and even there it doesn't happen this quick. And if you do see a settler on Immortal it will be escorted by a warrior, on Emperor I don't think I've seen that as much. To station a unit next to his capital to see whether he comes out with a settler or not seems a bit odd to me, but I've never done it either...
If we have any worries, why don't we hand-build a settler after the warrior? That would still be significantly quicker than waiting for the collective rule. A culture ruin would really have sped it up, but the chance of that happening is minimal now.

Oh, before I forget, we probably need to buy a tile. Next citizen comes in in 5 turns, and there's no +2 food tile available just now, unless we buy one - next border expansion is in 7 turns.
Grandad checking in would be nice, yes, but I've only uploaded the last save a couple of hours ago.

For image editing I use Irfanview. That's a very common program and it's free. I'm using 'create custom crop selection' and 'resize/resample' a lot. Here's a link: http://www.Irfanview.com

rock on, that sounds good. So we have to ensure growth early on, always a good plan. Keeping an eye on where my people work will be a good work out as well, I do it pretty broadly normally so watching them each turn as we go will be enjoyable. Alright, eta 2 hours before I get home so I'll have a chance to look at it shortly...

Nice set Optional.

I agree that using the scout as a spy/fog buster doesn't make much sense. Get a warrior over there to fog bust if that's what we really want.

I'm not sure that buying a tile to save 2 turns growth is that cost effective. We can work the riverside forest or the gold IMO and it would be fine till the borders pop. Also don't forget if e're going Liberty we get +1:c5culture: so border pop will be sooner, though I'm not sure how much sooner.

I wouldn't put a settler next. I just don't think its worth it. A worker next is the best idea IMO. After that we can go settler or archer.

Tech after AH, pottery? This opens writing and calendar which is nice.

The barb should only take 2 damage from the city attack leaving 1HP for our scout to knock off so I suggest we do it this way round rather than risk losing the scout.

The warrior should say hello to the CS and then come home IMO. we need to fog bust and guard ourselves from barbs etc (more of an issue when our worker is ready). Second warrior to go over to check the coast by our proposed second city site? Could also fog bust the area.

Not much else I can think of that I want to say right now.

I'm not sure that buying a tile to save 2 turns growth is that cost effective.If I remember right, it's the sheep-hill that has a purple line around it just now, I should probably have mentioned that as well. If we would build a settler next that would be a fine tile to work for the hammers, but not if we want to keep growing.

At home we're okay for defense, I feel, with the scout and a warrior coming up. Just not for taking on any barb camp. I would keep our southern warrior on the exploration trail, but if we have mixed opinions it's up to Emstinson, who's playing.

I think (not looking now) that the next tiles were the river side grassland by the gold or any of the floodplains. I think. Possibly.....

If we did get the sheep hill it is indeed a good tile for the settler build, but remember food is ignored when you build a settler so even if the tile is zero food that isn't a problem. Unless you forget to switch back after the settler is done. Which I often do. Doh!

The thing about the scout home for defence is that its a waste of what he is intended for, which is er, ummm, scouting :lol:

EDIT:

Just got what you were saying about the sheep hill and the hammers etc. Once its improved it'll be more versatile, in fact it becomes like a post CS farmed hill. Its a shame that with out more pastures in the cities range we probably won't build a stables for the extra hammer.

I think really good points there, a couple of mixed opinions but either way whichever path Emstinson takes will be good for us. If you are moving the warrior south then I would really go through the hill in the CS. Walking past a barb camp on open ground since the last patch is dangerous I have found, they are more likely to attack than before. I'm not sure about a settler, depends how long it takes but it may be too long a period of restricted growth. I also think pottery as next tech for access to granary also. Can maybe speed up the rate we get to work the really nice tiles in the 2nd city.

Also I agree I think I never was beaten to a settler going liberty but then we have been unlucky with ruins. Should be OK though.

yeah the whole having him build a settler is just fear in my brain, he probably is building warriors like crazy haha. Okay I'll re read everything before I start and I'm on my way home now so hopefully in about an hour I'll get my toes in the water. pottery sounds good, i'll probably go with a worker next just to make sure we can start upping food production in both cities with pastures. okay so one thing are we going 10 turns or 15 from here on? any feelings on that as my first one it matters not to me, I've got time for any amount but i guess the burden is in the post turn reporting....

I thought we were going for 10 but Optional did a longer one as it was the first. Have a nice journey home :)

pottery sounds good, i'll probably go with a worker next just to make sure we can start upping food production in both cities with pastures. okay so one thing are we going 10 turns or 15 from here on? any feelings on that as my first one it matters not to me, I've got time for any amount but i guess the burden is in the post turn reporting....Just pointing out here that for pastures we need Animal Husbandry - we haven't got that one yet.
I don't mind whether you do 10 or 15. Personally I often stop at a crossroads, here I stopped after two techs.
Right, I'm off to bed now. Good luck with your set, Emstinson!

ahh yes AH then possibly pottery but it should probably be someone else's game at that point, lets fire her up and see whats up!

wow so I had my stuff all typed out and then my internet cut out.... jeesh okay....

bad news first you say? okay!

turn 16: RNG generates our civ does not need scouts, city did one damage, scout does zero and dies a lame death. warrior heals to 10.
17: good news! Vienna discovered... first by us, 30g wooo. city finishes off the barb.
18: scout vienna, end up on the hill, they have pearls as well.
19: warrior inches to the camp and then up to the oasis after i see no extra barbs, living dangerously!
20:I decide between retreating our warrior and pressing on south to go see what Cathy has to work with, so i stealthly move through the forest in the middle of the desert to head that way.
21: Thebes hits 3, same turn we get our border expansion thanks to the liberty+1 from two turns ago, guess i forgot that little bit of news! so 3 river food tiles being worked now. I get to see two important things, catherine may not head north with her first city with the site I see, and the site has a tundra tile, so the edge of the map may not be too far away.
22: AH is done and our second warrior is done. I pause here to think to myself...

I think I'm going to play 15 so the next player doesnt have to deal with this boredom caused by a lack of scout. That should get you closer to having the worker and another barbarian to kill. I intend to bring warrior 1 back to us, tundra is usually my end of scouting in a direction and we can see through the fog for a possible 3rd city site later. I will send warrior two to our site to check out the coast to make sure we aren't passing on 6 whales or anything crazy... Then the next guy can come back home or go see if Ragnar2 has any extra land that way to play with. Okay I have to learn how to do the screenshots, im going to play with that for a bit...

I'll start pottery, since a writing tree start seems to be the loudest so far amongst us.
starting the worker as well, in 3 turns we get the settler, then 4 turns to get to the spot so that would end my turn, giving the next player the fun of getting it going... and i forgot our special unit is with the wheel, but alas our battle ground is more then likely going to be hills so they may not be as useful... Anyways I'll probably just play them out late tonight or tomorrow after work. then do the write up tomorrow night. lets see if I can figure out the screen shots!

hoorah, not as cool as you guys but atleast I can attach them. So I must have to put them on photo bucket or something to put them in or is it one of these other sexy buttons?

Yes I also noticed that barbs get extremely lucky with RNG post patch. Well we will have to live with that, I'm glad you weren't tempted to reload though. So we nearly got the settler, excellent.

Anyway have fun guys, I look forward to seeing how things turn out. I doubt I will have internet over the weekend.

I played up to 28, I built the city so I'll do the write up and end my turn with the discussion of what to build and all that. one note is we are ironically at -1 happiness with quite possibly the most happy place on earth in our control. So the worker has 6 turns I believe, I moved a guy to production since food production is gimped. I'll get everything up tonight. Both of our warriors are roaming near our borders so its probably a good time to work on the barbarian camps before our worker pops up. And we'll have to pick some techs, I started writing a few turns ago so I think it has 6 or 7 as well. did that because it got thrown around here and I didn't see Harald with any warriors yet. So I played 12, and another 12 gets us to 40 and then maybe 10s from there? the math sounded good last night, 12 gives the next player some decisions to make as well!

one note is we are ironically at -1 happiness with quite possibly the most happy place on earth in our control.Yes, that's what happens if you go settler before worker, but we're happy about this, we deliberately sacrificed a bit of short term happiness for a huge long term benefit.

No big loss of the scout. It's questionable whether a scout is still worth its keep once his scouting duties are fulfilled. Although the battle outcomes we've seen show that defense rules. For me that's the key, not RNG. The scout won his first battle - still during my set - comfortably, as he was defending, then he lost his second battle as he was attacking. Attacking with melee is awkward, and it's bloody awkward on this terrain.

You lose 1 hitpoint anyway if you attack, so our scout was basically attacking with only 4 hitpoints against a superiour unit on good-defense terrain. That barb still had 2 hitpoints, so it wasn't an easy battle. Don't trust what the game says, those things like 'decisive victory' or 'stalemate' are sometimes way off the mark.
Archers will be great to have, they don't need to put themselves in danger when dealing with barbs.

For pics I always use an image sharing site and direct links. You'll see the 'insert image' button in the menu here that shows up when you're making a post. If you're uploading your pics as an attachment there's hardly any need to crop and cut them, that's more a kind of thing you do when you're directly inserting them in your text, to not completely push the text out of the way.

rock on, yeah I've got to get with the times on photo sharing! Yeah I had tried to to crop them in photoshop trial I had started up a while back then realized I'd have to get them online to post them like that. Cool beans, I'll have some better efforts tonight. yeah the scout math makes more sense I didn't have a good feeling about it but it is just a scout and we had lots of water around us so I wasn't really expecting to need him much. the land south of us isn't amazing, there is a pretty good sized lake with some food stuff around sparsely. So anyways, going to finish up work here in a few hours and get this passed on so I can get back to working at home all weekend ugh...

Alright, lets do the follow up, I went up to turn 30 because I realized my math was off and it would take 13 turns to get to 40, so 15, here's the breakdown of 23-29.

23- Cathy has 2 warriors, and a worker that was telling our warrior he was a chicken for not capturing him...

24- nice lake... if we were the aztec....

25- guess we should have found the goody huts, look at Mr Smarty leather pants...
The AI suggests a great spot, can't believe we hadn't thought of it yet... and pops it on a spot that speeds it up a turn sweet.

26- warrior finds only one fish resource, not the legend of a shore of whales he had dreamt of prior. East Coast is boring and plain.

27- Pottery done, go with Writing with the lack of a Viking army, obviously they are too busy smashing stuff against rocks and cataloging science...Settler reaches the destination...

28- Found Memphis and our people are immediately ungrateful for our expanding our borders and decide to turn food into a less effective means of reproduction. Move some workers around from the AI adjusting them to the new food production so our worker will pop out faster. I think about buying a two food tile in Memphis but I rememeber the production is gimped before I do it and just go with the 1/2/1 sheep on the river. Start the monument there to start the land grab. worker is 6 away in Thebes.

29- move warriors around to help grandad not waste one of his turns
30- move warrior 1 past our south barbarian camp as a second brute spawned in the spot directly east, so we are going to have a visitor, likely to Thebes, in the next few turns. The brute on the camp is at 5 or 6 hp, must have fought a viking and lived... warrior 2 is peeking in on the vikings. EDIT: just realized I moved the warriors on 30, so I guess I did 16, but we can discuss the city builds or working tiles or what not /sigh....

I'll attach some photos and the save. I'll work on big pictures next time hopefully. Not an exciting band of turns but a second city so early is completely new to me so I like it!

Nice set Emstinson.

My thoughts went like this.

Blimey. Rammys forearms disturb me. Why are they so thin!

Thebes. After the worker then start on an archer for a garrison unit.

Memphis. After the monument then either a granary or a libary (writing is in before the monument finishes). Granary would be useful here longer term as the extra food allows us to work one of those zero food lux tiles as if it is food neutral. The library is good to get out the way early if we want to go for the NC soon. Not sure which is best here. I lean towards the granary first.

Next social policy is obviously citizenship for the worker and the worker speed boost. Lots of tiles to improve.

Tech to go Calendar? We want to get those dyes after all. If we intend an early war then we may want to consider starting towards Iron after that.

I'd like to see the coast next to the forest area with the silks. Even with out seeing it I think we can get a city down in there somewhere maybe coastal 2N of the silks?

On the diplo front the dutch covert our lands. He must have good taste.

Oh yeah. Am I up?

Also could people see if this save opens properly. Its using mods that don't affect the save according to the mod descriptions. They are only UI mods. I find it really hard to keep track of trades etc if I have to use the vanilla UI. If people are totally against me using mods then I'll just have to struggle through.

Blimey. Rammys forearms disturb me. Why are they so thin!My guess is that, as a good Egyptian, he's already practicing mummification on himself. :crazyeye:
At least one of our warriors should come home to watch after the upcoming worker. In 10 turns we'll have two workers if we take Citizenship, yes, I think that's a no-brainer.
Personally I would take both warriors back home and send a couple of archers to those barb camps.

For Memphis a library would be too early just now.
And normally I don't like building granaries when a city doesn't have wheat, deer, or what was the third one, but here it would probably still be a good investment, since otherwise there aren't many good growth tiles yet.
A problem is that Memphis could use more or less every building. A stable, a Stone Works, a Burial Tomb... We mustn't forget to build units.Tech to go Calendar? We want to get those dyes after all. If we intend an early war then we may want to consider starting towards Iron after that.Harald will probably declare on us. But tech route is something I'm definitely not sure about. I think I would probably still go for an early Civil Service for the growth benefit. And whichever tech enables that Burial Tomb, that seems like a very nice building.

I couldn't load that save at all, grandad. I couldn't even go back, as my whole interface became unresponsive. I very much promote helper programs. Civ III I wouldn't want to play without CivAssist. InfoAddict I've installed, but either I don't understand it or it does just add some graphics without actually helping you.
In the game just now I could really do with an alert window that tells me when I can sell my borders to a civ instead of having to make a million clicks to find out. If you know of any program that could help me, or whether there's a way to set up InfoAddict like this, then I would be very much interested in your advice.

Roster:
grandad 1982: up
Brichals
Optional
Emstinson
??? (5th spot still open, please apply here)

I can open the save in the normal area, don't have to go to the mods section so seems good to me. don't know how anything affects the save from computer to computer differently so I'll leave that to the computer techs! I like everything you are saying, and yeah the odds are Harald will at the least start the warrior churning, I am not a fan that he is 2-3 techs ahead so he may have archers as well, but at least we will use them better.... yeah probably an archer after the worker in thebes and granary in Memphis sounds good to me. Techs I'm not sure, burial tomb is the temple right? but civil service is always a plus... ohhh decisions. And of course Iron working to see if we will be dealing with berzerkers later or not. I'm going to get some food in me and maybe some coffee and try to help out on those fronts...

Oh well no mods then!

Civwillard is good mod for keeping an eye on trades etc and you can customise what its telling you to a reasonable extent. I don't know any mods that will tell you that a trade has become available. Most of the ones I know tell you when things are ending more clearly so you can.

The benefit of info addict IMO is that it allows toy to compare yourself to the AIs more easily and also the relationship webs that give you some idea about how the AI think about each other.


In Memphis I could start some units since we won't be back in happy again for 12 turns or so and this makes the extra food less important right now.

EDIT

Burial Tomb is from Philosophy. Not a bad tech choice for the next/one after tech as it opens up RAs. Whilst early RAs are no longer as powerful as they were they can still really help out with key techs.

I have info addict downloaded, but I didnt open it in the mod area so I don't know how it works, I'll try that next. We can probably take out that south barb camp with the two warriors as you bring them back, remember there is a second barb on the east tile between the lakes. that would make the gold tile easier to work. But I guess it depends on where the second brute goes...

But actually now that I think about it, if Harald is churning warriors we probably will want our guys at full health. We can pretty much guarantee that is what he is doing, I say take the warriors to memphis, sell open borders to Cathy and try to buy an archer as a deterrent perhaps?

I won't buy an archer unless the DoW comes so saving that gold just in case seems like a good idea.

Selling OB when it arrives is sound. Do we want to sell it to Harald? I don't think it affects the chances of a DoW like it did a couple of patches ago but I'm not sure.

i'd take any of his money that we can get our hands on, heck you could probably sell him the first gold if it comes before the dow, cause he'd probably dow right after haha, i bet within 10-15 turns, if he was guarded even sooner. So I suppose if we are building one archer we should be in good shape. I wonder how many turns it takes to build a warrior as an emperor AI... Of course we have to hope he and cathy don't have a good relationship and double attack, that would be funny....

Just sell open borders do any interested party is always my idea, although in this case that wouldn't be Harald, as a civ needs to be friendly to be willing to part with any money for open borders.
Whatever we do with our warriors, the safety of our workers comes first for me. We don't exactly have units to spare until we get a couple more out.

I also don't believe I've ever had a city that would get +5 hammers from a stable.... that city is astounding. yeah if he doesn't want to pay for OB then forget it. Catherine is going to be a fun wild card, should be interesting to see what style she is going for in this game. I know she likes to expand and she has quite a bit of space. anyways, no need to get too far ahead. yeah warriors back and an archer and granary. go for our plantations and policy our free worker. I can agree those would be sound decisions.

PFT

Nothing to do on the inherited turn so I hit enter and start my set!


1


IBT Cathy asks us if we want to be friends. Since Harald is a bit off with us I decide to say yes to minimise the chances of a second potential backstab.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1813-46-53-34.jpg



2

As I move our warriors to deal with the southen barb camp one of them is attacked but manages to do more damage than the barb.


3

With our warriors in place we destroy the southern barb camp.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1813-48-35-67.jpg



4

Thebes, Worker > Archer

The worker heads off towards the gold so we can get back into :c5happy:


5

Writing > Calendar

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1813-50-49-65.jpg
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1813-51-08-99.jpg



One of our warriors (Dave) earns a promo from killiing off a damaged barb. He is upgraded to Drill1 due to the rough terrain we will likely be defending before to long.


6

I forgot to sell our OB last turn but luckily Cathy reminds me and asks to swap OB. I sell it to her for 50:c5gold: and then sell it to Harald for 30:c5gold: I'm suprised by this as he's not friendly with us but I won't complain.

Talking of Harald.... He's moving troops towards Memphis. He must have realised our warriors are injured from that barb fight! I decide to rush buy an archer in Memphis for the extra defence.

Troops
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1813-54-00-84.jpg
Rush buy
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1813-55-24-06.jpg



7

Well we expected it and on turn 37 Harald DoWs us. Surprise!

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1813-55-58-02.jpg



I start to bombard his units.


8

Memphis, Monument > Warrior

I decided that more units was the way to go rather than the granary at this point.


9

IBT Harald enters the classical era.

We can adopt a social policy. I take citizenship as we discussed.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1813-59-10-32.jpg



10

Harald is heading towards Thebes and is ignoring Memphis. Sadly he insta-healed one of his units that was about to die. Git.

Thebes, Archer > Warrior

We never really discussed what would come after the archer but more military is a good idea IMO. Maybe I should have started another archer instead of the warrior but I'm not sure it matters to much.


11

Vienna would like some help dealing with barbarians.


12

Not much going on here just more attacking Haralds units. We kill another warrior thats trying to sneak in round the northern edge of our lands. Nice try fool.


13

Calendar > ???? I set Bronze Working as a place holder but no beakers are invested.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1814-06-36-49.jpg



Our warrrior (Bill) earns his first stripes and gets promoted to Drill1.


Info

Our empire. I think there may be at least one more warrior in the fog to the south.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1814-09-36-87.jpg



The map as we can see it with resources highlighted.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1814-10-08-92.jpg



Demo

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-1814-10-57-14.jpg



The roster
Optional - on deck
Emstinson
Grandad1982
Brichals - up now
? - open to anyone to take up


The save

Just thought of something I should have mentioned

The gold is one turn from being mined. I had to pull the worker and defending warrior back as it was being pressed by 3 of Haralds warriors. When its ok to get back there then remember to finish this off!

Back from my sisters wedding in Anglesey, good times. Good to see things going well chaps. We predicted that attack from Harald and I think we will hold it no problem. Any requests for whats next? I will start my turns in a few hours. I would like to send a unit up to the north barb camp, there is fish wheat and gold there and maybe something beyond the fog. This is fractal afterall. If I repel Harald I will look up there. So do we want a 3rd city? A wonder? I need to look at the save to get a clearer idea but any opinions you can give me beforehand will help.

Well played!
If it's just a couple of wariors Harald is sending, we shouldn't have any problems. I'm expecting he won't even attempt attacking our towns unless more reinforcements arrive.
An early war can sometimes be as blessing, when the AI doesn't have the units yet to pose a real problem.
We should try not to lose a unit here; keeping what we've got is more important than making kills.
I don't have a strong opinion on which tech to take. The techs we need to improve our luxuries we already have. Bronze working gives spearmen, so that would be nice for extra defense. Philiosophy gives our Warior Tomb, that would be nice as well.

I wouldn't take peace immediately. I would want something substantial for that, although Harald probably won't have many goodies yet - I didn't look at the save yet to see; with so many screenshots it's hardly needed to look at the save.

Oh, I did try CivWillard, by the way. Thanks for mentioning that, I had never heard of it. It's a bit more the kind of thing I'm looking for, although it's still not great - nothing like CivAssist was for Civ III.

I would like to send a unit up to the north barb camp, there is fish wheat and gold there and maybe something beyond the fog. This is fractal afterall.There is certainly something beyond that mountain range, but we need Optics to have a look. But since we need a couple archers anyway to deal with Harald, we can just as well visit that barb camp afterwards when we've got one to spare. Since that barb camp is on the sea, there's probably a barb galley as well. I'm not sure if you can attack that barb camp with an archer while remaining at enough distance from a galley.
Coastal barb camps on a hill are by far the most tricky ones to take, maybe one archer won't do it.

I was checking out some of the other stuff in civwillard. It does show you is OB and RA etc are availible.

I combine civwillard with Attilamods (modifies the top bar) and info addict. Its still not as good as the BUG mod for civ4 but with time maybe an all in one UI project will sort this stuff out for us. Still early days.

Can I request a scouting mission down to the banana coast as I didn't get to go there myself?

A third city would be nice but we'd need to choose were to put it. I'd suggest 2N of the silks.

There's a potential city over by the gems/cow/fish but that got to wait till after Harald is properly dealt with.

On the tech front I lean towards heading for IW but our UB would be a pretty sweet as well. Helpfull I know.

Harald actually sent 5/6 warriors and a scout. I think I've killed 2. Or 3. I really should have written it down :lol:

Do we think this Fractal map is a continents style map?

I just looked at the save. What if we went masonry, the wheel, and mathematics for hanging gardens in Memphis with marble hooked up. We could send a war chariot down south through the flat land and use it to generally take care of that area if barbs pop up. That is what I was just thinking.

Its an interesting idea. I'd have to look at the save to see how long the techs would take to learn. It may be getting to late to consider the HG as a sure thing.

I'll do some counting but I'd like to hear from the others before we committed to anything like this.

Yes let me know. Its 8,8, 15 turns for the techs now. I would make some pastures and hook up the marble to try to get growth for more hammers in Memphis. We might not make it.

Alternatively we could go for iron and mathematics later, by which time Memphis has grown and we could still try for HG if it's not gone (we could get fail gold). This will give us access to catapults and swords, we could try to take out Harald.

Or we could be a bit more passive and go for philosophy for our UB. Possibly try for Oracle.

Ok some quick looking.

As it stands it will take 23 turns to tech up to Mathmatics and add another 8 to that for Masonry. We could start HG and get the marble improved on the way.

Talking of techs, judging by the cost discounts from players knowing techs the only second tier techs nobody knows are Trapping and Sailing. Most people may have Calendar and the only classical era tech people have is Iron Working (Harald entered the classical so he has this).

To stand a chance of building the HG we would need to return to :c5happy: so Memphis can grow to increase its production. This shouldn't be a problem once the war is over and we can get our workers, well, working.

EDIT

You basically took the words out of my mouth!

With Harald having Iron I would like to prioritise getting there personally.

OK I'll go down the iron route, your analysis of the techs gone is a bit deeper than mine usually is, that's good I'm learning. During that time I'll stave Harald off and improve some tiles. OK I'll probably have a go at that now. Will report back later.

I only thought of tech tree reading after watching MadDjinns Rome LP!

Crap I missed the boat on this one. Traveling and all. Oh well. I'll lurk along and make comments.

43 -End turn
44-45 - Harald jiggling his warriors around but we're holding
46 - 3 enemy warriors down for no losses, Thebes goes onto Great Library as I think we have enough army and don't have happiness for a granary
49 - threat neutralised with some archery goodness, going to link gold
50 - iron working started, much Viking blood has been shed, and Harald suicides his last scout
52 - got gold + 3 happy, arranged citizens accordingly, will try to remove camp up north but galley is around
53 - Harald offers this. I take it and buy a worker for double choppage towards GL, and we have many tiles to improve for later, archer sees not much beyond north camp so I will leave it until KL wants it dead

http://i.imgur.com/CEz6G.png


56 - new policy, went for tradition for culture expansion in Memphis and option for oligarchy range bonus when Harald strikes again

60 - GL is ours next turn. We can bulb Philo. We have some barbs around but I left the workers under fire. I think a galley can't 1 shot that gold worker can it? Otherwise it can be moved. I moved the archer to take out the east side barb archer so the pasture can be worked. I chopped 2 trees when maybe 1 was only needed but I think we don't need lumbermills that desperately in Thebes.

We can hook up the duplicate gold and sell it to Cathy. And we can hook up dyes next. With IW in 3 turns maybe we should think of defense again. Harald will be back I think.

And we had a cool archer who probably needs a name but i don't know how to name him :)

On 60 Cathy enters the classical era. Here's the situation.

http://i.imgur.com/RRtcM.png

Bigger pictures here, new to this :P
http://i.imgur.com/mZP7Q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rin11.jpg

And save.

Crap I missed the boat on this one. Traveling and all. Oh well. I'll lurk along and make comments.

That's a pity. Please do add. Personally I would be for allowing a new player too on the roster.

Nicely done.

A good dash for the GLib. I guess we will take Philo with the free tech?

Since we have OB from Harald we should be scouting him out whilst we can.

I see 3/4 potential city sites left to us.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG1/egyptdot.jpg


The white dot is the most likely to go soon and also the most likely to cause trouble.

The blue dot is more of a blocker than anthing else but can potentially be an pretty decent city. With the new patch :) is pretty easy to come by as well so filler cities are ok IMO.

The yellow dot is a pretty safe bet and is good for picking up the silks. Will need several worker to chop the city out and may have to wait till Lumbermills to get production in hand.

The black dot is a filler and can be left for a long while as I doubt the AI will go for it any time soon. There is another fish that isn't on this screenshot so it will have plenty of food to work some hills. May make an ok naval base.

The warriors could potentially be moved to better fog busting positions for some of these sites.

I'm not suggesting we go all out for these spots right now though getting at least one of them in the next set might be a nice idea.

@Chimera1804

I'm happy for you to join and I think Optional would like another player so if you want the place you should ask him. I know from playing with you your a good player and write a decent report so I be happy to have you on board! Of course you'd need the correct DLC which if I recall you might not have....

Cool I like the city placement analysis graphic.

Blue I always thought could be a good city for mass trading posts but we don't need that yet. Black is a filler but it's not that bad. There is another fish there which somehow doesn't show on the map. Harald will maybe settle the white one so we can take it from him. Yellow is a good place to settle the next city I think. It will also give us a coastal city.

We could drop an extra city or 2 then get the policy to give 4 free culture buildings to provide burial tombs.

Also I was kicking myself yesterday night for not scouting Harald straight after the peace treaty. I just realised that we should do that but we still can do it now.

I also wasn't sure if I should have bought a worker or maybe waited with the gold to upgrade some warriors after IW. We could still use the 3rd worker, esp. if we get a new city down soon. And we can trade gold to Cathy for some military upgrade money. Just a few musings from me.

I'm going to call it early. There will be iron in Memphis. Just a guess, let's see.

And I forgot this

The roster
Optional - up now
Emstinson - on deck
Grandad1982
Brichals

Or we could do it like this as we have all just made 1 turn so far
The roster
Optional - on deck
Emstinson
Grandad1982
Brichals
Chimera - up now

Crap I missed the boat on this one. Traveling and all. Oh well. I'll lurk along and make comments.It's up to you, but the roster hadn't even been round yet when you posted this. It's still early stages.
A spot is definitely still open.

I had a look at the save. Here's roughly the situation we're in:

Egypt, 1600 BC, 60 turns played:

Thebes, 3 citizens
Memphis, 2 citizens
In the demographic overview that puts us at rockbottom with 27000 inhabitants. The best is nearly 10 times as much, 232000. Oops.

We have 9 units:
4 warriors
2 archers
3 workers
That puts us in third place for military.

Economically, we are making 10 gpt from tiles (8 from Thebes, 2 from Memphis),
We are spending 11 gpt, 9 for units, 2 for buildings.
We own 15 gold, and are losing a gold each turn.

Thebes is building the Great Library, to come in in 1 turn,
Memphis is building a granary, to come in in 2 turns.

We have 2 :c5happy:, there are some luxes in our borders we have yet to hook up.

We know 2 civs:
Denmark and Russia, Denmark being a bit closer to us than Russia.
Denmark has 3 social policies, 2 in Tradition, 1 in Honour.
Russia has 4, all Tradition.
I don't know if other people would be able to chime in on this, but I'm guessing that AI's that invest mainly in Tradition are trying to win the game with less towns, and are going less for expansion.

We know 2 City States,
Kuala Lumpur, cultural and hostile, Pearls,
Vienna, cultural and friendly, Pearls.

Plans for next:

Growth should be a priority. We are far behind the pack in population. Thebes gains a citizen and finishes a project next turn, I'm suggesting a settler as the next build. Memphis can work one of Thebes' farm tiles while the settler is being built.
As a spot for the next town I like grandad's blue dot, for growth reasons, and it's central. It's got no luxes or river-gold, not normally a good spot, but in the situation we are I think it would be a strong addition.
White dot is perhaps a little too aggressive to do first, and Yellow dot is somewhat out of the way. Yellow would be easier to defend once blue is in.
Black... not taking that one serious for now.

Memphis, what to do here after the granary? No units, I suppose, we have so many already. Burial Tomb? +2 gold and +2 happiness would make going for a fourth town easier; I can't think of much better for now.
I'm of course assuming then that we will claim the Great Library, which isn't completely certain, but if we do, picking Philosophy makes the most sense, as it's by far the most expensive tech from the ones we can choose from, and Philosophy just happens to enable the Burial Tomb.

For research I think we should go Masonry, we should perhaps have picked that one earlier, as one of our workers is already working close to that Marble tile just now.

Echoing what grandad1982 already said, we should definitely use a unit for scouting to see the Danish lands and beyond. The world could stop where Harald is, or maybe we're part of a big pangaea. We don't know if we don't scout. We haven't found any world wonders and as yet only 2 of 12 CS's.

Settler in Thebes is a great idea as we only have 4 improved tiles in that city atm. and we don't need to grow that city too much yet above 4. I think it's better to put happy faces into Memphis growth, which will be fairly fast with granary and sheep pastures. We can balance the books by working a gold in Thebes I think, and selling gold as a resource to Cathy hopefully.

I think if we drop a 3rd city on Grandads yellow and chop out a monument there, we can take the social policy Legalism to get 3 free burial tombs.

Masonry would be my choice also then maybe the wheel and mathematics. Or we could go for sailing to explore around. We are a bit lacking in vision. I hope we do get GL because a free library is also pretty cool.

Demo pop is a very poor guide. It may not be so unreliable in the early game but later even if you have more overall pop than a rival civ it will say you are smaller (something to do with city sizes rather than empire pop).

The reason for our lack of growth was Harald forcing us off the gold before we improved it so we spent longer in :c5unhappy:

I'm not sure about the SP thing but it makes sence that a civ that is going mainly tradition will stay smaller as that is its stated purpose.

I agree to Marble next. More happy=more growth. With that and iron we are looking at 10 turns of research but this of course will change with the +3:c5science: and the library from the GLib. I would suggest either the Wheel so we can start to head towards Currency (Mints and Markets) or trapping so we can go for Civil Service. The growth in our capital should make decent sci city with CS farms and the NC at some point.

In Memphis a Burial Tomb is good as its a maintenance free building.

I guess Thebes will be building a settler. If not a Burial Tomb is nice here too. By the way its :c5culture: not :c5gold:

By the way its :c5culture: not :c5gold:Ah, I must have misread or misremembered. It's still nice, better than a monument. The only reason to build monuments now is if you would want your 4 free cultural to be Burial Tombs, then you must have monuments first. Hmm, I don't know if we want to wait with Burial Tombs until we are up 4 towns with monuments for maximum effect.
Next Social Policy is to come in in 16 turns, maybe a bit faster if the Great library gives some culture.
Maybe the next player should play until when this moment is.

The next player could be me, but I like to allow some time for Emstinson or perhaps Chimera1804 to check in.

GLib gives +1:c5culture: so I think we maybe get the policy 2 turns earlier. Not totally sure.

Monuments are also very good as with Organised Religion [?] you get a :c5happy: for them as well as Temples and Monasteries. That makes our Tombs +3:c5happy:!

Well see, I don't have any DLCs other than Mongolia...

I'll be watching.

We'll keep making pictures, so that it's easier to follow!

I've played 6 turns of my set, planning to make 4 more, 10 seems plenty now for a set, but the discovery of Iron should affect our city planning, so I prefer some team input before deciding on a spot.
My turnset will make a clearer picture of the decision we have to make:

1560BC;
Great Library finishes, choose Philosophy as free tech.
Thebes > settler, juggling around some tiles, give Memphis one of Thebes +3 food tiles.
Calling Harald, selling open borders would give 27 gold. Something is better than nothing, but first I check with our military advisor to see what he says about the Danish military. They hardly have an army, our advisor says, so I feel confident we don't stand a risk here and so I... urm, forget to make the deal. Did it a few turns later.
1520BC;
Iron Working comes in! 2 sources show up, both doubles, no six-shooters:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Iron.jpgMoving a soldier of ours nearer to Danish borders reveals that Harald's having to deal with a couple of intruders:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/BarbWorker.jpg

The Danish military must indeed be very thin when that is happening. I'd like to try catching that worker.
1480BC;
Memphis finishes granary > Warrior Tomb next.
Sell open borders to Harald, since I forgot to do that a few turns earlier.
1440BC;
An archer of ours promotes, as he's been in an ongoing skirmish with a barb archer in the east. I'm choosing double barrage - I don't really know the upgrade paths yet, if something else would have let to something better, please say. I'm naming him Hassan.
Harald got his Gems pillaged by a barb archer. Seeing his sorry empire, I think we should have gone for his scalp rather than sign peace a few turns ago.
1400BC;
In between turn Cathy asks for our spare Gold that has come on line. Sorry Cathy, that'll cost you roebels (I've really not figured out yet what the value of 'friendship' is in this game, by the way).
I let Cathy pay 177 gold + 2gpt for our Gold - hm, that sounds weird, putting it like that.
Our exploring warrior in Danish lands can make an easy kill, as the barb archer who pillaged Harald's Gems is fleeing from Copenhagen's grasp. I decide against that, though, I rather move on, as there's quite a bit of land here, it might even be difficult to find that worker in this space:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/EasyKill.jpg

In the east our warrior Dave has just dealt with that barb archer over there, and now spots something across water. I'm having him hop on a sheep-hill to have a better look:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Dave.jpg

There might be nothing there, but a scout with vision would have been handy at a point like that.
1360BC;
Masonry comes in. I have a worker starting on the Marble now, he was already available a turn ago, but I decided to let him wait a turn, rather than sending him off elsewhere and than having to call him back later, as that would have wasted even more turns.
Open borders with Catherine ended, renew; 19 gold + 1gpt.
We now have some cash again, and could upgrade 3 warriors to swords with Iron.

Here is where I paused. I believe, if I'm playing 4 more turns, I'm still not needing to know exactly which spot would be best for our third city, as our settler would be merely on the way, but I prefer a break anyway, and continue tomorrow.
Seeing where the iron is, original blue dot is too far away from it, it needs to be put a little further south. Except, that brings us closer to Catherine, and her army is stronger than ours. Do we want to provoke her?
The dot closer to Harald - the one we thought could give trouble - could be safer, as it's further away from Catherine, and trouble with Harald is err... well, without him having a military, what's the trouble?

White dot is looking good now. I'd go for this first.

The blue dot could be moved to the spot SW of the cows but this is not sucha good city site IMO. Any closer to Cathy and I think that spells trouble. I think the distance where the AI start to get annoyed is less than 4 tiles from their borders, however I'm not really sure and I don't know if this is from our city or its borders.

The Drill2 is good. Its always best to stick to on line - drill or shock - as its after the 3rd promo that the best stuff starts to appear. Getting a medic is always nice as well.

What tech you thinking of going for now?

Looks like Harald tried to settle the white dot but lost his settler. So no reason for us not to take it then. And if we do have cash to upgrade to swords if necessary then he will not be able to threaten us I guess. I think the failed warrior rush crippled him.

^^ I agree. The AI often gimp themselves with these failed rushes.

For techs I think The wheel is quite handy for now, after improving a few more tiles it wouldn't be too early for our workers to lay a road between memphis and Thebes, which are only 3 tiles apart.
The wheel would also give us War Chariots.
Then perhaps Trapping > Civil Service.
The Great Library - of which I wasn't a fan initially - has sped up research quite a bit, more than I thought. A cheap tech like The Wheel we're doing in 3 turns now.
An alternative route would be Sailing > Optics for sea exploration, but I would have considered that more if we had been on a small continent. Since we have just discovered the land is much bigger than we originally suspected, and this might be one big pangaea, I don't think we have a reason to shoot for seafaring techs just now.

For our third town I have a slight preference for putting it straight next to the iron, a tile south of the white dot. It'll take a few more tiles in Cathy's direction, but it's still 5 tiles away from her border.
I also just checked what she's got, but she's got neither horses or iron. If we keep a few units around that town we should be safe. Settling a bit aggressively didn't do us much harm in the case of Memphis, and I don't think there's any need for us to become coy now.
Getting a couple more units out of Thebes might be a good thing, though, just to play it safe. With 3 towns, 3 workers, the presence of barbs and a Cathy whose military is stronger than ours, our 5 units on military duty could do with a pair of extra hands. Yeah, we've got 6 soldiers in total, but 1 is exploring and he should continue doing that.

Not a lot happened in the last 4 turns;

1360BC, continued;
Start research on The wheel.
Our exploring warrior now finds out where the worker has ended up:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Egypt1.jpg

I'm also noticing that our warrior is wounded. Some barb must have suicided on him, with battle animations off I've missed that.
1320BC;
Thebes finishes settler > archer, juggling tiles around again.
1280BC;
Sending an archer through Copenhagen to help our warrior with the barb camp. There's still a barbarian around Copenhagen.
1240BC;
Our archer got attacked and loses 9(!) hitpoints. I had expected the attack, not that the loss would be so heavy. I'm calling the warrior back for assistance. The situation is still under control, but we need to be careful with our archer now.
This is how it now looks;

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Egypt2.jpg

You can also see we'll have a third town in 2 turns time.

This is the situation in the north;

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/NorthCamp.jpg

That's under control. Kuala Lumpur still hasn't asked for any assistance against barbs. Maybe we should let those barbs into their territory a bit more, but Kuala Lumpur is not the most interesting city state. I don't think we should throw money at them for influence soon, but maybe later.
The Wheel has just come in, possibly Trapping > Civil Service next.

I was just looking at the save, looking nice. At least we found land beyond Copenhagen. I had an idea just thought I'd put it out, I don't know how solid it is.

I think we could still make a run for HG in Memphis if we go mathematics next - 7 turns. I was looking at the city and we could try to micro it to grow ASAP to size 5 (can go to size 4 in 2 turns if food emphasised) then switch to production basis and with the marble and UA we get a hammer boost on HG. (maybe this is not an improvement on just 4 pop though) Mathematics could also give us a catapult made in Thebes possibly.

I think the blue ? is better as it's closer to the river for extra commerce tiles and it's closer to road, also closer to road to Copenhagen which will one day be ours quite likely. But the white ? gives us more rapid access to iron and we have the money to upgrade to swords now. In this case settling on the white ? is maybe better.

I think Cathy will be annoyed at us because we didn't gift the gold. But I totally agree on that decision. We can't give her that bonus so early on. Better to take a diplo hit I think.

Nice set.

On the blue ? the first tile to be taken by the border expansion is going to be the iron. I don't see getting 2 iron as being enough to take Copenhagen so settling white ? seems less important hat it could be.

Or maybe I'm wrong and two swords will allow us to take the city. I'm not a great attacking warmonger, especially in the ancient era.

Can I assume since we're building a Tomb that we won't be taking Legalism? Seems it would be a waste of production and culture. I guess this leaves more from Lib or start on Piety maybe. I quite like the idea of Piety at some point. Organised Religion combined with Meritocracy will remove the :c5unhappy: generated by cities (I suspect all cities will get monuments and Tombs). With 2 buildings and a road that means 5 :)!! Pretty cheap happy.

Based on that I would say Meritocracy as our next SP.

Not giving Cathy what she wanted is going to be an issue when it comes to potentially settling near her. Also she will be less tolerant of us that a true friend will be. Oh well shes going to die at some point!

I think its getting a bit late to go for Math > Hanging Gardens. It would be very annoying to invest in it just to lose out.

Tech to CS would work for me.

Memphis could go for a Lib or a Watermill IMO. Or a barracks.

I think we could still make a run for HG in Memphis if we go mathematics next - 7 turns.I think its getting a bit late to go for Math > Hanging Gardens. It would be very annoying to invest in it just to lose out.I hadn't given it any thought yet. In my games all the early wonders are always gone before turn 40 or so. I don't know what the AI is doing in this game.
Memphis is still very weak in production, though, only 5 hammers per turn. Any % bonus over that from being Egypt and having Marble won't be much until this town gets better. I'm not completely against it, but I would hate seeing us selecting production tiles over growth tiles. We've done that so many times already, sometimes forced by war, but now that we're finally in the situation that our towns can grow I'd like to take that chance.
Maybe we can look for wonders a bit further down the line, when Memphis is in a better shape. Notre Dame or Porcelain Tower or so. First get a stable in town for extra hammers from our 5 sheep and the horses, that'll give a significant boost.
I assume since we're building a Tomb that we won't be taking Legalism.I started building a tomb, but I'm disappointed by how long it's taking. I looks like it would have been better after all to plan 4 monuments in 4 cities and then grab the tombs with Legalism. I thought beforehand that would be a bit complicated to plan in an SG, and also that we could use a tomb earlier, as we were short on money and happiness. But money and happiness is okay now, I didn't realize I could turn that around so quickly. I sometimes miss the insight that an experienced player would have.
I think we need a comprehensive plan with regards to social policies, not just 'that policy looks nice now', but looking a bit further ahead. We haven't done that much.Not giving Cathy what she wanted is going to be an issue when it comes to potentially settling near her. Also she will be less tolerant of us that a true friend will be. Oh well shes going to die at some point.I know of course of this line 'You refused a request, despite having made a declaration of friendship', but I still have to see this 'true friend' among the AI. I'm not convinced it counts for much.
Someone posted in the forums the other day argueing it was better not to sign any declarations of friendship if you want to keep good relationships. He said the positive modifier for having made a declaration of friendship fades quickly, while the negative modifier for having refused a request sticks with you all game.

If you make a declaration of friendship, you know the AI will knock on your door the moment you hook up a spare lux. The AI's turn is just after your worker has hooked up the resource and before your own turn. That's stupid, because it means you can't do anything with that resource before the AI gets an opportunity to request it.
But the advantage of being able to trade your resource yourself is too big to throw it away for something vague like not getting a negative modifier. What are these modifiers modifying? Maybe it just affects the chance of an AI requesting a declaration of friendship for a second time or something trivial like that.
I know in Civ III each AI had an 'attitude' towards you, they were either furious, annoyed, cautious, friendly or gracious, but it all meant next to nothing. An AI that was gracious could almost as easily declare on you as a civ that was furious, as other factors had much more influence. Experienced players in Civ III commonly ignored the AI's attitude completely. With Civ 5 I get the impression it's the same thing. Seemingly being on good terms means nothing with the chances of backstab being so high.

Very nice sets guys, I like it and I am happy to be back on dry land. Although it would probably be better to stay out on the water for a few more days and forget about work and all that other stuff... Anyways I have no problems with Chimera stepping in if he can, unless I missed it that he isn't able to in my skimming through... Let me read over everything again and see if any of my input is worth it. I really need to start setting it up like that, you guys are pro's! haha... alright, I like the iron spot as our next city, I'm not adverse to settling the blue and buying the iron tile anyways. Got to put that money to good use and I'm sure Cathy will hate us a small amount less, especially if we leave her the other one.... for now.

And also with my earlier post, a stable in memphis will be amazing after all the sheep and horse are upgraded and with civil service we are looking at some crazy fun. so that would be horseback riding, which is on the way to currency? I'd have to look at the tech tree real quickly. Might as well take a look at the last save. I'm definitely down for whichever path we go. Being better then our immediate neighbor is always the most reassuring thing this early on that we are doing something right.

Okay, so tech wise... we can push for the 3 leading up to chivalry to bolster our production, economy, and food production in whichever order sounds good. I would then suggest finishing the liberty tree and using the GP to either pop Chivalry or build whichever wonder is still up at the time. I usually do this in games I go large now and then get the 3 policies on the right side of commerce, extra nice since we have 6 and possibly more of our own resources to get the extra happiness from. I'm a big fan of having tons of cash on hand to bolster new cities or respond quickly to an unexpected invasion. But I also like to experiment so that's what I was hoping to get with this game with you folks! I'm glad we are going with growth, its a temporary production set back but it will give us more options later if we need to specialize the cities at all.

Good to see you back, Emstinson! Although any holiday is always too short of course. :)

Going for growth is really good, I think. That's the main reason for going Civil Service, I think that's the suggestion on the table just now.
Money is always good to buy influence with city states, especially maritime ones, for the food they give, but we haven't spotted those around yet.
But saving some money would still be a good idea. Buying tiles and units is not needed if we can get those the usual way. It'll be a little while before we can hook up that iron, as a worker is not very near, but it's not a priority, as we have no war going on.
At some stage we will want a war again. Maybe buying influence with a CS that an AI already has an interest in will piss them off? Following that up with a denouncement? Having a weak unit of ours getting in striking distance of one of their strong guys? From reading the forums I get the impression the warmonger penalty if hefty, so having them declaring on us rather than us having to declare on them would be very nice.

Welcome back to :egypt: Emsinson. I think we have a solid plan for the next few turns to aim for civil service. We could maybe steadily build up and try to annoy Harald into DoWing us again. With 2 iron only maybe we can't take him down yet. So we can go for infrastructure for a bit then, what about looking towards getting a 4th city down on the East coast. Thats still a bit away though. Oh we can heal that archer and steal a worker from the barb camp below Copenhagen aswell.

Lurker's comment:

If you make a declaration of friendship, you know the AI will knock on your door the moment you hook up a spare lux. The AI's turn is just after your worker has hooked up the resource and before your own turn. That's stupid, because it means you can't do anything with that resource before the AI gets an opportunity to request it.


When your worker has 1 turn left to hook up the resource, cancel the order and give it again. You'll get your resource instantly, and can do with it whatever you want. At least, it worked for me.

Nice game, by the way. Good reading.
Too bad, I don't have the DLC's except Mongolia either...

Aaaaaarrghhhh! My post! My lovely post! I just lost my post by the way.

Welcome back Emstinson!

What is the reasoning for going to Chivalry, rather than say, Education?

I also like the idea of the GP from Liberty. I tend to think GEng to rush the Porcelain Tower is one of the best uses of the GP as you get the wonder and a GSci. Nice.

The other (aside from what we take next) SP issue is do we want to take Rationalism? I would argue that if we had the Porcelain Tower it would reduce its importance. I guess this is a relevant now actually sice Piety is opwen and I've already suggested it as a possible option at some point.

If we were to fill out Liberty then e would be neared the time when Rationalism would open for us. Doest this reduce Pieties allure?

Oh sorry, I didn't know how far a long my brain path you would have liked to hear! My favorite GW is Big Ben in this game, so I always push the tech tree that way and approach it from the top half first to get the money and production techs, especially if I have horses. Knights are still a lot of fun to have early, not as much as 2 patches ago, but still pretty fun. And I always enjoy the forbidden palace... Anyhoo, yeah I'm not adverse to rationalism if we have it unlocked at the end of liberty. I usually stray from that tech decision above if I need boats or I need better infantry or just trying to keep up military wise. If not, I shoot to be the first to economics and get commerce bonus and make building new cities cheaper then dirt. Anyhow enough of my favorite stuff, let me look at whats up next for us... EDIT: Just realized education is on the path to economics too, I suppose there is no reason to take chivalry before education! I don't remember if it was like that before but I'm going to wager it was and I'm just dumb....

I think we have a choice with Rationalism vs Piety. If we go Piety we are best to go many cities to make up for science lost by not choosing rationalism. Since it looks like we will get Haralds land I think Piety and a wide empire is maybe the best option to go. I have gone Piety post patch and it gives tons of happiness. We also will probably get a great scientist from the GL so we will not fall so back on tech. And with all our gold we can do RAs too.

I think piety might be a good choice. I can't make a good opinion without looking at the SP screen as I didn't memorise the policies yet it's just that I remember piety can be nice. Although it is better if you have monasteries which we don't. Finishing liberty I think we all agree should be the next priority though.

Who is up by the way? Is it Brichals or Emstinson?

I think it's Emstinson next.

oh yeah, I suppose that would be a good thing to start, yeah let me take a look at it tonight and see what looks good and what makes sense and see if I have any questions. So I'll have my stuff up some time tomorrow more then likely!

okay, I didn't know if we were still trying to get another player in the rotation or not so I'm looking at the game now in a different light as I have 10 turns to rock out. It looks like I may get the policy near the end of my set, are we onto piety now? or do we want to fill out liberty? I enjoy both strategies, and it looks like agreeing will be fun. I'm down for a wide empire swallowing up anything it touches with piety now and maybe finish liberty later. Well I'll try to play a few turns tonight and see if we have any definites to worry about, I'll start CS as soon as trapping is done. Looks like I have to be careful with these troop movements the first turns, barbarians seem to be waiting for a mistake on my part....

And I'll go ahead and settle next to the iron, the worst thing it will do is encourage the lady to attack us sooner which is just more exp for us anyways. I say we live dangerously and take it because she is bound to settle the other when she can see it. I'll try to capture the Dane settler and give us another worker for our new city. And I seem to recall barbs around copenhagen from a pic so I'll go back and see how many turns ago that was as I would prefer the archer heal inside our borders of the new city but won't risk him if there are enemies in the Dane borders... I guess we are going for the barb camp north as well, so I'll do my best to archer that one down from our side of that bay...

71 is a fun turn for me, lots of stuff to do! I only have one question, what do we want as the first building in HelicoptersRus (Not really going to change the name, just my visual reminder of these fun names we'll be building soon)? I'm thinking about starting with walls first, as it will undoubtedtly be a future battle ground, but I am not adverse to the traditional monument or even a granary if that's a priority here, but I can't see it. I'm going to start the walls for the next turn or two that I do tonight, if the monument sounds better in the morning to you guys as to start growing the city faster I can switch it over with minimal time delayed as both will take 2 dozen turns or more to complete anyways. So far so good, no losses and barbs droppin like flies... Wish I had realized it was my turn earlier, I'd have cancelled some plans haha...

No to the walls! Not useful yet at all. Its better to get the city being a useful member of our community.

Also were people agreed on Piety? I was thinking that or a Lib policy next but was looking for debate about which one was best. I'm ok with piety though as it'll help us build our Tombs.

Another 'No' to Walls from me.
The next policy should come up soon, I think it was only 6 turns to go at the end of my set.
I have little idea of policies, I'm not experienced enough as a player to discriminate between them. Piety seems to give some decent boosts further down the line indeed.
When your worker has 1 turn left to hook up the resource, cancel the order and give it again. You'll get your resource instantly, and can do with it whatever you want. At least, it worked for me.

Nice game, by the way. Good reading.
Too bad, I don't have the DLC's except Mongolia either...Ah, thanks for that advice! Yes, that is how it works, you get the resource before the interturn by refreshing the worker-order.
In hindsight, I wish I had uninstalled my game and then reinstalled it without the additional downloads before starting up this SG. It would have been a pain, but now we're missing out on potential players.

Walls there eventually is not a bad idea so it's OK if you did put some hammers in, maybe a monument first would be better. AI takes walls into account before attacking you so it could make us safer (that is why it's easier to play a peaceful game as Babylon). Even so I don't think we need to worry too much yet. I would be tempted to get a War Chariot (moves 5) in Thebes or Memphis to scout around Cathys borders as it is flat land there.

For the SP I think Emstinson can make the call depending on the save as we all agreed that we want to finish Liberty and start Piety but in no particular order.

Well the order we get our SP does matter a little. If we want the Lib GP for a specific use then we want to concentrate on finishing lib before we get involved in another tree. In hindsight tradition was a wasted SP.

Cool, yeah only two turns into the walls so I'll switch it to the monument. And I did start the war chariot last night in Thebes after the archer so that should be done around my turnset or right into the next, as I thought the same thing about the flatness of the terrain. Okay, I'll think about the SP long and hard then. I'm thinking if we are planning on a 4th city then it may not be so bad to take meritocracy as I intend to start building roads here before my turnset is over.

yeah, now this is where I wish I took the time to master formulas for the games calculations. so each additional city adds 15% to the current total needed to get the next total needed when its finished? so representation makes that 10%? So I guess that starts a pretty nice snowball effect as you grow and add to your empire.And as of right now its 54 turns to finish CS, Theo, and Edu so that would up our chances of being able to time the GE from lib to pop the PT... Of course there is no way for me to be precise as our CPT and SPT will go up but 54 turns to get 2 more policies and the free GP sounds doable to me...

Okay I'm going to start my write up, but I wanted to post the save first in case we have any more early birds like me on. Granted I may be the night owl since the three of you guys seem to post way earlier in each day then me haha... Anyhow, this one will be much more fun to work on I focused on synchronizing things to maximize benefit, not sure how I did but I impressed myself so I am happy about that. Okay, I'm vowing to get the pics uploaded from the internet so off to figure that out right now!

Seems like good calculations Em. Hopfully we can get it in time. PT in Thebes would be very good. It makes our GS points up to 3 there and we can add a garden and national college and make a science farm. With 50% extra beakers from PT we also can go piety and still keep up in tech without rationalism.

ETA: quick look at the save. I think we could line the policies up fairly well although it may require running artists in thebes and memphis after this GA finishes and burial tomb is built in memphis. I think it's better not to run an artist in Thebes whilst we are in golden age as we lose out on the gold and hammer bonus.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0011.jpg
test from my first run, okay have to convert them to jpeg to use photobucket, no problemo.... doesn't seem to challenging at all, now I can have some fun haha

Alrighty lets hope nothing interrupts this fun!

Turn 69- inherited turn, left with some troop movements so I shuffle around some men towards our goals.

Turn 70- Kill off the brute near our northern troops, move Hassan into position to launch arrows across the little Bay. Also find a brute near copenhagen, pausing the retreat of our beaten archer to our new lands, move warriors into position to prevent any trouble.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0013.jpg

Turn 71- This was definitely a fun turn to have in my set no doubt! Okay first our worker will finish the marble this turn so we'll have some extra happiness, second copenhagen +archer took care of the brute so archer is clear for take off. The worker working on our northern river farm will also be done this turn, I decide he'll be our iron mine guy. The Memphis worker will move up to the wheat and do that as he should finish that 1 turn before the city snags the gem hill and then he can move there that same turn. Hassan fires on the camp and does 2 damage I believe, but safe from retaliation, no real worries here. The archer finishes in Thebes and I move him across the river to go help Hassan. I name our warrior that killed the barb brute there Charles and give him shock, figure it doesnt hurt to have one with shock and he could be a candidate for healer as well. I give Dave the honor of heading towards the northern camp as Charles needs to heal. I start the war chariot in Thebes, as it will be a great asset in covering the distance between us and Cathy. I also under, good conscious, build Heliopolis next to the iron, as this seems to be our short term goal to possibly wipe out the Danes. Started the walls (later changed after vote two turns later if i forget to mention it).

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0014.jpg

Bill here goes to scout the rest of Copenhagen and see if he is still plagued by Barbs...

Pictures from 71/72
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0015.jpg

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0016.jpg
I tell her we won't, as I assume our next cities will be closer to our lands then hers..


Turn 72- Okay after that excitement and calms down a bit. Dave goes into Copenhagen to see what's up, I start the wheat farm and start moving the other east most worker down to the iron mine (5 turns to get there). retreating the 2hp archer to heliopolis, for two reasons, a safer, quicker heal and also (I hadn't checked yet, but...) I knew our open borders (he eventually takes that grass tile to block it off in my set) with him would end soon (Turn 81/82 actually) and be tough to get back cheaply so I figured having only the two warriors trapped would be better.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0018.jpg

Turn 73- Okay I didn't get a screenshot of it, but Copenhagen has barbs pouring in from the west so I decide not to bother with scouting it yet. So I send Bill down with the other warrior to hopefully score a worker for us. Dave gets closer to the camp up north and both archers can fire on the camp, Hassan shoots again. I switched Helio to the monastery this turn.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0019.jpg

Going to post this much here as I don't want to risk losing it!

To Avoid losing stuff I copy paste in to Notepad. I've been burnt to many times!

Turn 74- Go figure, brute spawns on the wheat above the north camp so I move Dave in and Hassan over 1 to be in range to shoot it if the brute doesn't move, leave the other archer in case it moves on the camp. Move Bill and the other warrior towards the worker barb camp. Our beaten archer resides in Helio for now to heal up. Russia was ally to Vienna all of one turn, no longer but still has friendship there so something to keep in mind.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0020.jpg

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0021.jpg

turn 75- Brute does not move onto the camp so I capture the camp with Dave and shoot the brute with Hassan for minimal damage. Our warriors are lookin for blood in the west and the farm in between memphis and Thebes is done so I, after 15 minutes of debating in my head, go with building a road from memphis back to Thebes so the worker will be on the hill tile ready to build a farm after the road is done. Then he should be able to mosey over to the last flood plains if we need him to, which I think we will, in the next turn set.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0022.jpg

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0023.jpg

turn 76- wooo west barb camp spawns a spear in between our two warriors on the wheat tile so I decide to fortify the one closest to the camp and I start moving Bill to the plains NE of the wheat so only the spearman can attack him. I get the 5th citizen in Thebes on the gold mine to boost production and gold with the Golden Age from Representation. Decided on that to set us on the path to hopefully pop the PT in 50-55 turns or so. Russia has sent a lone spearmen up to scout us, I give it 25 turns before she goes nuts! haha...

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0024.jpg

Turn 77- Get a better view of the land north of us that we can not yet reach, but still not a definite of how much land is up there. Charles is healed up so I send him to search the fog on the east coast. Bill moves to the tile I mentioned and gets attacked in between turns, does more damage then he takes from the barb spearman so that's a plus (6 taken to 7 done IIRC.)

Turn 78- The War Chariot is done, I really really really wanted to go full produciton in thebes and use the golden age to try to squeeze out a wonder, (maybe if I had more turns left in my set I'd have stopped to ask but at this point its only one turn used as we can change it on 79 if it sounds like a good idea), both the oracle and stonehenge are still available for culture and the pyramids but we have plenty of workers so I don't think thats high on our list. I decide to set the production to the burial tomb as that is a guaranteed free source of culture and happiness and leave us with population growth still. I kill off the spearman with the no name warrior and let Bill rest. troops continue moving back/scouting as of last turn.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0025.jpg

Turn 79- Okay first off I left some troop movements on this turn for Brichals I think, the warriors to the west can rest up, the archers near copenhagen are the toughest choice, we can't send them across water yet and his borders close to us early in your set. I'd hate to have 3 or 4 troops trapped over there so I didn't want to do that to us so they are there at your discretion to use. The chariot has full moves too, so we can scout whichever way with that, I'd wager south. anything else is just in limbo, we can do whatever we like with. Big choice is in Memphis. as the trouble I had in Thebes last turn, we could switch to full production now with a 5 citizen and squeeze out a wonder here as well, honestly we could go for a wonder in both, but I set it to the stone works just to pick something. I don't think thats a bad idea actually, try to get oracle in Thebes and stonehenge in Memphis. But I'll leave that for debate as we have lots of choices in both. If there is anything else I'm leaving out I'll answer questions but my hands are tired and I want the discussions to start so here we go!

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0026.jpg

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0027.jpg

The Golden Age is making us look like pros!

Oh and I didn't think about it till I started doing my turns, the burial tomb does give two gold per turn with the culture and happiness because it has zero maintenance. Wasn't sure if you guys had sorted all of that out before I got back to dry land, just remembered seeing the discussion earlier in the thread!

Nice set.

I'll peak at the save and post my thoughts later.

Happiness shouldn't be too big of a deal as is, we'll have gems soon and Memphis can't be too far away from pushing towards the sugar tile naturally, if we build another city maybe, but we'd probably build near the silk so that should cancel out. And Meritocracy will give us some easy ones in exchange for gpt on road maintenance. I forgot that as well, the forest gets chopped on the gems this turn I believe, so thats 20 hammers towards whichever project we want there. Not a whole lot but it'll knock a turn off the first tier wonders for sure.

Happiness shouldn't be too big of a deal as is, we'll have gems soon and Memphis can't be too far away from pushing towards the sugar tile naturally, if we build another city maybe, but we'd probably build near the silk so that should cancel out. And Meritocracy will give us some easy ones in exchange for gpt on road maintenance. I forgot that as well, the forest gets chopped on the gems this turn I believe, so thats 20 hammers towards whichever project we want there. Not a whole lot but it'll knock a turn off the first tier wonders for sure.

Actually I think we could get Oracle in Memphis. That would boost us to the liberty GP for PT for sure. Currently we get 55% bonus production towards wonders in the Golden Age (I checked in the save).

I'd like it if Thebes could start a settler this set. Since we told Cathy we won't settler near her again we have to stay at least 4 tiles away or we get another diplo minus. I think the diplo negative affects relations with other nations not just Russia. I don't know if this is one of the ones that unmet AIs will hold against you in the same way as the wiping out a civ.

I would say the original blue dot is still a good choice since we can't settle near the southern Iron with out the hassle now.

As for the Oracle I'd be ok with it. I would suggest we put Memphis in production mode first.

Yes I would agree with full production in Memphis for Oracle (even starving) and a settler in Thebes also. It is you next isn't it Grandad or is it me?

I think its you.

I'm just checking in, haven't looked at anything yet, but I see I need to put up the roster again:

grandad1982; up
Brichals
Optional
Emstinson
?

yeah, definitely need to put it up for me hah... going to write that down here and try to remember to tag it on my next set.... Yeah I forget about building settlers as I usually just buy them when I need one. But then again I probably don't build 4 cities this fast on my own so that might explain it as well. So I like the sound of that, switch Thebes to a settler and I'm down for seeing which wonders we can pilfer. Doesn't seem like any of our AI our big on them so far, rock on that good times.

I'm up? In that case got it.

I won't switch to a settler till Thebes finishes its current build (7 turns I think). Settler was 6 turns so middle of next set.

Are we all happy with the Oracle ar does any one have counter arguments? The ones I would put forward are that we could be building in guaranteed improvements to our empire rather than starting one we may miss out on. If we didn't build the Oracle I would say something like build more units (Archers or spear?) or maybe a barrack then units.

One the plus side having wonders in multiple cities is great for one of the piety policies (can't recall the name) as it gives 33% extra:c5culture: in cities with wonders.

EDIT: Ignore spammer above
It would be far better if you reported ad spammers!
Spam removed.

I'm up? In that case got it.

I won't switch to a settler till Thebes finishes its current build (7 turns I think). Settler was 6 turns so middle of next set.

Are we all happy with the Oracle ar does any one have counter arguments? The ones I would put forward are that we could be building in guaranteed improvements to our empire rather than starting one we may miss out on. If we didn't build the Oracle I would say something like build more units (Archers or spear?) or maybe a barrack then units.

One the plus side having wonders in multiple cities is great for one of the piety policies (can't recall the name) as it gives 33% extra:c5culture: in cities with wonders.

I'm personally not too sure how good wonders are in Civ5. I used to wonder spam in Civ3 before I realised that is not a good way to play (I think you guys know what I mean). However we do get a massive discount on wonder building in Thebes and if we get that +culture bonus from piety and some great people points I think it's a good call for Oracle.

The main reason I think it's good to get a few wonders is to use our UA. In reality I think a barracks and unit might be better for us but then we could have chosen any Civ.

Also Thebes has plenty of hammers, so we can always get on top of other production things. I feel Catherine is a real threat but we can have 2 swords upgraded within a few turns which should help us out.

An ad spammer - here? Are we becoming so popular that these pages are becoming highly sought after advertising space?

I finally had a look at the save. Well played, Emstinson. Also the lurkers should be happy with so many pics!
It's a bit of a pain that Harald's borders are now blocking the route to the west, but that couldn't be helped. We will probably end up buying open borders. If we do get that worker - and I don't see how we can miss it - I believe it's worth paying.

Maybe we can save for buying influence with Vienna. Vienna is much better than Kuala Lumpur. Vienna, being a friendly city state, will probably, once we have influence, start asking for a road, an artist, a natural wonder and those type of things, and that should make it easy to keep them allied to us.
The culture from Vienna will speed up social policies, and the coral is a lux we don't see available otherwise.
If us getting friendly with Vienna annoys Russia, what it probably will, then I wouldn't mind that. We're going for Domination, remember, so keeping the peace is not the highest priority.

I don't have any problem with going for a wonder next. I'm assuming Memphis, with its Marble, is our wonder city now? In production it's still slightly behind Thebes, but with the Stone Works coming in and other goodies it has it should overtake Thebes in that department soon.
But if Memphis builds a wonder, Thebes should concentrate on units and an occasional settler. Yes, let it finish the Burial Tomb, of course. We badly need the happiness from it anyway.

Coral? Do you mean pearls?

So heres my plan.

Thebes, Tomb > Settler
Memphis, Oracle, production focus.
Heliopolis, just keep plugging away at the monument. After that I think we should consider a Library here.

Tech CS > Theology? We could slip in sailing here for the fish in Heliopolis (3 turns) but I'd rather keep on our route to Education.

Upgrade some warriors to swords when the Iron kicks in.

I'll leave off spending any money (except maybe for OB to get our worker home) so we can get Vienna or a RA if we want one.

I'll try to play tomorrow..

EDIT

What about a worker steal from Kuala Lumpur?

Coral? Do you mean pearls?Aye, I was in doubt between coral and shellfish, knowing that neither them was exactly right.
Your tech plans seem fine to me.
I haven't looked at the tech tree to see if it fits in, but Horseback Riding would of course be very nice for Stables in especially Memphis. Lotsa hammers.
I'm not fond of upgrading the warriors to swords as a priority if we're not at war. Although I would keep some money at hand for upgrades rather than sign a research agreement, as that's always a bit of a gamble.

Stealing workers from city states is a 'No' I think. I've never done it, I assume this means starting a war, but since it's a city state you sign peace the turn after?
Sounds like an exploit, not good for the game.
What I'm all for is keeping barb camps alive in the hope a barbarian steals a worker, then nick it back.

Ok I'll leave the worker steal. You can take peace the same turn I think. Its been a very long time since I did it (its a bit exploity I agree) so I'm not sure.

I'll also leave the swords as well then.

Sounds good all around, yeah I decided to have some fun now that I know how to do the pics haha... Yeah had I thought about pissing catherine off I'd have told her to go bugger off with the city distance thing. Maybe we'll get one more full price sale out of her before it gets fun between us this way....

PFT

I move our remaining units.

Memphis starts on the Oracle.


1

Our DoF with Cathy runs out and I don't bother trying to renew it.

Kuala Lumpur wants us to wax Venice.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2617-59-41-95.jpg



2

Denmark has a settler moving towards us/away from a barb.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2618-04-54-82.jpg


Iron is hooked up but I'm not going to use it on upgrades yet.


3

IBT Bill is attacked and is taken down to 2HP! Also a barb spear spawns at the camp. He and the unnamed solider make a strategic withdrawal.


4

The trade route to/from Memphis is completed and is already running at a 2gpt profit. Nice.

Our OB with Harald ends and I do nothing about it yet.


5,6

Nothing of note going on. Just moving units to fog bust and scout stuff etc.


7

Our GA comes to an end. What a wonderful time it was. Still things are looking pretty good now as well.

Our brave warriors being confronted by the barb spear bravely.... run away.

I also note Harald has finally founded another city!


8

Civil Service is in and I switch to Theology

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2618-16-00-00.jpg
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2618-16-25-25.jpg


We enter the Medieval era.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2618-16-05-36.jpg



Thebes, Tomb > Settler


9

The barb spear bypasses our wounded units in favour of harassing Harald! Good idea I say.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2618-18-33-27.jpg


Heliopolis, Monument > Library


10,11

Nothing going here. I played the extra turn to get us on a nice round number.


Info

Political map

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2618-23-42-87.jpg


Our cities

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2618-24-12-92.jpg


Demo. Doing pretty well here for early in the game.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2618-24-23-47.jpg


Diplo. Cathy has gone guarded.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EygptSG2/CivilizationV_DX112011-07-2618-24-50-35.jpg



The Roster
grandad1982
Brichals - up now
Optional - on deck
Emstinson
?

The Save

Just remembered. When the settler is done don't forget to put Thebes back on food or it will starve!

Nice turns Grandad.

I just looked at the save. Only problem I can see is that Harald is driving a hard bargain for OB. We could sell him our horses for that otherwise we will have to pay over the odds. Otherwise we could wait for Optics. It will be tricky to clear that camp with the 2 warriors we have seeing as they seem to have access to spears now.

My plan would be to sell horses to Harald for OB, move the Chariot over to the barbarian penisula whilst another warrior there goes west scouting when healed. Take out the camp with Chariot and warrior, then bring them back. It is only a matter of time before Cathy attacks I think. We are 3rd in army though and if we upgraded to 2 swords we would be even higher maybe.

Social Policy from oracle I was planning on Republic (the plus hammers one). We dont need happiness right now. For builds I thought maybe another chariot in Memphis and Water Mill in Thebes as we are not working some good tiles there yet.

And am I right in thinking we settle on the hill above the silks?

And am I right in thinking we settle on the hill above the silks?I remember grandad1982 made some dotmap a long time ago, but no matter how hard I'm browsing through old posts, I'm not finding it.
I made a new dotmap, although there's only one dot on it:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/CitySpot.jpg

This red spot has the advantage that it can work lake tiles instead of sea tiles and that it makes another city location in the central area unnnecessary. Normally I would go for a coastal location, but the sea has nothing in it here, there's nothing to recommend a coastal spot besides the Silk.
A disadvantage is that the luxury against the coast will come in a bit later, but otherwise it seems very good.
The tiles from the lake will give some gold, it can share the Gold tile with Thebes, it has the deer straight away, a couple of hills and the cows.
Cathy will find it hard to settle inbetween Heliopolis and this spot.

For next policy Meritocracy might be just as interesting as Republic. As soon as the new town is happiness wil dip again, and I'm not sure how soon we'll get the Sugar in.

That barb camp with worker seems extremely hard to get! It's 3 turnsets ago now that I started chasing that worker. We should have kept our archer there. Even a wounded archer could have taken that camp down, hiding behind the worker.
Do whatever you think is best with that, Brichals.

Have you got any other ideas about what to build? thebes and Memphis are both free again after a couple of turns.

That looks like a fine settling spot, and yeah we've got the sugar and the silk still left to acquire so happiness is looking alright. I'm down for the hammer policy first, always helps with a brand new city. I guess I should peek at the save before I go to nuts though. And a might fine peacetime set Grandad, looks like we may have a shot at wonders if we want to brave them, none of the AI have even built one yet have they? I don't even recall the ocean ones being built yet....

The free GP will be much sooner then anticipated with the free social policy, we could probably pop the HS in a city and then take that free GP and save the engineer for the tower in however many more turns it would be at that point... or is there another wonder we want badly? But then we would have to build the tower normally... hmmm choices choices.... EDIT: And of course taking a scientist to pop Education would allow us to hard build the tower before we could probably get it with an engineer. I like that choice a lot. and then still have a shot at building the HS and having another GP to pop something else... makes me giddy with anticipation....

Oh, sorry, I see a Water Mill was suggested. I think that's a really bad idea. What's that for? Can't be for the +2 food, because Thebes has got plenty of floodplains. Can't be for the +1 hammer either, because there's no point in investing 100 hammers only to get 1 hammer per turn back after it's built at the cost of 2 gold per turn. That would be extremely bad business, anything else is better than a mill.

Oh, sorry, I see a Water Mill was suggested. I think that's a really bad idea. What's that for? Can't be for the +2 food, because Thebes has got plenty of floodplains. Can't be for the +1 hammer either, because there's no point in investing 100 hammers only to get 1 hammer per turn back after it's built at the cost of 2 gold per turn. That would be extremely bad business, anything else is better than a mill.

Oh sorry I mixed it up I meant WaterMill in Memphis because we have about 2-3 good improved tiles that we are not working at one time. Maybe the gpt is a bit high this early, I never consider that too much.

Other options are: library-not urgently needed before Heliopolis and 4th city get theirs as we will need it for NC, but currently it will give us 3 beakers per turn.
StoneWorks gives us 1 happy and 1 hammer but I think we will still be +4 happy after 4th city goes down. Then there is barracks. I think we need a dedicated military city, Thebes would be good for it but then it would be good for many other things too. Our 4th can get good production with lumbermills.

Emstinson your thoughts on HS are very interesting indeed. I will need to relook at the save before I plan again the next moves.

So the red dot is a good place. I can settle there. I thought we needed a city on the coast eventually for exploration but it looks like Heliopolis might be that. We can embark a scout I suppose.

Stone Works gives 1 hammer, but also an extra hammer on the Marble tile, so that's at least 2.
Library would also be good if Memphis doesn't have one yet.
Another wonder seems fine as well, if we fail we get some cash for upgrades or buying influence with a city state.

Thebes is better for military than Memphis, I think, as Memphis is more suitable for wonders, with its Marble.
I do see us building military soon. There's not an awful lot left to settle peacefully once our 4th town is in. Perhaps a 5th town just south of the lake, but that town would then be our war declaration to Russia (hoping they declare on us, of course). I think our route is "settle 4th town > prepare for war". We can still build wonders, but we need to be very picky with buildings in general. Every game of Civilization has always been full of buildings of dubious use, especially for military games, and it's the same for Civ 5. Perhaps even worse.
Our neighbours will start building castle defense at some point, so we'll just make it tougher for ourselves the longer we wait.

Maybe grandad1982 will still have some input here, I'm not sure when you plan to do your set, Brichals.
Oh, when you play, try to get a citizen back on the river-dyes again, a 4-gold, 2-food tile is too good not be working!

I would like to do mine tonight but then we have a lot of potential options so I would like to hear more back aswell. I thought that Stone works gave 1 hammer, but 2 hammers and a :c5happy: is a good call. Actually its probably the best now as we can lock in a high food tile to keep growth and get the hammers from buildings with the extra happy.

I plan to make another chariot in Thebes after settler. I think settling our 4th city might start war with Cathy sooner or later. But she will give us some turns for preparing with a denouncement.

So we get a GS from the tower, and eventually after the tower is built we'll build one ourselves, I bet we could enter the renaissance via astronomy in 30-40 turns haha, sick. But unfortunately we should probably open up some military techs instead, I'd wager trebuchets would aid our cause against walls. But our iron limitations will make this interesting. Maybe we should settle the other iron there in the middle. I can't see either of them not declaring war on us after the 4th city is built in maybe 15-20. I wonder if Cathy has iron in her lands we can't see...

On the wonder front I was going to suggest use the GP from lib (a GEng)to pop the HS, then use the HS GP (GEng again) to rush the Tower in Thebes (it gives GSci points as does the GLib). This involves hard teching Education. I actually prefer Emstinson's idea of taking a GSci from the HS and bulbing Education then hard building the Tower (still in Thebes for my money).

I'm ok with the city spot in Optionals map. Mine was above the silk hill (2N of silk) as I was anticipation a 5th city between Heliopolis and the silk city.

On the builds front I would suggest a barracks in one of our cities (Thebes?) if we plan on producing several more ranged units (they gain xp more slowly). Memphis would be ok for a lib or a stoneworks. I'm easy either way.

I will check closer on the save and see the optimal way to do it, hard teching or hard building. Come to think of it now I have a strong feeling bulbing will be faster. That being said we might not finish the policy tree in my turnset so we can still discuss. I might put up an interim save anyway.

There is a 3rd alternative. Rush HS in Heliopolis, take GS, bulb education, build PT in Thebes. This gives us 3 wonder cities for our culture boost in Piety. Providing 1 great engineer can finish that in 1 turn but I think he can for earlier wonders.

This depends what GPP Oracle and HS give. If they are both artists like I imagine then they should both go in Thebes for synergy. We are getting pretty smooth in this game.

Oracle is GSci and HS GArt.

So do you think we should put HS in Heliopolis? I think it would be nice to get a bit of extra culture there too for borders (I presume HS gives a :c5culture:point or 2). Can 1 engineer finish it in 1 go? I think it should.

Well if we do take what ever the policy from Piety is then yes it could be a good idea to put it in Heliopolis. However I do have a feeling that it could be better to concentrate culture in a few cites rather than spreading it our between all of them. +33% per city works better if a city has a high base rate after all.

OK let's do it!

91
Operation Chariots of Fire begins as I send the chariot on a quest to emancipate the Danish settler from his brutish oppressors, wish me luck. Harald pops a GG, he must have killed that barb spear.

Good stuff begins next turn

92
We start with the wonderful Oracle pop up.
Thebes- Settler goes to barracks. I'm a bit uneasy building vanilla units and I think we can squeeze a rax in here, 9 turns for rax + chariot together.
Memphis- Oracle to stoneworks but I put max food on until next pop (4 turns). I don't like seeing those great tiles go unworked.
Settler is on his way south.
Horses hooked up, I will deal with Harald.

http://i.imgur.com/NUHjy.jpg


Of various deals offered I can give him 55 gold and 1 horse varying to 72 gold (for us) and 4 horses for 30 turns. Without horses he wants iron or pots of cash. Can't do.
I kind of go for a weird compromise because I save us a horse, we might go HB Riding soon. If Harald attacks us with our own horses, they will go on strike and only be half as effective, so I'm not worried about that.

http://i.imgur.com/pamyx.jpg

Republic taken, shaved a turn of barracks actually so visible already, next policy in 3 turns lol.

93
GL built somewhere and somebodys gone medieval on our ass (somewhere)
I send a warrior west to see whats beyond Aarhus, not much I guess. Camp spawns a brute but chariot is going over there and Bill is healing up on a hill.

94
Our OB finishes to Harald and I renew it for 27 gold. Don't see why not really. Maybe we could of used it for his OB. Oh well. heliopolis expands borders onto the gems tile. Sweet. Gonna work that just as pasture finishes.

95
Liberty finishes and we go GE. Piety opener next
Elephantine settled and goes to library. Piety will give us a discount on culture buildings so they can come later. I put some hammers in library for faster NC.

96
Cathys gold deal falls through. I renew it for 132 gold and 1gpt for our gold. The dizzy mare is probably gonna attack us anyway. So stony faced in this pic. Hmm we are beginning to stockpile a bit.

http://i.imgur.com/ZYQG2.jpg

Memphis to pop 6, back to more production focussed and dyes worked.
That camp is so going down.

http://i.imgur.com/us2WZ.jpg

97
Camp dispersed and we take worker.
Scouting warior meets stockholm. Irrational maritime with wines. Me likey. Facepalm, we are the first to meet it and its right next to hapless Denmark.

98
Thebes to pop6. bringing back worker.

99
Memphis - SW finished, library in 5 turns.
theology done, I will squeeze in sailing. Time to back fill as we will bulb Education.

100
Gibraltar found beyound Stockholm but seems to be the end of our continent.

101
Denmark allies Vienna
Sailing finished, HB riding put in as placeholder but engineering,optics and mathematics are all appealing.
Im tresspassing in Stockholm to see if theres anything beyond that. Bringing our army and worker back. Trying to hook up Heli and Memphis by road, going to improve that dye.

HS can be rushed in Heli now before this turn ends. I left it open for you guys. I like it personally. We could use reformation and as heli is our 3rd city we can afford to put culture buildings there. It will be a decent city.

Here is a map of the known world.

http://i.imgur.com/PkPsw.jpg

And save

All looking very good. I'm up next, I believe our main projects were already put forward in previous posts. I'll need to look over that again as a refresher, to make sure I'm getting it all right.
I'll put up a pre-flight post tomorrow.

I'm like to play but i don't have Denmark DLC

I'm like to play but i don't have Denmark DLC

That could be difficult as I think it's needed to load the saves and maybe other DLCs are also needed as we didn't meet all of our civs yet. You are a bit late unfortunately for this one but maybe the next. I definitely want to do another succession game after this as it's really good fun.

Please read our texts and give comments though, the more people the better. I think the other players here will agree with me on that.

In fact I was thinking of doing one for newer players (like Prince level as a Learn2Play) as there are many new players from Steam sales. I dont know if Optional or Grandad or Emstinson are interested in that. If we could get like 2 more experienced players and 3-4 newbies we could do a L2P workshop succession game).

nice set, I like the anticipation of war building up.. will it be Optional's turnset? mine? will it go 30 or 40 turns??? haha Yeah I have no idea how the DLC works but I'd imagine it would be tough without the Viking DLC to play this one. I may be down for another of any sort later. But may be not directly after, we'll see. As for this one I'll have no qualms with the HS in helio. more culture in the long run is no problems here. I am tired and off to work, hopefully I'll have great day dreams of strategy today...

That could be difficult as I think it's needed to load the saves and maybe other DLCs are also needed as we didn't meet all of our civs yet. You are a bit late unfortunately for this one but maybe the next. I definitely want to do another succession game after this as it's really good fun.

Please read our texts and give comments though, the more people the better. I think the other players here will agree with me on that.

In fact I was thinking of doing one for newer players (like Prince level as a Learn2Play) as there are many new players from Steam sales. I dont know if Optional or Grandad or Emstinson are interested in that. If we could get like 2 more experienced players and 3-4 newbies we could do a L2P workshop succession game).
Maybe we can create new SG when this is completed.

I'm like to play but i don't have Denmark DLCThe last thing we wanted to do with this SG is to exclude people! We started with 4 participants and I started up the game because I had the least downloadable content - only Denmark and Spain/Inca.
It's a shame that the players who are fully kitted out with all DLC showed an interest early, while the players without packs - Chimera, Blackfang, you - came later, when the game was already going. Now there's this compatibility problem.
It can't be helped anymore for this game, but if there's gonna be a next one I'll do my best to prevent this situation from happening again. I'm prepared to reinstall my game without the downloadable content, or I'll send PM's to you vanilla players with a request to roll starts for a new SG if we can't get a vanilla player otherwise.
But that's for later.

Okay, the current save, I had a look.
I'd like to compliment this team for how this SG is going until now, by the way. Everybody's been really good with input, it's a good team. Well done, all! :goodjob:

I've read some previous posts, the plan is, I believe:
First have the Great Engineer build the Hagia Sophia in Heliopolis. Then out the backdoor of this building staggers a Scientist, who, enraged by the stupidity he sees all around, shouts 'Education!' and promptly dies. This causes a gathering of concerned citizens to erect a Porcelain Tower, which can hopefully serve as a more stimulating environment for future brilliant minds.
It looks like we're set up this way, so that's a logical route to continue.

The Porcelain Tower I would prefer to build in Memphis, it's free in 3 turns, after the library. Thebes to continue units, I suppose, it's got a barracks. Elephantine is tied to building a library for well beyond my set, so no decisions there.
For Heliopolis I'm strongly in favour of a Trireme, for scouting. That's after the Hagia Sophia, of course. We can only go clockwise around with a boat, otherwise we need open borders from Catherine and that'll cost us. Then perhaps a workboat for the fish. I wouldn't build any naval improvements in this town, but a maintenance free workboat is always a good thing. Maybe a Burial Tomb after that, but that would not be in my set anymore.

Research is on Horseback Riding now. That's good. We've researched a scientific line until now, I believe we need to switch to a more military one. Perhaps do Construction > Metal Casting > Steel, for Longswords. I guess Mathematics is a bit useless without more Iron. Machinery for Crossbowmen... mwah, I'd take those Longswords first, I think. Navigation for Frigates... not in this setup.

What will we do with our money? Over 700 gold on the bank, it will get more if we discover more civs and city states, not sure how far away they are. We will need some for upgrades, but not the lot. Throw 500 gold at Stockholm? It could be good, especially if they come up with an easy request after, so we can remain allies for longer. They are Maritime and Irrational, with Wines and Horses. They would give us a boost. At worst they come up with an impossible request and we can only remain allied with them for 20 turns.
Otherwise we will have to hold on to our money. There are no research agreements to take, Harald has just spent all his money on Vienna and Cathy is skint as well. Cathy's walking around with a thunder face as well, for what it's worth.

Especially on the subject of money I'd like to hear some views, we haven't spoken about it much yet.

The last thing we wanted to do with this SG is to exclude people! We started with 4 participants and I started up the game because I had the least downloadable content - only Denmark and Spain/Inca.
It's a shame that the players who are fully kitted out with all DLC showed an interest early, while the players without packs - Chimera, Blackfang, you - came later, when the game was already going. Now there's this compatibility problem.
It can't be helped anymore for this game, but if there's gonna be a next one I'll do my best to prevent this situation from happening again. I'm prepared to reinstall my game without the downloadable content, or I'll send PM's to you vanilla players with a request to roll starts for a new SG if we can't get a vanilla player otherwise.
But that's for later.

Okay, the current save, I had a look.
I'd like to compliment this team for how this SG is going until now, by the way. Everybody's been really good with input, it's a good team. Well done, all! :goodjob:

I've read some previous posts, the plan is, I believe:
First have the Great Engineer build the Hagia Sophia in Heliopolis. Then out the backdoor of this building staggers a Scientist, who, enraged by the stupidity he sees all around, shouts 'Education!' and promptly dies. This causes a gathering of concerned citizens to erect a Porcelain Tower, which can hopefully serve as a more stimulating environment for future brilliant minds.
It looks like we're set up this way, so that's a logical route to continue.

The Porcelain Tower I would prefer to build in Memphis, it's free in 3 turns, after the library. Thebes to continue units, I suppose, it's got a barracks. Elephantine is tied to building a library for well beyond my set, so no decisions there.
For Heliopolis I'm strongly in favour of a Trireme, for scouting. That's after the Hagia Sophia, of course. We can only go clockwise around with a boat, otherwise we need open borders from Catherine and that'll cost us. Then perhaps a workboat for the fish. I wouldn't build any naval improvements in this town, but a maintenance free workboat is always a good thing. Maybe a Burial Tomb after that, but that would not be in my set anymore.

Research is on Horseback Riding now. That's good. We've researched a scientific line until now, I believe we need to switch to a more military one. Perhaps do Construction > Metal Casting > Steel, for Longswords. I guess Mathematics is a bit useless without more Iron. Machinery for Crossbowmen... mwah, I'd take those Longswords first, I think. Navigation for Frigates... not in this setup.

What will we do with our money? Over 700 gold on the bank, it will get more if we discover more civs and city states, not sure how far away they are. We will need some for upgrades, but not the lot. Throw 500 gold at Stockholm? It could be good, especially if they come up with an easy request after, so we can remain allies for longer. They are Maritime and Irrational, with Wines and Horses. They would give us a boost. At worst they come up with an impossible request and we can only remain allied with them for 20 turns.
Otherwise we will have to hold on to our money. There are no research agreements to take, Harald has just spent all his money on Vienna and Cathy is skint as well. Cathy's walking around with a thunder face as well, for what it's worth.

Especially on the subject of money I'd like to hear some views, we haven't spoken about it much yet.
Listen.
I have Babylon, Inca, Spain and Mongolia DLC and my version is.

I also thought money on 2 swords and Stockholm. Irrational CSs influence decays at the same rate as neutral I believe but they have weirder requests.

There is also Vienna. They are friendly and in my experience the AI is quite genius at giving you requests that you were already planning on. e.g. Vienna requests Porcelain Tower. I don't know how much of a factor is that Harald is already friends with them.
But I think Maritime is better for us anyway so I still say Stockholm.

PT stacks with Oracle also for GS in Memphis so I think that works out perfect as our wonder city.
Trireme I would go for too. There is not ice in the north so you can get round.

What about that iron near Stockholm. Is it an option to get Optics and embark a settler over there for a colony city (Rock of Gibraltar is also there, but not much else).

On the DLC front. If a game is rolled by some one who has DLC the save is tagged as requiring that DLC setup to be opened. This applys even if there are no DLC civs in the actual game, its still tagged as DLC. I don't know why there isn't a simple tick box system that could exclude civs and any DLC tags. Stupid Firaxis.

I haven't thought about the money. A CS would be nice Maritime over Cultural, so Stockholm I guess. Keek in mind that your gold stack can be a factor in determining if an AI DoWs you. So if we spend it all be on a high alert just in case. I'd suggest keeping some aside for upgrades.

Horseback Riding is great for us as that stable will be amazing in Memphis!

I'm happy to hit up military techs, maybe grabbing currency when we're in that area. I see gunpowder and beyond being our best time to start warring properly given our iron situation.

I haven't actually looked at the save yet so I'm may have more to say later.

I concur on all fronts, maritime CS first, the wonder path sounds good. swordsmen are a nice cheap upgrade and I like the thought of going for gunpowder now as well. And anything we can do to speed up Cathy going nuts, or even both her and Harald at the same time cause you know its always better in a 3 way....

This was a boring set. I kept it to 10 turns, but would have loved to play more. The next set is going to be more interesting, as the next player will have the chance to explore a new landmass to our west. Yup, there's something next to us, and we know there are civilized people there, but that's all. Get a trireme over and we'll know more.

This was my turnset:
350BC, inherited turn;
I'm swapping some tiles around here and there, I'm not really chuffed with the distribution of growth. Thebes is growing fastest, but that's the town I least want to grow. It hasn't got phenomenal tiles to work and more citizens here don't bring in caravan money. I want the other towns to grow faster. Memphis has still lots of great tiles that it can't work yet because it's too small, I want it to grow. Heliopolis I also want to grow, it's set to production, but that's way to early for a size 3 town. I want it double that size first, then switch to production.

Other nitpick: the road to Heliopolis has taken too long. Workers have started on that road, then jumped on cows and gems before finishing it. Half-laid tracks just cost maintenance. If you start on a road, you finish it.
Before starting a road it's always good to first look twice and decide whether it's really that road you want most or whether you have other priorities. Probably Heliopolis was still a bit on the small side when we started laying those tracks. Best first develop the tiles around a city first, then when the town is a bit bigger start the road.

I'm still somewhat ambivalent about buying influence with Stockholm. 500 gold is a lot of money, and we might not keep our allied status for long. But growth for 4 towns is good, and without throwing money at it we won't get any influence from city states. It's a bit beyond the easy barb clear quests now.
But we've discussed it and it's a game, so let's take the gamble; gift 500 gold to Stockholm:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Stockholm.jpg

Something I'm wondering about is whether I want an artist in the Burial Tomb in Thebes, but I decide to postpone that.
325BC;
Hagia Sophia finishes in Heliopolis, thanks to the engineer. Hagia Sophia gives a great person of our choice, our choice is a scientist and the scientist gives us Education. this is the most expensive tech from the ones we can choose from, and it enables us to start the porcelain Tower (started it in Memphis a few turns later).
Heliopolis starts on a trireme next, so we can explore the seas.
Thebes; chariot > pike.

Important: upon pressing 'next turn' I had some workers chasing in directions I couldn't predict. In an SG, please do not give orders that stretch beyond your own turnset. No automate, no automove in SG's.
It's also my own mistake, because I neglected to mention some basic rules at the start of this SG. I'm not blaming others.

300BC;
Catherine denounces us!
I'm moving a chariot closer to Russian borders to see if there's any unusual troop activity. There are a couple of warriors, but the following turn learns us they're not moving.
275BC;
Heliopolis gets its road, a bit more gold in.
Come on, Stockholm, when are you giving us a request?
250BC;
Horseback Riding > Construction (appears to be a prerequisite for Metal Casting).
Memphis; Library > Porcelain Tower
I'm keeping Memphis in growth mode, the extra citizens will come soon and they can then add production.
Our unnamed warrior on the west coast spots an unnamed trireme, belonging to an unnamed barbarian tribe. He gets overtaken by a feeling of... belonging. You're not going to desert us for joining those barbs, are you?
He's also peering over the water, and he sees... ah, that's land out there!

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Borders.jpg

225BC;
Nothing to write, Memphis grows to 7. With a chariot I shot south of Copenhagen and back to see if perhaps a new barb camp had sprung up, but no.
200BC;
The barbarian trireme on the west coast receives a shot and disappears out of sight. Then there must be civilized life out there, as it wasn't our soldier that made that shot, obviously. Note to next player: Send our trireme over!
175BC;
Construction > Metal Casting
Thebes has grown, I think I'll put an artist in the tomb.
150BC;
Thebes; pike > horse
Our sugar comes in. Thebes now loves the king. Err... I think I'm taking that artist out of the tomb again, for max benefit of the king's day. I can't make up my mind, can I? I wish it was another town that got this growth bonus.
125BC;
Passing game on...
Stockholm has still not come up with a request. I thought they always were much quicker with that. Hmm...

Ah excellent we found another landmass. That's going to be a very big deal with our luxuries. I'm looking forward to see who we get. Also things are hotting up with Cathy.

Sorry I left the last turn in a funny state but you noticed it thankfully. I put Heli on full production prior to building the wonder because GE gives I believe base production + x*city :c5production:. I wanted to make sure we got it in 1 turn. But I think that only makes more of a difference for later wonders anyway. It was only on production for that turn though so we're not behind there.

Rock on, I should be able to start up later tonight if everyone gets some input in, I'll take a look at the save when I get home from work here and see what I have to put up for questions. Trireme west shall be no issue, and finally getting some friendly AI for trading will be sweet, get some decent RA's going... I'd imagine we are focusing on the south path of the tech tree, are we beelining for gunpowder? I guess I should look at the save first haha catch yall in an hour or so!

I'm away from my pc this weekend so I can't look at the save. Nice set Optional.

Starting the road was my fault. I was waiting 5 turns for the iron to culture pop. I probably should have made a farm instead.

I'm looking forward to being able to sign RAs. I want to know who's out there.

I would say going for Gunpowder makes the most sense.

Thebes should start a Uni ASAP so we can start getting our GSci points going. A Garden here might be an idea as well.

This was a boring set. I kept it to 10 turns, but would have loved to play more. The next set is going to be more interesting, as the next player will have the chance to explore a new landmass to our west. Yup, there's something next to us, and we know there are civilized people there, but that's all. Get a trireme over and we'll know more.

This was my turnset:
350BC, inherited turn;
I'm swapping some tiles around here and there, I'm not really chuffed with the distribution of growth. Thebes is growing fastest, but that's the town I least want to grow. It hasn't got phenomenal tiles to work and more citizens here don't bring in caravan money. I want the other towns to grow faster. Memphis has still lots of great tiles that it can't work yet because it's too small, I want it to grow. Heliopolis I also want to grow, it's set to production, but that's way to early for a size 3 town. I want it double that size first, then switch to production.

Other nitpick: the road to Heliopolis has taken too long. Workers have started on that road, then jumped on cows and gems before finishing it. Half-laid tracks just cost maintenance. If you start on a road, you finish it.
Before starting a road it's always good to first look twice and decide whether it's really that road you want most or whether you have other priorities. Probably Heliopolis was still a bit on the small side when we started laying those tracks. Best first develop the tiles around a city first, then when the town is a bit bigger start the road.

I'm still somewhat ambivalent about buying influence with Stockholm. 500 gold is a lot of money, and we might not keep our allied status for long. But growth for 4 towns is good, and without throwing money at it we won't get any influence from city states. It's a bit beyond the easy barb clear quests now.
But we've discussed it and it's a game, so let's take the gamble; gift 500 gold to Stockholm:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Stockholm.jpg

Something I'm wondering about is whether I want an artist in the Burial Tomb in Thebes, but I decide to postpone that.
325BC;
Hagia Sophia finishes in Heliopolis, thanks to the engineer. Hagia Sophia gives a great person of our choice, our choice is a scientist and the scientist gives us Education. this is the most expensive tech from the ones we can choose from, and it enables us to start the porcelain Tower (started it in Memphis a few turns later).
Heliopolis starts on a trireme next, so we can explore the seas.
Thebes; chariot > pike.

Important: upon pressing 'next turn' I had some workers chasing in directions I couldn't predict. In an SG, please do not give orders that stretch beyond your own turnset. No automate, no automove in SG's.
It's also my own mistake, because I neglected to mention some basic rules at the start of this SG. I'm not blaming others.

300BC;
Catherine denounces us!
I'm moving a chariot closer to Russian borders to see if there's any unusual troop activity. There are a couple of warriors, but the following turn learns us they're not moving.
275BC;
Heliopolis gets its road, a bit more gold in.
Come on, Stockholm, when are you giving us a request?
250BC;
Horseback Riding > Construction (appears to be a prerequisite for Metal Casting).
Memphis; Library > Porcelain Tower
I'm keeping Memphis in growth mode, the extra citizens will come soon and they can then add production.
Our unnamed warrior on the west coast spots an unnamed trireme, belonging to an unnamed barbarian tribe. He gets overtaken by a feeling of... belonging. You're not going to desert us for joining those barbs, are you?
He's also peering over the water, and he sees... ah, that's land out there!

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Borders.jpg

225BC;
Nothing to write, Memphis grows to 7. With a chariot I shot south of Copenhagen and back to see if perhaps a new barb camp had sprung up, but no.
200BC;
The barbarian trireme on the west coast receives a shot and disappears out of sight. Then there must be civilized life out there, as it wasn't our soldier that made that shot, obviously. Note to next player: Send our trireme over!
175BC;
Construction > Metal Casting
Thebes has grown, I think I'll put an artist in the tomb.
150BC;
Thebes; pike > horse
Our sugar comes in. Thebes now loves the king. Err... I think I'm taking that artist out of the tomb again, for max benefit of the king's day. I can't make up my mind, can I? I wish it was another town that got this growth bonus.
125BC;
Passing game on...
Stockholm has still not come up with a request. I thought they always were much quicker with that. Hmm...
Very good Turnset.:goodjob::goodjob::goodjob:
You need to gift gold to Stockholm and you need to settle coastal city to explore that unknown landmass.

Okay so the only thing I see immediately to inquire about is shall we do mathmathics and start on engineering on my turn set after metal casting or do we want to just hit steel next? I like the idea of doing the other two first, because I love having catapults, but we only have two iron so it would be better to have swordsmen for now. So my logic is telling me to start steel next. building plans look simple on my set, Helio finishes trireme > finish library (2turns left on it) > work boat probably. Memphis is on the PT my whole set. Thebes... I like the thought of doing a uni there, we have 3 jungle tiles that get the science buff so thats nice. And Elephantine looks like a burial tomb or granary perhaps after the library is done. And of course I get to pick our next social branch... I imagine we all are good with Piety.. so thats what I'll snag.

Helio finishes trireme > finish library (2turns left on it)... Didn't we have a library there yet? I have to get used to this game giving the opportunity to leave a project half-way through, then finish it later... Good spot!

Yeah, Mathematics without more iron is not so useful. It would be interesting to have a look what others who we haven't met yet have for sale perhaps. Snapping up money and luxes we haven't got yet first, but keeping an eye on possible iron deals.

An interesting question would be whether we are willing to declare war when this war doesn't happen otherwise. This is a domination game, and we have to consider whether it's scientists who will bring us closer to our goal, or military. Also I believe there was a small wonder you could build once you had libs everywhere, we might want to do that before we have a 5th town somewhere.
And I wonder if there are some tricks we can perform to make it more likely that someone declares on us. That's something I'm struggling with in my solo games as well.

Well it was an interesting turn set, no wars, no new contacts.... but I did find the Romans. Unfortunately just his borders, I didn't meet any of his troops to actually talk to him. So hopefully in the next set we can hook up with him. I had to run our troops back to get the ability to embark, Optics was available for 1 turn of research so I snagged it, so at worst we can cross a troop over if the boat fails to find any coastal cities.... I'll get it all up in the morning. we are definitely cruising right along and probably should get a war started one way or another. Cathy did have a swordsmen on my last turn so she has an unseen source of iron, 2 I'd wager, so she might finally be confident enough to go at us.

Russia gets double quantity, so she would always have 4 minimum if she's got iron.

Good call to go for Optics, if it was only 1 turn. North of us is still some land as well, I bet Harald will have snagged the ruins by now, but it would still be good to have a look. Didn't Kuala Lumpur want Venice eliminated? Probably we'll find Venice there.

I would say science is important to us as until we hit muskets or rifles we don't have the resources to builds decent army. Cannons are available pretty soon after Muskets.

If people are worried about forgetting partillay finished buildings then we can just use the queue function.

We shuld start the NC soon. Before or after a Uni I don't know. depends which ones faster to build I guess.

I'm back at my computer tonight/tomorrow so I'll be a ble to say more then.

Optional what DLCs you have?

Nicely done Emstinson.

Well a lot of variables are coming into play now so I don't want to say much before I see the save. I think National College is a must when Library is done in Elephantine but also Thebes is our only real military building city so we might have to hold off a bit. I think a Uni there is required but it will be better when we get trading posts on the jungle tiles. We still have a few good tiles left before we take the jungle tiles I think.

I think Engineering is important. In my mind I imagined Elephantine to be a Lumber Mill rich city which can turn into a military city. Then we can focus on growth in Thebes. I don't know people's thoughts on aqueducts but I'm starting to appreciate them more. We will need one eventually in Memphis leading to hospital I think.

Optional what DLCs you have?When I started up this SG I just had Spain/Inca and Denmark. In the meantime I snapped up Polynesia as well.
EDIT: Mongolia is of course in it by default now, everybody has that.

When I started up this SG I just had Spain/Inca and Denmark. In the meantime I snapped up Polynesia as well.
EDIT: Mongolia is of course in it by default now, everybody has that.

You don't have Babylon:eek: ?

Russia gets double quantity, so she would always have 4 minimum if she's got iron..

Ah yes, that would mean she is using 3 of the 4, she had 1 available for trade and I didn't figure she had a 6, which would then be 11 being used. haha anyways let me get the write up going, I'll have to add some screenshots in a bit I've got some stuff to do today...

110 - inherited, I don't think anything of interest happens.

111 - Start the trireme on its fateful journey of discovery of the new world... Get a peek at Cathy's army.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0028.jpg

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0029.jpg

112 - scouting more, eleph lib > granary. go with that because of the deer and bananas, might as well get the extra food.

113 - Helio lib > work boat... more scouting movements...

114 - Thebes Horseman > Uni

115 - Helio pop 5

116 - Thebes hits 8 pop, I snag Piety, MC finishes so I go with Optics as its only 1 turn away.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0030.jpg

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0031.jpg

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0032.jpg

We find land but something seems to be missing... TRADE!!! This was my only really busy turn so back to boredom....

117 - Optics finishes and I go with steel, looks like an iron war brewing here.

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0033.jpg

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0034.jpg
"Hey, you guys there on the shore, would you like to trade for some of our gold? Wait, why are you bleeding so badly? woah woah stop throughing clubs at us, okay lets keep moving."

118 - one thing to note this turn, Copenhagen has built us a gift upon our occupation of its borders....

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0035.jpg

They must be a happy people, throwing all that extra food in the ocean like that...

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0036.jpg

That grass looks awfully purple, what could it be? ah whatever we'll keep moving...

119- didn't write anything down, we met a city state, think I have a picture here...

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0037.jpg

120 - think i moved the trireme, not sure if I did anything else, I was in sobering zombie mode last night. one last picture of the aforementioned Russian swords...

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff363/Jewmancrazy/Civ5Screen0038.jpg

Oh I guess you guys need the save file too... That should do, and the next person, I can get it right this time... Grandad! gets to have some choices and hopefully better luck finding us trade partners. Our military looks to be at a level of being able to deal with Cathy with our superior human brains. Oh I forgot I sent the pikeman up after getting optics, not much on that knob of land north of KL, but there is a ruins, maybe he'll promote to a rifleman! haha that would be funny. Maybe we'll find some ocean luxuries or something....

Oh that looks tasty. Hanging gardens for us :)

Oh and I nominate Harald for extinction, his military blows, he is building wonders so he has practically given up. And that should make Cathy hate us more for war mongering. I say we denounce them both after meeting the new people on that island and getting them friendly with trades. It's a small map so I'd hope all 3 of the other AI are together...

Just looked at the save and we are looking strong, nice work Emstinson. We are 1st in soldiers! Maybe we should get Harald out of the way as maybe Cathy won't attack us if we are more powerful.
I have a feeling Grandads turns are going to be massive!

I would just suggest trading posting those jungles. We must not forget that NC is ready to be built now (I guess in Thebes). But still another military could be an option if we decide to take out Harald.

Yeah I agree, definitely get some trading posts in the jungles. I think it may be the case, if we promote some swords and longswords and work on crossbows on the way to gunpowder, that our might will stay her attacking hand. Or if our money gets put towards RA's, we could sell or gift our current troops and pop out some longswords in the near future. Somehow I imagine the money starts flowing once we get contact with the other 3 AI....

So I've got the save but got back pretty late in the end. I'll post a plan a questions tomorrow evening GMT.

Had a look at the save and this is my plan.

First off our cities.

Thebes, Uni > Archer? If not an archer then maybe a Pike?
Memphis, PT > Circus or a Stable. Probably the Circus first for the :)
Heliopolis, Work Boat > Tomb? Again for the :)
Elephantine, Gran > Mon/Workshop/Tomb. Not so sure what to do here! I lean to Monument to speed SPs.

I'm going to let Thebes, Memphis and Elephantine grow and then I'll slow them right down as we need to consider saving :) for are upcoming "puppet show". I'll slow Helio straight off.

What is it we intend to do with Helio in the medium/long run? Its not a really strong producer and doesn't have huge gold potential. Neither do we really need another food based city. My guess is its ok for naval/gold. Run engineers/merchants depending on what its doing at the time? Anyway thoughts on a post card.


Next is troops and prep for war.

I'm going to move all our foot troops towards our border with Denmark in anticipation of our DoW. Our horse troops will keep an eye on Cathy and our southern border.

I'll try to get cash together to upgrade our warriors to Longswords. It may involve rubbish deals with Cathy or Harald if we don't meet Rome (or anyone else) during my set.

Anything I'm missing?

That all looks good to me. So potentially I could be DoWing Harald. Should we denounce first? When does our OB expire. I'm not sure if attacking without denouncing gives a global diplo hit (I am starting to think it might), but I know that attacking with an OB running is a big diplo hit. We need the other island to trade with us until we wipe them out too.

Heliopolis needs a bit of culture (well with Piety we will take both I presume). depends which you decide is best to get first depending on buildtimes.

Heliopolis could support a lot of trading posts thats all I can think of. Maybe getting a windmill there at some point to run engineers as required.

I only had 1 thought, stable>circus is more efficient but if we will get unhappy with that order then circus first is cool.

Our open borders agreement with Harald expires in 2 turns. With Cathy we have a deal going on that lasts 6 turns longer; we're providing her gold.

I remain having different ideas about how to start the war, although I posted that earlier, when I said that I thought that a town close to Cathy would tip her over to declaring war. She's probably easier to trick into a war than Harald, as he's hardly got any troops.
It would make the game harder from a trading perspective, if due to a diplo hit we can't make fair deals with others anymore.

The building plans look good, especially the switching to military. Our available unit builds are still poor - archers, pikes - but it probably needs to do. Some more triremes from Heliopolis can always be handy, on smaller maps there's a lot more land that borders the coast, most nearby towns we will be targeting are coastal. Triremes are relatively weak, but they're enhancing the amount of angles from which we can attack your enemy.
They'll be a bit quicker once we grab Moscow with the Great Lighthouse - I'm personally much more fond of that wonder than the Hanging Gardens.
It's disappointing that Stockholm hasn't come up with any request whatsoever after more than 20 turns of play.
Remember you can put an artist in a tomb if you want to slow growth down - apart from choosing more productive tiles.

So are we looking to Cathy first? If we want to initiate the war with a city drop we need to know when and were. How about next to the iron on the large lake shore?

If we are going to totally wipe out Russia and Denmark, then no matter how we DoW our diplo rep is ruined. My guess is we want to have this continent to ourselves and at the moment that means extermination.

If we want to start with Cathy I would finish national college before settling the 5th city. This gives us a bit more build time to tech up or acquire iron etc. I think what we have now can't defeat Cathy with those forests. Better if she comes to us.

I would also consider making the National College in Memphis because I think we need a city with regular military production and Thebes is better at that now with barracks. Thebes has Jungle, Uni, and may grow larger than Memphis however. I think National College in Memphis, Uni later, and a Science Academy placed on a hill from our soon to be born GS could be a good way to go.

I'm also OK if we want to make a surgical strike on Copenhagen. I think we could do that. It would be a happiness drain with the HG as it will grow super fast. Later as we get into piety though we can support it fairly easily I think.

I wouldn't go for total extermination but leave them 1 city for now. It would be cool if Harald settles next to Stockholm. We can leave that as his last city, then get Stockholm to destroy it :D

Everybody will start to hate us at some point anyway, that's true. We can only try to postpone that point.

By the looks of it, Moscow doesn't have more forest in its city radius than Copenhagen. It used to be there, but it's cleared. Only further out there is more forest, especially between us and Cathy.
I don't think Copenhagen is going to be easier, but easier to get to, yes. But if we head towards Harald first we still won't have more iron if we're taking on Catherine later, while Cathy will have built stronger, iron based units in the meantime. On the other hand, if we go for Cathy first, we will have more iron by the time we're taking on Harald.

The growth of Thebes we can keep in check. At the moment Memphis is growing quicker, after me swapping some tiles. When Thebes has finished the uni we can put 2 more specialists at work on top of the 0 we have at the moment.
At the moment Thebes has a pop of 8, I do feel like putting a brake on that, I think 8 is okay for this stage of the game.

I'm going to say national college in Thebes as it has a higher growth potential than Memphis (Floodplains and capital maritime bonus). Memphis can have a barracks at some point and be a great unit producer as well as our wonder city, or Elephantine when we get some mines/lumber mills.

I'm against settling the GSci. At this stage in the game there are techs I want to bulb. For example Physics to open up Gunpowder. Or if people don't mind the GSci hanging around then Gunpowder itself.

The other use for the GSci would be Chivalry and then upgrade to Knights to hit Cathy with. Her Swords won't stand against them.

Since most of the discussion here will only come into effect after my set I'll go ahead and play this evening. The only thing that might be affected is troop placement and that won't take long to sort in another set.

EDIT

Does anyone mind if I put some items in the queue infront of the Granary in Elephantine? I don't think we need its food right away abd I want to start some culture there.

Does anyone mind if I put some items in the queue infront of the Granary in Elephantine? I don't think we need its food right away abd I want to start some culture there.

I'm fine with that.
I'm excited to see how the next set pans out. Have fun.

all good in the hood with me. I love settling scientists, but in this game I will concede bulbing techs may be better. We want to win faster with better units then we may as well take instant gratification. Yeah I only picked the granary there to start a building, I was thinking it may be a good science city with its setup but if we want it for something else then thats fine too. culture will help get the silk in range faster so thats good. i'd say pile all the science in Thebes and make memphis the production monster later in the game. Memphis is going to be in the top 3 cities of all the games I've ever played, including capitals on legendary start probably... I'm at work but I'll scroll back through and see if I missed anything else you guys were looking for input on real quick when I get a chance.

Yeah thinking more maybe without the freedom policy boost (can't remember which) then bulbing might be better for us now. We want to hit a timing for military tech. I think we will have 2 GS coming from Thebes and Memphis. So we must take that into account. A double bulb could be an option.

I didn't even see a scientist coming, but yes, getting a good tech in, allowing us to build something better than archers and pikes, would seem like a good idea. Please go ahead.

So I've played but on my 10th turn I spilt a pint of water on my keyboard and some went in my pc.

I think the pc is going to be ok but I don't want to turn it on till its definatly dry. Keyboard might be another matter.

Thankfully I'd made my final save so when I yanked the power nothing was lost from the game.

Fingers crossed!

Wow that sounds nasty. hope all is well. Maybe it's Pharoahs curse.

yikes, I've managed to avoid that over the years. However, I probably should do it accidently so I can make myself buy a new keyboard finally....this one has been a tank for so many years haha... Hope everything is firing on all cylinders for ya!

So my pc is working fine but I had to go and buy a new keyboard. All in all I'm happy about this!

What I'm less happy about is the sceens from the first half of my set aren't there. I guess I was hitting the wrong button or my hard drive ate them.

PFT

I tweak some tiles to increase gold/production over growth. I stop growth in Memphis, Slow growth in Heliopolis, leave Elephantine's growth alone but I do put a monument in the queue in front of the granary, and in Thebes I speed up growth so that we get an extra pop to work in the uni ASAP.

I also start to move our troops around, but its nothing that can't be undone.

1

Heliopolis, Work Boat > Tomb

Our Pike pops a hut and we get.... a map. This is one of the sceens I'm missing. The map revealed sea to our NE. Great.

More exitingly we find the Barringer Crater with our Tri. Why exiting? Because standing nearby is a scout belonging to Gandhi! This is another series of screens that are missing :sad:

We trade a spare gems to Gandhi. He has little ready cash so I sell it for mostly gtp.

2

IBT Gandhi denounces an unmet player.

3

Gandhi wants OB. For the time being I say no as I don't want to have to pay pass though his lands if thats what needs to happen. If his lands aren't obstructing our tri then we can sell him our OB later.

OB and horse deal with Harald ends and I don't resign.

We kill a barb galley. Boom!

4

Memphis, PT > Stables. I decided the raw base hammers were the best investment here. Sadly the PT sp[ash screen is missing to.

I park the GSci outside the city on a hill.

5

Ptolomy drops by and tells us how well fed we are. Screen is missing. Again. We were 4th I think.

Thebes, Uni > Pike. I don't staff the uni yet as I'm waiting for the next pop.

6

We meet China. I Trade her dyes and I also sign an RA. I hope this is ok but we do have the PT now.

Finally I do have some screens!

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG3/CivilizationV_DX112011-08-0319-35-02-11.jpg
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG3/CivilizationV_DX112011-08-0319-57-34-52.jpg


Thebes grows so I put two pop in the uni. This stops growth.

7

Gold to Cathy ends. I don't renew.

Stockholm finally gives us a mission! Its to meet the Indians. Ummmm. Is this a bug? We've already met them!

I upgrade Dave (drill2) and Charles (shock) to Swordsmen.

8

Steel is in and I switch to Maths. More missing screens :mad:

Memphis, Stable > Circus

Dave and Charles are upgraded to Longswords.

I was expecting Stockholm to reward us this turn since we have already met India. Do we need to find their borders?

9

IBT the Great Wall IBIAFAL. This seems quite late. I have a look and many of the early wonders are still around inc. Stonehenge. This is fairly unusual in my experience.

Maths > Engineering

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG3/CivilizationV_DX112011-08-0320-07-43-91.jpg
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG3/CivilizationV_DX112011-08-0320-07-56-62.jpg


Before I move a unit or anything similar we get the reward for meeting India. I look and look but I can't see their border. Its not until I move our tri 2N that I see Indian lands. I'm very confused. Still Stockholm love us again so I don't mind. Apart from putting my food counts out again :rolleyes:

I realise I didn't pay attention to the monument in Elephantine finishing. One of the problems with the queue system is it won't tell you if something finishes and will just march on to the next item. Anyway I slot a Workshop in front of of the Granary. I did this so that we can run a eng spec to slow the growth and also if this is to be a production city it will want one anyway, plus the earlier its build the sooner the hammer cost is paid back.

10

Thebes pops a GSci and we are ready to bulb our way straight to Gunpowder when we finish Engineering.

Heliopolis, Tomb > Tri

I save here and then promptly knock my glass of water over my pc and keyboard! Bollocks!


Info

What we can see of the second continent.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG3/CivilizationV_DX112011-08-0412-42-03-89.jpg

Our cities
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG3/CivilizationV_DX112011-08-0412-42-50-39.jpg

Demo
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/EgyptSG3/CivilizationV_DX112011-08-0412-43-21-31.jpg


The Roster
grandad1982
Brichals - up now
Optional - on deck
Emstinson
?


The save

Stockholm finally gives us a mission! Its to meet the Indians. Ummmm. Is this a bug? We've already met them!


I don't think that's a bug. I've gotten this mission when I've met a player, but haven't seen their lands yet.

Apologies to Wolle68 for not being nice to Denmark in this game. We should play Denmark once.

I didn't even know meeting a player could be a city state quest. I've seen with wonders that the game already counts them before they're visually shown, even before the unit movement shows. You just need to have given the order to the unit.
Perhaps you still had a tile of movement in queue from the previous turn or so.
At least this was an easy quest. I feel a little bit better about having thrown money at Stockholm now. The wine is handy.

No big loss of the screens. Certainly screens of researched techs or wonder splashes I don't care about in the least; they're the same all the time. Sorry about your mishap with the keyboard, you can always do without that type of expenses.

I still have to look at the save, but at least this will have been a more interesting set. So we know everybody now, except we still need to bump into Julius Caesar in person? Right, I'll take a better look at the save.

Apologies to Wolle68 for not being nice to Denmark in this game. We should play Denmark once.

I didn't even know meeting a player could be a city state quest. I've seen with wonders that the game already counts them before they're visually shown, even before the unit movement shows. You just need to have given the order to the unit.
Perhaps you still had a tile of movement in queue from the previous turn or so.
At least this was an easy quest. I feel a little bit better about having thrown money at Stockholm now. The wine is handy.

No big loss of the screens. Certainly screens of researched techs or wonder splashes I don't care about in the least; they're the same all the time. Sorry about your mishap with the keyboard, you can always do without that type of expenses.

I still have to look at the save, but at least this will have been a more interesting set. So we know everybody now, except we still need to bump into Julius Caesar in person? Right, I'll take a better look at the save.

I'll look at the save tonight also and draft some thoughts. We didn't meet Rome yet but I noticed he border expanded to the coast so we can meet him with a boat. Maybe the second trireme might be faster to get there.

Yes we got a nice challenge, irrational can be good sometimes.

Sorry to hear of the keyboard loss, hope it wasn't an expensive one.

New keyboard was £20. Not so bad.

If we bulb Physics and Gunpowder as soon as Engineering is done then my tech suggestions are Currency next (markets and mints) and then Machinery or Chivalry. After these we could get working on Chemistry (cannons). It would be nice to use the RA to speed Chemistry.

Do people think trying for Notre Dame is worth while? its +10:) is pretty sweet as it will allow us to grow and capture some cities rather than one or the other. Of course Memphis might be better for producing some instead of wonders ATM.

Don't forget to sell our OB overseas if people will take it. Also I think we have a spare gold to sell. can't recall off hand.

I'll look at the save tonight also and draft some thoughts. We didn't meet Rome yet but I noticed he border expanded to the coast so we can meet him with a boat. Maybe the second trireme might be faster to get there.We can also meet him with an embarked unit, and see more of the land, meet a couple more city states. A chariot would be ideal for this. Although... there's still that barb camp perhaps, spawning barb galleys, yeah, maybe a trireme first then.

We could also could explore our east coast a bit more with embarkation. Remember Kuala Lumpur is still rambling on about Venice - will do for the rest of the game, I suppose - so there might be a Venice out there.
We've met 4 city states, 8 more to find.

I don't know if you guys are seeing what I'm seeing, in the north of our continent, but that's a nice opportunity for a culture bomb to steal a lux! Not something I would do just now, I think, but we can keep it in mind.

And it looks like my set will be Golden Age time.

Anyway, those are just some random things, I'll leave the kitchen to Brichals for cooking up the plans for next set.

Yeah, we should still have that spare gold, from the expired Cathy trade. It's really useful to keep a close eye on the diplo screen just now, to see what we can sell. I think we can sell horses as well, while still keeping the Stockholm horses for our own builds.

OK save is up. We have a lot of options.

Are we taking a 5th city? In 3 turns I can slingshot to muskets, then we dont need iron anymore. Except for Trebs maybe. We can trade iron from Wu and she also has an incense for our gold. At this point I am not sure on taking a 5th but expanding by puppets.

I would like to get a National College in Thebes, it finishes Pike in 1 turn then its about 13 to NC.

Wow, we could get Notre Dame in 10 turns for 10 happy in Memphis. So much production there.
Or I could put a barracks in Memphis then start to turn out muskets. If we get a bit of iron from Wu we can upgrade some of our warriors after the golden age and start war then. we should have a very substantial army by this point.
I think I prefer the barracks option. Especially as we will hit Organised religion in my set. That will give us 7 happy right away.

Troop movements. I can run a chariot up to the north east, see whats beyond KL. 1st trireme will explore more and 2nd to meet Rome. Then these can come back for our war effort. Should I send a chariot west to scout the island? Maybe I send a warrior as it's more dispensible.

Ghandi has nothing to trade, Harald is being stingy. Not much on there really,

Harald is building Chichen Itza in Copenhagen.

If we start producing muskets we could disband some of the warriors to save upkeep.

I think all that E of KL is a one tile island. I don't expect to find much else there but I could be wrong.

I agree on not putting a 5th city down yet. Expansion through war seems best for the foreseeable future.

If we do go NC in Thebes now then I'm happy for Memphis to go Barracks > Units rather than Notre Dame.

If we start producing muskets we could disband some of the warriors to save upkeep.We've only got two warriors left, with more iron available to upgrade them if we want to make a trade.I think all that E of KL is a one tile island. I don't expect to find much else there but I could be wrong.It's only Kuala Lumpur going on about Venice that makes me think there should be a Venice somewhere around. I'm just being err... curious where Venice could be.I would like to get a National College in Thebes, it finishes Pike in 1 turn then its about 13 to NC.Do you prefer the National college in Thebes because you think it'll grow bigger? Memphis finishes a circus next turn and can then do the NC in 7 turns, nearly twice as quick, while Thebes with its barracks can then continue to build units.

Whatever you do, please sell at least our open borders, 50 gold from China, 50 gold from India, it's free for grabs. We can sell some horses as well once our neighbours from the other continent get some more money in their pocket.

I think Thebes can grow bigger than Memphis. It has more non hill tiles to farm and gets the capital maritime bonus. Plus it has the jungle tiles, omly 4 base sci but still.

If we do meet Venice lets hope they're not hostile!

EDIT.

Thebes has 3 forrests to chop. One is done next turn. That should shave 3 turns off the build time of NC or there abouts.

So I managed to dump my lo mein over my mouse and now the mouse wheel doesnt work... ugh there is a shock, using the arrow keys to scroll!!! haha yeah I think it sounds like we are on a path to hard build our conquering troops so I'm for selling of all our ancient studs or gifting them to SH whichever works better. If I get a chance to look at the save I might have better insight but I like the stuff you guys are saying so no need to wait on that for sure.

Brichals, you know you're up, right?

Brichals, you know you're up, right?


Yeah I'll have my turns done in a few hours. I think I know what the plan is. I think I will go NC in Thebes because of the jungle that swings it.

130

I send some guys exploring and Ghandi and Wu buy OB for 50 each. Harald only offers 23. I think I will leave it for now. Wu then gives us 3 iron and incense for 3 horses and gold. I forgot to take a picture :( Nevermind.

131
Thebes: Pike > NC
Memphis: Stable > Barracks
We're 15 happy now so I switch Thebes to grow. I thought we could squeeze a new pop in this turnset then go back to science after NC is done.

132
I spot a settler for Cathy. Where will it go? I consider telling her not to settle near us. But her cities will be ours anyway.

133
OK not the most aggressive settle ever. Just next to the marble.
Barracks done in Memphis. I put 1 turn in Uni. Was considering workshop also but we might want to run a scientist in Memphis at some point for GPP.
http://i.imgur.com/HTC37.jpg

134
Vienna and Denmark are allies. Engineering comes in. It's double bulb time!!:c5greatperson::c5greatperson::c5science:
Whoa. Bit of a combo there. Eng>Physics>Gunpowder>Renaissance
I go for currency now.
Our exploring trireme takes down a barb galley on its travels.
Such an epic combo deserves a photoshop!
http://i.imgur.com/i9NSB.png

135
Heliopolis: Trireme > Granary. Trireme heads for Rome. I start to lay Trading posts around Heliopolis
Memphis goes into Musket production with 4 turns left on Uni, must remember to finish that.
We also meet Singapore. Maritime, irrational, 6 iron and pearls. North of India. Hmm another interesting one.
Cathy is patrolling a couple of Swords around. Not sure what that means.

Oooh genoa. Friendly maritime. With wines like Stockholm though. Still a good one.
http://i.imgur.com/5va9Q.png


136
Old Faithful found on the nort tip of the other continent. I have seen a lot of Romes borders. Seems quite large.

137
Elephantine grows but it doesn't have such great tiles yet. Need more border pops. I think Burial Tomb after workshop.
We meet Rome. He's got tons of cash (over 2000). I sell him some gold.
Genoas island is bigger than I thought. I will also have a warrior on the west island soon.
http://i.imgur.com/XBAtL.jpg

138
Drama on the west isle.
Rome makes peace with china. Ghandi wants me to join his war with Rome (I refuse). Cathy wants a research agreement but we have to pay more and give OB. No thanks chuck.
Golden age pops.
We're stockpiling cash again. We can see what to do with it before Optionals turn. We will be very rich with this Golden age. I couldn't get an even deal on research agreements from Rome but we have PT though, so can be considered.
Tyre met just near Genoa. Militaristic, hostile, with pearls.

139
Currency is in. I switch to machinery. Maybe we can upgrade our archers.

140
Sydney met with Genoa and Tyre as a little CS triumvirate over there. Maritime, irrational, pearls.
I got a warrior on the West isle to explore.
Memphis finishes a musket and starts another. Optional can swith that if he wants, no hammers into it yet.
Organised religion taken as SP. 22 :c5happy: !


Here is the World in 600AD
http://i.imgur.com/GT7nf.png

Here are demographics but we are in Golden age.
http://i.imgur.com/zAfsL.png

On victory points we are far ahead of everybody except Rome who we are marginally ahead of.

OK Thats for write up. I will add pics as an edit.

Nice nice nice. I like the epic photoshop.

I eat my words about that only being a one tile island over there!

I'll peak at the save and say what I see.

So I think the RA comes in this set. IMO we should be working Chemistary whenit comes in. Maybe we should even start it now.

Now we have 22:) I think we can let Memphis grow a pop or two as it still has lots of great tiles to work.

Try not to let Ele grow out of control. It hasn't got much to work right now. Maybe run an eng spec when we can?

We can sell some of our lux as we have so much happy ATM. I suggest selling gems to Rome for 190 and taking an RA at the same tile (the best deal I could get). Either that or swallow the 100:c5gold: he wants for the RA and we keep our gems.

Also why is Gandhi got his knickers in a twist? I really don't think we are planning on winnig the game the same way as him. So immersion breaking.

We might want to consider mints and markets soon.

^ I'm okay with all that. A bit of swapping citizens, making a deal with Rome - fair enough.

Research agreement will complete in 16 turns. I'm happy with the current project of Machinery, which will enable us to upgrade our archers. Chemistry after that is fine.

Gandhi is completely up the honour tree, which points to a military approach. We are No1 in military, so I guess that's the thorn in his flesh and the reason why he's jealous.

But my big question remains: What about war? Are we avoiding this question? No 5th town to provoke Cathy, okay, but what then?
We are No1 in arms, bought more iron for our troops, peaceful settling is more or less over. We seem ready declare on someone, I don't think anybody will declare on us, we're too strong, so it's up to us. If we don't do anything, nothing will happen. Do you guys want me to declare, and if not, what are we waiting for?

I would vote for declare on Cathy after the golden age and when machinery finishes (can upgrade archers to crossbow). We can then do chivalry and upgrade our chariots to knights. Thebes and Memphis can produce enough troops to sweep our continent I think, maybe we only even need Memphis.

I put our warrior scouting the west which I am not sure about. He could have been a longsword with all our cash. However it is good to scout out. Maybe I should have sent a chariot. Maybe we should disband the warrior after he finishes scouting. I don't know the generally accepted best way to scout a foreign continent and I am lazy about doing it in my own games.


I took the scientists out of Thebes because we still have good tiles when the jungle trading posts come in we really should work them. We also should run the scientists aswell as we were getting 8 GSP with the specialists, and after HS our GP are cheaper. This means we need more population. I would prioritise it over production in that city atm. After NC we don't desperately need anything there do we? Market, mint, and possibly garden/national epic are possible buildings but not that urgent I think. Buying another maritime could also be a good investment. (We need to give Stockholm a donation too soon).

I started putting a trading post in Heliopolis. The city can support that whole grasslands area being trading posted. This will be good after economics I think.

For happiness we can still build a 3:c5happy: burial tomb in elephantine and there will be silks there at some point. I think we can maintain some growth and puppet a lot aswell at this stage. Piety is really quite strong in this patch.

The scouting was good. We found a couple (I think) more world wonders for happiness and some city states for cash.
I don't think I'll throw more money at city states just now. If you're only neutral to them, can they still come up with quests? I know they can always come up with military requests, but I don't know about the peaceful ones.

We're a bit thin for bombard, but we don't need to wait for a war until we have everything we need for a smooth offensive war. It would be good to get rid of some opposing units first before actually attacking cities.
If you go straight for cities, if the enemy still has all its units, then you have both their city bombard and their units to endure, and you'll lose units. Better to lure some units out and deal with them first before marching on to cities, especially capitals.
I'm certainly not inclined to take on a capital city straight away, if that's what you were thinking. But for a declaration I feel ready, if that's what we are going to do anyway.

I'm happy for the DoW to go ahead. Harald or Cathy I'm easy. We're not going to lose to either so take your pick.

Indeed, I was rather hoping to have some warring to do on my set. I am not a big fan of ensuring all my troops live through wars, I usually only care about my siege troops surviving as they are much more annoying to exp up. And since we don't have any I like the balls to the walls approach of might over right (to exist). crossbows really do wonders on cities pre castles so I think we should be okay for bombarding after that comes in. I don't have a preference either, just remember to denounce them to give us a better chance of coming out okay with the other island civs. I don't think they will worry about us until we've eliminated both our neighbors, but of course there is no way to predict their reactions to much of anything. Lots of beer, what a great weekend, I love the florida sun!

600AD, inherited turn;
I swap some of Memphis' tiles to let it grow, it's still got great tiles to work that it isn't working now because of a lack of citizens.
I let it finish the uni first, that got abandoned at some stage earlier in the game.
Elephantine can work some lake tiles, they each give 2 gold in Golden Age.
RA deal with Rome, they want something for it, we give Gems, they give 140 gold.
It's our only Gems left, but at roughly 20 happy we're alright for happy.
I denounce Russia and decide to wait some turns before declaring, that might be better for our diplo rep, or maybe it doesn't make any difference, not sure.
620AD;
Cathy sends a declaration of hostility back.
Heliopolis: granary > Colossus, I don't see anyone building that, a Colossus at 150 hammers for Egypt is hardly more expensive than a market at 120, but with a better return.
We meet Venice at the city state continent, I told you Kuala Lumpur wasn't telling lies!
Thebes: National College > trebuchet
After pondering what would be the best upgrade for Bill, I decide to go with double drill, as it rhymes - Bill got attacked by some barbs.
640 & 660AD;
Bill cleans up a barb camp, he finds a Roman worker, we give it back to Rome as we don't need it.
The worker near Heliopolis that finished the trading post I disband. We've got lots more improved tiles here than our citizens can work, and we've got 3 more workers around.
Thebes has grown, I'm putting 1 citizen in the uni, not more, we're still in a Golden Age, so citizens on tiles give a gold bonus.
Message: Genoa (CS continent) under attack from barbarians.
Our chariot finds a different barb camp near Sydney and starts shooting.

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Sidney.jpg

680AD;
Rome and China sign a research agreement.
Although our chariot now kills a barb, we get no kudos from Sidney, even though they requested our help against barbarians. That's happening too often for my liking.
700AD;
Machinery (crossbowmen) > Chemistry (cannons)
We meet Regusa, just south of Sydney, I thought we had met them already, their borders so visible, but apparantly not. They're maritime and neutral.
Our chariot now clears the barb camp and gives Sydney a worker back. Sydney is maritime and irrational, with Pearls and iron. That's good. Since we're already friends, I throw 500 gold at it:

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/SidneyAlly.jpg

This means less money for upgrades, but especially that 170 gold upgrade from archer to crossbowman is very steep. We could also sacrifice those archers in city sieges; the enemy will blow those archers away, but that could spare our better troops.
Venice requests our help against barbarians. We've only got 1 chariot over, and he's quite busy.
720AD;
Elephantine: workshop > granary (1 turn to go, was in queue)
I have to assume our idea is to develop Elephantine into a good town still, because we are throwing many gold-eating buildings at it.
Thebes: trebuchet > trebuchet
Catherine has been moving left and right a bit with her units, she does have some swords, so I was hoping she was perhaps still going to declare, but it's not likely, is it?
We declare on Russia!
Archers pop some shots.
740AD;
A trebuchet in Elephantine can bombard a Russian sword, while somewhere else we kill a pike.
Elephantine: granary > uni
Stockholm has slipped to friend status, which is useless. Only now I have 500 gold to pump that up.
Harald has finished Chichen Itza!
760;
Our chariot arrived too late at Genoa, they cleared their nearby barb camp themselves. I can only still capture a worker and give it back. Not really useful.
780AD;
On the Roman continent we meet Bucharest with Bill. They are cultured and friendly.
Our exploring trireme now sees more of the Russian lands. We find 2 sources of iron, both regular ones. Cathy can at least make 8 iron units.

http://s408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/Hynsterider/Moscow.jpg

800AD;
Passing game on. On the west side of the lake I moved a rifle forward, he sees a few archers, so he'll get a few shots. The Russian sword won't heal this interturn, so there's no real danger for the rifle.
It would be nice if we could control the lake, Cathy has a habit of throwing her swordsmen in there, and units swimming appear to be immune to any sort of attack, weird enough. Also the jungle and forest is a bit nasty, the trebuchet can't fire 2 tiles away in this terrain and becomes useless.
Cathy didn't come forward much with her units, so it's probably up to us to meet her with a nice stack of units.

And that we shall... ahh i love helping Russia with its 'scorched earth' technique... taking a look at the save real fast to see what is on tap....

well that stinks, seems I clicked the wrong button... okay so builds in all cities on my turn set. Research as well. The RA sets off 6 turns in it would seem, shall I arrange our civilians to make chemistry done in 6 so that I can apply the RA to fertilizer or do we want it to go elsewhere? I'm all for going for economics, we're sitting on some good GPT with markets and mints available now. And the prospect of trading posts makes economics more fun no doubt. But I am also for going for dynOmite and blowing our opponents to dust... well cannons will probably be more then enough but still... market in Memphis? Thebes as well? I've never had a standing army this large in a game so its weird seeing the cash flow as is. But I've never felt safer in a game so I guess it has its perks hah...

Also on a fun side note, looking at her terrain on the save.... I don't see any way to bombard her cities from 2 tiles on the north side of either city, its going to take some extra turns to get siege into nice safe positions, in fact we may have to take St. Pete after Novgorod just so we can attack Moscow from the south. Good times!