Ladies & Gentlemen, I invite you to partake in a game designed to sate even the most bloodthirsty of appetites. Forget mortal kombat, banish thoughts of blood sports (and lay down those rare steaks) - this is where the blood is at. :D

This game will be always war, but it will have a few variants. Firstly, all the civs will be militaristic. Yes, I thought you'd like that. Secondly, land will be at a premium: standard map, 20% land. Tensions and border disputes will occur in BC times. Thirdly, we will not trade at all. Period. No trades, of any sort when you meet a civ or thereafter. Upon meeting a civ, war shall be declared IMMEDIATELY. After that, we may NEVER contact the civ, for any reason; all envoys must be refused, we may never drop in for a friendly chat to see what they would offer for peace (as if), what techs they have, how many cities they have, if they have access to a strategic resource, whatever. The only espionage capability will be after building the intelligent agency and planting spies. We rely solely on our own initiative, and whether we live or die, it is us against the world.

The world setting will be designed to be harsh; this has not been finalized but I'm thinking 20% continents, cold, normal rainfall, 3 billion years. Barbarians raging. I think Pangaea would be too brutal and I would like this game to emphasize all areas of combat, so naval and aerial engagements will be important late in the game. Archipelago may lead to a total lack of early fighting, which is a crucial aspect of this game. Continents strikes the best balance.

Difficulty will be regent. There have been plenty of excellent high level always war games (Sirian's infantry, LKendter's Mongols, to name but a couple), but I am a relative newcomer to always war (though I've been practising plenty lately) and I want to encourage people who have not considered always war or who are looking for a challenge without being overwhelmed by the difficulty of high level games to apply. In any case, given the settings and the nature of the game, the difficulty will feel like emperor (which is approximately my skill level). So please do not hesitate to apply if you are a regent or better player. I promise this will be fun!

The civ's will be Zulu, Mongols, Vikings, Germans, Chinese, Celts, Aztecs and Romans. Japan is the only militaristic civ left out (because Japan starts with the wheel, all the others have warrior code, so this is partly a balance issue). We will choose who to select and the remainder will be our foes. The idea in choosing tight land and militaristic civs is to encourage war, not just us vs the AI, but also intrafighting amongst our opponents. As I say, I have decided to let go of my builder insanity and release all in a bloodbath!

I will post greater details later including my own experiences of always war and possible strategies. At the moment, however, I would like to gauge interest and comments, including ideas of adjusting the settings and what civ to choose. I look forward to hearing your views

EDIT: also victory conditions. I'm not entirely sure if the AI is programmed to recognize what victory conditions are open, and if anyone knows anything about this, then I would appreciate the input. If it is, then I think leaving conquest as the only condition might be within the spirit of this game, to encourage even more fighting. Perhaps with a PTW twist, such as regicide for greater risk (again, open to comment)

i like this thing, i'll play if you let me

I'm a always war newcomer as well. My level is monarch (with my eyes closed...), but moving up to emperor level.

So if you let me, I'm interested...

About regicide: the AI doesn't know how to handle this. The king unit can be used for other purposes that the AI doesn't 'know' about (scouting, pilaging) and the unit recides in the capital: very easy target. Mass regicide also isn't that great: even more scout/pilaging units for the human player...

i like the mongols, especially if we're choosing a 3 billion earth if not Celts or Romans are my choises.

I agree with Aggie, besides regicide ain't as much bloodbath as conquest or domination :cool:

Finally, some interest!! Glad to have you on board!

I'll post greater details tonight (UK time)

Ok, thanks for the input. One thing I've noticed about regicide is the AI will build loads of units to defend its capital (and king). As for the human advantage in pillaging/scouting with the king - this is always war with raging barbs!! If we did play regicide and used the as an exploration/pillaging unit, it could be a very short game!

Anyway, I'm quite happy with conquest as the only victory condition - it will be do or die.

We'll take a vote on the civ between the 3 of us, so we can get started. The game will still be open, however, so if others wish to join they can jump in (5 or so is probably ideal for this sort of game). I propose the standard 24 hour "got it" and then a further 48 hours to play, with plenty of flexibility and choice in case anyone has a difficult or busy period.

Before we decide the civ, I thought I'd do a brief run-down of the pro's and con's of the civs available.

China - probably the strongest choice. Industrious is always useful, irrespective of game type, and moreover, remains useful for the entire game. Hooking up resources quickly could play a vital role in the early game. The rider is an awesome UU and would give us a big Middle-Age advantage if we chose China. The Golden Age would also be well-timed. With Masonry as our second starting tech, we could build walls early and have a great shot at the Pyramids if we got an early leader or an exceptionally strong start position.

Germany - the value of scientific would perhaps be magnified given the game conditions. With no trading whatsoever, we're going to have to research (or find from goody huts) every tech, so the free techs and the cheap research buildings would come in very handy. Germany is also the civ in the best position for early war, with the ability to build archers and spears from the start, and 1 tech away from swords. The Panzer is a very good UU but comes, perhaps, a little late to play a game-defining role, though it would be handy to mop up civs with Blitzkrieg if the game lasts that far. Another strong choice

Rome - the power of commercial increases as the game advances. If we chose Rome, we would probably struggle a little more earlier as we would lack the early advantages that expansionist, religious or industrious civs get. On the other hand, the extra gold would be very handy later in the game to aid upgrades and cash-rushing or research. Legionaries are excellent all-round units and would provide a GA we could use to build an unstoppable force of ancient units. Alphabet is the most expensive 1st rank tech to research, so this too would be an advantage, and a step closer to the valuable Great Library.

Celts- militaristic and religious has always been one of my favourite combinations. Build a temple and barracks in every city, for a combined cost of just 50 shields, and then produce all the units you want. The Celts (and Aztecs) would give us a big early advantage, but with only 1 government change in prospect (to Monarchy), once we're past the early Middle Ages the value of religious would be virtually zero. Ceremonial burial is a cheap 1st tier tech. As for the Gallic Swordsman - well, I think everybody appreciates their power but the cost could be prohibitive in an always war situation - 50 shields is pretty extortionate and we would be relying on good cities only to be able to produce them. (Personally I would always take the 30 shield attack 4 immortals over the 50 shield 2-move Gallic Swordsmen as the rulers of the ancient age).

Aztecs - as per the Celts but I think the Jaguar warrior is far better suited to always war than the Gallic sword. True, an Aztec Golden Age would be almost entirley wasted (as I doubt we'd have more than 2 cities) but the power of the Jag rush is phenomenal.

Zulu - not sure of the value of expansionist in this scenario. An early advantage provided by free techs or free settlers would be considerable in the circumstances, but I doubt we'd have the opportunity to pop many huts, given we have to declare war on neighbours as soon as we meet them, there is only 20% land and the barbs are raging - scouts could be killed rather quickly. On the other hand, we would have the opportunity to use scouts as nuisance units, as cheap pillagers and harrassers. Starting with Pottery is also a minimal advantage given its cheapness to research. The Zulu Impi is almost the perfect unit for always war - a mobile defensive unit, ideal for pillaging, capturing workers, defending resources, and providing quick reinforcements where needed. A good choice for this scenario, and a nightmare as an opponent.

Mongols - as per the Zulu; the only difference is the UU. Keshiks could potentially play a big role in their ability to traverse mountains as grassland given the 3 billion year age of the world, and also don't require iron which could save our backside if we discover we don't have this crucial resource. The Golden Age would also be well-timed, but essentially, they are inferior knights, and if the circumstances don't fit, they will provide a negligible advanatage at a crucial point of the game.

Vikings - as per the Zulu except for the UU. The Berserker is great. Attack 6 when the standard defence is 3. Amphibious attack. Wow. Cost would be less of a factor at that stage of the game as it is for the Celts and gallic swords. Will also stand out in the 80% water situation. Strong choice, would be even stronger choice if we were playing archipelago.

There we go, if anyone has anything to add, please do so, otherwise we need to vote on what civ to choose. Once that is done, we can have a discussion on strategy if needs be and then start the game

I go for Rome, China or the Mongols (mongols are because i always liked them, especially in Age of Empires :p)

All civs are fine with me. With the exception of the Romans: play them right now in the GOTM.

China may indeed be too powerful and the vikings have an awesome berserk. They are quite popular in SG's right now... Maybe time for something else?

Mongols is fine with me if you want it. The expansionist trait may be waisted in Nad's scenario, which makes to game even more difficult...

Celts no good the Gallic are too expensive and the reatreating ability is wasted with the Impi's, Germany the UU comes way too late, besides i don't think it will survive a third attack and the scientific trait don't work with this kind of game.

I like China, the riders with a extra move in that time and such small scenario could be deadly, industrious rocks in all kinds of game.

The Mongols, i like the UU it costs 10 shields less and moves like a grassland on mountains, good in 3 billion, traits suck in this kind of game, but a challenge is always good

Sounds like a toss-up between China and the Mongols...so...

*tosses a coin*
* heads = China, tails = Mongols*

*tails*

Mongols it is. I will start the game and post later today

First of all, a quick recap on the variant rules - no diplomacy or trading at all. War must be declared immediately upon meeting another civ and at no point may we ever talk to that civ for any reason. If other civs sell our contact, we must declare war as soon as we are aware that we know another civ. All militaristic, conquest only, the game begins.

Start http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelightStart.jpg

Turn 1, 4000 BC - a nice start, coastal, fish and 2 spices, forests on grasslands and mountains. Near the equatorial region of the map. Also a goody hut within the capital radius.

I block ceremonial burial so we don't pop that from the hut, and found. It works - we get bronze working.

Karakorum starts a scout, worker moves to mine the only bonus grassland visible. 100% research on ceremonial burial, the cheapest available tech

turns 2 to 5 - uneventful, scout exploring

IT - scout complete, barracks ordered

6 and 7 - nada

Turn 8, 3650 BC - worker completes mine, starts road

Turn 9, 3600 BC - we spot a dark blue border to the south. Germany?

Turn 10, 3550 BC - nada

IT - borders expand

Turn 11, 3500 BC - worker completes road, moves to spices square to clear forest and then hook up the lux

Turn 12, 3450 BC - worker begins to clear forest; more spices sighted in the jungle near Germany (?), and a couple of fresh water lakes. The combination of mountains and jungle which is the only area we can expand to is not so pleasant now but will be very powerful later in the game.

IT - rax complete, start spear

Turn 13, 3400 BC - zilch

IT - Burial researched, start the Wheel

Turn 14, 3350 BC - as our scout ended the last turn next to blue borders, we can now make contact. It is Germany and we declare war immediately. This is gonna be very early war and I will try to use our two scouts for nuisance value until we can build up some military.

Berlin is on the coast, has 2 lakes within its borders, and ivory. It is defended by a regular warrior

IT - Spear appears at the top of Berlin, so they now have a spare warrior they can threaten our scouts with.

Turn 15, 3300 BC - one of our scouts runs through German borders. The other I will use for recon.

IT - the German warrior moves towards our scout in German borders.

Turn 16, 3250 BC - the 2-move of our scout allows it to escape the German warrior. There is desert to the south of Germany.

Turns 17 & 18 - nada

IT - our recon scout watches the German warrior begin to head north

Turn 19 - the continents tretches round Germany to the south, with plenty of ivory, deserts and mountains. A useful choke is spotted for later in the game

IT - spear complete, start Archer

Turn 20, 3050 BC - spear fortifies and scouts move.

Roster:

Aggie ..... UP
Manya.....ON DECK
Slots are still open

For this first round, play as many turns as you want to get a feel for the game, whether that be 10, 15 or more. After the first round we will play 10 turns each. 24 hours for a got it, a further 48 to play. Save games in the format "WDelight - 0000AD.sav" please.

Notes for next player - forest chop is due in 2.
Let's try to build a settler before taking the war to the Germans. We can then set one city for expansion and the other for military. Karakorum is a superb city for micromanagement, so use it well.

There is only one way we can expand - south, and there is some jungle/desert there but not many bonus resources. The sea will be an important resource in this game, so try to build cities coastal if possible.

The early part of the game is going to be expansion and military based. The great library is a big wonder in always war so at some stage, we need to think of a strategy to grab it. Take the war to the Germans - the sooner they are out of the way, the easier our expansion, and, as I say, there is a very handy choke to the south of Germany which we can use as a defensive point while we settle our territory (our southern scout is standing right by it in the screenie below).

Good luck and enjoy!

Save http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight3050BC.sav

Got it! These Germans settled on a nasty place. They have to be eliminated. Hopefully we get horses soon..

Aggie, wait!

That save I just posted doesn't work properly, I'm still fixing it and will post once its fixed

EDIT: the save is now fixed

Screenie

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


Note the tightness of land and the scarcity of bonus resources. The scout in th esouth is standing on a choke point that we can use after disposing of the nasty Gerrmans

Nad, thanks for warning me. Playing now...

Pre-turn. Nothing to chance. The scout at the choke can continue scouting. The one to the north has a problem: how to pass German territory?

Turn 1 - 3000BC: scouts move.

IT: forest chopped.

Turn 2- 2950BC: Start road to spices.

Turn 3 - 2900BC: Some scouting. Land to the west of the choke isn't very intersting..

IT: German warrior keeps moving north.

Turn 4 - 2850 BC: Archer built. Start settler. Treasury is low (-1 gpt and treasury = 9). I correct it. Archer goes south. Settler completes in 5 turns.

IT: Road to spices built. We happy!!! :cool:

Turn 5 - 2800BC: scout discovers Mysticism. Worker goes one tile south.

Turn 6 - 2750BC: start another forest chop.

Turn 7 - 2710BC: We are on a small island, with the Germans as our only neighbours. Our scouts are finished with the exploring...

Turn 8 - 2670BC: Our archer kills the German warrior. First battle won!! :shotgun:

Turn 9 - 2630BC: Settler built. Start spearman. Settler goes southwest with spearman. Avoiding Germans AND jungle for the moment.

Turn 10 - 2590BC: nothing much happened...

Turn 11 - 2550BC: Zzzzzz

Turn 12 - 2510BC: Ta-Tu built soutwest of Kakakorum. Tight build pattern. Growth will be very slow, but shield aren't bad... Start barracks.

Turn 13 - 2470BC: Zzzzzzz

Turn 14 - 2430BC: The Wheel discovered. Next tech will be Iron Working. Horses south of Ta-Tu, between the two lakes! Guess where our next city will be...

Turn 15 - 2390BC: Zzzzzz

IT: Forest chopped. The shield are just enough to finish our spearman in Karakorum.

Turn 16 - 2350BC: Settler started in Karakorum. Archer watches on a mountain for trouble from coming Germany. The horses must be secured!!

Turn 17 - 2310BC: Zzzzzzz

Turn 18 - 2270BC: Zzzzzzz

Turn 19 - 2230BC: Zzzzzzz

Turn 20 - 2190BC: Zzzzzzz

Considering the place were Germany started, I decided it was best to go for a tight build. And our Palace should move from Karakorum at some point. A lot of benefit of the palace wil be wasted (in the sea) if we don't. I made one little mistake already. I noticed too late that Ta-Tu's laborer decided to work on the de-forested spice terrain at 2390BC. Corrected it though...

Pointer for the next player: obviously the spot 3 tiles south of Ta-Tu should be our next city. We get horses there and on top of that fish, a fresh lake and shielded grassland. I would accompany the settler with a spearman.
Futhermore the archer was placed on a mountain near the German border to spy on developments. And to avoid settlers coming north...

2190BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight2190BC.SAV)

Here's our empire... Next place to settle: 1 tile north of the horses...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Wdelight2190BC1.JPG

good stuff, Manya is up. We might want to pillage the German horse tile...

Afetr the third city we should definitely go on the offensive, kill the Germans and then have a peaceful phase to cover the entire island before all the other civs find us

Originally posted by Nad
After the third city we should definitely go on the offensive, kill the Germans and then have a peaceful phase to cover the entire island before all the other civs find us

I agree!

Good idea about pilaging the horses improvent! Why didn't I think of that? :(

got it, playing

the .sav ain't working

Originally posted by Manya
the .sav ain't working

:blush: Corrected it.... You can try it again!

sorry but i'll have to drop out, my PTW doesn't work with downloaded .sav, i dunno why i tried with other games but it gives the same thing, sorry.

If there is something you have to do and i didn't notice tell me ok

Manya, sorry to hear that... You were correct about my first version. I also couldn't load. But the new file works in my game.

Did you instal patch 1.14? If not, that might explain your problems. Would be a shame if you couldn't play...

Hey i am very interested. I am not a expert player but i do love to kill! One problem. I got 56k so fi the fiel gets above 350kb it needs to be zipped to be UNDER a meg. It can never go above a meg. IF it does i have to drop.

@ Manya: do you have version 1.14. If not, download it and play. Otherwise it's a pity if you have to drop out.

@Widdowmaker: what is your skill level/ experience of always war? If you think you can handle a game that will feel like monarch/emperor, then welcome aboard! Don't worry about the saves. Even late game saves rarely go above 500 or so k.

Well. I only played cheiftan so far but how hard coudl it be? just keep the populus happy and keep 2-3 defenders in each city. The rest get to go kill. And i havent done a always war yet but in my game i am continualy killing everything.

:o

Monarch/Emperor is quite a bit harder than chieftain. Trust me...

Nad, what now? I like to continue, though it would be nice to have a few other players around...

Hmm. Well it may be harder but i liek chalange. And i think it may be worht a shot. "Longshots are jsut that. long. But sometiems it pays off in the end." It may be worht my whiel and yours to give me a chance. Up to you. If i aint good enough you coudl drop me.

Good luck on this one guys. Regent AW is tough when you try it first, but it is winnable if you have experience and don't rush decisions. While I have AW regent wins I'm afraid I can't join as I'm already commited in the communism game and have just started adjusting to life on Emperor level after getting tired at monarch. I simply doesn't wish to overcommit. I will be following this one though and offering occasional advice and comments if you want it :)

@Harleqin: thanks for the support, by all means offer comments and advice, input is always good.

Widdowmaker; if you feel up for it, then I'm happy to have you. You're up now, so download the save and play. Please post a got it within 24 hours if you do wish to play, and then you have another 48 hours to play

Room for any more?

I would dearly like to join this one...

Not much experiance on AW, but just been getting my teeth into a LOT more warmongery ;)

Melifluous.

PS. I am a Emperor player (I think) on normal PTW (I have 1.14 too.)

Originally posted by Melifluous
Room for any more?

I would dearly like to join this one...

Not much experiance on AW, but just been getting my teeth into a LOT more warmongery ;)

The 'Zany' Zerkers? That was a great game to follow, although it took very long :D

Melifluos, welcome! :)

Nad....played
Aggie...played
Widdowmaker....Up Now (depending on whether he wants to take part)
Melifluos....On Deck

Cool and thanks for the welcome...

BTW if people have difficulty spelling my name :p please just call me Meli

MelifluoUs

Originally posted by Melifluous
Cool and thanks for the welcome...

BTW if people have difficulty spelling my name :p please just call me Meli

MelifluoUs

:o Whoops:D

@Meli: Thanks for joining us :goodjob:

@Nad: Do you have a SG policy, like a 24 h for 'got it' and 48 h to play? I would like to get this game going again...

@ Aggie; yes, I've asked for the standard 24/48. I'm not sure if widdowmaker is going to join us, he seemed unsure. If he does not post a got it by 18.00 GMT today we can skip him, and MelifluoUs will be up

Hey Ned thanks!

I will play this if Windowmaker doesnt turn up!
You, me and Angie should kick total a$$

:p :p :p

Melodramatic

Originally posted by Melifluous
Hey Ned thanks!

I will play this if Windowmaker doesnt turn up!
You, me and Angie should kick total a$$

:p :p :p

Melodramatic

LOL!!!:D :D :D

Hey, Melissa, I look forward to your turns!

Well maybe you should look at this reply in another SG thread by widdowmaker...

Another SG thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45239&perpage=20&display=&pagenumber=3)

Seems he doesn't think he was welcome in here :(

So should I go ahead and take the game now?

Superfluous

Meli, go for it.

Yay!

So can I just clarify a rule...
As soon as I meet a civ I MUST declare war?

Or can I just not talk to them and only declare war on them if they declare war on me?

Whatever, if I see someone, I will declare war straight away, sounds more in keeping with the game.

Melifluous

Meli, this is always war, so you must declare war immediately and never make peace. In standard always war you can trade with a civ on the turn you meet them but only for lump sum items, eg tech trade, and you can also later contact civs to find out how many cities they have, whcih techs they have etc. All this is out of bounds in this game. Declare war immediately when you meet a civ, don't try to see what they have available for trade. Never acknowledge an envoy and never contact a civ after war has been declared. Quite simply, we are out to exterminate.

OK, got the save, here we go!

Turn 1 (2150BC) - Move scout southeast one square onto the next mountain and uncover a barb camp on the east coast! Archer moves to the mountain southwest. Hmm might lure them south to the germans to pillage their improvements if I can... Oh and if the scout in the west was running away from barbs, then someone coulda told me :(

Turn 2 (2110BC) - Ta-Tu completes barracks and starts Spear. Scout in the west killed by barbs. Camp in the east spawns a warrior who moves west towards my scout. Spear/Settler combo comes outta Berlin heading northwest. I move scout NW to maybe use the barb to discourage the settlers advance. Archer Fortifies on Mountain.

Turn 3 (2070BC) - G. Settler moves NW, so does my archer. Scout moves West as barb comes over the mountains.

Turn 4 (2030BC) - Barb moves away from scout so my scout moves west to block northern passage of settler/spear. Spear/sett go nw as does my archer.

Turn 5 (1990BC) - Realise that a scout cant block a spear :P and that my archer wont stop the settler getting our horses, so I gamble and attack. I love the RNG sometimes, what odds on beating a spear with an archer in the jungle? I dont lose a single hp and we now have an elite archer and 2 slaves :D Move slaves north and scout back onto the mountain range. Worker completes mine at Karakorum and moves south to the jungle to connect Ta-Tu to the capital.

Turn 6 (1950BC) - Barb appears next to scout on the mountain and Karakorum completes settler which heads for just west of the lake. Scout moves out east to try and lure the barb away from our new slaves. Archer goes east.

Turn 7 (1910BC) - Scout goes south stopping next to the barb camp. Risky but I want those barbs going south not north. Archer moves east onto Mountains Nothing more from Berlin thank goodness.

Turn 8 (1870BC) - Scout moves back to the mountains, two slaves move to horse, archer moves into German territory with a view to pillaging horse. Research reduced to 80%, Iron Working in 12 Turns.

Turn 9 (1830BC) - Ta-Tu builds spearman, starts another. Settler waits for spearman. Archer to horse.

Turn 10 (1790BC) - Archer pillages irrigated horse, slaves start road on horse.

Turn 11 (1750BC) - Damn barb goes west near my slaves. Slaves, spear and settler meet at the site of our new city next turn.

Turn 12 (1725BC) - Barb attacks our veteran spear on hills and is defeated with our spear on 2 hp! Kazan founded. Elite archer kills regular archer from Berlin with the loss of 4 hp! Damn these rolls are rigged man. Our worker starts road from Ta-Tu to Kazan. Slaves start road to horses.

Turn 13 (1700BC) - Karakorum builds archer heads south to take out barbs from the barb camp. Might leave the barb camp itself, good upgrading there.

Turn 14 (1675BC) - All is quiet.

Turn 15 (1650BC) - Ta-Tu builds spear, starts archer. Spear goes south to Kazan.

Turn 16 (1625BC) - We have the horse connected to Kazan. Switch spear to barracks. Iron Working next turn, drop research to 30%.

Turn 17 (1600BC) - We get iron working... OMG who made the map. Germans have iron JUST outside their influence. Second archer attacks barb and win with 1 hp loss. Ah no panic it turns out we have iron UNDERNEATH Ta-tu!!! Both archers at Ta-tu and Karakorum switched to swords.

Turn 18 (1575BC) - OK, reviewed that, changed swords back to building archers. Elite archer now back up to full strength, will hang around outside Berlin trying to get a Leader :p. Move spearman down towards Berlin.

Turn 19 (1550BC) - Run scout towards Berlin and back again. All I can see is that there is a spearman in Berlin :p

Turn 20 (1525BC) - Karakorum builds archer, starts settler. Ta-Tu builds archer, starts settler. These are place makers and obviously can be changed as needed. Road connecting Kazan completes in 2 turns. Kazan 12 turns away from building barracks. Archers move south.



And that was that... Bloody lucky to beat that spearman with an archer but now we have two slaves and this may turn the tide of the war against Germany. They lose a settler and a spearman and we gain two slaves, nice.

My thoughts on the future.

The German War.
I think with a stack of 4 archers and a spearman we can take Berlin. Maybe the two new archers could wander past the barb camp and try and get themselves promoted on any free barbs, but I thought we could leave the camp there for just that purpose. Try and keep a unit on the mountains at all times to observe any barb activity. I'm not sure if we need any more cities at the moment and maybe both cities building settlers would be better off making something else, maybe chariots, as we get Horseback Riding in 9 turns. However one more city on the square to the east of the lake would be ok, this would mean one square overlap with Kazan but would bring the wheat in play...

Beyond Germany...
Looking east of the barb camp shows a tantalising glimpse of more land accessible by galley, maybe we could expand...

The Map as I leave...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Wdelight1525BC.jpg

Oh and the game save

WDelight 1525BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight1525BC.SAV)

Nad ..... Up Now
Aggie ..... On Deck
Melifluous ..... Played

The puny Germans don't appear to be a threat. Great work meli :)

EDIT: Why shouldn't we just continue expanding on OUR island after Germany is eliminated? And prepare for a more difficult war after that...

good stuff Meli, I look forward to my turns tonight

Thanks Guys...

Originally posted by Aggie
EDIT: Why shouldn't we just continue expanding on OUR island after Germany is eliminated? And prepare for a more difficult war after that...

Because Aggie, we are ALWAYS at war...
If you wanna fight from ships for the rest of the game fine, but if we want to have enough cities overseas to make a decent stand to begin with, then I suggest we get off this island as soon as possible.

Just my thoughts

Melifluous

An overseas foothold is always good, but if you want it as a production base then you will need to get your FP up in the region. By colonizing your own island you would have a strong core and be able to launch massive invasions. It is all down to what you want and your playstyle.
I'd say you have two choices once the Germans are gone. A FP in the south region for a strong homeland OR colonies with the FP and then moving your palace south to maximise its effects.
Just my two cents :)

An overseas foothold is good but our base for a large part of the game is our home continent. I know the continent doesn't look very pleasant, but this is a 3 billion year old cold world. From the minimap you can see that we are near the equatorial region, so it is likely that other continents will have worse terrain, eg lots of tundra. What I propose we should do is build our FP in the center of our home continent (Berlin would be good) and then move our palace to another continent (most likely with a leader) once we have a strong base at home. This way we can get plenty of use from our original land and build a strong core, and then have another strong core on another continent once we are in a position to take the fight overseas

BTW, I intend to take out the Germans in my turn if possible, preferably with swords (casualties would be lower than if we went with archers; with so much jungle around, the advantage of horses is diminished)

First of all, I played 15 turns this round instead of 10, partly because I got caught up in the game, and partly because with only 3 of us so far signed up, we can have another round of 15-20 before we cut down to 10 later, so play as many as you see fit this rotation.

Inherited turn, 1525 BC - we will shortly have 4 archers and a spear with which to attack Berlin, which is what Melifluous recommended. However, I'm going to play conservatively this early in the game and wait til we have a sword or two before attacking Berlin. Ta-tu is deficient in food so that is switched to a sword, Karakorum is fine to build a settler. (BTW, Aggie, when you inherited the game from me last time, how come you only mined 1 of the 2 spices square? We could be getting 1 extra shield per turn in our cap if you'd mined the other spice square as well).

IT - the borders of both Karakorum and Berlin expand

Turn 1, 1500BC - I intend to use the spear and scout to do some more pillaging of German terrain. Our worker is going to begin clearing jungle so we can route some irrigation up to Karakorum and Ta-Tu, the two slaves will build a road to the front line.

IT - the Germans request an audience :rolleyes:
A German reg archer appears out of Berlin and onto a mountain tile

Turn 2, 1475BC - the pillage plan is changed, I'm going to use our military to block the German archer off

IT - the German archer moves onto a plains tile. Sucker!!!

Turn 3, 1450BC - our elite archer attacks the German archer in a leader potshot and ... wins with 1 damage but no leader. Our spear covers the archer, and our scout joins the mini-stack.
I'm going to use our other archers to surround the barb camp in the hope of promotions, as Meli suggested.

IT - another German archer charges out of Berlin and attacks our spear - we win, losing 2HP, and our spear is now also elite. The barb camp spawns a warrior, who heads north.

Turn 4, 1425BC - archer tracks the barb warrior. Our scout pillages the tile north of Berlin so that road is destroyed,, our wounded spear covers the scout

IT - barb warrior attacks our archer, we win losing 2HP, no promotion.

Turn 5, 1400BC - spear and scout head away from Berlin to heal.

Turns 6 and 7 - nothing of interest

IT - HBR complete, set to Masonry
Ta-Tu Sword -------> Sword

Turn 8, 1325 BC - Sword heads south. I'm fed up with the barb camp and I need the military to attack Berlin; I certainly don't intend to leave the camp unobserved, so I attack with an archer, win w/o scratch and promote to elite; we gain 25g.

Turn 9, 1300BC - advancing on Berlin

IT - Karakorum settler --------> spear

Turn 10, 1275BC - KK settler and spear move, troops fortify outside Berlin awaiting the sword and final archer to arrive

Turn 11, 1250BC - nada

IT - Another foolish German archer ventures out of Berlin, into our nicely prepared trap.

Kazan barracks --------> worker

Turn 12, 1225BC - this time I attack with a veteran archer as I want the elites at full health for the attack on Berlin; as it happens, our vet kills the German archer w/o a scratch and is himself ordained into the ranks of the elites!

IT - Ta-Tu sword --------> horse

Turn 13, 1200BC - troop positions are finalized for an assault next turn

Turn 14, 1175 BC - Almarikh founded across the lake from Kazan, the wheat means high food, set to worker.

The attack on Berlin:
vet sword (attack 3) vs reg spear fortified on plains (defence 2.7) - we win, losing only 1HP.
time to use our elite archers - first one vs another reg spear - wins losing 3HP...and that's it! Berlin and 1 slave are ours. After all that build-up, the assault was a piece of cake. Berlin set to temple (can be vetoed by next player).

The Germans are history, time for some expansion

Screenie: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelightByeByeOtto.jpg

IT - palace acquires a lawn

Turn 15, 1150 BC - Ta-Tu changed to temple as we could do with some culture and border expansions. The next player can veto but I would recommend NOT building workers and settlers from Ta-Tu - it's very low food but high shields, and should build improvements or military.

I use our military units to span and watch for barbs - the last thing we want is to lose workers or settlers to barb camps that spring up (remember, the barbs are raging).

Masonry is due in 2, +3gpt (we can't get it in 1, even at max science)

With that, I leave the empire in the capable hands of Aggie. It's expansion time, and should prove a nice lull - enjoy it, because most of this game promises to be hectic! The save game is below, along with a couple of screenies - pay heed to the military advisor's warning!

Save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight1150BC.sav

Empire: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight1150BCEmpire.jpg

Military: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight1150BCMilitary.jpg

So Aggie takes over in a peaceful era! And that in a 'always war'...

Tomorrow may be difficult. But will surely play Friday!

Ok guys, the files have now all uploaded succesfully

as we've got a little time before Aggie plays, I thought I'd throw out a few thoughts.

1) Berlin. What do you guys think of this as the FP site? It's probably the most central of cities on our home island. If so, we need to get it built up so it can self-build the FP; temple and courthouse are paramount, and we should avoid builing workers or settlers there.

2) Great Library - massive in always war as it lets you concentrate on infra and military for 3/4 of an age. Also, if we find we are isolated from the rest of the world, w/o trade it would probably be the only way of catching up in tech if we have an extended period of isolation. We need to think of a prebuild ASAP, as it doesn't look as though we'll be getting any leaders for a while. Perhaps Ta-Tu? We also need to beeline for literature, then mapmaking, and then monarchy

I completely agree on both issues. I'm a TGL fan myself. Although I'm not too concerned about the tech race on regent.

No rest for the weary, Aggie. You're up in CG5 as well! :thumbsup:

BTW, are you in Amsterdam?

hey sorry. I thought i was rejected by you guys and did nto get a chance ot check my messages! Sorry. If able i would liek to participate if it is not TOO late into the game. MY bad.

Originally posted by Aggie
I completely agree on both issues. I'm a TGL fan myself. Although I'm not too concerned about the tech race on regent.

Aggie, if this were a normal game on regent i too would not be concerned about tech race, but remember we have to research every tech as there is no trading at all. Just try to add up all the techs we have to research :eek: add to that that we're gonna be in monarchy for almost the entire game (so no republic/democracy commerce bonus), there will be little time for lulls to build banks/universities in, and that we'll likely have a huge military expenditure, and suddenly the tech race takes on a new perspective. Our enemies have no such restrictions on trade. Fighting muskets with horsemen and rifles with knights, in a game we aim to have loss ratios of (probably) 4:1, is not an exciting prospect. I've done a number of test runs and I have found that even with space race switched off, the tech problem can be quite large, so I would suggest that we consider the tech race as one of our biggest challenges

If this is an always war game, then you really want the TGL. It will be the chance to build up a large block of cash. Early in the game you really will be hurting for cashflow due to unit costs. Having money around to upgrade spearman --> pikeman for horses --> knights, or even warrior --> sword (built in some no iron cities) is HUGE!

Having done several AW games, I put TGL very high on the list.

Nad, you're right about doing all the research ourselves. And of course LKendter is correct: we can use that money.

Yeah same as Nad I was initially not too worried about tech,

Its only regent yeah?

But maybe I should reconsider...

No trading EVER and always fighting :eek:

TGL a must surely...

Melifluous

So? I am trying a warldo game as we speak (the last one i did i forgot to change the settings to warlod) I am ottomans and am in hgue archpalgeio. I dotn knwo if it is HARD or if i have a HORIBLE START LOCATION! No river. No resource. No way off an isald big enough to hold 3 sities MAX and half og it is tundra. But in my "Never give up" motto i am stil playing it (it is real had cuase fo horrible start location.

Am i in? I mean id leik to TRY and if i suck too bad tell em and i iwll be happy to resign and leave the tough ones ot the good players.

sorry widdowmaker, my reply would be the same as Cgannon's in CG5

Just what i thought. Worth a shot though.

Originally posted by cromagnon
BTW, are you in Amsterdam?

How did you guess ;)

PS I was up in K8 as well...

Switched Kazan to settler. I like to expand. Didn't touch the rest...

Turn 1 - 1125BC

Turn 2 - 1100BC Masonry discovered, research Alphabet (in 8). Kara finshed spear, starts settler.

Turn 3 - 1075BC Zzzzzzz

Turn 4 - 1050BC Zzzzzzz

Turn 5 - 1025BC Zzzzzzzz

IT: The Vikings build the Oracle

Turn 6 - 1000BC Zzzzzzzz

Our verteran swordsman gets promoted after aatch by barb horseman

Turn 7 - 975BC Zzzzzzzzz

Turn 8 - 950BC Ta-tu builds temple and starts granary. It doesn't look like the city we need for TGL though (no growth)

Turn 9 - 925 BC Almarirk finshed worker and starts temple.

Turn 10 - 900BC We know about the Alphabet now. Next is writing ( in 16...)

IT: after a new barb attack, a veretan archer gets promoted. Rome builds the Colossus.

Turn 11 - 875BC Zzzzzzz

IT: jungle cleared near Ta-tu. The city grows again.

Turn 12 - 850BC Kara builds settler, start granary. 25 gold from a barb camp.

Turn 13 - 825BC Zzzzzzzzz

Turn 14 - 800BC Zzzzzzzz

Turn 15 - 775BC Kazan finishes settler. Starts another.

Turn 16 - 750BC Tabriz founded south of Kazan. Starts worker.

Turn 17 - 730BC Zzzzzzzz

Turn 18 - 710BC Zzzzzzzz

Turn 19 - 690BC Ulaanbaatar founded. Starts warrior.

IT: We lose an elite archer to a barbarian horseman!

Turn 20 - 670BC We take revenge with a swordsman.

Uneventful, indeed!

Writing in 4. Next tech should be literature. Ta-tu OR Karakorum could switch to a pre-build for TGL. I think it will take quite a while before we leave the island. First we have to get Map Maping (after Literature!!)

670 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight-670BC.SAV)

Yay!

Back to me again...
I'm still grumpy that we cant get map making and expand off the island quick... But I was out-voted 2 to 1 and I will soon get over it...

I wanna kill stuff and this building stuff is gonna give me a headache :p

Melifluous

Got it...
:goodjob: Aggie, boring job well done ;)

Aggie?

Not a valid save game apparently....
Could you repost?
or mail it to me at stevebroad2002@hotmail.com

Melifluous

@ Melifluous: by all means expand off the island quick, I just thought that having a secure homeland was a greater priority! There is no doubt at all that we want tp get off this rock, the only question is before or after the homeland is secured? I think after, but feel free to act as you wish in your turns as long as you are prepared to explain and defend the moves :p

Meli,

I corrected it, I think. If it still doesn't work, I E-mail you and Nad.

And by all means get of the island if you want! It's your call. I was only giving my opinion.... It's only that I really think TGL is great to have.

Aggie?

Link still not a valid game file :(

Melifluous

:confused: I just sent you a save file and will try to get a decent version in this thread...

EDIT: I tried to get a correct save-file in my post, but it didn't work. Nad, do you want a save mailed to you. you could PM me...

OK, got it now...

Turn 1 (650BC) - Ta-Tu completes granary, starts pyramids... You want TGL you is gonna get it. Writing in 3 turns
Turn 2 (630BC) - Almarikh changed from temple to settler.
Turn 3 (610BC) - Science Rate dropped to 40% writing next turn.
Turn 4 (590BC) - Get writing, Science Rate raised to 80% literature in 16 turns. Berlin changed from temple to settler. Swordsman kills barb.
Turn 5 (570BC) - Archer takes out barb camp. We have more money. Up the science rate!
Turn 6 (550BC) - Tabriz builds worker, starts another. Spear moves from Kazan to Ta-Tu, MP duty. Entertainer employed at Almarikh until the road links up the luxuries.
Turn 7 (530BC) - Snoozin...
Turn 8 (510BC) - Berlin builds settler, heads south towards the ivory. Ulaanbaatar builds warrior, switched to barracks.
Turn 9 (490BC) - Eek just noticed a red border accross the ocean. Rome, dont ya just love Legionaries?
Turn 10 (470BC) - Snoozin
Turn 11 (450BC) - Hmm just seen my first barb horseman in the distance...
Turn 12 (430BC) - Karakorum completes Granary, now building horseman. Swordsman kills barb horseman.
Turn 13 (410BC) - Another barb camp dispersed, hmm these things really are helping the research. Literature in 4 turns.
Turn 14 (390BC) - Zzzzzz
Turn 15 (370BC) - Roman galley off the coast of Ulaanbataar. Not sure on the protocol here as they haven't tried to talk to us yet, so I right click on the galley and declare war. Hovd built near the ivory down south.
IT - Aztecs complete pyramids, vikings complete the Hanging Gardens!
Turn 16 (350BC) - Tabriz completes next worker, starts barracks. Literature next turn.
Turn 17 (330BC) - Ta-Tu switches from Pyramids to Great Library as literature has just completed. That was close! Romans land a spearman and settler southeast of Berlin. Elite archer goes south to erm 'investigate' ;)
IT - Romans complete the great lighthouse. They found Hispalis on OUR island!
Turn 18 (310BC) - Elite archer attacks spearman and wins easily destroying Hispalis.
Turn 19 (290BC) - Almarikh completes barracks starts horseman.
IT - Celts complete the Great Library :(
Turn 20 (270BC) - Ta-Tu switches to Library. Karakorum completes horseman and starts another.

And that was that... How far behind in tech are we? Not funny...

Nad you're up...

270BC - Beaten to the GL :( (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight270BC.SAV)

:( Are we sure this is REGENT? Hanging Gardens and TGLalready built? Meli, how many shields did we lose in Ta-tu?

Jeez, that is bad news. Tech situation could be bad. And we're fighting legions now!:eek: :eek:

Tuesday might be more likely for me to play...will do my best

@ Melifluous:

"Roman galley off the coast of Ulaanbataar. Not sure on the protocol here as they haven't tried to talk to us yet, so I right click on the galley and declare war. "

:goodjob: That's exactly the spirit of this game, if it moves, attack it.

"Berlin changed from temple to settler."

Was this the best option? If we intend Berlin to self-build the FP we needed to build it up to maximize the shields. Other cities can build settlers, we don't want Berlin to do this.

@ the future.

The tech situation has increased the difficulty level of this game a notch or two. Not a lot we could do about the Pyramids cascade, that was just bad luck. So what do we do?

Plan A: capture TGL. F7 will tell us which Celt city built it. We research the rest of the ancient tech tree (except Republic), we then research feudalism, monotheism and chivalry (in that order) and we take the fight overseas. Use a Keshik-inspired GA to capture the Celt city and have the tech situation sorted. For this to work we have to pray that the Celts are close to us and we can get there with galleys...

Plan B: we do it the hard way. Research all we can (which will be cheaper as we won't be researching at 1st), build up slowly, fight defensively and advance as much as we can. We can always research the bottom branch of the middle-age tech tree and avoid education. We can always capture TGL late in the game which will bring us up-to-date. Combat could be difficult, however, as we might be fighting superior units, but hey, that's life.

We do have a few things going for us; there are no more scientific civs left in the game (we got rid of the only one), tech pace will be slow as there is only 20% land (hence fewer cities and fewer beakers) and once we have declared on everybody, they will spend a lot of time building units and move towrads monarchy rather than republic/democracy.

EDIT: also conquest is the only condition enabled so we don't have to worry about a ship launch or the UN

Anyhow, we asked for a challenge and a challenge we got!

I think we have to go for plan B first (research the war-techs) since we do not know were the Celts are...... When we know, we can always switch to plan A. Go for it Nad!

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight70BC.sav)

Things could have worked out better...

Inherited turn: science increased to 70%, map-making in 12, -1gpt

Karakorum changed to spear, Berlin to temple, Almarikh to settler and micromanaged to get an extra shield; and Hovd to barracks (this turned out to be a huge mistake, but read on, dear friends...)

IT: a Roman galley approaces our shores, and I will follow it.

Ta-Tu library--------> spear

Turn 1, 250BC - troops move to anticipate Roman landings

IT: Roman galley still sailing

Turn 2, 230BC - science down to 60% to break even. Troops still moving

IT: The Roman galley in the north continues to sail. Another Roman galley appears out of the fog to drop a settler and WARRIOR pair right next to our elite archer at former Hispalis :D :mwaha: :rolleyes:

Turn 3, 210BC - add 2 more slaves to our collection
Our elite sword in the south clears a barb camp netting 25g

IT: Ta-Tu spear--------> sword
Ulanbataar barracks---------> spear

Turn 4, 190 BC - nothing to note

IT: forest chop complete outside Ta-Tu, more Roman galleys approach.
Karakorum spear-------->settler

Turn 5, 170BC - I resolve to get a spear defender in all cities and begin troop shuffle

IT: galleys still moving

Turn 6, 150BC - more barbs spotted in the south-west, troops continue to anticipate Roman landings

IT: I am a FOOL :mad: :( :o :eek: :eek:

The Romans land 2 warriors next to Hovd. Big deal, you say? Hovd is completely undefended. I can't believe I overlooked that, and I understand now why Meli was building a warrior there without even a barracks. In my defence the galley appeared out of the fog, but it's still inexcusable, I should have anticipated this (especially as I generally pride myself on my military strategy in Civ). There is absolutely no way we can defend Hovd, so I will abandon it rather than let the Romans raze it and steal our gold. Very sorry, chaps.

Turn 7, 130BC - Hovd is abandoned. Shuffle troops as best I can.

IT: another Roman warrior lands, but we should be able to cope.
Ta-Tu sword ---------> horse

Turn 8, 110 BC - elite archer vs Roman warrior - we win losing just 1HP.
2nd elite archer vs Roman warrior - same result as above
horseman vs warrior - we win w/o damage and our horse is now elite.

IT: a larger Roman landing, this time 2 warriors and an archer next to Ulanbataar - it sure sucks not to be able to take the fight to the Romans
Kazan temple --------> granary

Turn 9, 90BC - elite horse attacks Roman vet archer - we win, losing 1HP
sword vs warrior - we win, w/o a scratch - just 1 Roman warrior left from that landing

Whip the temple in Berlin, for 2 citizens - I know I advocated building Berlin up, but at size 4 with 1 shield, we need to get its infra built up, in anticipation of the FP being built there - besides, with 2 lux hooked up, we can absorb the unhappiness.

Hire a taxman in Almarikh to prevent disorder at size 6 - lux taxes would cost too much and would bring extra happiness where it's not needed

IT: the remaining Roman warrior attacks Ulanbataar but our elite horse there succesfully fights him off.
Karakorum settler --------> spear
Berlin temple ----------> barracks

Turn 10, 70 BC - move troops


That was not a great set of turns, and the major weed at Hovd was inexcusable, for which I sincerely apologize. This game is going to be very difficult and I think we face a dark hour. However, as long as we stay focused and determined we should be able to win through.

Notes for the next player: a settler and spear pair are on the road out of Karakorum and can build a city where you think appropriate.

We are short of troops, especially spears. As I discovered to my cost, naval invasion is going to be dangerous in this game, especially as all our cities are coastal! That makes every one a feasible target. Unlike other games, therefore, we can NOT afford paper cutouts defending our cities. I know that regular warriors serve as well as elite mechanized infantry as military police, but our troops will be doing a lot of fighting as well as policing, so we need real troops - that means building them in cities with barracks. All settlers should be escorted by a defensive troop (ie, spear) which should defend the city as soon as it is formed (this was part of our problem with Hovd, that we did not take along a defender). Later we should try to get at least 2 defensive units per city, and a few fast units fortified on roads to bring help where needed. Also bear in mind that somewhere out there we have Vikings for company and their berserker is not far away, so city defence, even when there appears to be no danger, will be crucial.

I also suggest we keep building settlers, but not so many workers - I think we can rely on the Romans for a steady stream of involuntary labour :mischief:

Speaking of workers, the south-western part of our continent cannot be irrigated until electricity due to the opposing mountain range, so that area won't be much use until late in the game. The north can be irrigated, so plot the path of irrigation there, and do not mine all the grasslands near Karakorum and Ta-Tu, as we need to irrigate them to bring the mountains into play post-despotism.

If the area of (former) Hispalis does not hold a resource I'll eat my hat - the Romans seem attracted to it like a moth to light.

On a lighter note, has anyone noticed that our home island looks remarkably like Great Britain when viewed from the minimap? :D

Great Britain? (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelightGB.jpg)

Nad, did you think that our little game was a bit to easy? ;) Oh well, let's see how we coop.

I got it and will play tomorrow.

Preturn: no changes.

Turn 1 - 50BC Nothing special

IT: A roman archer lands near Ulanbaatar. Why not? :crazyeye:

Turn 2 - 30BC Map Making invented. Research Code of Laws (to get Republic...). Karakorum switches to galley. Our elite horseman kills the Roman archer.

Turn 3 - 10BC Almarikh finishes settler and starts another.

Turn 4 - 10AD Ulaanbaatar finishes spear and starts another. Ta-Tu finishes horseman and starts settler.

IT: The Romans land two archers near Ulaanbaatar.

Turn 5 - 30AD Horseman kills one archer

IT: Roman archer kills warrior in Ulaanbatar.

Turn 6 - 50AD Tabriz starts horseman after building barracks. A swordsman kills the remaining Roman archer.

Turn 7 - 70AD Darhan founded, starts barracks.

Turn 8 - 90AD Karakorum finishes galley, starts horseman.

Turn 9 - 110AD Ta-Tu finishes settler and starts spearman.

IT: A Roman galley goes north towards our capital.

Turn 10 - 130AD Nad-zad founded. Starts barracks. Galley goes one tile to the east and founds a blue border. America?

Note for the next player. A settler goes south. The horseman with the settler may be better used to defend our nothern cities. I discovered a light blue border that possibly belongs to America. Our next victim. :soldier: I decided to research Code of Laws to get to Republic. A good government type at regent level I would say...

130 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight-130AD.SAV)

@ Aggie:

nice turns, just two things to point out

1) America is not in the game (remember?) - that blue border is likely China

2) Republic is most definitely NOT the government we want - monarchy is the government of always war. If we went to Republic, with us at war permanently, war weariness would kill us, and we would have to have another revolution and waste more time in anarchy. We should be researching polytheism and monarchy very soon.

Ok Meli, you're up. You might begin to see some real action in your turns...

I don't know if republic is THAT bad in a regent game. We've got an advantage regarding 'happy faces'...

And I totaly forgot about the specifics of this game... sorry ;)

Aggie, it's got nothing to do with the level we're playing at but everything to do with always war. Whether this was deity or chieftain, monarchy is the best government for always war, republic is a waste of time.

Lurk mode off.
I just finished a solo game on Regent where I was in a war with Shaka in the industrial age. He declared on me and I had huge WW problems within 6 or 7 turns as a Republic. Of course the fact I was using large stacks of artillery to pound his cities into rubble before attacking and razing didn't help any. :hammer:

Had to make peace or go to Monarchy. Chose Monarchy and wiped Shaka off the planet. :die:
@#*^% whiners. :lol:

Lurk mode on.

Turn 1 (150AD) - Galley in the north spots two roman galleys, hopefully at least one is sailing away. Swordsman in the west defeats two horsemen. Almarikh completes settler and starts horseman.
Turn 2 (170AD) - Two archers land dead north of Karakorum, horsemen sent north to investigate. One acher dies beneath the veteran horsemans hooves.
IT - Other roman archer attacks Karakorum and dies before the might of our spearman. News from the west, our beloved Elite Swordsman hath perished beneath the many clubs of rampant barbarians. We will miss him.
Turn 3 (190AD) - Karakorum completes training of our next horseman, all forces called south as the romans land a warrior and an archer next to Almarikh. Ta-tu completes training of another spearman and begins work on a galley. Scouting ships in the east have discovered the nearest roman city, whose lights shone across the water, was on an island! No chance of reinforcements unless ferry in by boat. And excellent oppurtunity we cannot afford to miss.
Turn 4 (210AD) - Oh merciful Taisen! We have been blessed, for amongst the Company of Elite Horsemen I sent south to see off the roman scum, was a great man. His father before him was a blacksmith and with strokes learnt from the forge, hew the enemy archers limb from limb. One man crashed his horse into the melee around Ogodei and not caring for himself, drew Ogodei to safety. The horseman, Batu, has been given command of a Tendu of his own. We shall raise the Wolfshead standard again and take the fight to the cowardly romans.
And of the roman archers and warriors? We carried their scalps home on our standards, to stand watch outside my yurt.
As soon as we make camp, Ogodei becomes agitated, he must leave, now for Berlin far to the south. He fears rebellion if immediate action is not taken. He jumps onto his horse and with a half bow galloped off into the night. The morning messenger brings news, Ogodie reached Berlin before sunrise and when the sun arose he was standing triumphant on the sacred hill to the east. The city awoke with his giant frame silhouetted in the morning sun. The people hailed him as a god. Work set about on making a throne room fit for such a man.
Forbibben Palace started and rushed with leader...
Turn 5 (230AD) - Forbidden palace built. Code of laws completed, philosophy started.
IT - Bad news from our galley in the east, exploring the roman lands, it was ambushed by a veteran roman galley and sunk off the east coast of ravenna. Also from the west, a barbarian horsemen has ambushed our scout. Our vision has been limited and I fear a trap.
Turn 6 (250AD) - Our archer crushes the horsemen and our settlers continue south.
Turn 7 (260AD) - Settler move west, galley off the coast to the far south.
IT - Roman galley drops an archer off the north of nad-zad.
Turn 8 (270AD) - Our elite archers finished off the roman scum.
Turn 9 (280AD) - Horsemen gathered in Ulaanbaatar. Galley builds next turn.
Turn 10 (290AD) - Philosophy completed started mathematics. Two boats of horsemen head for the roman shore.
Turn 11 (300AD) - Disembark my horsemen on ravenna island. Is has but two tiles of land so if we position 1 troop as well as a city on here the enemy cannot attack us. Also a curious thing has come to my attention, because of Kazan on the west coast, a central lake and Almarikh on the east coast we have fashioned a canal through the centre of our island! This is fantastic news!
Turn 12 (310AD) - Our horsemen kill two spearmen on the island of ravenna and two more horsemen arrive on the next boat.
IT - A roman city appears on the very south of our island, the impudence, plenty of horsemen in the training to curb their arrogance.
Turn 13 (320AD) - Our horsemen are victorious on Ravenna. The city burns to the ground, we scavenge some gold and we sink their galleys. All horsemen, except one lone scout, back on the galleys and back to Ulaanbaatar for the victory feast.

I will hand it over there. This is getting to be fun...

I hope people dont mind
a) Spending our GL on a forbidden palace in Berlin, I thought we had this pegged from scratch so I saved some time ;) Also If we reduce corruption earlier, we produce more in the long run. Quick = Good.
b) Playing 13 Turns :o If this is out of order please say and I will curb myelf in future. But in my defence the game would see an objective I had planned towards and there is plenty more for the next player to do, and hopefully lots to do it with.
c) Blatant plagarisation of everything I could fit in about the Mongolian people. I have read up on the Mongolian history and will try to accurately colour my reports as I can.

Melifluous

Have fun guys

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight320AD.SAV)

The Map (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight320AD.jpg)

@ Aggie: From the map, now I can see why you called that city Nad-zad....:o :o :D

@ Melifluous: fantastic turn, my friend!!! Rushing the FP was exactly the right thing to do :goodjob: I don't mind your playing 13 turns, I said we would be flexible and your play was entirely within the spirit of the game, so no worries at all

Good spot on the canal, I also noticed that a while ago but forgot to mention it. It will cut our ship movement time almost in half to get from one side of the island to the other.

I'm suddenly feeling very optimistic after that set of turns!

EDIT: couple more points

I like the entertaining report, Meli. From your map you're building lots of horses, this is fine vs archers or warriors but if the Romans start landing legionaries we'll need more swords. My question is, have we had any signs of legions yet? I haven't, and I don't think you guys have either. It could well be that the Romans don't have iron. If so, yippee!!!:lol: We can't check by contacting them (one of the variant rules) but if we can explore round their continent with a galley, that may reveal more

@Melifluous: great move to get that FP in Berlin :goodjob:

Looks like a fun name indeed.

@Nad: I called it Nad-zad, because the original name was so long. I didn't like to type in that name in my report, so I choose another: that of our great leader :p

Originally posted by Aggie
@Melifluous: great move to get that FP in Berlin :goodjob:

Looks like a fun name indeed.

@Nad: I called it Nad-zad, because the original name was so long. I didn't like to type in that name in my report, so I choose another: that of our great leader :p

Oh :o :o :o

I thought you called it Nad-Zad because it's at the site of former Hovd, in other words, the sight of my glorious military strategy :rolleyes: :o :D

Originally posted by Nad
I thought you called it Nad-Zad because it's at the site of former Hovd, in other words, the sight of my glorious military strategy :rolleyes: :o :D

That too, but I thought that I didn't have to mention that :)

Anyway. Are we at war with the Chinese already? Or didn't we get the chance to meet them yet after my turn?

Nope never got close enough to the chinese...

Just at war with the romans, and to answer a previous question, I have not seen any Legions yet. In fact the last warriors that landed were an archer and a warrior...
If the romans are still building warriors...

Melifluous

Inherited turn, 320 AD:

my plan in this round is to build us up a little so we can take the fight overseas. The next player should find us in a stronger position and with a stronger empire, and I will therefore concentrate on infrastructure while fighting defensively. I also wish to explore a little so we can learn more of the world we intend to conquer.

Science down to 60% to get +ve gpt. The military advisor says we are weak compared to Rome :gulp: Mandathing is completely undefended with a barb camp 3 squares away! That's 2 moves for a barb horse. Talk about inviting the enemy to burgle you...

Wake up archer in Nad-zad to investigate Virconium. Finding troops to defend the south of our empire is proving difficult, so I'm going to need to build some spears of my own.

A number of build switches as I anticipate my plans. Karakorum to harbour, Kazan to harbour and managed for higher food, Almarikh to granary (this has the potential to be one of our best cities so we need to get it as large as possible), Ulanbataar to harbour, Ta-Tu to harbour, Berlin to spear, Darhan to settler, and Choybalsam to warrior.

I stop the workers mining outside Ta-Tu; that blocks the irrigation path. In fact, the irrigation path is already blocked further south, outside Almarikh, as well. *sigh* someone's not been reading my instructions.

IT: Roman galleys sailing
Tabriz horse --------> settler

Turn 1, 330AD - Virconium is defended by a Roman archer only - our elite archer rubs his hands in glee. We have automated workers outside Nad-zad? That's a no-no. I begin to move galleys out to explore the seas and learn more about the Romans and to bring the Chinese (?) into the war.

Swordsman moves onto a road to be able to protect both Darhan and Nad-zad. Troops move, science increased to 70%

IT: there are loads of Roman galleys around. At least 4 are patrolling our shores, looking for spots to drop units off. Our south must look pretty inviting. It's a race to get troops there before the Romans do.

Turn 2, 340AD - I can only move a couple of troops down south w/o comprimising the defence of the northern part of our empire. This is not good, as we also don't have roads down there. Elite archer moves to be able to attack Virconium next turn. Our galley reaches the border of China, and we declare war immediately.

IT: the barb camp spawns a horse which is ready to sack Mandelathing next turn. *another sigh* There is nothing I can do to stop it.

Karakorum harbour ------> spear
Berlin spear -------> spear

Rome builds the Great Wall. Oh joy, they're in a golden age (having already built the Lighthouse, a commercial wonder)

Turn 3, 350AD - elite archer attacks Virconium and wins, taking just 1 damage. We obtain 12 gold and the city is auto-razed. More moves down south

IT: Barbs sack Mandyshouse, thankfully we only lose 6 gold.
Ta-Tu harbour -------> horse

Turn 4, 360AD - Our galleys exploring discover that China and Rome are on the same continent and both have silks. One day they'll be ours.

IT: Hmmm....http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelightAztecs.jpg

Clearly we're not the only ones doing the fighting. A Roman galley sinks a barb galley. Polytheism researched, start monarchy.

Turn 5, 370AD - I intend to set up a settler trap at ex-Virconium. It's very simple. Stick 2 or 3 military units there on the high ground. let the Romans land settler pairs on the single tundra tile (low defence bonus, and the AI will continually land settlers in open spots), attack and add to the slave collection. Rinse and repeat.

IT: Romans drop a settler and spear on the northern island. We only have 1 horse there, so our chances are not good.

Manlygolf warrior -------> worker

Turn 6, 380AD - If we don't attack the Roman pair this turn, next turn they'll found and we'll have missed our chance to pick up some slaves. Bleh. Sometimes you have to take a risk, so I do and attack. And our horse dies. Oh well, can't say I didn't anticipate that, it was a calculated risk. A galley I held back for just such an occasion picks up a sword to ferry to the island to exact revenge.

Better news, a horseman in the south clears the barb camp, netting 25g.

Oh god, we have more automated workers. Those that were clearing the jungle outside Tabriz start working on the tile now that it's cleared. I am annoyed at this but I wouldn't be distraught were it not for the fact that one is mining the square and the other is irrigating it :rolleyes: :mad: :rolleyes: I will only say this once and I hope that is enough. Please, please, DO NOT automate workers.

IT: Romans found Lutetia on the island. One of their galleys drops 2 archers off outside Mainlygone. We have 1 warrior there which has just completed, and a spear 1 square away which is arriving in the nick of time. I hope this is enough...

Karakorum spear -------> settler
Nad-zad barracks ---------> harbour

Turn 7, 390 AD - spear moves into Muckyground to add to the warrior there. I am trying to find surplus troops to move down south. I cross my fingers that Messygates will hold and press enter....

IT: Romans request audience. In a normal game I would consider this an opportune time to talk, but under the rules of this game, I order Caesar's envoy to be strung up by the larger of his testicles as an example of what happens to those who would even think of peace....

....and of course, Caesar gets his revenge. Both the Roman archers win and Minginggirls is captured. To add insult to injury, a Roman catapult bombards one of our galleys circling the Roman continent - that's supposed to be a HUMAN ploy, you nasty AI :mad: The only saving grace from the interturn is that one of the horses I sent from the north is in a position to recapture Milkygrass in our turn.

Berlin spear -------> spear

Turn 8, 400AD - our horse attacks and recaptures Mintygits! We also get 12 gold, having lost only 3 gold when the Romans captured it. Who says you can't make a profit out of defeat?:D The Romans must be considerably richer than us, therefore.
But victory brings another problem - our horse is down to 2HP and himself faces a counter-counter-attack from the other Roman archer who killed our spear in Mandolinging but who returned to the attacking tile because we also had a warrior. *even greater sigh* the only thing I can do is bring another horse up to counter-counter-counter-attack if the Roman archer should re-re-capture the MGcity. Oh god, this is getting complicated.

The sword we ferried across to the north island demonstrates some Temujine vengeance by defeating the spear and razing Lutetia, netting another 13 gold. Take that, Caesar, we'll make a salad of you yet...

IT: as expected, the Roman archer kills our horse, but....disaster! As Merrygoround is now size 1, it is auto-razed, so we can't re-re-capture it after all :cry: As if to demonstrate that the heavens deride my luck with cities, 2 Roman archers leap off another galley next to Chrybolsa-thingmajig. That is only defended by an elite archer. I couldn't get troops down south fast enough to defend Mangojuice, let alone Charcoalplace. *a sigh to end all sighs*

Ta-Tu horse -------> horse

Turn 9, 410AD - the only chance I have to defend CrazyBends is to attack the stack of 2 archers with our elite archer, hope he kills one w/o too much damage, and then hope he can somehow defend succesfully against the remaining archer. Allowing the 2 archers to attack us is suicide. So here goes. Some hope. We do kill the top archer, but our elite is knocked to 1HP!!! Why do the Gods torment me thus?:(

The horse who had moved to counter-counter-counter attack the archer at Murderground does attack the archer and wins, promoting to elite.

IT: as expected, the Roman archer kills our 1HP elite and auto-razes the city. I did not abandon the city as I previously did with Hovd because we had a chance, albeit minute, that our elite archer could pull a miracle to save the city, but the RNG was having none of it. So another one bites the dust.

The Romans land a spear and archer pair north of Darhan, a much better-defended city. I'm almost convinced now they don't have access to iron, but that seems a meek blessing with all the carnage around us.

Turn 10, 420 AD - our vet sword attacks the Roman spear freshly landed at Darhan (the Romans are now sending vet troops, so they've finally got round to building barracks). What a surprise, we lose, inflicting only 2 damage to the spear. Then, I use an elite archer to try to finish off the spear. He is badly wounded but his determination prevails as he fights back to kill the spear. And finally, as though taking pity on the misery they inflicted on this mere mortal, or perhaps in a mischievous demonstration of the fickleness of luck, the Gods smile on me again.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelightNad::sRedemption.jpg

That archer is Nad's Redemption. Does a leader compensate for having lost 3 cities in my last 2 rounds? I think not, but then in the last round my defeat was my oversight, but this round there was little I could do to avoid the defeats. We had some bad RNG luck at some critical times, and we took a battering in the south because my plea to escort all settlers with spears was ignored. We could not defend our expansions because we couldn't get troops down quick enough, and because building roads over mountains ain't easy. The Romans with their 4-move galleys were simply quicker than us. Though the AI may be dumb in many respects, it has been programmed to spot weaknesses. Notice that our northern cities barely came under threat, though some of those were also only defended by 1 unit. The AI targetted those cities defended by archers or those that were undefended (as Machogarters was 1 turn before the landing and as Hovd was in my last turn), not those defended by spears. Let this be a lesson to us. In always war you must only expand as fast as you can defend. It appears that we have tried to expand without considering what we can defend. As I said last round, please take spears with settlers so we have a defence even when a city is newly-formed.

[Sidetrack over] back to the game, I fortified the leader in Berlin so the next player gets to decide what to do with him (an army would seem the obvious choice). I used a horseman to attack the archer that landed with the spear, and we won w/o a scratch and promoted to elite.

With my luck finally turning I am a little disappointed to be handing over to the next player, but I'm sure Aggie will do a sterling job. Remember what I've said about defence and workers. There are military units fortified across our empire, many with movement remaining, so familiarize yourself with their location before continuing. 3 settlers are shortly due for completion; there are excess spears in Karakorum and Berlin which can be used as escorts for these, but essentially we are looking to replace the cities we have lost. Don't build at ex-Virconium, though - that is where we want to set our settler trap ;)

The horse in the far south-west has been moved there to be able to attack the archer that razed Charlieclowns without himself being attacked in the interturn. That Roman archer is currently standing on the ruins of the city there (you can't see because it's hidden in the fog). But be aware that archer is there, and attack him next turn ( the horse is elite, so be sure to use our existing leader BEFORE attacking, to make sure we have a chance of popping another).

The exploration of Rome and China is nearly complete. The news is good. China has access to iron but is very small, probably only 4 or 5 cities. I don't think the Romans have iron, but they are slightly stonger, dominating that continent and with lots of nice terrain (I've never seen so many cattle as the Romans have got in all my life!) But taking over that continent should not be too difficult, and once we do, and we move our palace across to the center of that continent, we will already be in a game-winning position!

And that's that. I can't think of too much more to add, but will do so if I do. I'm still optimistic about the game despite the setbacks in my last 2 turns, and whatever else, this game is great fun and very addictive!!! Below are a few screenshots and the save.

Hear me now!!!!

The Empire (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight420ADEmpire.jpg)

Our Military (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight420ADMilitary.jpg)

Rome & China (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelightRome&China.jpg)

And The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight420AD.sav)

Got it to play Friday!

Since English isn't my native language, I am not going to try to match both of you in your poetic language. Sorry for that...

Preparation:

Our military advisor suggests that we should be able to eliminate the Chinese enemy. Their military is weak. Canton is an obvious target for our first attack. We could use the incense. The advisor also has disturbing news about the strength of the Romans. We can't match them at the moment.

Our great leader goes north to join three horsemen in an army. Turning it into an invincible unit.

IT: A Roman archer appears just as our great leader Nad predicted.

Turn 1 - 430 AD Army created, two horsemen joined it and a third will follow next turn. We kill the Roman archer with our elite horseman, but no promotion...

IT: A Roman galley appears north of Darhan and drops off two archers.

Turn 2 - 440 AD Karakorum finished the training of a settler. Since we need more military, training of horsemen is ordered. Ulaanbaatar finished a harbor and also starts training horsemen. A third horseman joins our army that is now ready for the battle. 'Nad's redemption' and a second spear join Darhan for defence. Two spears and an archer against two romans should do the trick...

IT: One heroic spear was almost able to hold of two roman archers, but the last archer just survived and killed the spear. A roman galley sank our galley east of our main land.

Turn 3 - 450AD Our army won it's first battle. The roman archer was no match! :hammer: This opens the possibility to build the Heroic Epic, but it's too expensive at the moment (33 turns in Ta-tu). Better wait for another leader... Tabriz finished the training of another settler and starts training a horseman. In Berlin a spear is ready for duty and there also a horseman is the next military unit...

IT: There's word of a barbarian uprising near Berlin. Two civilizations must have entered the middle ages...

Turn 4 - 460 AD The training of horsemen continues. Ta-tu finished one and starts another. Darhan finished instructing the settler and starts the defensive spear unit.

IT: West of Berlin 19!!! barbarian horsemen appear :eek:

Turn 5 - 470 AD Our horseman near the barbarian Stack of Doom flees.

IT: Ehm, sorry...I forgot the screenshot, but....The Zulu are destroyed. :lol:

Turn 6 - 480 AD Nothing much in this turn. Three settlers go south.

IT: From this moment on, things are going to be more difficult, becuase without warning the ugly faces of the leaders of the Vikings and the Celts make themselves known. This insult can only be answered one way: :tank:

Turn 7 - 490 AD We discover Monarchy and go into anarchy right away. The Celts appear to be a mighty power. The Vikings appear to be a worthy opponent, no more and no less.

Turn 8 - 500AD Our anarchy causes starvation in two cities: Almerikh and Kazan.

IT: Two roman archers land north of Karakorum.

Turn 9 - 510AD Is this luck or is this luck? Our anarchy is over and we enter Monarchy! [party] We start researching mathematics. I send two spearmen to Karakorum and let our army defend Ta-tu. Two settler/defender pairs arrived at the south end our our island, only to meet a lot of barbarians...

IT: Two spearmen promoted to elite while succesfully defending Karakorum. A roman archer and spearman land at the same spot... A chinese settler/spear lands on the island near our east-coast... next to our veteran swordsman. :rolleyes:

Turn 10 - 520 AD Meli-zad founded at the south, on ruins of a city that I've never seen.... Immediate danger of barbarian attack though... The city has one spear and two horsemen defending it, and also another settler. Our sword beats the spearman (one hitpoint left) and captures the workers. The workers join a galley to be taken to our main land. Our army beats the roman spearman. And then....with what should have been my last move, I accidently attack the roman archer with our elite spear. :smoke: The spear loses naturally. Sorry guys, a typical mis-click. The horseman finishes the job that the spearman couldn't handle...


I sincerly hope that I didn't make TWO major mistakes in my last turn. Because about twelve barbarian horseman are waiting west of Meli-zad to take out our defenders, kill the settler a rob our gold. I hope you can forgive me... :blush: I had a head-ache and I should have stopped a moment...

I built up the military in my turns, in order to attack the Chinese with Canton as first target. We are in Monarchy now and in relatively good shape. The Vikings and Celts may make our lives a bit more difficult, but that's how we wanted it huh. Nad was already talking about victory in his previous turn...

EDIT: I want to include two screenshots and the save, but somehow I'm not able to upload at the moment. So you have to be patient a bit.

EDIT2: I've tried to get a decent save for an hour now and I give up for the moment. I coyldn't test the save that is attached now. If it isn't correct, I would say that I best send it via e-mail. I've got Meli's, but not Nad's yet... Sorry for the bother :(

520 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight520AD1.sav)

Great stuff, Aggie! A few thoughts:

1) " And then....with what should have been my last move, I accidently attack the roman archer with our elite spear. The spear loses naturally. Sorry guys, a typical mis-click."

I, for one, am glad you did not reload. In general it is accepted in the Civ community that misclicks are one of the few valid reasons to reload, and you were perfectly entitled to do so, yet you didn't, and I am pleased you did not. In my opinion human mistakes make up for human intelligence. The AI is simply a program, and that is why it is often outsmarted by Civ players, because it cannot "think", it can only "react". By the same token the AI does not misclick or move a unit by accident. The human player therefore has a strategic advantage in "intelligence" and should thereby also accept misclicks, because the very humanity that gives him/her an advantage in outthinking the AI is also the very same humanity that makes him/her prone to misclicking! Those that constantly moan that the AI is dumb and easily outsmarted who then go on to reload at every misclick they make are hypocritical in the extreme. (I think what I'm trying to say in my usual long-winded style is :goodjob: Aggie for not reloading!!!)

2) "There's word of a barbarian uprising near Berlin. Two civilizations must have entered the middle ages..."

This is good...we're only about 3 techs behind, not as much as we feared

3) "IT: West of Berlin 19!!! barbarian horsemen appear "

Welcome to raging barbs!!!

"I sincerly hope that I didn't make TWO major mistakes in my last turn. Because about twelve barbarian horseman are waiting west of Meli-zad to take out our defenders, kill the settler a rob our gold. I hope you can forgive me... I had a head-ache and I should have stopped a moment..."

This regent so we have a fair chance of defeating them (especially if the aforementioned defenders are spears)...if possible we should be keeping settlers out of the way until the uprisings are over.

4) You say the Celts are a superpower? Hmm, so they're probably reponsible for eliminating the Zulu and Aztecs. At least now we have contact with everyone left in the game. The fact that our contact was sold to them leads to a couple of conclusions, some of which may have important repercussions:

a) The Romans (with the lighthouse) must have contacted them and sold our contact. By the end of my turn I had nearly finished circumnavigating the Roman/Chinese continent, and there were no coastal waters leading to other islands.

b) Only the Romans, because of the lighhouse, can bridge the continents. This means we don't have to worry about fighting the Celts or Vikings until astronomy, and gives us an excellent opportunity totake out the Romans and Chinese before having to fight more civs

c) If we ever want to fulfill our ambition of capturing the Great Library to bring us up to date in tech, we have to capture the Roman city that has the lighthouse - if we research to astronomy, the Great Library will have expired itself for our use. On the other hand, as we are not so far behind, we may not need the Great Library.

Oh, and off-topic, my email is nadilyas@hotmail.com if you need to e-mail any files to me, Aggie

@Nad, did you download the save in my report and does it work? If not, I e-mail you.

EDIT: regarding the great lighthouse: I hope you're correct. Good thinking! This would make everything a little bit easier.

No, I haven't tried to download it because it isn't my turn, and I'm not at home! If Meli has any problems downloading it, then e-mail it to him (what seems to be the problem with your saves anyway? I notice that you've had trouble after each set of turns. Is it anything to do with different versions of the game?)

Originally posted by Nad
No, I haven't tried to download it because it isn't my turn, and I'm not at home! If Meli has any problems downloading it, then e-mail it to him (what seems to be the problem with your saves anyway? I notice that you've had trouble after each set of turns. Is it anything to do with different versions of the game?)

I e-mailed mel already and he confirmed that he recieved the save. I found what went wrong and I am pretty sure that I can avoid it in the future. It had something to do with the upload.

Yesterday however was different. Everyone had problems. Just look at the site feedback forum. And today I proved that my troubles are over: see CG5 ;)

Right done...
Can I just start by commending one or both of you for the excellent galley scouting of the roman/chinese island. Good work fellas.

IT - A few horsemen attack Meli-Zad, spear there is now elite. Almarikh completes Granary, starts Horseman. According to Herodotus' the largest nations of the world are (biggest first) Celts, Vikings, Mongols, Romans and Chinese.
Turn 1 (530AD) - Zzzzz
Turn 2 (540AD) - Veni-Vidi-Aggie founded on the southern tip of our island, where the roman city once stood.
IT - Barbarians pour past Meli-Zad. Even after several kill themselves at Meli-Zad I can still count 24 horsemen. Berlin completes horseman. Starts another. Two roman horsemen land north of Karakorum.
Turn 3 (550AD) - Two horsemen and archer in meli-zad reduce the barb numbers without leaving Meli-Zad. Elite horseman in Karakorum attacks the horsemen and dies without inflicting so much as a scratch. Damn the RNG. Our army takes out one of the horsemen in revenge.
IT - Continued barb attacks on Meli-Zad leave our spearman dead, but our vet horse becomes elite. Chinese galley off the east coast.
Turn 4 (560AD) - Troops from Meli-Zad reduce the barb horde. Troops moved into position to intercept Chinese troops fresh off the boat.
IT - Barbs kill horseman in Meli-Zad. Spearman and settler land on Ravenna island. Our swordsman there will take them out next turn.
Turn 5 (570AD) - Our swordsman takes out the Spear on Ravenna island, but has only 1 hp left!
IT - We lose a horseman to barbs.
Turn 6 (580AD) - Loads of horsemen complete this turn. After various barb killing acts (including a vicious spearman, attacking out of Nad-Zad) there are now only 5 barb horse in view.
IT - More barbs come into view. Roman galley heading for east coast.
Turn 7 (590AD) - Three more barbs die. Roman workers back in UlaanBaatar.
IT - More barbs die attacking Meli-Zad. Roman galley drops archer and horseman next to Darhan.
Turn 8 (600AD) - We lose a horseman killing the horse/archer. More barbs die outside Meli-Zad.
Turn 9 (610AD) - Troops moving to UlaanBaatar.
IT - Romans drop one horseman north of Darhan.
Turn 10 (620AD) - Elite horseman attacks roman horse and dies. Another elite horse attacks it and wins. 2 more barb horsemen die.

And that was that, troops building up in Ulaanbaatar. Some more galleys due next turn. All I could do this turn was repel roman invaders and try to stem the neverending flow of barb horsemen to the west. By the way the chinese galley is currently sailing down our west coast. Probably heading for barb country.

By the way if we get any more barbs overloads, I would suggest just spending all our money and leaving a city empty in their path, less dead on our part and we lose a few gold. Much better than that barb nightmare.

Melifluous

The Save 620AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight620AD.SAV)

Meli, sorry for putting you in this situation. But when I arrived at the southern tip of our island, I had to do something. Fleeing didn't seem to be an option...

No probs Aggie,

Gave me something to do except build up the military for Nad to take on China... :D

Just saying that next time I come across loadsa damn barbs I'm gonna leave the city gates wide open with a sign outside saying 'undefended city, help yourself' on it...

Otherwise, they kill your units, destroy your improvements, and generally make the place untidy.

Melifluous

!!!

I know how you guys feel about the barbs. At the moment I'm playing a solo AW game with the Aztecs, and the barbs are an absolute nightmare! I'm managing to fight off the other AIs with some ease but not the barbs:o

All I can say is that we should be thankful this is regent difficulty and not higher...

[got it, by the way]

Inherited turn, 620 AD. Implement 10% luxury expenditure to avoid the need for entertainers.

A few building switches: Kazan to courthouse, Tabriz to settler, Berlin to spear duty, Nad-zad to spear, Darhan to harbour and veni-vidi-Aggie to harbour (what a great city name, well done Meli! I was thinking "Aggieville" but V.V.A. takes the biscuit)

Before I continue, 2 gripes, both to do with workers. [Head-bang stage] - in both my last 2 reports I have begged and pleaded for irrigation to be brought north to Karakorum and Ta-Tu so we can bring those mountains into play. In my last turns I had to undo some mining to re-open the irrigation path. So what do I find at the beginning of this turn? Someone has blocked the irrigation path again by mining those squares I purposely left just roaded in anticipation of irrigation. :wallbash:

Second, the great mining project in the south (someone round here loves mines all too much). Aaargh!!!!!!!! Why are those workers mining deserts and plains?!? Those need to be irrigated!!! Nad-zad is a great example. Irrigate those plains and we've got a good city, able to grow at 2 food per turn and producing a fair crank of shields. But someone has mined those plains, so Nad-zad is stuck at size 2 with 4spt. Why?! This is pure weed :smoke: we need to think about what our workers are doing. Thankfully none of the workers are now automated, but if you're not sure of what to do with workers, don't hesitate to ask!

Right, got those off my chest, onward to enjoy the game. I agree with China as our target, but why Canton? It will take a lot longer to get troops there and there is no reason to think it will be any less heavily defended. I think Shanghai should be our target as we can get troops there in 1 turn from the 2-tile island. Speaking of which, we need to get a city on that island as a forward operating base, so I change Ulanbataar to settler for this purpose.

IT: Roman galleys approach, barb horse attacks our horse, we win w/o scratch, 2 more barb horses appear.

Construction complete, start Currency

Ulanbataar settler ---------> catapult

Turn 1, 630 AD - galleys begin to ferry troops across to 2-tile island. I will use the settler asleep in Melizad to build a city between Darhan and Meli-zad to plug that gap and stay away from the barb-infested south. Our horse and Nad's redeeming archer kill 2 barb horses. Stop units that were on go-to

Change Karakorum and Ta-Tu to aqueduct now that we have construction - getting to size 7 is very important - city centers produce an extra shield and gold, we can support an extra 2 military units, and we get a 50% defence bonus.

IT: 2 Roman galleys attack our galleys (I had the foresight at least to unload the units onto the island for this very reason). I need not have worried. Though our galleys take considerable damage, both win and both promote to veteran!
barb horse attacks our horse and we win easily. More barb horses swarm around (I thought the worst of the uprisings were over?)

Chinese galley sinks barb galley.

Almarikh galley ---------> temple
Nad-zad spear --------> temple

Turn 2, 640 AD - Baruun-Urt founded on the 2-tile island, set to worker. Damaged galleys enter to heal. Kill a barb horse in the south

IT: Berlin spear -------> harbour
Tabriz settler --------> temple

Turn 3, 650 AD - misc moves

IT: Roman galley approaches, Chinese request audience, lots more barbs, our elite horse succesfully defeats another

Turn 4, 660 AD - kill another barb horse in the south. Begin to move more troops across to Baruun-Urt - I think we'll need a lot more for a secure beachhead, but I'll see what I can do with the limited resources we have.

IT: Romans drop an archer. As for the barbs...



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

WTF?! I thought that only happened when 2 civs reached the middle ages. The Celts and Vikings are already there, and one glance at the foreign advisor screen shows the Roman and Chinese figureheads are still ancient. Clearly uprisings are not limited to just when 2 civs reach a new age.

Turn 5, 670 AD - Do you think our 4HP horseman can survive this?


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

Nope, me neither, I attack the top warrior and kill it, and begin to flee (those forests help me here, in preventing the barb horses catching up with me)

Nad's redemption kills another barb horse.

Ereem founded to fill a gap near our FP (therefore important low corruption tiles), set to harbour.

Begin the irrigation of the north. We need more workers. I wish the Romans were still dropping off settlers, but as they're not I will have to see what I can peel off.

Send the army to Meli-zad - that is where our front against the barbs will be.

IT: oh sugar! There is not one but 2 barb uprisings. I watch in horrified awe as about 40 barb horses start prancing around. One uprising is in the far south (that's the screenshot above) the other is in the far south-west (that must be the one the military advisor warned about, near Berlin, across the isthmus)

Turn 6, 680 AD - Kill a barb horse in flight back to Meli-zad. Begin the Chinese campaign. I have managed to muster 6 units, 1 spear, 1 sword and 4 horses with which to attack Shanghai, and I load them onto our 3 galleys. I don't think it will be enough, but at the very least, it is a good skirmishing opportunity to see what sort of defence the Chinese can offer. The troops land on the grass tile south of Shanghai (so they are not attacking across the river; I would have preferred to land on the mountain south of Shanghai but that would have meant attacking across the river).

IT: The Romans land a horse. A chinese sword appear across Shanghai and kills our spear w/o taking a scratch. Not a propitious start to the campaign, we now only have the 5 offensive units.

Currency complete, we enter the Middle Ages and start Feudalism.

Turn 7, 690 AD - the attack on Shanghai

vet horse vs fortified vet spear - our horse retreats having done 0 damage to the spear
2nd vet horse: kills the spear w/o a scratch and is promoted to elite!
3rd vet horse - dies w/o scratching the spearman (the RNG is really working on extremes here)
4th vet horse - kills the spear, losing just 1HP, and promoting to elite

We now have only the sword left to use. There is still a spear on top of Shanghai, and I know for a fact they also have a sword there, because it attacked from there to kill our spear in the last interturn. We cannot capture the city this turn and if we stay here we face slaughter in the interturn. So I load the troops back onto galleys and sail back to Baruun-Urt; we lost a spear and horse, the Chinese lost 2 spears and some worker turns (as they all fled into Shanghai when we landed). We also had 2 promotions. All-in-all even losses (though really we need a much higher kill ratio to win). We now have an idea though of what we need for a beachhead - I would recommend 15-20 units, at least 5 of those defensive units to soak up the counter-attacks. Not being able to use our army is a real blow, but, hey, that's life.

Our elite horse kills the Roman horse that landed, losing just 2HP.

IT: the barbs are coming.

Kazan courthouse --------> market
Ulanbataar catapult ----------> catapult

Turn 8, 700 AD - galleys drop units at Baruun-urt and head back to the mainland to await reinforcements. Shuffle troopps to act as MP so I don't need 20% lux just for Kazan. I count 17 barb horses ready to attack Meli-zad in the interturn, and countless more in ther fog.

IT: the barb horses ignore Meli-zad and clamber into the mountains, threatening our workers and inland cities. Jeez, these PTW barbs really are more intelligent. Not even one attacked the heavily defended Meli-zad, instead all headed inland. Though our army made use of its ZOC to knock a HP off a couple of them, this is still very dangerous for us, as we could lose workers, inprovements and units if the barbs start swarming around. So I think I will take up Meli's suggestion and give them an empty city to suicide themselves on. [Off topic - is this an exploit? I don't think so as we are still suffering a loss to the barbs and it would work out the same if the barbs attacked our cities and killed the units; so we reach the same end but save our units]

Turn 9, 710 AD - I spend our gold by rushing the cat in Ulanbataar (the only thing we could afford to rush); we now have only 6 gold left. I empty Meli-zad of military units and invite the barbs in to make merry.

IT: Romans drop a horse.

barbs hit the glue factory. The first one pillages our work on rax, the 2nd and 3rd kill people, the next 6 steal 1 gold each, then about 30 of them destroy work on barracks (ie nothing, as the work has already been destroyed).

Berlin harbour -------> granary
Almarikh temple ---------> horse
Ulanbataar cat --------> cat

The Celts start Sun Tzu's; we're not far from feudalism so if we get a leader in the near future we should make sure we prevent the AI's from getting this wonder.

Turn 10, 720 AD - as there are still 10 or so barb horses outside Meli-zad I leave it empty and switch it to building wealth. We only have 4 gold so we won't lose much to them. If the next player decides otherwise, we have plenty of military fortified right outside that can re-enter to defend the city.

Elite horse kills the Roman, horse, losing 2HP.

Notes to the next player: I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that it's 3rd time lucky that the irrigation projects are not vetoed. :p :(

The cats and galleys are in Ulanbataar - take the cats as part of the Chinese beachhead - they will be invaluable in establishing a beachhead. The rest of the offence is in Baruun-Urt - that's the spot to congrgate in prepaartion for invasion.

There is a settler and military fortified outside Meli-zad. I would suggets letting the barbs suicde themselves but feel free to veto if you want. Be sure to clear the barbs before letting the settler venture into dangerous territory. [In grim amusement I am reminded now of Meli's suggestion when we discovered the first barb camp back in about 2000BC - leaving the camp there as promotion fodder. Still feel the same way about barb camps, Meli? :D :p :D ]

We need more workers, so see what you can manage. Don't build them from size 7 cities though, as we lose the granary effect as well as the size 7 benefits. Somewhere like Nad-zad will be good to build workers once it has acquired a temple and granary.

I like this game even more every round I play. I have spent 6 hours playing and writing up this round, but time well-spent. The game is nicely-poised - eminently winnable but we have a lot to do, as the histograph below shows. I am certainly concerned that the Celts may use their isolation to run away in tech and power, so at some stage we have to formulate a plan to knock them down a peg or two.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelightHistograph720AD.jpg


Aggie is up, here's
the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight720AD.sav)

4 SG's and a single player game. :crazyeye: I got it but this one has to wait. Probably will play tomorrow.

Don't think you're overcommiting, hey Aggie?;) :D

No worries, take as much time as you need, I like to play easy-paced with lots of time in between turns to discuss stategy and options

:lol: This is how my turn started :lol:

Nad, I don't think it's an exploit to have an undefended city...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/workonwealth1.JPG

I didn't change much, only a galley goes to Baruun-Urt island. A short story this time: I did have time to play, but not to write. Sorry...

IT: Barbarians storm the indefended city of Meli-zad.They steal some change.

Turn 1 - 730AD: Zzzzzz

IT: Barabrians, again...

Turn 2 - 740AD: Ta-tu: Aquaduct->horsemen. Baruun-Urt: worker->worker. We must lower science, since we are going bankrupt.

IT: Brabarians party in Meli-zad...stops that nonsense!!! Romans land north of Darhan, with an army of an archer and a horseman

Turn 3 - 750AD: Somehow the horseman is gone. The Romans must be losing money. Our archer easily kills the invader.Kazan is prevented from rioting with a scientist.

IT: Brabarians in Meli-zad again.

Turn 4 - 760AD: Almarikl horseman->swordsman

IT: Guess what....

Turn 5 - 770AD: Karakorum: Aquaduct->swordsman

IT: Ta-tu: Looks like the biggest barb wave is over...

Turn 6 - 780AD: horseman->swordsman

IT: Only one barbarian left. So a settler goes west.

Turn 7 - 790AD: Ulaabaatar: Catapult->horseman. Kara... gets scientist to prevent rioting.

Turn 8 - 800AD: Kazan: marketplace-> horseman. Darhan: harbor->courthouse. Almarikh: swordsman->harbor.

Turn 9 - 810AD: Zzzzzz

IT: The Celts and the Vikings request an audience. No way!

Turn 10 - 820AD: Ta-Tu: swordsman->marketplace. Tabriz: temple->marketplace.

Pointer for the next player:

I got some troops to our island Baruun-urt. Please feel free to settle where you want. We could use more troops and galleys to get an invasion force to China.

820 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Wdelight-820AD2.SAV)

You ought to send that one to screen shot of the day!

Originally posted by LKendter
You ought to send that one to screen shot of the day!

I'll do that! It's better than the one we had today ;)

Good stuff, Aggie. I like the way you're continuing the infra push that I started :goodjob: With a temporary lull in the Roman landings now is the time to get our cities large and powerful. The time to invade Rome will come, and that is when we are ready for our Golden Age (ie, in about 3 techs time). The Romans are now losing money probably because their GA is over (if I remember correctly, it started on my previous turn when they built the Great Wall. It's quite likely that the Romans overdid their military and diplomatic expenditure and are now suffering). Meli is up. Try to get a landing force together if you can but don't worry overly much about trying to take the fight against Rome & China. For now we are doing fine squashing landings; let our priority be to finally settle the remiander of our island and get some infra built: harbours in fishing villages (we have quite a few of them!), aqueducts in our core cities (I think we've just about done these), markets and also libraries (which I think we've neglected so far as we were kind of hoping to get the Great Library). If we get it right, we should be able to use our GA almost solely for Keshik production in our core, and then the Romans and Chinese had better start praying... :lol:

Enjoy your turn Meli!

Erm 'pointers' received and understood.

I will be playing this tonight and am thouroughly looking forward to it :)

Melifluous

Damn man. Good thing i aint in it. In my sp this barb thing. The barbs you got are cake.

Forexample in my SP game i am being attacked on 6 points in my empire. Each point is bout 25 turns apart. (big empire)

Well each wave (each area is on like 9th or 10th wave.) is about 50-or 60 strong and mostly of horseman. I got ONE elite spear defending hte cities they are trying to take. And bout 15 of them are pillageinbg everything. This is what it is liek on a huge map with 12 civs for each of us.

it is BAD. This seems close. But imagne EVERY one fo your cities under attack like your empty one. And only ONE elite spear on it. And no imporvements. And you get an idea of what i am SURVIVING under. NOt getting anywhere but getting by. Each of my cities has walls and i got great wall. They all bout size 10 and i just got fudel. IT is on warlod btw.

And i think it is a bug cause i set barbs to roaming. Maybe i clicked too far down and took raging?



Edit:w00t ONE HUNDRED POSTS!!!! Better make this good.

Damnit i cant think of a clean joke to put in here.

Easy man,

Widowmaker if you have no improvements, just leave your cities empty and try the honeypot strategy...

No more barbs and little loss...

Melifluous

Honey Pot strat? What is that? And i am in like 860 AD and just got the tech for sun tuzu(spl). Plus i wont just ABANDON my citys. I will make a stand "Grab a Sword and fight the Horde!". That was retribution to my lack fo funnie on 100th post.

I wasn't saying abandon your cities,

Just leave them empty, you said they had no improvements, so they can't be destroyed. Also if you spend all your cash you cant lose that either.

Sure you maybe lose a few population points, but the barbs will never destroy a city.

Simple and effective

Oh and on the game front, I got back VERY late from work last night, my 2 hour train commute home turned into a four hour delayed booze fueled nightmare :( .
I will play my 10 turns this lunch time...

Melifluous

NONO my citys got tons of imps. I been fighting the barbs off. They got TONS. I had the whoel acient age to build They just did this in the ast 2 or 3 turns. I got no roads,irrigation,mine,rails ect.

But i got a temple in every city. I got sistine i got all acient age wonders (i now see a good use for pre-builds.). I got every improvment gettable in all my cities at size 10 in monarchy. I got a good 18 cities too. But no workers and about 20- spearmean. I been russhing swords to counter the horses. They ai will be falling behind but i will shoot ahead once i re establish my self. This will run well past 2050 though. So if i win it will be because i SAY i did. I will build all space ship parts or whatever the i wouldve normaly. Even if the game says i lost.

Hey there,

IT - More Roman Galleys heading for our shores... Barb Horseman attacks our settler/spear pair and loses...
Turn 1 (830AD) - Karakorum and Kazan complete swordsmen switch to Library. Ulaanbaatar switched to galley. Catapults heading by sea to our island. We repopulate Meli-Zad again and move our settler north. Hmm curious, Darhan (right next to our FP) is building a courthouse? Switched to Library, damn this city has no shield postential...
IT - Roman request an audience :p Up yours Caeser. Roman galleys (2) move down the west coast of our empire, more workers anyone?
Turn 2 (840AD) - Berlin completes Granary, switched to library. Baruun-Urt completes worker and starts harbour.
IT - haha, barb galley chases both roman galleys back north again.
Turn 3 (850AD) - Batsheet founded on the ruins of our last city in the west, starts granary. Two barb camps nearby, we could use the money. Feudalism next turn.
IT - Hmm barb galley attacks roman galley off the coast of Kazan. Our Army takes a swipe at a horseman as it passes him. Nice!
Turn 4 (860AD) - Feudalism completes, start Monotheism. The science advisor dude says we are technologically advanced! All that fighting with Rome and China must have stunted their growth ;) Almarikh completes harbour and starts marketplace. Nad-zad completes temple and starts marketplace. VVA finishes harbour and starts courthouse. Hmm horseman going north on the westernmost tip of our island takes out a barb camp on a hill. From this vantage point we can see more land to the west... Could this be the fabled land of the Celts and Vikings? Hmm the military advisor says that compared to the Romans and the Chinese we have a strong military. Very Nice.
IT - The Vikings are building Sun Tzus.
Turn 5 (870AD) - Ulaanbaatar completes galley, starts library. Ereen completes harbour starts barracks.
IT - Romans are building Sun Tzus. :o Now we know they have feudalism too..
Turn 6 (880AD) - Killed some barbs, bleh.
Turn 7 (890AD) - Zzzzz
Turn 8 (900AD) - Worker on little island does all he can and rejoins the city.
Turn 9 (910AD) - Yawn.
Turn 10 (920AD) - Kazan builds library, starts horseman (nothing left to build really).

And thats that. Building infrastructure and improvements. Going nicely. Monotheism in 5 turns. Chivalry after that. Then rampage...

Next up Nad!

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight920AD.SAV)

..."What use is a phone call when you can't speak?"

Well, Meli, I think you should have asked Caesar something similar.

"What use is feudalism if you have no iron?"

:D :p

Got it

Title says it all. However, some true action should now not be too far away. Here's the report

Inherited turn, 920 AD: luxury expenditure upped to 20%. Science notched down to 40% to break even. Lots of tile micromanagement and troop MP shuffle.

Kazan switched to Heroic Epic - we need to get this built as an investment for all our elite troops.

Almarikh (which is doing an ugly 9 spt at the moment) changed to courthouse; Ulanbataar is not generating enough commerce to justify a library but could do with a border expansion, therefore changed to temple. Ditto Darhan. Ereen will never be anything more than a fishing village, so the barracks there is vetoed; changed to settler. Veni-Vidi-Aggie falls into the same category, also changed to settler (we still have space on our continent for 3 more cities). Nad-zad changed to granary with a view to setting up a worker farm. And batsheet needs a harbour most right now. Everything else is sorted, and we now have barb prevention units in place (nice job, Meli!)

The land which Meli spotted to the west is very unlikely to be the Celt/Viking continent as there is no sign of any coloured borders there and we've not had any sign of a galley there. It could be a nice little island so I send a galley over ASAP.

Oops, Baruun-urt - its under cultural pressure from Shanghai! With all the military we have in there, a flip would be disastrous! So I move all units apart from a vet sword out onto the other tile of that island and switch to temple to try to gain control of the natural 21 squares.

We now have the option of upgrading swords and spears, but lack the gold to do so as a blanket. I upgrade 2 or 3 units, and any other upgrades will be based on imminent threat.

IT: Roman, Chinese and barbarian galleys sailing (the barbs have more galleys than everyone else combined!)

Turn 1, 930AD - worker actions and micromanagement (henceforth, zzz)

IT: see previous interturn

Turn 2, 940AD - zzz
Our galley heading to investigate the western island makes use of our central canal.

IT: same again
Ta-Tu market --------> galley

Turn 3, 950AD - re-opening irrigation path to Karakorum. sliders to 30-50-20 (treasury-science-luxes)

IT: nada
Karakorum library ------->market
Almarikh courthouse ---------> library
Tabriz market -------> granary
Meli-zad barracks -----------> harbour

Turn 4, 960AD - zzz

IT: minor action as a brab galley ambushes our galley but we win w/o scratch

Monotheism researched, start on chivalry, the good times are coming.

Turn 5, 970AD - the western land is indeed a small island.
sliders to 40-40-20; chivalry in 13 turns but will come down as our gold situation improves, libraries complete and cities grow.

IT: more galleys

Turn 6, 980AD - there is more coast visible further west of the western island; once I have circumnavigated the island I will send the galley thither.
Chivalry is already down to 9 turns, so I suspect that some of our friendly AI's may just have researched it...

IT: zilcho
Berlin library ------> market

Turn 7, 990AD - thanks to our new Berlin library chivalry is down to 7 turns (you can tell how excited I am at getting there, can't you? I'm literally counting down the turns!)

IT: a barb galley reduces the wandering Chinese galley to 1HP but fails to sink it; luckily I have a galley just about completed at Ta-Tu which will assign the Chinese boat to a watery grave

Ta-Tu (the aforementioned) galley ------> pike (we need pikes for the beachhead on the Chinese continent)

Turn 8, 1000AD - new galley heads down the west coast to chase the Chinese galley.

IT: the wounded Chinese galley finally drops a spear off next to Batsheet. Luckily we have an elite horse nearby to offer a rousing welcome.

Batsheet harbour ------> rax

Turn 9, 1010AD - our elite horse loses just 2HP in the process of killing the Chinese vet spear

IT: palace expansion

Turn 10, 1020AD - our galley sinks the redlined Chinese galley

And that was that, brimming with action.

Notes for next player:

The western island makes our continent look even more like the British isles! I have not yet had a chance to investigate the coast even further west, so be sure to do this in you turn.

Many cities are approaching completion of necessary infrastructure and readiness for spitting out troops. We need more galleys and pikes for the beachhead, a few more cats wouldn't go amiss either. Once we have chivalry, start on the Keshiks as well; we don't have anywhere near enough gold to upgrade horses (at 60g a crank) so we'll have to build from scratch. Let the fishing villages provide the workers and settlers we'll need while the main cities work on the troops.

Chivalry is in 3 at 30-50-20 (-ve income) or in 4 at 40-40-20 (+ve income) -take your pick of the sliders (I have left the slider on 30-50-20 for the moment). I doubt we'll have enough troops for Aggie to execute the landing, so Aggie might have to set Meli up for the coup de grace.

Now is also the time to begin mining all the mountains in the north as our cities are set up to make use of them. I have started on some but we need more workers ideally. Be sure to irrigate Karakorum now we have fresh water up there (we only need to irrigate a couple of its tiles to allow it to create the surplus of food to work the mountain squares).

Careful micromanagement is required every turn for two main reasons; the first is (obviously) to avoid disorder. The second is because of all the blasted galleys sailing in our waters (especially the dozen or so barb galleys). Wherever they end their turn, that square cannot be worked by a city and the game reassigns the citizen onto a different tile; however, the computer's reassignment tile is far from the optimal choice so you may have to reset citizens each turn to make sure they are working the best tiles. If you can, try and sink some of the barb galleys to end their nuisance.

We also need to decide between cathedrals and luxury expenditure. If we build cathedrals in our cities we will no longer need the 20% luxury expenditure. However, cathedrals are damned expensive to build, especially when we have so many other pressing needs, so I would prefer leaving luxes at 20% to maintain happiness (most of this expenditure is paid back for by the benefit of having that extra citizen working. At 20% lux with a number of high commerce coast tiles for every city, we should not need any specialists, and I did not have any in my turn). But if you guys prefer cathedrals, then go ahead and build them.

The save and screenshot are below. Note the cultural presuure on Baruun-Urt and the hint of coast off the western island.



Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight1020AD.sav)

Great Britain & Ireland :D (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelightEmpire1020AD.jpg)

got it.

Nothing changed, game on!

IT: Rome lands two horsemen north of Batsheet. That's OK...

1030 AD (1) Ulanbaatar: temple-> horseman. Our elite horseman loses form the veteran Roman horseman. The Army does the job...

1040 AD (2) Tabriz: granary->harbor. Westward we see settlements that probably belong to Rome... The second horseman is killed by our army.

1050 AD (3) We discover Chivalry and I start with Engineering. The bottom half of the research tree is the way to go... Ta-tu finished our first pikeman. Starts....Keshik!

1060 AD (4) Yup, the Romans founded Byzantium on that little island.

1070 AD (5) Almarikh finished library, starts Keshik. Meli-zad finishes harbor, starts temple. Ereen finishes settler, starts temple.

1080 AD (6) Kazan finishes the small wonder Heroic Epic. Starts Keshik. A suicide galley reaches the shores of the Celtish Eboracum...

1090 AD (7) Darhan finishes settler -> galley. Tabriz finishes harbor -> settler.

1100 AD (8) Veni-vidi-aggie finishes settler -> galley. Batsheet: barracks -> Keshik

IT: The Celts are building Sistine Chapel: they're not too far in front...

1110 AD (9) Zzzz

IT: The Vikings also build Sistine. An archer and a Horseman are dropped north of Nad-zad. This town is not defended very well...

1120 AD (10) Karakorum: marketplace -> Keshik. Our elite archer from Darhan takes out the Roman vet archer. Chonamyr founded. Starts spear.

Engineering is 1 turn away from being discovered. Nad-zad is in danger: a roman horse knocks on it's door. Or will it take out a worker? No real pointers from me. Expect for: we need Keshik and galleys!
1120 AD save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight-1120AD.SAV)

good stuff Aggie! Fingers crossed about Nad-zad; if a worker is around, get him safe! Mathematically speaking, a fortified vet spear is favourite to beat a horseman if the horse attacks (but who can tell with the RNG!) - at worst, we could get some horses to Nad-zad to recapture if the Romans do win.

Meli is up

Originally posted by Nad
at worst, we could get some horses to Nad-zad to recapture if the Romans do win.


I already sent a horse to Nad-ad.... It will be there next turn, if Meli permits it ;)

How about it Meli?

Hey Meli, are you around? It's been a few days since Aggie posted his round. I guess you might be busy ;) Anyway, we'll give it another 24 hours, if you are unable to take the game within the next 24 hours then we'll take a skip and you can slot back in to the roster as soon as you are available to play

Sorry Guys,

I forgot to post here saying that I am away in Leeds on Business.
I will be back on Friday (tomorrow) and will be able to play the turn then, if you can wait that long.

Sorry again guys.

Bit stupid of me to forget you guys :(

Melifluous

Hi people,
Would you consider taking on a succession game newbie ?

I can hold my own in regular games on Monarch, but thats it.

Tommy

@ Tommy: you are very welcome to join. Please read through the thread so you understand the game parameters and the strategies we have been discussing. At the moment you are on deck, to play after Meli. We are expecting Meli to post very shortly as he said he can play at the weekend, so after that it will be you. Don't worry about being a newbie to succ games - we all were once! For this game, we ask that you acknowledge when it is your turn to play with a "got it" post within 24 hours of the save file being osted and that you then play in the following 48 (however, there is plenty of scope for flexibility if you have a busy schedule or whatever). So welcome aboard :)

ROSTER

Meli.......PLAYING NOW
Grimjack.........ON DECK
Nad
Aggie
open

Hi Guys! Back again...

Pre-Turn - Scientist at Almrikh changed to entertainer to avoid disorder. Spearmen from Ereen and Darhan moved out to protect our workers.
IT - Roman horseman attacks our elite archer and wins.
Turn 1 (1130AD) - Kazan completes Keshik. Starts Keshik. Granary built at Nad-Zad starts Galley. Veteran horse kills Roman horse. Settler moved northwest ready to build Goldmine town in the North west. Research taken down to 10% to get some gold. Ereen changed from temple to Settler.
IT - Our wandering galley in the west is ambushed and killed by a Celtic Galley.
Turn 2 (1140AD) - Alamrikh completes Keshik starts another. Ulaanbaatar completes Keshik starts another.
Turn 3 (1150AD) - Rearranging troops for MP in the North.
IT - Roman troops land north of Darjan. One Horse, scary.
Turn 4 (1160AD) - Ta-Tu completes Keshik starts another. Vet horse from Berlin kills roman horse, could have used a Keshik, but frankly I'm loath to start our Golden Age yet. Various MP rearrangement.
IT - Romans land 2 archers north of Darhan. Hmm might have to use Keshiks this turn.
Turn 5 (1170AD) - Tabriz completes Keshik, starts Library. Baruun-Urt completes temple, starts barracks. Changed my mind, spear from Berlin moves to Darhan. Veteran horse attacks archers, kills one and retreats to Berlin. Ulaangom founded on Gold to the west of Berlin. Our army can move away from barb watch, and into MP mode. Ulaangom starts harbour.
IT - Roman archer attacks spearman at Darhan and wins. Good job there is another spearman there, and that I moved a Medieval Infantry south from
Turn 6 (1180AD) - Kazan completes Keshik starts another. Medieval Infantry kills archer north of Darhan and becomes Elite. All our size 12 cities have three troops in now. All horsemen (1) upgraded to Keshik. All spears (9) upgraded to Pikemen (180 gold), research starts again. Invention in 9 turns at 30-50-20. Only troops at Baruun-Urt to upgrade now.
Turn 7 (1190AD) - Nothing much going on. Ulaanbaatar switched to galley. Barracks hurried on Baraab-Urt.
IT - Another Roman horseman dropped north of Darhan.
Turn 8 (1200AD) - Karakorum completes Keshik starts another. Ulaanbaatar completes galley, starts another. Baruun-Urt completes barracks, starts harbour. Galleys moves to Baraan-Urt to pick up horsemen, bring them back to the main island for upgrading. Elite Med Inf kills roman horse.
Turn 9 (1210AD) - All horsemen arrive back at Ulaanbaatar, needs 480 for all the upgrades, with a bit of rearranging, we will have this next turn.
Turn 10 (1220AD) - Nad-zad completes galley, starts another. Meli-Zad completes temple, starts Library? Chonamyr completes spearman, starts Barracks. All horsemen upgraded for 480 gold, eek. Research back up to 40%, invention in 9 turns.

Hope this was OK

We have no cash, but 11 pikemen, 5 galleys, 16 Keshik and only 1 horseman not in an Army. We still have not started our Golden Age and there is an Elite Med Inf in Berlin for the continual trickle of roman horsemen. All Keshik are in Ulaan-Bataar, or working in our big cities as MP. We now have 5 size 12 cities and a few more on the way. One settler ordered at Ereen to fill the remaining gap in our island to the west.

Have fun guys and apologies again for the tardiness, damn rl getting in the way of my gaming again :rolleyes:

Melifluous

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/WDelight1220AD.SAV)

Originally posted by Melifluous
Have fun guys and apologies again for the tardiness, damn rl getting in the way of my gaming again :rolleyes:

Melifluous

I don't use the word 'unacceptable' lightly, but making real life more important than CIV3 asks for it :rolleyes:

Thanks Melifuous ;)

Great job on building up the military. Do we need more Keshiks or should be really start the wars?

Got it. A bit late, but I expect to play in a few hours.
BTW, what version of PTW. ? :confused:

Grimjack

Originally posted by Grimjack
Got it. A bit late, but I expect to play in a few hours.
BTW, what version of PTW. ? :confused:

Grimjack

1.14

Yeah cos we is poor dumb Europeans waiting on the technical leavings of the vastly superior American peoples :p

Melifluous

Okie dokie.
Makes me wonder what differences there is in the game, that makes gameplay changes ( I.E patches ) incompatible with different spellings for a few words.....

/Me thinks they should have separated language and engine. But what do I know, I am just a stupid sysadm.
Starting to play now. Will take a few, since I am not used to printing notes while I play. Will also try to think things through before I click.....

Grimjack

Ah tis not the language that bothers them.

I think it is that in Europe they worry that we will hack and crack the game and send illegal copies to all our friends and therefore include a CD checker in the EXE, however in the US they dont care, you pay the greenbacks you OWN the damn game and do what you will with it.

Something like that anyway...

CD copy protection in Europe, not in US hence two versions.

(not including German, Spanish, Italian and Australian sub-versions I think... Go figure)

Melifluous

PS.

Welcome to the team btw, can I infer from your birthday in your profile that you are a more mature player ;)

For the impatient:
Due to someone upgrading all our horses, I needed to use a Keshian to repel boarders, thus triggering our GA. Used this to battle the Chinese.
Here is save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1280AD.zip
Killed some Roman Archers, suspect they are gassed, ripe for next player to get.

Grimjack, what did you do with the Chinese :eek:

Great job:goodjob: I really want to read the 10 turn story...

I tend to get carried away with typing, so this post is somewhat longish.

At 1220AD Grimjack the bountyhunter enters the Palace.
All things is in order, his troops are collected, and the boats are waiting. After inspecting the future invasion army, he notices it is almost entirely of Keshian horsemen. No defensive pikemen, and no settlers to take over after the mongol celebrations cause cities to burn to the ground.
:saiyan:

Will build settlers after building some more Keshians. Continent we are after is after all rather big.
In a surpise exercise, all Galleys are moved one square eastwards, putting them within three squares of Baruun Harbour. Wouldn't want to leave our invasion fleet at sea where anyone might find it.
Every single pikeman I can find is used as MP. Have to build a couple of those later.
Micromanage Darkan to grow in two, while losing two turns on Galley.
Micromanage Tabriz to grow in two while losing one turn on library.

Time to go look for a few more workers, so we can do something about those mountains in the range of our size 12 cities.

Between Turns:
Romans land horse and archer near Darkhan.
Kazan Keshik ->Pike
Almarikh Kesh ->Pike
Vikings start Leonardo's
A chinese galley sails up to our coast

1230:
Use Medieval Inf in Berlin to get the horse. Only thing in range of archer is a Keshian. Use one, and trigger our GA. :mwaha:
Loads the four galleys with 7 Keshians and one pikeman and goes into Baruun Harbor.
Fifth galley was on a goto, and ended up right next to the roman galley. :eek:
After GA is triggered, people seems happier. Micromanage several cities to get rid of entertainers.
Income jumps from 16GPT to +65, invention in 3. I do not see any need to rush invention, so I keep it there.
Micromanage Ereen to grow before settler is done.

IBT:
Chinese galley heads home. Wonder is ROP transfers Lihghthouse bonus to him, as he seems to move a long way. Another roman galley approaches, as do a barbarian galley.
Berlin Keshik->Pikeman

1240AD
Unload first wave of troopers hoping to establish a Beachhead. Some MM amongst our cities. Desert and mountain, not much to play with here. I do think we could build some mines in the desert now, but am not certain.

IBT:
Chinese go
:help:
at the sight of our invasion army and they all go into hiding. For some reason they hide in Shanghai, instead of Beijing..... Shanghai being right next to our troops would be considered a likely target. No counterattack. Perhaps they do not like very very long spears..

1250: or the year of the horde...
It is
:hammer:
time.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1250AD.jpg
Shanghai is defended by spears. First spear goes down
Second spear goes down
first sword goes down
third spear goes down
Shanghai is ours. Having checked with F8, I already know China is weak on culture, so instead of razing, I capture. Gets myself a nice harbor, and barracks to rest my wounded troops in.
Cannot resist target of opportunity. Two roman workers on a mountain in central Rome is captured by a Keshian. Since there is no hope of returning them to our shores, I disband them.
I plant another two Keshians on Chinas iron. Bet he doesn't like that.
Micromanage Science slider for Invention in one.
Shuttle five FIVE new workers back to our shores.
All things considered, a somewhat decent turn

IBT:
Invention finished, going for Gunpowder. ( Not knowing anything else, I will beeline towards Cavalry. )
I look at all the anst scurry around in Rome homelands. They seem afraid of the lone Keshian sitting on their central mountaintop.
Still no counterattack. Some Roman troops that moved into position for a strike on Shanghai, went back trying to chase down our Keshian. Unexpected side benefit.

Karakorum Keshik ->Pikeman
Berlin Pike -> Pike
Resistance has ended
Darkhan Galley -> Settler ( Big cities busy with military. These settlers ought to be finished to the Roman campaign.)
Nadzad Galley -> Settler
Tabriz Library -> Keshian
Ulaan Galley -> Pikeman

1255:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1255.jpg
Sink a barb galley and gets an elite Galley.
Decide to sacrifice Keshian in Rome, moving him to Romes source of horses and pillage it.
:splat:
Kill a chinese spearman w. one of the iron guards, and move him into town for healing.
Heal the four wounded Keshians.
Hurry a pike in Shanghai.

IBT:
Roman archer redlines our sacrifical Kesh, but the Keshian retreats. Chinese sword manages to retake the iron, but is redlined in the process.
Shanghai Pike -> Wall
Almarikh PIke -> Marketplace ( for happyness)
Ereen Settler -> Granary
Chonamyr Barracks -> Galley
Celts start to build Leonardos.

1260:
In a weed move, I forgot that Keshians may move through hills and mountains at one movement cost, so instead of moving my wounded Keshian to safety, I pillage some irrigation and move him onto a hill.
I use the Elite Keshian to kill the redlined swordsman that sits on the iron. Have four Keshians in range of Beijing, which is size 7. Not enough. Reinforcements are on their way though, second wave will land on former Chinese soil in a couple of years.
In my second weed move of this turn, I move one of the two pikemen in Shanghai directly into Romes area instead of onto the iron. ( Accident with the touchpad on my portable. )

IBT:
Wounded horse in Roman area dies to onslaught of archers.
Rome lands two slaves and a horseman by our honeypot.
Karakourum Pike -> Keshian
Berlin Pike -> Keshian
Shanghai Walls -> Pike
Kazan Kash -> Kesh
Somehow Beijing is size 6 now. POssibly due to one of our Keshian eating their Cows.

1265:
Beijing getting smaller, makes me bolder. However the spearman defending takes no hits while redlining my Elite Keshian. Attack is called off, waiting for reinforcements and some offerings of dead goats to the all important RNG.
In another part of the world, a Keshian is moved into range of the roman settlers who are allowed to live. ( I didn't like the odds of an elite archer agains a veteran horseman in woods. )
Doing massive troop movements. Unload seven more Keshians and three Catapults. WIll use Cats defensively, since their move of one will never match the Keshians. Keshians seem to just roll over spearmen. Also another pike is unloaded.

IBT:
After impaling two archers and a horseman, our pikeman who moved in the wrong direction bites the dust. Rome founds a city in our west, right next to our Keshian......
For some reason a spearman flees out of Beijing and goes to stand on the plains in no mans land.

1270:
Time for some
:hammer:
Beijing falls with no losses to our side. Install our wounded Keshians, while those with fresh mounts beelines after Canton, Chinas last city.
Our Keshian raze the city in our western parts.

IBT:
Romans seem to be attracted to us like moths are drawn to a flame. I count five archers, no two stacked entering the mountainrange.
I hereby declare open season on Archers. Since there are only seven Keshiks in range, they will have to compete.

1275:
Rush a library in Shanghai, to get some culture quickly. ( Do not need happines, and libs are three culture against temples one. )
Beiljing still resists, so my wounded Keshians police the streets instead of rests in the barracks. No way to buy some PIkemens either.
I kill the five archers that tried to look threatening. Still no leader. Sigh. Where are all the mighty mongol leaders.
Position a strike force of five Keshians within range of Canton.

IBT:
Chinese archer flees Canton, unfortunately for him, he tried to flee right through our Veteran Keshians. No archer no more.
Shanghai LIbrary -> pike
Ta-Tu Kelshian -> Kesh
Kazan Keshi -> Kesh
Tabriz Keshian -> Keshian
Ulan Pike -> Aqueduct -- May be weed didn't check if it has food enough to grow.
Resistance ends in Beijing, healing our troops.

1280:
With only two regular spearmen manning the perimeter, Canton Falls.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1280.jpg

I will leave most of the troops with movement left for the next ruler to decide on how to use. Suggestion would be to gather two forces of some six to eight Keshians in each and raze Rome cities. ( Unless they contain wonders, we would want any wonders we could get. )

Since Rome got no horses and no iron, we should be able to roll over them with ease.
I do not know if we also can make a dent in the Celts or Vikings with our Keshians, but I doubt it. They almost certainly have gunpowder, so I think we should build some marketplaces and libraries now, so we get to Cavalry faster.
The elite galley is on its way to our western side, so we can ferry over two Keshians and take out the roman city on the small island.
We should probably settle on both of these islands, in case some weird resource is there.

I also hope we will get leaders so we can rush Palace, Sun Tzus and Leonardos. We would want all three of those. I do not know in which order though. All of them seem awfully important.

Have fun
Grimjack

To next ruler:

I have not done any micromanagement of cities, we could possibly be able to lower lux tax, since we now have two more luxuries online.

I also think we should build marketplaces while exterminating the Romans. Troops are enough for the task, and it could be good to use some of our GA for infrastructure.

Grimjack

Grimjack, thanks for the great story and thanks for joining us. You're very lucky. You were allowed to play the most fun 10 turns of the game so far...

It was a couple of exiting turns. Some turns I even forgot to examine cities.

Hopefully at least next two rulers will have fun razing Romans, putting a new meaning to the words: 'Roman Candle' :D

Thanks for letting me in. Especially when I was so late in my Got it.

Grimjack

Nad: you're up!

Yes, cheers Aggie, will play + post in a few hours

This was a really fun set of 10.

Inherited turn, 1280AD: as yet, we only have one new lux online, incense. We need Shanghai to expand its borders to get silks as well. Nevertheless, as Grimjack predicted, we can lower lux to 10% and mainttain order with a little bit of troop shuffling.

BTW, has anyone noticed that Darhan creates a second canal and I use that now as I move a galley across to the western side of our empire.

Found Grim Jacksonville on the southwestern tip of of our continent, start harbour.

The micromanagement is very good :goodjob: Grimjack. Very few alterations are required, mainly tile swops between cities. The only city that really required any attention was Ulanbataar (use those irrigated plains! They are 2/2/2 in our GA, as opposed to the coast squares currently in use which are 2/0/3).

Ta-Tu changed to pike duty, Nad-zad to catapult. Meli-zad is looking a prospective powerhouse of a city (especially after electricity) - with fish, cattle, wheat and iron available, it could be one of our best cities once we can irrigate it. Changed to aqueduct to help its growth, courthouse lined up for it after that.

Why does Chonamyr have a barracks but not a harbour? Switched from galley to harbour (at the moment, at size 4, it needs to use the fish square to avoid starvation; but ideally, Meli-zad, by far the better city, should be given that square. The only way Chonamyr, a fishing village, can stand on its own is with a harbour to work the coast squares). In fact, looking around, I think there's altogether too much building of infrastructure taking place in cities that are pure fishing villages. Baruun-Urt is another example. The barracks there is a waste of 1 gold per turn. Outside of the GA, Baruun-Urt can never produce more than 4 spt (gross), 2spt after corruption. Its hardly gonna be cranking out Keshiks. It is more logical to use these types of cities for catapults, workers, or settlers, and not build infrastructure willy-nilly.

Batsheet changed to aqueduct and Beijing to temple, the galley shuffle begins. Finally, I increase science to 60% (gunpowder in 3, +25 gpt, you gotta love a GA!) and hit enter.

IT: Karakorum Keshik -------> Keshik
Berlin Keshik --------> Keshik
palace expansion

Turn 1, 1285AD - troops transported to Shanghai. I am simply waiting for the Keshiks to heal before advancing against the Romans.
Science down to 50%, gunpowder in 2.

IT: Almarikh market --------> cathedral
Ulangom harbour ---------> temple

Turn 2, 1290AD - 7 Keshiks move onto the hill outside Pompeii (and more are on the way); take the cats with a couple of pikes to garrison captured cities. 9 Keshiks move within striking distance of Cumae.

IT: A roman longbow from Cumae attacks our elite keshik on a hill, but we win losing only 1 HP.

Gunpowder researched, Chemistry started at 60%, 7 turns ETA, + 30gpt.
Shanghai expands, we now have silks online.
We also have saltpeter as I can no longer build pikes (our source turns out to be near Ulanbataar, and we also have another source of saltpeter unconnected near Nad-zad).

Ta-Tu pike ------> cathedral
Kazan Keshik --------> cathedral (the great religious revolution has begun!)
Darhan settler ------> settler

Turn 3, 1295AD - The battle of Pompeii (size 7 city)

vet Keshik vs vet fortified spear (attack 4 vs defence 3.7), kill spear, losing 2HP, promoted to elite
elite Keshik attacks, we win again, losing 2HP
veteran Keshik attacks a fortified regular spear, we redline the spear but our Keshik dies; the Roman spear is promoted
vet Keshik vs 2HP spear - win w/o a scratch, promoted to elite
Pompeii is ours, and I decide to keep it; the 4 resistors are compensated for by an intact barracks and aqueduct; set to build temple.

Instead of fortifying our troops in Pompeii, I decide to press on and 8 Keshiks head towards Rome - the plan is to grasp the nettle by taking out their capital and then mopping up around it.

Battle of Cumae (size 5, but on a hill. We have to be thankful that the AI is disinclined to build walls, because the Romans also have the Great Wall)

veteran Keshik vs vet fortified spear (attack 4 vs defence 3.5), we win losing 2HP.
The next spear is only a regular so I attack with our 4/5 elite Keshik in a leader potshot; we win, but no leader. Cumae is captured with 4 resistors, but 4 slaves and intact barracks, harbour and aqueduct make up for those. Set also to temple
Again, no rest, move 7 Keshiks towards Veii

Despite silks being online, we still need 10% luxury expenditure to avoid specialists (the cathedrals I've started should soon negate that, however).

Upgraded 2 pikes to muskets on the front lines, at Pompeii and Shanghai.

IT: Roman longbow from Veii attacks one of our Keshike; despite the odds being attack 4 vs defence 2.2, the RNG is extremely favourable; we are redlined but win and promote to elite!

Berlin Keshik ----------> cathedral
Nad-zad catapult ---------> settler
Tabriz Keshik ----------> cathedral

Turn 4, 1300AD - do some pillaging near Rome as troops move into position.

Battle of Veii (size 9 city)

vet Keshik attacks vet fortified spear - we are redlined but win
2nd Keshik vs spear - win w/o scratch, promote to elite
3rd Keshik vs spear - the other extreme, Keshik dies w/o scratching spear, spear promoted to elite
4th Keshik vs elite spear - Keshik redlined but wins. Veii is ours, 6 resistors (ouch!) - I am keeping the cities rather than razing as I think the Romans are gassed and we can blitzkrieg them to minimize flip risk; Veii's courthouse and aqueduct are intact, set to build temple

Looking around, I think Pompeii is where we will want to move our palace to.

IT: Karakorum Keshik -------> temple (need temple to build cathedral)
Veii quells 2 resistors but riots
Baruun-Urt pike ---------> settler
Chonamyr harbour ---------> worker

Turn 5, 1305AD - Battle for Rome (size 11)
vet Keshik attacks vet fortified spear - we redline the spear but the Keshik dies
2nd vet Keshik vs spear - win, losing 2HP
3rd Keshik vs spear - Keshik retreats, having done 0 damage to the spear
4th Keshik - dies, having done only 1 damage to spear
5th Keshik kills spear, losing only 1HP in process
6th Keshik redlines spear but dies
7th Keshik is redlined but defeats the spear and is promoted to elite
8th Keshik kills spear, losing 2HP
The Romans now have a 1/4 spear on top, so I attack with an elite Keshik - we win, but no leader
Finally, the Romans have another 1/4 spear, and our 10th Keshik kills it to claim the city, and is promoted to elite (jeez, that took a lot of effort!) Rome has 9 resistors but 3 wonders! We now control the Lighthouse, Collosus and Great Wall. Rome also has a barracks. Set to build a temple to instil some Mongolian culture

Troops are shuffled to get some fresh Keshiks to the front lines while the others heal.

I have started the irrigation path from Shanghai - it is important that we do not block this path - both Beijing and Canton require a lot of irrigation.

The capture of the lighthouse means we can now take the fight to the Celts and Vikings when we finish with the Romans.

IT: Rome riots as resistors are quelled.
Beijing temple --------> granary
Cumae and Pompeii riot as resistors are quelled (I think the problem is that as soon as a resistor is quelled, the computer auto-assigns him to work the land, but this extra unhappy citizen sends the city into disorder; I think I'll have to compensate by making sure we have extra happy faces in each captured city, using entertainers if needed)
Melizad aqueduct ----------> courthouse

Turn 6, 1310AD - Battle of Antium (size 5, but on a hill)

start by bombarding with 3 cats; 2 miss, the other takes 1HP off spear.
vet Keshik attacks and wins, losing 1HP
Antium now only has the 3/4 spear on top so I attack with an elite Keshik in the hope of a leader - some hope, as our Keshik only does 1HP damage to the spear and dies! The Roman spear is promoted.
I use another elite Keshik to attack the 3/5 spear - we win losing 2HP, Antium is captured with 2 resistors, an aqueduct and a harbour; set to temple

Thanks to the capture of Antium I can now also attack Pisae this turn with 3 Keshiks I have available - I would estimate that there are only 2 spears defending Pisae, so I go for it

Battle of Pisae (size 3)
vet Keshik attacks fortified vet spear - Keshik retreats having done 2HP damage to spear
The next spear is a regular, so an elite Keshik takes it out, losing only 1HP.
Another elite Keshim attacks the Roman 2/4 spear, we win losing 2HP. Pisae is ours, 2 resistors, harbour intact; set to build temple.

Neapolis is the only city left on the main continent, and there is Byzantium on the far western isle left to take out now. Troops are shuffled.

Atlay founded on 1st western isle, set to temple

IT: many resistors quelled in the ex-Roman towns
Batsheet aqueduct ---------> temple
Chonamyr worker ---------> worker
palace expansion

Turn 7, 1315AD - Battle of Neapolis
vet Keshik vs fortified vet spear - we lose, doing 0 damage, spear promoted to elite. :(
elite Keshik vs elite spear - we lose 2HP but kill the spear and ...



http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1315ADLeader.jpg


Neapolis is ours with 3 resistors, an aqueduct and a harbour.

After much deliberation I decide to use the leader for Sun Tzu's: instant barracks on the second continent, and more importantly, denial of Sun Tzu to the Celts and Vikings (who appear to be on one huge continent). I seriously considered moving the palace as well but I think that can wait for the next great leader. I did not consider Leonardo's in the same bracket, as I think Leonardo's would be nice but is nowhere near as important as Sun Tzu's or the palace shift for a new 2nd core. So Neapolis is set to Sun Tzsu's and rushed.

2 Keshiks unloaded at Byzantium, the last Roman city on the western isle.
Begin the relocation of troops to the west of our home continent.

IT: Shanghai pike ----------> granary
Neapolis Sun Tzu -------> worker
Pompeii riots again following resistor quelling
The Celts and Vikings cascade to Copernicus/Leonardo's

Turn 8, 1320AD - Sell the self-built barracks on the 2nd continent
Troops shuffled and the last hurrah for the Romans

Battle of Byzantium (size 1)
Our veteran Keshik is redlined but defeats the regular Roman spear and is promoted. Thanks to the 1 turn it was capital, Byzantium is not auto-razed. Set to temple. We sing goodbye to Caesar.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelightRomanHistory.jpg

A galley is dispatched to explore round the Celt and Viking continent

Science down to 50%

IT: Viking and Celtic galleys converge on Byzantium - I had forgotten that cascading to Copernicus meant they now had Astronomy. This means that we can expect many waves of Celt and Viking landings as they will both be fresh from their lack of action - the real warring has only just begun!

Chemistry researched, start on Metallurgy
Karakorum temple -------> cathedral
Nad-zad settler -----------> settler
Veni-Vidi-Aggie galley -----------> galley

Turn 9, 1325AD - troops are shuffled

There are a few gaps on the 2nd continent where the settlers being trained can go. They should be used to redeem wasted tiles (eg, 2 squares directly east of Canton redeems wasted desert, mountains and whale, and also a city between Cumae/Beijing/Shanghai).

IT: the Vikings drop 1 horseman on the hill next to Byzantium
Ulanbataar aqueduct ----------> granary

Turn 10, 1330AD - our 4/5 Keshimk attacks the horse next to Byzxantium and wins w/o scratch

Troops are shuffled

Notes for the next player:

Watch out for beserkers! If you see a Viking galley, assume the worst and try to get adequate defence into cities. We also need to set up some ship traps for when the Celts and Vikings begin heavier landings (eg, with caravels). A ship trap is very simple - packs of catapults to redline enemy ships travelling along our shores, with galleys waiting in cities ready to sink redlined ships and retreat to safety without risk of counterattack (the Great Lighthouse will be very useful for this).

On the 2nd continent, I am congregating troops in Shanghai for them to be picked up and returned to the main continent. On the home continent, I have been directing troops to Ulangoom on the western tip. There, they can be picked up by galleys so we can defend those western islands and set sail for the Celts/Vikings when we are ready. We need to continue the troop reorgonization I have begun, to get cities defended by pikes and muskets, to build up a force of cat's to bombard ships and more dangerous landings, to keep enough Keshiks on each continent to pick off landings that might occur, and to get surplus troops over to the west.

The settler near Atlay should found a city where he is standing next turn.

Try to keep core cities producing round spt. At the moment I have configured a number of cities to produce around 15 net spt (Karakorum, Almarikh, Tabriz), and others at 20 net spt (Berlin, Kazan). This is to reduce waste - there is noting more frustrating than a city which produces 19 net spt. In these instances, swop tiles between cities to get to a round figure. Keshiks and muskets cost 60 shields, galleys cost 30 shields, and cat's cost 20 shields (cannon cost 40, once we acquire Metallurgy in a few turns). Thus 15 or 20 really is the optimal spt (the end of the GA may mean we are realistically looking at 10 or 15 spt).

Our military advisor informs us we are strong against the Vikings and average against the Celts, so we have nothing to fear. We can expect the initial landings to be quite strong, but once we have knocked off their surplus offensive units, we can plan landings of our own. Interestingly, at the moment we have exactly 0 military expenditure - we are allowed 78 units upkeep for free, and we have exactly 78 units, so we are in good shape to adjust when our GA ends. Once cathedrals are complete in the core, we can set luxury expenditure to 0, and begin cranking out more troops.

Below are a few screenshots - notice how sharply our power rating has increased in the last 50 years on the histograph.

8 militaristic civs started the game, only 3 survive - who will be next to bite the dust?

Mongolian Power (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1330ADPower.jpg)

The Western Empire (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1330ADWest.jpg)

The Eastern Empire (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1330ADEast.jpg)

The Saved Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1330AD.sav)

Woops, thought it would take longer to take down the Romans. The mongolian horde is awesome.

A small note to next leader. Since this ought to be the last turn of our GA, you might do well to increase lux taxes, as when GA ends, you will not get as many gp towards happiness.
This has often caused unrest in my larger cities.

Grimjack

got it

EDIT: You're right Nad. It toaly forgot that two other civs were killed by the Celts or Vikings... Wow, that changes things :)

Forgive me for this short report, but I have a lot of other civving to do...

Turn 1 (1335 AD) Kazan: catherdral->musketman. Baruun-Urt: settler->catapult. Chonamyr: worker->catapult. Uliastay founded.

IT: A Cetlic horseman and and Viking archer/horseman pair land on the island of Byzantium. Our galley war west is sneak attacked and sinks...

Turn 2 (1340 AD) Berlin: cathedral->musketman. The elita Keshik outside of Byzantium kill the viking archer and then flees into the city, heavily wounded.

IT: Our brave Keshik a Byzantium survives two attacks and rightfully gets promoted to elite. The Celts don't give up easily however and land a horseman, a spear and two archers.

Turn 3 (1345 AD) Our golden age ends. Lux to 10%, science to 50%. Metallurgy in 3 turns... Two Keshiks manage to kill a spear and an archer, but have to wait if they hold Byzantium until reinforcement comes in...

IT: The Celtic horseman kills a Keshik in Byzantium. The archer fails doing that. Byzantium is not lost yet...

Turn 4 (1350 AD) Almarikh: cathedral->Keshik. Meli-zad: courthouse->Keshik. Grim Jacksonville: harbor->galley.

IT: The vikings launch a berserk attack:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelightberserk.JPG
Byzantium is not our city anymore.... The Vikings finish Sistine.

Turn 5 (1355 AD) Kazan: musketman->Keshik. Tabriz: cathedral->Keshik. Namegraag founded. Starts catapult. Our galleys headed for Byzantium retreat. Those berserk are to strong and landing next to them makes no sense. Better wait for cavalry or lots of units. Science to 40%: matallurgy in 1. Lux to 0%. We make 95 gpt.

Turn 6 (1360 AD) Metallurgy is researched and we start Military Tradition (due in 8 with science to 70% and -5 gpt). Ta-tu riots...sorry... Ha-ayrag founded. Starts catapult.

Turn 7 (1365 AD) Quiet turn. Science to 60% and +24 gpt now.

Turn 8 (1370 AD) Berlin: musketman->Keshik. Cumae: temple->cannon. Neapolis: worker->worker. Pompei: temple->cannon.

IT: The Celts finish Copernicus. The also landed a pike and to med infantry north of Uliastay.

Turn 9 (1375 AD) Beijng: granary->musketman. Kazan: Keshik->cannon. atsheet: temple->musketman. Two Keshik redline against a Celtic pike and med infantry. One retreats and the pike survives. But the last Keshik kills the pike and gets promoted.

IT: The last Celtic medieval infantry kills the elite Keshik. Viking galley spotted north of Atlay. We have a lot of troops in Ulaangom to intercept however...

Turn 10 ( 1380 AD) Nad-zad: settler->cannon. Meli-zad: Keshik->Keshik. A couple of galleys with Keshik moved into Atlay
1380 AD save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1380AD.SAV)

Originally posted by Aggie
IT: The vikings launch a berserk attack:
Byzantium is not our city anymore....

And we all know what this means... Viking Golden Age... :(

Thats all we need ...

Unless of course the Vikings have already used their Golden Age against the other poor unfortunates they kills, this however is unlikely.

They musta been wetting themselves laughing when we got byzantium and they got navigation :rolleyes:

Melifluous

PS. BTW good job Aggie, Nad (Rome killer) and GrimJack (China killer)

:goodjob:

PPS. I have the save but it might have to be lunchtime tomorrow when I play, OK?

You went AWOL on us Melifluous ?

Damn I'm sorry, work and stuff again. :rolleyes:

Am playing it now, will update y'all in about an hour, or as long as it takes.

Melifluous

And here we go...

IT - Med Inf attacks Uliastay raises one of our Keshik to Elite, no damage.
Turn 1 (1385AD) - Ta-Tu completes Cathedral -> Keshik. Almarikh Keshik -> Keshik. Tabriz Keshik -> Keshik. Ulaanbataar Granary -> Library. Uliastay Worker -> Harbour.
IT - Vikings drop a horseman north of Uliastay. Celts drop 2 knights NW of Uliastay.
Turn 2 (1390AD) - Kazan cannon -> cannon. Keshik in Uliastay attack killing all three, losing a single veteran Keshik. No leaders :( Ferried two more Eilte Keshik from Ulaangom to Atlay.
IT - Celts drop knight, med inf and pikeman north of Uliastay. Vikings drop 4 horsemen NE of Grim Jacksonville. :eek: Call in the Army ;)
Turn 3 (1395AD) - Shanghai granary -> Temple. Darhan settler -> settler. Our troops kill the Vikings horsemen with the loss of one vet keshik. Our troops also kill the Celts with no loss of life, although some healing is in order.
Turn 4 (1400AD) - We have military tradition :) -> Theology. 4 Turns at 50%. Veii Temple -> Granary. Baruun-Urt cannon -> galley. Kazan switched to Military Academy. Ulaangom switched from temple to barracks.
IT - Vikings drop a warrior? and an archer? north of Atlay. Guess they are having a rough time of it with the Celts. Celts complete Leonardos workshop.
Turn 5 (1405AD) - Ulaangom barracks -> temple. Worker completes road from Uliastay to Atlay. Now troops can move freely from one to the other to attack invaders. Nice. 8 vet Keshik upgraded to Cavalry in Ulaangom at 40 gold each. I aint upgrading Elite Keshik.
Turn 6 (1410AD) - Berlin cavalry -> musketman. Cumae cannon -> musketman. Harbour hurried in Uliastay. Atlay switched to barracks.
IT - Vikings drop horseman and archer north of Chonamyr. Celts drop 2 longbowmen and a pikeman north of Atlay.
Turn 7 (1415AD) - Beijing musket -> cavalry. Pompeii cannon -> musket. Atlay barracks -> temple. Uliastay harbour -> worker. We now have access to resources on the little island. Keshik attack the Celts on our island, I lose one elite Keshik, but ...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelightMeliLeader.jpg

Put on an Elite Galley and sent to Rome! Upgrade 2 vet Keshik in Atlay. Cavalry on the mainland take out the Viking troops. Theology Next Turn.
Turn 8 (1420AD) - Complete Theology -> Education. 4 turns at 50%. Karakorum cathedral -> cavalry. Neopolis Worker -> Temple. Tabriz cavaltry -> cavalry. Meli-Zad cavalry -> Musket. Melifluous' Delight (My Elite leader making Keshik) gets himself upgraded to Cavalry. Keep an eye out for him in the Future...
Turn 9 (1425AD) - Send a galley west of Grim Jacksonville to find out where all these bloody viking galleys keep coming from.
IT - Good Grief! Vikings drop 2 Archers and a spearman north of Uliastay. THEN the damn celts drop three Caravels of troops north of Atlay. 3 pikes, 2 knights, 2 med inf and an archer? We have 3 cavs, 2 keshik and a horse in Atlay and 2 keshik in Uliastay.
Turn 10 (1430AD) - Ta-Tu cavalry -> cavalry. Almarikh cavalry -> cavalry. OK I load my 10 cavalry into galleys at Ulaangom and they just make it inside Atlay. Now in Atlay we have 13 vet cavalry, 2 elite Keshik and an Elite horseman (dont ask about the horseman, maybe he will get to fight the archer?)
Big finale!
1st - vet cav vs vet pike. Win, no loss of hp
2nd - vet cav vs vet pike. Win, lost 1 hp.
3rd - vet cav vs vet knight. Win, no loss of hp, promoted to Elite.
4th - vet cav vs vet knight. Win, no loss of hp.
5th - vet cav vs reg pike. Win, no loss of hp.
6th - vet cav vs vet med inf. Win, no loss of hp.
7th - vet cav vs vet med inf. Loss?... took the bar steward down to 1 hp.
8th - vet cav vs vet spear. Win, no loss of hp.
9th - vet cav vs reg archer. Win, no loss of life.
10th - vet cav vs med inf (1hp)Win, no loss of life.
11th - vet cav vs reg archer. Win, no loss of life, promoted to Elite.
12th - vet cav (Melifluous' Delight) vs reg archer. Win, no loss of life.

Yay! lost one cavalry but they are dead. So that was fun. Education in two, leader makes it to rome in about 4 or 5 turns. His galley is just north east of Darhan. Most cavalry in Atlay or Uliastay. All galleys in Atlay, except leaders ship and one suiciding west of Grim Jacksonville trying to find out where most of the Vikings are coming from. Most Celt caravels come from the North of Atlay. We have enough troops there now to repel ANY invasion I reckon if the above results continue. Military Academy building in Kazan, change this if its a stoopid idea.
Education in 2 turns, it wont go any quicker and we are at +49 gpt.

GrimJack you're up.

The save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1430AD.SAV)

excellent turn, Meli, just two questions for the team

1) should we continue research or are we pinning some hope on capturing the Great Library? It's decision time cos education is due in a couple of turns! We've researched the bottom branch of the tech tree and the top branch will not make any new units available to us. We don't even need the ship techs as we've got the Lighthouse. Since we can take the fight abroad now, we could switch research off completely, run all cash and use it to upgrade/rush projects. I would doubt that the Vikings and Celts will run away with science and we probably have 50 turns til rifles begin to appear (those could be famous last words....) So should we just go for broke and go all military to win the game pre-industrial? And if the game does linger, we could then capture the library to bring us up to date. On the other hand, as we are researching at last, techs cost 1/3 for us as they do for the Celts, and as we saw in Meli's turn, we can get stuff in 4 turns running only 50% science. So which option should we choose?

2) Do we have an opinion on where our palace should be moved to? I suggested Pompeii, Meli suggested Rome. There is little difference between the options...Rome is presently the more powerful city (loads of cattle) and it has the Colossus; Pompeii has more potential as a city (it has access to silks squares and mountain squares, meaning it will be an industrial powerhouse) and it is more central. Either option is fine (in fact, Pompeii and Rome are only a few squraes apart) but it is one of those things we should definitely have team input on. So what do you think?

Nad,

point 1: great idea! We can switch off the research completely
point 2: both are fine with me. Rome is a super city and Pompeii is more in the centre of the continent.

Got it.

As to palace, I am leaning on Rome, since we are more in need of money, than shields if Pompeii is far from the front. Thus using the Rome/Chinese continent to fuel rushings on our and the Celts/Vikings continent.
Since we have cavs, I see no reason not to wring the last drop of usefulness out of them. If/when opposition gets Rifles, then we will still probably have time to research to tanks.
Will go minimum tech though, see if I can go banking for some money.

Grimjack, it's not so much about min science as no science. In fact to run min science would be the worst of both worlds - as our research would be slow yet we would expire the Great Library from ever being of use. Remember, once we have education, we will get no use from the Great Library should we capture it. So either we stop research completely to prevent getting education or we carry on as we are. Either way, I don't mind, I'm just tossing out ideas. Do what you think best in your turns and I'm sure we'll do great!;)

I have checked out the save now. Not started to play though.
Pompeii have better potential both moneywise and shield wise, so I would rather use that as Palace.
I think we are short boats though, so we could really use caravels from Navigation. ( With what we have, we cannot move more than half our army. )
I will sleep a couple of hours now, before playing. Unless I hear otherwise, I will play a builders game, having as goal to place a couple of Caravels in a good position for our army to use. ALso get a few Cannon and Muskets to our staging area, so that we do not have to use our Cavalry for defense.
Anyone have any idea if AIs are stuck in Monarchy like we are ?

@Grimjack: the military advisor screen will show you what governments the other 2 civs are in. The variant in this game is that we cannot contact the other civs to find out their situation but we can, of course, look at our own advisor screens...

Also, wrt the strategy you propose, I can see no problems with that at all. Just be aware that caravels come with astronomy, not navigation. Also, don't be too concerned about shipping our existing army - horses ain't gonna set the world alight. OTOH, once the Military Academy completes, we need to transport armies we build BEFORE filling them (an army with 3 units counts as 4 units for shipping purposes, so even caravels are no use for full armies; after the Pentagon, full armies count as 5 units so not even galleons would help for transportation). Thus when we have the academy, build armies, transport them to where we need them (most likely the Celt/Viking continent) and then fill them with whichever unit we have (cavalry make a great army - 3 attacks!!!; infantry armies are also great if we get that far. I'm not a huge fan of rifle armies or mixed armies. Also, veteran units should be used to fill armies, elites are too valuable in giving us the chance to pop leaders.

This is for the impatient, writeup will follow.

Zerks strike at coastal cities not defended by vet Muskets.
Small invasion beat back, no leaders in spite of 7 elite attacks.
Palace moved to Pompeii. Infra push advanced in Rome lands, and expect to reap benefits in a couple of turns.
Galleys now Caravels, and most in position for loading troops.

Here there be a save. http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1480AD.sav

Note, most of troops have movement left, wanted next leader to decide if we should invade now, or if we should wait for Celts to unload first.

Short writeup, since I am somewhat pressed for time...

Plans were build Palace in Pompeii, and increase defenses in coastal cities in expectation of Viking Zerk attacks. Also, make sure next player had a decent invasion force and enough shipping to transport entire force.

Since Great Library city is not amongst those cities known to us, I think the gamble of us reaching it before Cavalry is outdated is to big, so I continue researching Education, going for Caravels next. ( Astronomy. ) After Astronomy start researching Banking at low speed so that we can eventually get Smiths, which would be a great wonder for moneystarved Monarchies.

Preturn: Switch Karakourum and Ta-Tu to Courthouses. They will need it after Palace is moved.
Start to draw forces from Karakourum area towards Grim area in expectation of Zerker attacks. Move around some tiles to shave of a few turns on production in our larger cities.
Notice that Veii is running a 10 food surplus. This will likely be used to produce workers as soon as I can get a stable happines situation in people rich Roman lands.

IBT: Ereen Gran->Musket, BatSheet Musket->Musket, Ulia Musket->Coastal Fortress ( Primary zerk target.) Galley in ocean sinks.

1435(1) Upgrade Nad archer->Longbow.
Check with advisor, both Celts and Vikings are in republics. How can they cope with war weariness ???

IBT: Edu -> Astronomy(5) Berlin Musket->Musket

1440(2) Upgrade obsolete warriors to muskets on western coast. Running food shortage in Ta-Tu for a couple of turns. Hurry a galley in Grim to check if any Vikings are trying to sneak in on our belly. I do not like the quiet. Rent tax collector in Cumae

IBT: A single Celtish Knight lands on our small island
Grim Galley -> Cannon

1445(3): Elite Cav eliminates Knight :slay:

IBT: Pompei Granary->Palace Melizaad Musket->Musket Baruun Galley->Musket, Chonameyr Cannon->Musket

1450(4): Scout with some galleys, rest move into harbour for pending upgrade. Have two defenders in most western cities now. At least one musket. Rush Palace in Pompeii

IBT: Zerkers come and kill musket in Ulia. Should have rushed the coastal fortress. :(
Beijing Cav -> Market, Disorder in Shanghai. ( Sorry, sloppy ) Pompeii Palace -> Market, Nad Zad Cannon-> Musket, Tabriz Cavalry -> Cavalry, Ulan Library-> Market

1455(5) Gold income has gone down after palace move. Must be the utter lack of markets in old roman lands. Fortify a Cav in Tabriz so that we have some offense in case Celts or Vikings try to sneak on top of us.

IBT: Zerker kills a cav but redlines. :( ( I thought AI would get him home, since he had been hurt by the musket the turn before. ) Hate not being able to strike back at them. Cumae Musket -> Musket

1460(6) Rush coastal fortress in Ulia.

IBT: Vikings attack with their redlined Zerker, but he bites the dust against another Cav. Astronomy -> Banking in 12
Karakourum Courthouse->Cav, Shanghai Temple->Musket, Ulis Fortress->Barracks, Celts start Bachs. Two Celt caravels closes in

1465(7) Move people around. Viking Caravel hovers outside our coast, so need to escort workers.

IBT: Berlin Musket->Musket Vikings start Bach. Vikings land PIke+Archer, Celts land Pike, knight, CAV :eek:, Archer and Medieval Infantry on our little island.

1470(8) Time for some :hammer:
Elite cav wins - no leader
Elite cav redlines but wins - no leader
Elite Kesh dies but redlines Cav
Elite Kesh wins - no leader
Elite horse redlines but wins - no leader
Vet cav retreats
Vet cav wins - no promotion
Elite Kesh wins - no leader
Anyone see a trend here..... ( At least RNG was kind on losses, but would have loved a leader for a Cav army. )

IBT: Rome Temple->Market, Ta-Tu Courthouse->Musket, Almarikh Cav->Cav
Oslo completes Magellans ( Damn it he is on steroids or something... )

1475(9) Start to prepare for handoff to next person to decide if we should invade, or try to build more stuff. Wont load Caravels, as lots of troops need to rest this turn.

IBT: two new Celtish Caravels approaches our islands. Another zerk attacks, this time we have a Coastal fortress, and our veteran Cav wins :)

1480(10) Move some workers and fortify rest of troops for next leader to decide.
In fleet there is two Musketmen, two Cavalry, two Cannon and two settlers. There is room for plenty more Cavalry and Keshiks on the remaining Caravels. Your decision how many should be left to defend small island. Almost all workers have moved down into the southern mountain range, for roading purposes. I did not see much of anything left for them to do up in the north.
Roman island has started to build a lot of infrastructure.
Science is at 20% , mostly due to me wanting to leave a purse for next player. Would need a purse for rushing walls/Barracks in new cities in case we invade.

I recommend we burn any cities we take, as both Vikings and Celts have better culture than us, and they have had cities for a long time.

Grimjack out.

Sorry for lack of screenshots. Will try to be better next time.

woo-hoo, it's my turn

do coastal fortresses help against amphibuous attack? I never knew this (then again, I hardly ever bother with coastal forts). If so, they might be quite useful to have around.

Will take a look at the game to decide strategy. One thing is for sure. We are gonna need a load of troops to get a secure beachhead on the Celt/Viking continent. I'm thinking 10 muskets, 10 cannon, 15 cavalry and a settler. 36/3 = 12, so that's how many caravels we'll need. If we've got this many spare troops I'll go ahead with a landing, otherwise it will be a set-up.

*Sigh* Another Regent Game. Sorry, I am just looking for a Deity and Emperor Game :). The Title can certanly be miss leading ;).

Nad, I realize I am lacking in experience from always war, but are you sure you do not go overboard on reqs here ?

There are more muskets and cannon defending western cities, but caravels are somewhat short. Think we only have about 7 for invasion purposes.

I haven't yet had a look at the game, GJ, but this is the basis from which I'm working.

Muskets = defense force, to garrison cities and to soak up attacks protecting our cavalry from being attacked.
Cannon = to bombard the city we are looking to attack and to fire in defence when we are attacked
Cavalry = shock troops, to do the attacking

To establish a beachhead on another continent is to establish a force that can stand on that continent against the might of 2 other civs. In addition, that force has to raze an enemy city and replace with a native one, and then hold out until reinforcements can arrive.

When we land on the other continent, the initiative is with the Celts and Vikings - they have the first attack. Ideally we will want to land next to a city and also on good defensive terrain. Nevertheless, we know the opposition have cavalry and with their 3 move, cavalry can travel a long way along roads. For that first turn when we land, we can expect that the bulk of the Viking and Celt offensive forces will attack us. The best defense unit we have is the musket, defence 4. Cavalry are attack 6. So we can expect some losses, how many will depend on the terrain we land on. I would estimate between 3-6 muskets will be lost just on the turn we land. Assuming that we manage to raze an opposition city and replace with our own (which is why we need a settler), we then need probably 3-4 muskets just to defend that city. Remember, that will be the oppositions only target so they will be sending all the forces they can spare. Additionally, if we want to use cannon on offence too, we will need muskets to defend that stack. That is why I think we need 10 muskets minimum.

The cannon is the only part of the landing force that can be compromised, but the more we can manage the better. They fire twice per round, on attack and defence, and will be especially useful in the first turn we land, to weaken opposition units that attack our stack, and then to bombard the city we want to replace to ensure we win with minimum damage to our cavalry.

The cavalry is the key part to success in the invasion. It is likely that at this stage in the game we will be attacking cities rather than towns. With the 50% defence bonus that cities give, along with underlying terrain bonuses and fortified bonuses, even muskets will be no small obstacle. A musket defending a size 7 city on grassland, for example, has defence 7.4 [4 basic, 50% city bonus (+2), 25% fortified bonus (+1) and 10% terrain bonus (0.4)]. The same city on a hill gives the musket defence 9. So our cavalry are not going to roll them over, even with artillery help. We have to make sure we have enough cavalry to be able to raze an opoosition city, and then mop up exposed opposition units and perhaps even try to attack a second city.

So effectively, that is the model from which I'm working the figures of troops we need.

Since we would not need production in our beachhead, would it be feasible to found city on a mountain? Perhaps even the same mountain were we land ?
Preferably a lone mountain, so besiegers would have to stay on the plains.
( Am at work, so cannot check map now. )

you can't build cities on mountains. Hills are best defensive terrain to build cities on.

But your point is relevant. The beachhead is purely a landing spot. Since there will be no open spaces for us to found, we must raze a city and replace it with our own. We then rush walls, barracks, temple and harbour (in that order) and that is all we need. We bring up as many troops as possible and begin the attack. In fact, as the victory condition is conquest, we do not need any cities on the Celt/Viking continent apart from the beachhead city. So it will be pure razing of every city.

I intend to play shortly in case anyone was wondering about progress

okay, as our empire is getting larger and I don't want this report to be the size of the big-print version of the complete works of Charles Dickens (Blackadder 4 joke), I'm going for an overview rather than a turn-by-turn breakdown.

On the inherited turn I surveyed the state of the empire and decided that things looked quite nice. I think we need a lot more military but then, we always have. The second core is developing nicely after the palace jump while the main core has a choice - universities or continue to build military? At the moment I decided to build military as uni's are well expensive and we might not need to think longterm for research if we can get a good invasion soon. A few build instructions were tweaked and some tile use altered (a number of cities are on break-even food and max shields; the end is not yet in sight so growth is still desirable and I adjust for higher food. Ulanbataar is an example - it has been put to break-even food at size 6, yet it has an aqueduct! Size 7 brings loads of advantages so why break-even food? :crazyeye: )

I unload the galleys near Uliastay as I am not yet ready to invade

Increased science expenditure to 60% - though research is not crucial now, we don't want to be left hopelessly behind just in case things don't go as planned (=contingency plan)

Early

Celt landings are crushed. In 1485, despite 5 elite victories, no leaders were forthcoming. Celt ships also spotted north of Karakorum - what could they be up to?

Banking was researched and started on Physics

Oh, the glory year of 1490! An elite Keshik victory outside Atlay produced another leader.. With no beakers yet invested in Physics, I changed to economics so we could grab Smith's with the leader. There was nothing else for the leader to do (army?) and in the meantime, until economics is researched I will use veteran troops to crush landings. Leader is sent to the home continent.

A Viking landing of 1 knight was also repelled while the Celt ships continued to sail ominously round our home continent - I am unsure of their target and they may even be heading to our 2nd continent.

Middle

Landings quieted somewhat. Just 2 landings in 4 turns, all small and easily beaten. I dispatched a caravel in another attempt to scout the enemy continent.

Economics complete, started Physics

Late

Smith's was rushed at Ta-Tu and I finally faced a difficult landing. The Celt ships round our home continent finally landed 4 cavalry and a longbow outside Darhan. Despite emergency upgrades and some cannon firing, the landing remained. I even lost my first two units of this reign, a vet cavalry died attacking a Celt cavalry (attack 6 vs defence 3.3, I was not impressed!) and then the elite medieveal infantry from Berlin died attacking a 3HP cavalry. All told, the Celts had 2 wounded (2HP) cavalry and a 4/5 cavalry and a longbow left; the cavalry could attack Berlin or Darhan, the longbow could attack Darhan. Berlin now only had 1 musket, Darhan 1 musket, 2 cannon, and a 3/5 cavalry. Brought Ereen's musket into Darhan (Ereen is just far enough that the Celt cavalry could not reach it) but that still left me very worried for Berlin; 8HP of cavalry vs 4HP of musket? I did not fancy our chances and losing Belrin would have been catstrophic (our Forbidden Palace City!). But then, in a moment of inspiration, by using a galley, a caravel and mid-sea ship-jumping, I brought muskets from Ulangoom to Berlin. There, that's much better :scan:

It proved just enough. The Celts decide dto attack Darhan and though we lost a musket (to the bloody longbow!) we kept Darhan. More frightening was a zerker attack on Uliastay - a Viking caravel appeared out of the fog and 2 zerkers attacked Uliastay - we lost 1 musket there but the other musket won.

Used cannon to redline the Viking zerker ship and sunk it with our own caravel. Mopped up the Darhan landing force but we are now a little short of units there which the next player will need to alleviate by reshuffling troops.

Notes

The elite galley in the south has 2 more settlers onboard to join the invasion force (giving plenty of options for how to set up a beachhead). Our spare troops which can be used to invade are on the Atlay/Uliastay island. If the next player feels we have enough now to invade, go ahead and do so. We have a caravel scouting the Viking/Celt continent, so use that to try to identify a landing spot.

I tried to reprioritize worker tasks in my turn but a few important tasks are outstanding. On the home continent, Ta-Tu and Tabriz urgently need more of their grasslands irrigating. On the second continent, Beijing, Canton and Har-Ayrag need a lot more irrigation, while Veii, Rome, Antium and Neapolis need most of their grasslands changing to mines. The sooner this is done, the more productive that core will be.

Aggie.....UP NOW
Meli.......ON DECK
Grimjack
Nad



The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1530AD.sav)

Got it. This is something for tomorrow. I'll have the time then.

Sorry people. This must wait untill tomorrow morning

A quick note on Ta-Tu and irrigation.
There was three squares in the far north that I changed from irrigation to mining, since with a bit of juggling, I could keep Karakorum and Ta-Tu going zero on food. Please do doublecheck this, so I didn't calculate wrongly.
Sorry about missed Micromanagement when UlanBator completed its Aqueduct. Must have slipped me.

Had hoped any landings on main island would have been small, as I had only saved two Cavs up there.
On the other hand, if/when we invade, I doubt Celts would bother sending troops to our mainlands.

Grimjack

I'm sorry about this very short note. I simply do not have the time at the moment. The 10 turns also took very long...

Preturn. Although I feel that we are a bit light on musketmen, I decide it's time. I load the caravels and prepare for a landing south of Eboracum.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I see that our original island has size 12 cities. What do we need more irrigation for? I would say that shields are needed for production.

I switch a couple of cities to cavalry. Military is key I feel.

Early: Our ships are moving to Augustodrum. A couple of vikings landing near Uliastay fail... The Vikings manage to sink a galley with 3 cavs on board...

Middle: We land south of Augustodorum. The first strike of the Celts: we see two cavs getting killed, the Celts lose 4. It takes 6 cavs to kill 5 defenders around Augustodorum. New Augustodurom is founded just south of the razed city. We managed to defend our city by taking out all three Celtisch cavs. No losses. Temple is rushed in Augustodorum.
Meanwhile, Canton is was captured by the evil Celts. They managed to land 6 cavs. Luckily I was able to rush a couple of cavs myself and re-capture the city next turn. The former Roman/Chinese continent is not defended very well...

End: A 2nd Celtisch city is razed.


We need more troops in the direction of our beachead. I had a litle luck with the RNG at first, but later on I lost a lot of cav troops. I wonder if we need to keep on researching. Maybe nationalism comes in handy (better defense, but after that I think money is the key. Also don't forget to defend our two continents. We lost Canton, but luckily we had some cash to rush military and re-capture the city.

1580 AD save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1580AD.sav)

This is a quick got it...

Will play either at lunch or on the way home on the train :D

I have a new laptop and it chugs...

Melifluous

Why more irrigation?

Put simply, to increase our shields.

I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but irrigating those grasslands at Ta-Tu will get us MORE shields by allowing us to work all those mountain squares. At the moment both Ta-Tu and Karakorum are on break-even food and working a lot of coast - that's great for commerce but gets us 0 shields. By irrigating 2 grasslands we forsake 2 shields (which we would get by mining them) but the surplus food created lets a citizen work a mountain square (as opposed to a coast square) to gain 3 shields (from the now worked mountain square), net +1. If we would rather have the extra commerce from the coast squares, fine, we do not need to re-irrigate, but if we're going for production power to win the game (which, from what Aggie and Grimjack have said is what we are aiming for, max shields) then the Ta-Tu grasslands are best irrigated.

Nad, I understand. You're right!

I had thought I had checked this, since I inherited my turn with all grass irrigated.

Must have missed some variation of citizen distribution.

Of course we should maximize shields :)

How's progress on this one, Meli? It's been a few days now.

okay guys, we'll take a skip now, it's been a fair few days since Meli's got it, I guess he must be real busy. Grimjack, you're up. Meli, you can slot back into the roster after Grimjack if you are available to play, or you can be skipped for this round.

Grimjack...UP NOW
Nad [or Meli] .....ON DECK
Aggie
[Meli]

I know that Melifluous had his birthday last weekend, but still... :( . Oh well, I'm sure he will be there for his next turn :)

Hey sorry guys,

Yeah I have been busy, birthday at the weekend and wedding anniversary today, not a great time to excuse myself for a couple of hours to play civ.

Please skip me this turn and I will play next round if you still want me?

Melifluous

Congratulations on the multiple celebrations, Meli! :bday: [party]

No worries, pal, you can just slot back in on your normal roster position after Aggie.

Grimjack....UP NOW
Nad....ON DECK
Aggie
Meli

Aw thanks Nad :o

Also if Firaxis could just get a 1.21 version out for Europe then I could play this during my 2 hour train journey to work, or on my 2 hour train journey back from work. I am using 1.21 on my laptop as I play MP on the train. (I love being a computer nerd, my friend and I set up a network on the train using two laptops and a crossover cable...)

Anyway I look forward to my turn next time around, that's if the game is still going then ;)

Go get em GrimJack!

Melifluous

I see the save. Will play in a few hours when I am home from work. Wartime may be gruelling, so it is possible I will not be able to post the writeup tonight.

Grimjack

Got it,.

Here is save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1625AD.sav

Short resume:

Thought we were a bit thin on troops, so I took it careful and razed only one Celt city.

Moved a sizeable force to reinforce, and position to strike at Lugdunum. ( And an iron resource. )
Fenced of several invasions, and positioned workers in anticipation of railroads.

More detailed writeup will follow.

Grimjack

1580(1) switch Berlin to Musket. MM to produce 12 shields. EVen though we are mongols, we need some sort of defenders. Rush a barracks in New Augusta since our expeditionary force need somewhere to heal.

IBT: A few cavs is landed near New Augusta. Makes a minisod of 3 cavs and one musket. ( Celtish one. ) A celtish caravel collides with one of our caravels and sinks. Ta-Tu Cav->Frigate New Aug. Barracks->Walls

1585(2) Return Cannons and bombard. Take out all four units without losses. No promotions either. Starting to move second wave towards Celtish homelands. Decide to go slow on hills since I only have two muskets, and one of them is needed to defend New augusta.

IBT: A single Cav moves up. Maybe they are starting to feel the hurting. Berlin Musket -> Musket Pompeii Cav->Bank Almarik Cav->Cav

1590(3) Take out Cav, Starting to move strikeforce against Celtish eastern city, pillaging one Saltpeter on the way.
Scouting Caravel spots incoming caravels over by Roman lands.

IBT: Scout spots two more caravels by roman lands. The first one sinks when they attack our Caravel. We enter Modern times as we receive Theory of Gravity. I go for steam. Once we have a railnet in place, we could strip of some more defenders on our two main islands, for better support of our attack forces.
Beijing Cav-> Musket, Shanghai Cav->Cannon

1595(4) Rush harbour in New August, for getting a new lux online.

IBT: Both celtish caravels sink themselves without even hurting our scoutship. HOpe they were full of troopers.
A counterattacking Cav impales itself on our Elite Musket in our strike force.

1600(5) Stack is within striking distance of eastern city. Adjust citizens and MPs for new happiness.

IBT: A Zerk attacks our fortified Musket behind walls in new Augusta. It dies. A bowman lands.:crazyeye: Another viking ship aproaches Grim Jacksonville. Celts lands two cavs by New Augusta. Karakourum Cav-> Bank. ( This is discussable, since Karakourum is so corrupt.

1605: Take out the two muskets defending city without any losses. Raze it, and get a couple of slaves. Two promotions as well. This city had one of the Celtish horses. Lets hope he doesn't have any more horses.

IBT: Vikings land a cav on mainland. Not on a mountain, but on a desert. :crazyeyes: Build banks and muskets

1610(7) Lose an MDI taking out the Viking Cav. Start to park workers around Berlin in anticipation of Steam.

IBT: Start an army in Kazan. This is of course vetoable, and it will take a long time for this to finish, so look upon it as a placeholder. Two Cavs and one MDI stations outside New Augusta

1615(8) MDI and Cavs destroyed without trouble, and also without rewards :(

IBT: Celts kill a cav I had moved to the wrong square. ( sigh, slipped on the keyboard, and pressed three instead of two. )
Celts also move up three more cavs.Viking lands another Cav by western part of mainland. Build more infra in Roman lands.

1620(9) Reinforcements have arrived. Start to position for attack on Lugdunum and its iron mountain. Size 12 city, and I do not know how much of a bombardment it takes with cannon to get pop down to manageable size. It is also a raze against time, as Celts almost surely tries to beeline towards Nationalism and rifles.
Kill off all exposed troops without any losses. Settkers and workers are parked in New Augusta. Upgrade a few Caravels to Galleons, since the extra movement point shaves a few turns of of travelling times.

IBT:Cumae Lib->Uni

1625(10): Move a couple of Celtish workers into New Augusta, position a few troops by Lugdunum. Saves.

TUrn is about half done. Bank in Pompeii could be a bank, or it could be used as prebuild for Newtons if you are feeling for a Gambit.

Grimjack

Good luck

Got it, will be playing 2moro

I'll try to keep this short and sweet

Inherited Turn:

Ulangoom is under threat from a Viking ship so move cavalry in there. It's a pity we only have 1 galleon outside Ulangoom, otherwise we could block the 2-tile strait between the mainland and the island (this is something to bera in mind in future if that area comes under threat).

Pillage around Lugdunum and begin to move troops up to attack it.

Galleons sent back to main continent

The military advisor says we are strong compared to our opponents, so that is good news. I like thge way we now have plenty of troops on our 2nd continent as well. Our own territiory is now fairly secure so all additional troops made can go to the Celt continent.

A few build changes, concentrating on more military. I agree with the army build at Kazan; though it shows 38 turns at the moment, that will come down with rails, and we can always switch to a wonder if needs be (Newton's also costs 400 shields; TofE costs 600, I think, so we could just use the army as a pre-build for a wonder).

I wake the workers on the hmoe continent to do some more irrigating in anticipation of rails (irrigated grasslands produce 4 food with rails, allowing us to work even more mountain squares)

Use the 2 cat's and the cannon on the small island to bomb ther Viking ship, it is reduced to 2HP (if it had been redlined I would have attacked it with a galleon, but I'm not risking attack 1 vs defence 2 against a 2HP ship).


Early

we lost a couple of cavalry units to Celt counter-attacks. In 1630, I dropped troops off to capture Byzantium, which could act as a closer operating base to attack the Vikings in particular. Lots of worker actions. On the main continent, the new troop pick-up point is Kazan, on the 2nd continent, it is Shanghai.

Made a bit of a cock-up in 1635. I used the J-Command to move our SOD onto the iron mountain outside Lugdunum, completely forgetting that cannon can't move onto mountains. Oh great, we now have 5 cannon undefended in the heart of enemy territory :( Brought 2 cavalry up from New August to defend these, fingers crossed they would survive the inter-turn.

Captured Byzantium with ease (it was defended by spears), 2 muskets defend it while the cavalry reload onto ships and move across to the Celt continent.

Middle

Our cannon stack survived the interturn (just!); 1 of the cav defenders was killed, the other red-lined. Celt cavalry are beginning to appear in greater numbers.

Having survived the interturn, our cannon now helped in the assault on Lugdunum, which we razed, gaining 6 more slaves

Steam Power was researched and we started on Nationalism. And we got the Iron Works Message!

Turns out that our IronWorks city is.... Shanghai. This is excellent news, as that is right next to our capital (Pompeii), and has many mountain squares it can work, so it really will be a shield powerhouse once we get it railed. Switched immediately to build Iron Works

We also have 3 other sources of coal, one hooked up between Kazan and Almarikh, and 2 unhooked, outside Veni-Vidi-Aggie and our newly captured city of Byzantium.

Byzantium was not to last, however. The Vikes dropped off 4 cavalry, an MDI, 2 pikes and an archer there. We only had 2 muskets defending it (in hindsight, I should have kept the cavalry there, but even then it might not have survived). Though we killed a cavalry and the archer, we lost the city. We'll just have to regrab it.

Late

Began to pillage around Entremont. I'm not sure what our general strategy is to attack the Celts, now that we have a beach-head. My usual strategy is to go straight for the jugular, pillage all roads around the capital until it is isolated and so resources are cut off, capture or raze the capital, and then mop up. I would suggest this as a strategy we might try, and if anyione else has any input on how we should approach the task, then now is the time to discuss it. Progress is slow, however, and we will need to focus our units to go after 1 city at a time, raze, heal, and move on.

Began to reorganize troops for the next player to launch an attack against Entremont or another target of their choice. I am relocating troops to New August, our base, so that the forces are concentrated and can be moved as a SOD rather than as a flurry of individual units.

On my final turn both the Celts and Vikings brought units to attack new August, but they were easily destroyed.

Notes for thye next player

Lots of MM is required at the moment as rails complete, so try to keep an eye out to make sure our cities are working the best tiles. Don't worry about Tabriz (currently running -ve food) it will break-even on food as soon as the rails being built there is complete. Also, Pompeii is currently at 20 spt gross, 19 net, but this will rise to 20 net as soon as the rail being built there completes (it can be raised to 20 net straightaway by taking the coal square from Shanghai, but I think it is best for Shanghai to have that coal square so it can run at 15spt and get the Iron Works done ASAP.)

With regard to rails, I think it would probably be best to get the military railnet connecting all cities done ASAP, and then rail tiles around cities to get them improved.

If we can continue to raze 1 or 2 Celt cities per set of 10, that is fine for the moment as they will becoming gradually weaker and we can mop up. Nationalism i due in a few turns but at the moment there is no sign of rifles from the Celts or Vikings. In fact, though our science advisor says we are backward, I think that is only because we missed out so many optional techs in the Middle Ages, and we may actually be ahead in Industrial Age techs.

Aggie....UP NOW
Meli.....ON DECK
Grimjack
Nad



The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1675AD.sav)

got it (just in time for the 24 h rule ;) )

LOL:D :D

I wonder if that's a new record for how quick a got it has been posted! I doubt if 4 minutes can really be bettered!

I'm at work you know ;) I will not be so quick in playing this. Tomorrow at the earliest... Tonight is PBEM night :)

Heh, you are not the only one trolling this board from work :)

Looks like a solid turn. ( With a bit of luck in the cannon department. )

The vikes are a bother. Seems like they switch targets between each invasion.

I have fortified cavs in several cities in our mainland just in case a viking wants a party.
I am also a bit wary of the zerks. Marine attach unit..

Grimjack

Pre-turn:

I'm not very good in MM-ing. I find it tedious at this part of the game, but since it is Nad's game and for a good cause, I'll do my best :).

Early:
Decide to emphazise on growth in Shangai. The city will grow in 5 now, allowing us to work another tile.
Next tech after Nationalism is Industrialization (in 9): Universal Suffrage and required for Espionage.
I got a leader defending our bridgehead. I created an invincable army from it. That army is sent to Verulamium straight away. My strategy is to take out the border cities first and end with the capital. Less chance of heavy losses.

Veru...whatever was razed. Our army with blitz feature helped greatly there :) No counter-attack from the Celts after this act of superiority of the Mongols.

Middle:
Troops move to Burgodala. Three viking units are killed while trying to capture our beachead.

End:
Remember that city I mentioned I was going to move too? Well, I razed it. The best defense that I saw during my turns was a musketman. The ironlclads do a great job in sinking the enemy fleat.

1725 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1725AD.zip)

Nice stuff Aggie, this is all we have to do; a couple of cities a turn and we'll have it wrapped up in no time ;)

Oh, and don't worry about micromanaging. I'm more of a macromanager myself actually. All you really have to do is keep track of which cities are having their tiles improved (rails) and then adjust the tiles being used to get the best ones. And also keep track of when cities are growing to make sure there are no riots. The way I do it is at the end of every turn, I look across the map to see which cities will grow next turn, jot those names down on scrap paper, and then look at those cities next turn to make sure they have the right tiles.

I do understand what you mean, though, it can be tedious at this stage if you have loads of cities. If you wish, then of course, you may use the governor to manage moods (though this is not ideal), and certainly, once we get close to the closing stages there is nothing wrong with setting the governor on. Just as long as there are no automated workers, I'm quite happy;) :p

OK Guys I'm up next...

I might manage this tonight, kinda depends on my wife ;)

If not then I will play this on the way into work on Monday morning... gotta go and watch the Jungle Book 2 tomorrow...
Full report to follow ;)

Melifluous

Originally posted by Nad
If you wish, then of course, you may use the governor to manage moods (though this is not ideal), and certainly, once we get close to the closing stages there is nothing wrong with setting the governor on. Just as long as there are no automated workers, I'm quite happy;) :p

:eek: Noooooo. I didn't mean THAT! I think the gorvernor is the worst thing you can do (ok,maybe not the worst). What I usually do is look closely at the turns that are left to build a unit/improvent. When it's 2, I micromanage if needed, to avoid throwing away shields. I usually do not count the exact number of shields needed to finish an improvement when I start building it.

A quick scrolldown in F1 screen before pressing End of Turn usually catches most of the Riots too.

Looks like you have managed to make some big progress on Celtish front. Hope we can waste them before Riflemen :)

Grimjack

OK I'm a few turns in...

Questions for y'all, Industrialisation is ours...
Should I switch our top 5-10 cities to build factories, these will take 13-17 turns at best, and will slow down troop production.

Anyone?

Melifluous

13-17 turns is a lot. I'd say: produce military and kill them Celts!

I would examine expected shield output. If it would make city produce better than a threshold, then switch in two-three best cities.
I would not do this if I thought it would be a danger to our expansion on Celt island though. Here I would want us to press as hard as possible while cav is a strong unit.

Grimjack

Originally posted by Grimjack
I would not do this if I thought it would be a danger to our expansion on Celt island though. Here I would want us to press as hard as possible while cav is a strong unit.

Grimjack

Good point! As long as cav is superior to the best defense of the Celts: build military. Once they have riflemen: build factories...

WRT Factories, what Aggie and Grimjack said. Or you could do a rotation, put x cities on factory, the rest on military, and switch when complete.

Nevertheless, we should certainly not be too afraid to attack rifles (when they appear) with cavalry. Just take along a few cannon, and attack in packs and the cavalry retreat ability will help. Also, we have a cavlary army right? That should be able to take rifles out if needs be.

FYI, rifles fortified in size 12 city built on flatlands are defence 11.1; so our cavalry should expect to win 1 in 3 rounds. That's painful, but with cannon to try to bring city size down/do some damage to rifles, casualties should not be too high. So big SOD's once rifles arrive.

Yes, a rifle defended city should be takable by stacks of 5-6 Cavs, if it is size 6 or under. I was thinking of how many turns to infantry. Infantry is really really strong against Cavs.

If we have factories, we have a railnet :):) ( Right ? ) An offensive Railnet on Celt island would really help get those cannon in position to pound the defenders.

Also, as Nad said. We would very much like to have a few factories online before we run out of gas.

( I am assuming we get 50% more shields. )

City without factory, 25 Shields produces 10 cav in 30 turns

City produces factory, 10 turns for factory, production goes to 37, 10 cavs in another 20 turns.

So, I think we really should devote at least two of our most powerful cities to Factory+coalplant, if we can afford the slight dip in cav production the next 10-15 turns. This will give us cities capable of building wonders.
Especially the city we have that can crank armies.
Grimjack

Can I also say that the first turn I played the Iron Works was built in Shanghai!

This city does about 45-46 spt and of course I am building a factory, then a coal plant in here. This should put this city to about 69-80 shields when finished (initial about 23 spt, +100% for Iron Works, +50% of original for factory +50% of original for coal plant...= +200% = 23x3 = 69, also bit more railroading to be done here may add up to 5 more initial shields = 28x3 = 84 spt!!!).

Then Shanghai is gonna be able to build anyones wonder of choice in < 10 turns... First dibs on the Intelligence Agency which we can build in 8 turns time btw... 4 turns to build a factory... <4 to build the coal plant methinks...

Fear me...

Melifluous

OK Guys,

Not much to report here, in fact having a busy night so quick update.

My ten turns...

BUILDING BUILDING BUILDING

Getting troops to our beachhead...

Railroads...

blah blah blah

Oh Iron Works completed in Shanghai, Factory done, Coal Plant next turn...

This city is gonna be at least 4 times more productive than ANY OTHER CITY...

Repelling a lot of attacks on our beachhead, blah blah blah...

Thought I would get more troops for Grimjack to use, he is mean if well armed ;)

My thoughts on the future...
Researching Medicine atm, if we can get 5 hospitals we can probably build Battlefield Medicine in about 5 turns in Shanghai...
Very Handy.

Cannons, Cavalry and ****LOADS of workers in beachhead. At the end of this go I remembered that I could have been taking these back to our main islands by boat, dumb, dumb and dumber.

Freshly built Army arriving by boat next turn.

Also checking military advisor, Scandinavia are in a DEMOCRACY...
Interesting tech choice, but they will be building like maniacs...or stuck in WW...

We can also build the Pentagon now...

THE SAVE 1758AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1758AD.SAV)

Have fun GrimJack

Melifluous

I see it, and will try to play tonight.
Unless Celts are railed, I will try to use workers to rail a military supply net to the front.
Cannons are so effective when they can be used every turn or two :)

Good job on Ironworks :)

Grimjack

Save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1778AD.sav

Slow and steady progress in Celt land. I chose to settle cities there, so that we can have a railnet, thus making our Cannons
work more efficiently.

Vikings were awfully quiet. I suspect they are building some expensive infrastructure, and that would not be good. I would
rather they built loads and loads of Riflemen.

Here is the longish writeup.

1758 AD ( 0) I note that we now have a strong military compared to both Celts and Vikes.
Looking over the lay of the land, I will try to formulate a plan.

I think we will need to get cultural borders in Celt lands. This will let us travel
unhindered on rails, all the while preventing Celts from free movement. I have not
any good feeling for how tough the Celtish/Viking counterattacks are right now though.

I rush a settler in New august. I also skim a settler out of Ereen. This together with the
settlers in New August will make a beginning. Note that it may be disadvantegeous to put
any new cities on coast, as then we would have a harder time to defend them.

Hmm, notice we are really light on Riflemen. This will need to be rectified if we are
to make and keep any sort of progress.

We also have large stacks of unguarded workers on the coast. I do not think it is
advisable, but I do not know how good the AI is at landing Zerkers and disbanding.
Move a Musket to the outermost stack.

IBT: Three celtish Cavalry attacks our stack of Infantry, killing none, and promoting two.
Get a bit of pollution :(
Shanghai finishes Coal, get switched to Newtons.
1760 (1) A Viking Galleon sinks one of our clads. :(
I advance some troops.

IBT: This turn another three Celtish cavs show up. two dies, but the third kills
of a Rifleman. I hate trying to advance across this plains. Not enough cover.

1762: Regroup and retreat, as I am out of unwounded Riflemen. I will see if it gets
easier to advance if I travel by the hills.

IBT: This turn only two cavs attacked. No losses, but no wins either. more pollution by shanghai
If I cannot get an offensive railnet up in Celtish lands, I will have to gather the workers here.

1764 (3 ) Leaderfishing against Celtish cavs nets me nothing this turn either.

IBT: A single Cav moves up. There are two Viking Frigates taking liberties with our eastern
coast. I will see if I can swing out a clad or two. I am somewhat nervous of the advisor
telling us we are backwards, when we have clads against Frigates. Wonder what the AIs have.

1766 (4) Capture Byzantium. Foolishly thinks it is populated by Romans, and do not raze
it. Heres to hoping it wont throw us a fit. Place a Rifleman and a Cav as garrison. Will
need to build walls, or keep clads close by. Found Tes on a hill. HOpefully we will have
an easier time of getting to the front when we have roaded.
Sigh, we do not have enough workers in Celtish lands to road a mountain in one turn.
Will see if I can rectify that soon.

IBT: No counterattacks, but two cavs move into position on a mountain. We will have to bring
out the artillery.

1768(5) Hmm, One of the cavs in the mountains bring my army down to two HPs. The other Cav
Killed one of mine before biting it. Front is getting long as I approach Celtish Coal city.
Hopefully some roading will get done real soon now, so I can clump together troopers better.
Celts seem to be thoroughly gassed even though it keeps trickling in one to three cavs every
turn. Vikings are not showing much life. Probably fortifying in their home country.

IBT: we kill two counterattacking cavs, and redline a third.

1770(6) Move eight workers from old continent to eastern continent. They will be more needed
here. Starting a few mnines on irrigations for some extra production on old continent.
I also skim workers of of a few cities with full food.

IBT: no counterattacks, although two cavs move up.

1772(7): Leader drought continues. Have got cannons in position near Tolosa now. It is one
of the Celtish better cities, with high production and it also has coal. On top of city is
a regular rifleman. Wonder where there vets are.
Also get rid of one of the marauding Viking Frigates. Pondering if I should build the CIA
soon. MM Shanghai for faster growth without losing turns on Newtons. This city is cranking
51 net shields, and that is with pollution on the iron.


IBT: A Viking Frigate gets sunk upon one of our ( empty) Galleons. Will have to organize the
Merchant fleet with a clad escort or two. A single Cav moves up. Cannot find any targets, so
they park on Celts favorite mountain. I will of course have to dislodge it, since I would
not like if he managed to pillage a mountain. Medicine discovered, Electricity chosen. ( Trying
for Theory of Evolution after this. No need for a prebuild yet, as our economy is not up to
speedy research.) Newtons completes choses Pentagon. Several good choices here, Bank, University
or CIA would all be good. Up to next leader to finalize. I take Pentagon, since two times
now, one of our armies almost died dislodging cavalry up in the mountains.

1774(8) A Clad of ours bomb a source of coal for the Vikings. No sign of Railroads yet
though. Wonder if he is spending all his cash bribing his citizens out of war wearines.
Lose two cavs Razing Tolosa. Build Hutag Next to the ruins.

IBT: A scouting Cav I put on a mountain kills first counterattacker, but second gets it.
A third Celtish cav moves up to the front.

1776(9) Celtish workers sure are lazy. Not even 27 of them is enough to Railroad a mountain
in one turn. Sigh, I will probably have to go shop for more then, havn't I ?

IBT: Wow, those cav can surely move fast. Two Celtish cav goes around my entire front,
but does not have move enough to attack my city. They will be nice bait for my elites
now.

1778(10) This turn is no exception. No leader now either. Sigh, this could be getting tiresome.
Building Arvayeer reveals an exposed Cav. Do not think I can take it without exposing myself
in turn though. Will leave a few cav with movement left for next leader to consider though.
I expose a cav on a mountain, in the hope that if he survives, he will cut the road the Celts
were using to get behind my lines.
Leave lots of troops on Fortify, Next leader decides what he wants to do. Workers are Railroading
last mountain square. After that, they will be able to railroad up to our cities fast.
Do keep at least two, preferably three guards on the worker stacks at all times though. Railroads
are very important for us to be able to defend ourselves. If we have railroaded, we can use
all our eight cannon to weaken attackers. Then we can leaderfish with our elites.
With some luck, Celt Capitol will fall for next leader. You will need to build a couple of
new settlers if you want to continue with the way I advanced. Having a Cultural border really
helps on movement. There is a spare settler in the frontmost settlement. You could rush another
in New Augusta.
Think also what you want to build in Shanghai. Five Banks, and Wall street would do wonders
for our economy.

Grimjack

Great report Grimjack. I think you notice now what Meli and I already found out. War on another continent with 6 attacks vs 6 defense is tough.

Got it, will play tomorrow.

I think we're approaching the stage now where warfare is getting ever more tactical than simply trying to outnumber the opposition and capture cities with large stacks. Defender always has a big advantage in industrial age and it's up to us to counter that. I'm very much looking forward to my turn. We've had the swift Blitzkrieg battles against the Romans and Chinese, now we'll have to win by grinding the Celts down, and economy, logistics and decision-making are as important as units. I'm glad we've got to this stage, this game has certainly lived up to my hopes for it. I wanted lots of fighting, intra-AI fighting as well, and we had that with the Aztecs and Zulu disappearing before we ever met them :o I also wanted all aspects of combat to come into play, and we've also had that; I wonder if this game will last until aeroplanes. Doubt it, but you never know.

Couple of points that I will investigate. Are the Celts still in democracy? If they are the war weariness must be ridculous with the amount of hurt we've put on them. In fact, the longer they stay there, probably the better it will be for us if half their cities have entertainers. Have we got the intelligence agency tech yet? It might be worth going for so we can finally get some info on their situation.

Wrt science, as I noted in my last turn, Grimjack, I do not believe the science advisor. I think the fact he says we are backwards relates to the half-dozen or so optional middle-age techs we skipped. As far as I can tell, we got to rifles before the others. Have the Celts built any rails yet? Any sign of opposition clads? Size 13 cities? I don't think so, which leads me to believe we are ahead and that it would be better for us to SLOW research. Every tech we now research makes it cheaper for the others to research. Also, combat wise, the odds for the attacker aren't going to improve until tanks, whereas they will get a lot worse with infantry! I would be inclined to research up to sci method only, and use TofE to get replacable parts and the Corporation (rather than the usual Atomic Theory/Electronics), and completely switch off research. What do the team think on this?

I think I will also continue Grimjack's line of strategy by using cities to expand our holdings and rely on bombardment via rails to win battles. In this respect i will seek to expand our number of cannon. I'm also a big fan of tactical pillaging so expect more ironclads too (such a pity we don't have navigation, I would love a few explorers in this situation!)

Nad, I think we should continue our research at high speed. We must get a couple of techs that are of great interest for us: Espionage, Industrialization, Replaceable Parts (infantry, atrillery, faster workers!) and of course TeO. Especially artillery will help a lot (wider bombard range). Later on we need combustion (transport), flight and motorized transportation. I wonder however if the game will get into that stage.

The railroad is extremely important indeed. I also like settling along the railroad, because that would prevent the Celts and Vikings form using it for their own sake. Note that our railroad should be defended, to prevent pilaging by Celtisch cavalry.

I tend to agree with Nad here as regards Replaceable parts. If we are to make somewhat swift progress now, we would be greatly helped by artillery. Not to mention that infantry would help a great deal in protecting worker stacks.
As always, we are short of every unit we want though :)
I have not done the math on Cannon though. Is it worth it to produce cannon and upgrade, or should one make do with the cannon we have, and wait for artillery ? We will probably be short pressed for money, since we would want to upgrade to Infantry asap on the fron at least.

Also, there is lots of room for Micromanaging our core cities now that the acute food crisis in them is over. There are sevaral tiles that could be mined, in order to get shields above thresholds.

Celts are in Monarchy I think. Vikings however is Democrats still.

As to turning off research, that could be doable until AI gets Infantry. at that point I would beeline to tanks, as it gets tedious fast having 6 attack against 10 defense.

As to the warfare, what made it slow was not the difficulty in taking cities, it
was the constant attrition that occurred when I left the mountains. Losing one or two rifles every turn would have melted my forces in no time flat, so I chose to take it slow and stick to the heights. As soon as I reached the city, I struck.

Grimjack

There is no doubt at all that we want industrial age techs. We already have some of the important ones, we would also like electricity so we can irrigate those places that can't be reached w/o fresh water, sci method so we can build TofE, Espionage so we can build the Agency and most critically, replacable parts. What I'm suggesting, however, is switching off research after we get these to slow down tech research. After replacable parts there is no tech we desperately want until tanks, which is about 7 techs away. The point is however, that we would be researching at 1st, pouring 100s of GP into research that we could spend on upgrades or rushing, and in doing so, we make the said techs cheaper for our opponents. It is better for us to follow research, let the Celts or Vikings bear the brunt of researching. The crux of this is that the slower the tech pace, the better for us as once we have artillery, even infantry should not be too difficult to beat, as a SOD of 20 artillery can blow any city to smithereens in no time.

I appreciate the comments so keep them flowing.

Nad, I agree with your remarks t o get the crucial early industrial techs and then slow down research. Excellent approach :)

Yes, I was a bit unclear on my research comment. I meant I also agree to get up to and including replaceable parts, and then turn it off.

I am a bit unsure of sanitation though. A good tech to have, especially for our income rich cities on Roman continent.

Grimjack

sorry for the hold-up here, guys, I have actually played my 10 but I'm having some computer trouble and can't post the save just yet. If you're curious, it was an eventful 10; I lost a city at the Celt front lines :o but retaliated by razing Entremont. The Celts now only have 3 really decent cities, the rest are villages, so they shouldn't take too long to finish off. We suffered no land invasions at all; the Vikes continually used frigates to bomb our coast, which was more annoying than actually dangerous (though our ironclads didn't have much luck sinking them). Progress against the Celts continues to be a slog rather than a sprint though. I'll also see if I can post a screenshot of the Celt continent - you can tell there's been some action there by the number of razed city sites!

Anyway, I hope the computer probs should be sorted by 2moro and I will post the save as soon as I am able to.

As soon as celts counterattacks halts, we should be able to send unescorted Cavalry to mow down tehir last cities though.
I do not really understand why we have such low production, we have two nice and big cores, but it is still hard to crank troopers.

Frigates are a nuisance. I would rather have those than Zerkers though :)

grimjack

Awaiting the save.... :mischief:

Yes, Aggie, thanks you for your patience. I'm still awaiting my computer to be fixed (the operating system simply won't load!); it should have been sorted by yesterday, I'm hoping desperately that it gets fixed by today. The turns have been played, it's simply a case that as soon as the system is fixed, I can get the save file and upload it onto the net

Sorry to hear it Nad :( Don't worry about me, I can wait.

Well, I don't know what the technician did, but it seems to have worked. Mucho apologies for the delay, but I finally salvaged the save:




1798AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1798AD.sav)

Now, I just have to find the report. I know I've got it on one of these pieces of paper...


Aggie, go ahead and play, I've already delayed it too long. As soon as I find the report I'll post it

I got it.

Nad, we have all the time in the world. Eastern means: a lot of people gone and no time for civ. I'll start to play today. Could be monday before I post though... I'm going away for a day as well.

PTW crashes when I try to open the save. It gets to 22% and then it crashes :(

Version mangling ?
Grimjack

Originally posted by Grimjack
Version mangling ?
Grimjack

I don't think so. Normally with a different version the load fails. Now PTW crashes :(

Hmm, nope. Crashes just as enthusiastically in 1.21 as in 1.14.

So, how do we proceed ? Aggie goes from last known good save, or Nad takes it, and tries ot recreate his turn as closely as possible ?

Grimjack

Oh bugger. :(

It's been a nightmare week, computer-wise. I still have the original save file on both hard disk and floppy (tho' I can't find the bloody notes anywhere!) I'll test the save myself and then re-upload it.

Please God Let This Work (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1798B.sav)

:jump: IT WORKS :band:

But now I don't have time anymore. :( Maybe tonight though.... :)

1. (1800 AD):
Intelligence Agency on line. We are able to get spies in both Celtia and Vikingland. The Celts are goners:

Ratae Coru razed. Loss of a cavalry unit though.
Universal Suffrage started in Shangai as pre-build for TeO.

2. (1802 AD)
Richborough razed. Settler hurried in Hutah to get to the dyes from former Righborough.

3. (1804 AD)
Quiet

4. (1806 AD)
Dyetown founded.

5. (1808 AD)
Quiet turn, licking our wounds

6. (1810 AD)
We discover scientific method. TeO is in 4 (Shangai).
Science to 0% (Repl. Parts: worker speed, infantry, artillery. We have coal plants...)

7. (1812 AD)
Quiet turn

8. (1814 AD)
same

9. (1816 AD)
same

10. (1818 AD)
We get TeO. And with it we receive Replaceable Parts and Atomic Theory. We are finally technologically advanced.

10. (1818 AD)
Catctorinum razed.

1818 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1818AD.SAV)

Good show. Great that you finally got it to cough up the correct save Nad. I know personally how ornery comps can be when they are not in the mood.
( Been working computer support for 10 years..... )

Grimjack

excellent stuff, Aggie, this one should be in the bag. I think we should mop up the Celts before moving against the Vikings just to get them out of the way. Also, we really don't want any more cities as all they'll do is give us something extra to defend and increase corruption. However, if we can get an extra resouurce (as you did with the dyes), then we should go ahead and build.

Meli is up

It remains difficult, as long as the Celts and Vikings have riflemen. We must get more troops on the Celtisch continent.

Tech wise I don't know what to do now. It will take a while before tanks or planes. Money doesn't hurt however...

Hey Meli, what about this one ;)

sorry, double post

Doesn't appear that Meli is around. Grimjack, you may as well take it and we can slot Meli back in when he reappears

Question: do we all have 1.21? If so, I would suggest switching to it.

Has the Euro version of 1.21 been released? I didn't realize it had cos I'm still on 1.14

Originally posted by Nad
Has the Euro version of 1.21 been released? I didn't realize it had cos I'm still on 1.14

No, it's not the Euro version... Never mind. Let's stick to 1.14 :)

I can run both. Have two comps, one running each version.

I also see it, and will start to play tonight.
It will probably not be finished tonight though, since I also need to finish my last two turns in BoG tonight.

Grimjack

I am still running 1.14.
Here is a partial report.

1818(1) Looking over the lay of the land before commiting any forces. We are besieging Celt
Capitol. Not much to attack with though. Two exposed Celtish Cav need to be taken care of.
Have no less than two Cavalry Armies in the field. One of the armies is terribly hurt, but he
will repair. We have lots of roads and rails in Celtish lands.
Note that Shanghai is building one Cavalry every turn......
Will have to switch into Hoover prebuild soon though.
I redline the two Celtish Cavs with our Cannon, but I do not have a single unit that is not
needed as guard to use in attacking them.
Hmm, we are stretched mighty thin. Our new cities in Celt lands have single troops in
them, and no infantry at all. Will have to retreat and regroup until I can get some serious
reinforcements here.
Will need to build virtual rails across the oceans between our two islands. Having Galleons
in Ulanbaatar, Baruun-Urt and Shanghai would let us move troops between the islands without
using any movement of said troops.
Upgrade a bunch of troops on mainland to inf, in order to skim them off to the front.

IBT ooops, a Rifleman guard manages to defend himself from the first attacking Cav, but
the second gets him, as well as some 8 workers. NO way to have more than one rifleman on
any stacks this turn. See some 6-8 Celtish Cav running around.

1820 (2) Celts are nasty, they disbanded their own workers, instead of letting us recapture.
Kill off three Cavs, Retreat most of our workers and what few forces we have to our walled
cities. Loads of rushings. Spending money like there is no tomorrow.

IBT RNG is on our side. A cav on a hill fend of no less than two attacking cavs, and
survives being exposed.

1822 (3) Sink a Viking Frigate. Find a Viking Frigate/Galleon pair just south of our coast. No moves
left in Clads though.

IBT My exposed retreating Cavalry is defeated. :( See some three or four Cavalry patrolling
no mans land. Hopefully I can get a settler there soon so I can impede his movement somewhat.
SHanghai switches to Suffrage as a prebuild for Hoover.

1824 Hmm, Frigates must be mean, since the Viking Frigate sunk our attacking Clad. I can not catch him
before he reaches land now, since he has five move due to Magellans ?
Found Tumensogt after dispatching two cavs. One Celtish Cav in the wild that I know about.
I have reinforcements coming in next turn. WIll be able to resume offensive at that time. Have spent about 700 coins upgrading to INfantry and Artillery. We needed more durable troops and more troops ASAP. I will turn off research after Hoover, and running with arts, cavs and infantry for as long as it seems feasible.
When enemy gets INfantry, then we could start research again.
For now, I think we can put more pressure on enemy by attacking with hordes of cavs and artillery.

Rest of turns will come tomorrow afternoon. Sorry about the long time, for some reason it became my turn in all three Sgs I was involved in at the same time.

Grimjack

Hey Guys,

Sorry for the dissappearing act...
Been playing Freelancer and relying on the Email thingy to tell me when someone updated this thread...

It told me today and I have just read the last two pages... :mad:

Damn stupid forum hunk o'junk, shotmail shabbiness and general PC problems...

I'm back in the loop and ready to take the game off GrimJack when he finishes, if you'll let me...

Melifluous

Meli welcome back [party] . I'm sure that Nad doesn't mind, right Nad :cool:

No problems for me. I will try and finish in a couple of hours.
Email notification seems to be somewhat shaky, and I cannot quite figure out why/when forum decides to send an email notification.

Grimjack

I spent much of this time rebuilding our spent invasion force. Artillery helped much.

1824 (4) Continued...

IBT A Cav attacker is repelled with the help of newfound Artillery power. This may
very well be the last fearsome counterattack from Celts, as this turn I can start
distribute infantry defenders.

1826(5) Some prudent Micromanaging of food tiles, and MeliZad goes beyond the magic 40
spt border. Hmmm, A one hitpoint Cav out in the desert defeats our Veteran Cav. :(
Aararrgg, Their galley that was left unescorted when the wounded Frigate went home manages
to defeat our second IronClad. This is not good. Have to build some more Clads.
I finally kill off the three cavs pestering our advancing forces. According to our spies,
Celts now have only two cavs and 20 muskets left.

IBT: Vikings drop of four cavs on the Roman island. The two Celtish acavalry move into
pillage positions.

1828(6) This is the Galleon from hell. In spite of it being redlined at start of combat, it
manages to sink my third and last Ironclad on our eastern coast. As petty revenge, I kill
off the four invading Cavalry without any losses. I pillage two iron for the Celts, hoping
they do not have more in the fog. Notice that Celts are now building Riflemen.

IBT: In Celtish counterattacks, we lose one, Celts lose one. Notice that a Rifleman appeared.

1830(7) Kill of a raider. Kill off a musket pillager wannabe. Manage to kill road between
Celts and Vikes. all that remains is to capture every port :)

IBT: Nothing much. A Celtish Cav is killed on our defenders.

1832(8) STarting bombardment of Celtish city.

IBT: Nothing. Some ship movement from Vikings. We are really starting to suffer for cash.
I suggest we do not research at all except possibly lone scientist after we get Electronics
and Hoover Dam. I also start to build a few banks in select cities.

1834(9) I finally manage to kill the Galleon from hell. Wonder why it just stood there, waiting for an
escort. Bombardment goes bad, 6 Cannon and 2 artillery manage to ding the two riflemen that is on top.
Our Cavalry army manages to kill the two wounded riflemen without too much in losses, and
Agedinium is razed. Land lots of reinforcements on Celtish islands.

Time is running out for me here, so I will leave game to next player here, after nine turns.
There is not much that is able to move. Remember Suffrage is a prebuild for Hoovers. I strongly
suggest we then leave research well enough alone until we at least have the infrastructure needed
to research. Now we mostly have shields.

Grimjack

Game: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1834AD.sav

Absolutely GJ, I agree with you on single scientist research after Electronics. While we have infantry and the artillery and the Vikings don't, that is a window of opportunity for us and we maximize that by having lots of cash to rush what we need (also, we do have the option of drafting for a few extra troops if needs be; I was considering drafting on my last turn but decided against it then; we have enough luxes for the unhappiness not to be a problem, so a size 12 city with a full food bin is a candidate for drafting).

Meli is up, play 11 turns if you can to even out the turns

Grimjack....Just Played
Meli.....UP NOW
Nad.....ON DECK
Aggie

OK have got this now, but will play tomorrow as I am rather drunk and feel that this may indeed influence my play in a rather negative way...

Hope this is OK...

Be back soon...

Melifluous

Meli, just add a few point to my total in the ladder and it's OK :p

:beer:

How is this coming along, Meli? I'd like to get this baby moving again

OK Guys, finished my 11 turns....
I reckon this is just a case of finish the game quick like...
No more challenges I think

My 11 turns...

Turn 1 - 1836 - Kill stack of 4 scan cavs dropped south of Tumensogt
Turn 2 - 1838 - Took out a barb camp!!
Turn 3 - 1840 - Start cannon attack of Celt capital.
IT - First Scandinavian Ironclad spotted... Sinks one of our Ironclads :(
Turn 4 - 1842 - Curovernum is ours... defended by muskets, this was an easy take for just 1 cav army! Electronics is ours, I took a civ from our lowest producing city and made a scientist of him. 40 turns to the corporation. U. Suff switched to Hoover. Gold is on 408 per turn...
Turn 5 - 1844 - Hoover built. Alesia taken and IT HAD LEO's!!!, nice :thumbsup:. Some Scand cavalry seen coming north through Celtish land.
Turn 6 - 1846 - Lots more cav coming from the scandinavian south. Keeping myself amused by bombarding all the improvements around the scandinavian capital by ironclad ;)
Turn 7 - 1848 - Blah blah, build more troops...
Turn 8 - 1850 - Fairly big Scandinavian set of troops repelled, maybe they will stop with the ships now they can get to me by land...
Turn 9 - 1852 - *evil laugh* Just upgraded all my cannon to artillery... 17 Artillery up on the front ;)
Turn 10 - 1854 - Next turn is gonna hurt... Them...
Turn 11 - 1856 - 18 artillery, 15 cavs and 8 infantry attack Lapurdum. Lapurdum falls immediately.

And that was that...

We have LOADS of troops (54 cavs, 47 inf, 23 art), loadsa money (2374 gold, +424 per turn) and the celts on the run. Push hard and this might not make it back to me again...
Notes for the next player, every tiles on both our islands are completely improved there is nothing left to do. Big set of workers in the Mountains NE of Shanghai and sitting in Berlin.
Scandinavia is definately building Ironclads with a vengeance, but they only seem to be going for our ironclads so far. Maybe build some more just to make sure our Galleon Line is safe.
There are also some workers railroading in the north of the (ex) Celt lands, keep them safe for me ;)
Also troops are coming from Celts and Scandinavia from the southern part of the continent now... Thats where all the action seems to be atm...

Melifluous

BTW. Shanghai with its Coal Plant etc does 95 spt, Infantry builds in one turn...

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/WDelight1856AD.sav)

Grrrrrreat turn Meli. Let's finish this one quick :)

I got it. Will try to play tonight.
Grimjack

GrimJack wait!!!

AFAIK it is Nads turn next...
You skipped me cos I was slow right?

And yes I was quite slow this time, but I am sure its Nad up next...

Nad .... UP NEXT
Aggie ... ON DECK
GrimJack
Melifluous


Melifluous

Also something I forgot to put in my notes earlier...

We have about 7 or 8 Elite Cavalry atm, I also got a leader during my turns...

I created an Army, but did not fill it...

It should be siting in one of the ex-celt western cities...

Sorry bout forgetting this :o

Melifluous