Ok, I will play this one first before anything else because I am still patched at 1.14. I will have to patch up to play the others. Hopefully I won't have a turn like RPB7!! :eek:

1) I am starting to wonder if the Pyramids would be worth it. The thought of that city being our front-line city and flipping with 20+ units scares me to death. I am thinking of raze and replace it. This also works on another problem for an AW game - NO free workers. AW thrives on acquiring no cost workers.
>> Do we raze that city?

2) I agree with Cartouche Bee, and let us strip many of our cities to 2 mp. We have unneeded mp until rails kills the hanging gardens.

3) I looked at our current research capacity, and it is too weak. We can get astronomy in 33 turns. We definitely need to get a few more libraries before chemistry is done. The sad news is we may as well continue 40 turns for Chemistry. This is not the way to keep up with the AI.

4) Operation Saltpeter - This could turn out to be a bridge to far, but I agree to the plan. With the incursion being further into Carthage, it does have a chance. Carthage is screwed with lack of resources, and we DON'T want them to keep using that saltpeter.

Lee, I think your concerns are right on. But, if we send 5-6 galleys down the pipe to get that saltpeter, the AI has little chance to stop us. We do need at least a longbow and a cat in that initial landing just incase we have to dislodge a unit on the saltpeter site. If we get that site muskets fortified on a hill with a wall with cats back up can even stand up to cavs. This also denies Carthage of saltpeter, that cannot be overlooked.

It is simply not possible to pretend that we can research with any hope with only our Island cities, we need two rings of productive cities period.

Our navy is down to 5 galleys, we need a more aggressive naval plan and changing current orders to build at least 3 more quick (not cash rushed) is in order. Antioch for sure, right now at the point the invasion leaves from! We have to drop the libraries in the tundra cities and get on the *war wagon* (do not trade units with the AI 1 for 1). When there are 10 turn left to finish Chem, then I can concede the drive to build libraries and unis (not really but I'll concede). Things have to be done in order, right now we are on min research, lets do what we can to make the war effort work. Gain space and then drive for the research when we have a chance to make something out of it.

This saltpeter if the first light of day that we have seen since we found out we had no iron or horses. I think we have a chance take out Carthage because of it. The opportunity sits right in front of us but we are shaking in our boots, 'case we lose'.

As for culture flips, we need to keep 1 MP unit for each tile of the beach head's 21 tiles in the hands of Carthage. I believe that basically eliminates the culture flip possibility.

Let's talk it out! What are the options? Let's make an informed decision.

I have one more question.

If we don't use our current knowlege of techs now, what makes you think that techs will provide us a way out in the future?

What tech will provide this exit that we are looking for?

I am totally confused by the comments with the invasion. I agreed to do it, but you seem to be acting like I am against it. One very important point on the plan is to withdraw the units bombarding Carthage, and to have them in port for the saltpeter landing.

I am not worried about the saltpeter city flipping. I am worried with us taking Carthage, and that city flips. Are the Pyramids worth losing 20 units? As for the flip formula, I have lost cities with ONE square of overlap and multiple units. I lost gotm#14 on a single critical flip that cost me the almost completed FP.

My worry on the tech front is that we fall to behind and having to start fighting rifleman with long bowmen. That is a very real possibility if we can't get a better research rate going.

The one area I do disagree is the Tundra cities for military. I feel that fishing villages should concentrate 100% on infrastructure. 3 to 5 shields provide very little military help.

750 AD (Pre-turn)
Don't change anything
(I) We lose tow spears and a Longbow to counters.

760 AD (1)
Withdraw all forces into Samaria. Begin loading some in galleys. Change Sidon to a settler. We will need a couple more galleys to move troops north. Bombard all units I can. Chnge Antioch to a Galley.
(I) Lots of MDIs and Elephants show up. One Impi dies on our spears.

770 AD (2)
Pound the Elephants down and then do as much as I can to the MDI. 2 Elite Longbows and one Elite Bowman take out an elephant each. We then use Vet Longbows to take out 3 MDI and one NuMe. The rest are left as they are singles.
(I) We get 6 MDI and two Longbows from Carthage and a sword, MDI and archer from the Zulu. The Indians finish Cop's in Delhi.

780 AD (3)
Bomb what we can and then kill 3 MDI and two Longbows.
(I) A Zulu impi and archer kill themselves. More elephants and MDI arrive. The ones I didn't get to kill last turn leave. Some Mongols show up but they are out of range.The Aztec start Bach's.

790 AD (3)
Bomb everything but only get to kill three Elephants. It was a good thing that this turn was light as our cats couldn't hit the broad side of an elephant.
(I) An elephant takes out one of our spears. Lots of stuff arrives, including some Keshiks. Carthage and the Indians start Bach's.

800 AD (5)
Kill two Keshiks, two elephants and two MDI. Two elephants retreat.
(I) More units arrive. We lose a spear to a longbow.

810 AD (6)
Kill 2 Mongol swords, 2 elephants and 2 MDI, but lose a longbow. The settler arrives in Antioch to venture forth next turn with the fleet.
(I) Lose another spear to an elephant.

820 AD (7)
Kill 2 elephants, 3 MDI, 1 longbow and 1 NuMe. Our fleet sets sail with 2 warriors, 6 spears, 1 longbow, 2 cats and a settler
(I) We lose another spear to an elephant. The Indians start Magellan's.

830 AD (8)
Kill one each elephant and Keshik, 3 MDI, 1 NuMe, and 1 bowman.
(I)

840 AD (9)
I don't get to kill anything as they are all singlets, but I bomb them all to death.
(I) The elephants go 1 for 2 as they lose one and we lose a spear.

850 AD (10)
Only get to kill one elephant. Guess it is good as we get to heal the nicked units.


The fleet is set to make shore next turn. There are two galleys left behind for shuttle duty. You have two warriors to disband for shields. I would suggest harbor first and then barracks. By that time you might be able to mount some reserves. I guess it only has to hold for 4-5 turns so we can upgrade a bunch of spears. You have almost 2K to do it with. There is also a galley up beside the island. I intended this as a suicide galley. I want to get contact with the other civs before the ones we know complete Magallen's.

Saved Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lk44-850ad.zip)

I didn't see the comments after my post until it was too late, however.....

The units got pulled back from Carthage on the first turn.
The fleet is ready to land with 2 longbows and two cats.
The tundra cites were breifly taken off of infra and I used the shields built up for several units, settler included.
They are back building the libraries.

Have fun with the saltpeter and keep building cats. These are the critical unit for AW.

Based on on small the landing force is - my vote is barracks first. That way we can upgrade those 6 spears and have a chance to hold that city. Let's open this up to discussion before continueing.

===================================

LKendter (on deck)
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk
Meldor
ToddMarshall (currently playing)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are still playing with the 1.14 patch

I'd vote barracks, walls and library. Upgrade, protection and culture corona and flipping prevention.

I got it, but cant play immediately. Discuss away and ill play sometime in the next 24 or so. :)

I was suggesting harbor first just to allow us to upgrade all the stuff we already have and maybe put some pressure on Carthage and start a SoD moving towards the iron. You should have enough time to rush both the harbor and the rax before it is hit by anything that is big.

Harbor, Rax, Walls, Temple would be my suggested order.

Problem with harbor is that we don't have a trade route navigation path back to the homeland. So that leaves us having to shuttle spears for the upgrade but at least it's fairly possible to shuttle back and forth.

Library is cheaper and produces more culture so, that was why I went that route.

I agree with Lee, at this point we would have to raze Carthage, just as a point of safety.

LKendter (on deck)
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk
Meldor
ToddMarshall (currently playing)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are still playing with the 1.14 patch

===========

@Todd - Anything more to discuss, or are you ready to move.
I want to get this game going again.

===========

I agree with CB on the library - just as good for culture, and that city will be part of the core on the new land.

If I don't hear something from ToddMarhsall tonight, I will take the game Wed.

I noticed ToddMarhsall hasn't responded in some of his other games.

I will be taking the game when I get home and playing it TONIGHT unless I hear from TM before then.

Originally posted by LKendter
I noticed ToddMarhsall hasn't responded in some of his other games.

Yeah, I have noticed that as well. I hope everything is all right with him. The first few months after a heart attack can be....touchy. Especially if he had to have bypass surgery. I know, I have had a heart attack myself. Luckily, I didn't have to have any surgery.
Matt

Originally posted by Matt_G


Yeah, I have noticed that as well. I hope everything is all right with him. The first few months after a heart attack can be....touchy. Especially if he had to have bypass surgery. I know, I have had a heart attack myself. Luckily, I didn't have to have any surgery.
Matt

I am thinking the same thing. I really hope that you are ok, Todd.

850 AD (pre-turn) - Bactra has 4 useful shields and 7 useful commerce. Due to corruption, I can swap off the ocean and gain a shield. This city is shield poor, so I switch to Aqueduct to get it to size 12 and maximum revenue. The aqueduct will pay for itself in the for the extra unit support.
(I) One WE commits suicide against our walls.

860 AD - We kill 1 WE, 1 musket and 1 MI. We get our first leader - Darius. [dance]
Samaria is not the place for the fp, the AI already has Bach's and Magellan's :eek: under construction. I form our first army.
(I) We lose a spear at Samaria.
The new bridge lost a spear, but actually killed a MI and a LB.

870 AD - Hamadan is formed, and we have saltpeter. A regular warrior commits is disbanded, and we have instant barracks.
We get a victorious army, and shield strong Susa starts Heroic epic.
Our elite archer commits suicide vs. a conscript warrior. :(
We kill 1 Keshik, 3 MI, 2 LB and that annoying warrior. We get to promote one LB.
(I) We lose a spear at Samaria.

880 AD - The other warrior is disbanded, and we rush the walls and Hamadan. I perform the expensive upgrade, and the city is now defended with 5 muskets.
We kill 2 WE, and 1 MI. I don't believe it, we get leader #2 - Cyrus. [dance]
I simply form an empty army waiting for some musketmen.

This sounds perverse for an AI war, put I am happy to report first contact with the rest of the world - Zululand, America and the Iroquois. They are all pathetically broke, but not that far behind in tech. The only deal is Education to the Zulu for $61 and wm.
Holy @#@!$#! - Our enemies are on the SMALL continent.
(I) Hamadan holds and we get the walls completed. One WE died at that city.

890 AD - We sink a galley that got in range of Samaria. We only can kill 1 mi.
(I) The total death is 1 JW and 2 WE.

900 AD -We kill 2 knights.
(I) We kill 1 attacking WE and 1 attacking *Cavalry*. :eek:
:confused: This news causes our people to expand the palace.

910 AD -We kill 1 NM, 3 MI and 1 sword.
(I) We get a defensive leader at Hamadan.
We kill 2 cavalry.
We lose the LB army, as that was considered the best defender. :(

To be continued.

It is time for the short-term decision - what to do with leader #3?
I think Hamadan is far enough from the capital to build the fp, but I want other opinions.
It will take a while to get cities around it, but we this is as good as it gets in my opinion.

I would have prefered it in the iron city, but just having it somewhere to start our second core would be good.

One other thing to do would be to form a musket army to escort LBs and a few warriors to take the iron city.

It looks like all of our elites are starting to pay off.

It would be nice to get 2 musket armies, even 3 musket armies would be nice grouped together. They can work in tandem else our armies will fall to the same fate as the longbow army. Sounds like things are heating up so we should be able to get a few more leaders. :)

:goodjob: BTW!

I'd go for the Forbidden Palace, right away. We could hit a run of no-Leader luck for a while, especially after getting that lucky so quickly. Don't forget that it'll even help our northern cities on the home continent until we get cities filled in on the new continent; Antioch will be the #2 or #3 closest city to the FP.

I'm alive. Sorry for holding the game up guys. My comp decided to die and I didnt get it back till tonite. Between that and tax hell day today, I had no real way to get on. :(

Great to hear from you Todd ! :)

Glad your OK Todd. You had me worried.

920 AD - The leader decision is made - another army. The reason I choice army is we WILL lose this game if we don't leave the beachhead. I hope a musket army will let us do so.
This time I kill 1 MI and 1 LB.
(I) It is a bad turn for Persia as 2 musketmen die in Hamadan. We killed 2 cavalry and 1 LB.
The palace expands again.

930 AD - A 4 hp galley fails to sink a 1 hp galley.
We kill 1 LB, 1 cavalry and 1 WE.
I intentionally leave a couple of units exposed hoping to give Hamadan a one turn breather to the next units up there.
(I) The AI losses 1 Keshik, 2 WE and 1 cavalry.
Indian is now building Smith's; the tech situation is getting worse.

940 AD - We kill 1 MI, 1 knight and 2 LB.
5 spears arrive at Hamadan and are upgraded to muskets.
(I) The AI losses 2 cavalry, and 1 MI.
Indian lands a musketmen in Persia!

950 AD - We kill 1 cavalry, 1 knight, and 1 MI.


LKendter
Cartouche Bee (currently playing) - THINK 1.14.
T-hawk (on deck)
Meldor
ToddMarshall (skipped)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are still playing with the 1.14 patch

Summary:
When the Chemistry 40 turn ends, we must have full research capacity going on will be hopelessly behind in tech. We are getting killed with unit costs, as having enough catapults to be effective is brutal in the numbers required. Indian is at least **eight** techs ahead of us.

We need to figure out how to get beyond the bridgehead soon. I got the short-term goal with the saltpeter source. The question is where to we go from here? I am open to suggestions, and I feel like I am hitting my head against the wall. :wallbash:

This game has failed one of the AW components - the slow gain of new cities. We spent way too much time playing with building our perfect little island. This has to end NOW.
We have no chance in science without addition cities and the fp.
We will be fighting rifleman with longbowmen soon which will be ugly.

We must pick one of to goals:
1) Expand from Hamadan and start clearing the northern cities and build the FP with the next leader in Hamadan.
2) Expand from Samaria and try to nail Carthage now.

I don't think we can move forward until the team agrees on one of the goals. IMO - I want #1 as that way we can upgrade spearman to musketmen while the cash holds and the northern cities are away from the direction of most of the AI troops.

I left the galley stack by Hamadan to either return empty, or bring the muskets back to Samaria.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LK44-950AD.zip

Hamadan is on a hill with saltpeter so it's the point to work from, I'd like to take out Carthage before I leave that other site entirely. I am still running 1.14.

I agree, the number of units is killing us (the real sign of defeat in AW), we needed to get off that island alot earlier. I am still running 1.14.

My questions?

1.14 right?

2 armies in Hamadan? Running 1.14.

Did we built a fortress so I can attack Carthage? I am still running 1.14.

If we attack Carthage, can we raze and burn it? I am still running 1.14, no MP for me.

So start building libraries and universities across the board so we can get our research down to 20 turns? I am still running 1.14.

Disband all warriors (we can't even upgrade them) ASAP to save cash? Yes, I'm still running 1.14.

Research metallurgy to upgrade catapults? GameSpy wants me to upgrade now but instead crashes to the desktop, still running 1.14. :)

I don't want a RPB8 repeat. Uh CB, are you running 1.14? :crazyeye:

There are 2 empty armies, one in each town. We need to get both armies together. Neither have any units yet, so a galley can transport them. I started more galleys to increase the ability to shuffle to the further city.

I have no problems burning all cities. I don't want to deal with flips, or people griping about war vs. their mother country.

There is NO fortress, and our 3 lousy workers our at home.

I didn't think of it, be we may want to get rid of a few warriors.

=============================

Our cash will get eaten up just upgrading to muskets. However, the right to build cannons would be usually as we could have units with an improved hit ratio.

We did not spend too much time building our island. We had no chance of making ANY progress offensively before longbows; the best thing we could've done was build our island, and we did that quite well.

As for the plan - we already tried to crack Carthage city and it's a tough nut. Wait for cannons (don't build any more catapults in the meantime due to unit costs.) Spread out around the northern cities and get an FP running. Ideally, we can leave Carthage city for one of the last couple cities of that civilization, and keep it and the Pyramids without worrying about flips long-term. I don't have a problem with razing everything else, but having the Pyramids handed to us in our second core is worth a small ongoing flip risk.

Waiting for cannons? I haven't looked at Carthage's tech pace. Aren't they rather likely to have Rifles in that city by then? Probably a LOT of rifles?

I'd really like to capture Carthage city if there is ANY feasable way. We are going to need rapid city growth in our cities over there to get the cash/science going and we ain't gona have time to build graineries or merge in workers that far from home that I can see.

I think we go from Hamadan. We can leave Carthage to one of the last Carthage cities we take if we want to keep it. If we clear the upper area we will have a good chance.

The fortress idea has been vetoed for eons, too late now so I'll skip that. Really trying to figure out how we only have as many forces in the beach heads as we had 30 turns ago. So I decide that we must need to continue the military production.

IBT our homeland pillaging has begun. Carthage lands on the homeland also.

960AD Use what forces we have to try and repel invader on the mainland. Basic defense and attacks against stacks at beach heads.

IBT Our defense is so poor the AI is willing to hurl redlined Cavs at us at the beach heads.

970AD AI blockades us from our port, just a coincidence I guess. Clear the invaders from homeland.

980AD Palace gets an improvement. Oops another Great Leader. Plan on sending him to build FP but change my mind inbetween turns and build an army instead. Ham will have to cough up it's own leader to rush the FP.

990AD Pretty poor, just holding on, got the two new armies on the way Ham. Start Pentagon.

1000AD Troop movements mostly.

1010AD Fill three musket armies at Ham.

1020AD Holding fairly strong. Actually have gained 10 units onto the beach heads.

IBT We hold off an attack of 9 cavs, after we turn down India's plea for peace.

1030AD Our counter attacks on the redlined cavs produced another Great Leader, this one, in the right place, rushes the FP. Successfully smash carthage improvements in range of the cats at Ham.

1040AD Not a single attack on us this turn.

1050AD Americans land at Samaria, 2 warriors, a reg and conscript. Give American galley something to think about as it fills with sea water and sinks out of sight. Get as many libraries started where we can build them. Set research to complete metallurgy in 20 turns.

LK44 1050 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LK44-1050AD.SAV)

LKendter
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk (currently playing)
Meldor (on deck)
ToddMarshall

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are still playing with the 1.14 patch

Got it. Will play this afternoon; any more discussion in the meantime before then is welcome.

I took a look at the save from CB. We can't maintain a 10% science rate without a deficit. CB has us running an absurd 40% losing ~$65/turn with a cash reserve of ~$400. This simply can't continue. We are not ready to self-research and can't afford to build libraries at this time.

We have already pretty much thrown away the advantage of the longbow era gaining just the one city of saltpeter.

Our only useful resource of saltpeter is isolated to one city.

Even with CB getting musket armies going we still haven't left the beachhead cities.

IMHO we can't win with 40-turn research and the lack of resources. I am opening this game up for debate for someone to prove me wrong. I know I don't want to be fighting infantry with longbows.

IMHO is this game this game is an exercise in futility unless we can come up with a viable plan.

I think we are still OK. We need to start up north taking the smaller towns and pushing the builds up there. Will we lose ToE and Hoover's, probably. We will win, most likely. If we are so totally lost by the time we get tanks then we can consider it a waste.

I didn't actually run research at 40%, just set it that way.;)

Even if we disband 65 units, that is all research we can muster. Then with libraries and universities if we disband another 20 units on top of the first 65 to pay for the library and university upkeep, we would be researching at the grand rate of 15 turns. So if we disband 85 units we can run research at 15 turns without losing money.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
I didn't actually run research at 40%, just set it that way.;)

Even if we disband 65 units, that is all research we can muster. Then with libraries and universities if we disband another 20 units on top of the first 65 to pay for the library and university upkeep, we would be researching at the grand rate of 15 turns. So if we disband 85 units we can run research at 15 turns without losing money.


Ok, you proved your point that we are screwed in the science department.

Let's swap to the bigger issue. How do we get out of this situation?

Build up a core of strong cities around the FP would come to mind as how to get out of this economic situation.

BTW, the thread title does say "AW suicide mission" - don't complain if we might be losing ;)

I like meldor's idea cause Ham. guards the flank of any actions up in that area.

Well, made a nice long post but it got eaten :(. I like meldors idea too. The lack of any high commerce squares in our core and lack of a 2nd core are primarily what is killing us. Its desperation time for the 2nd core. IF we dont have it in 20-30 turns at the latest, this game is history.

I really can not hear the fat lady sing guys, even in the distance....

I am still playing, but here is a teaser:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lk44-hadrum.jpg

Is that an Impi I see?

It is. The Zulu landed a couple boatfuls of insignificant units :crazyeye:

Pre-turn: Priority One: patch to 1.14. :)

Fix a couple MM issues. Also turn off research until we get the libraries built; no sense in losing cash towards research at 50% of the efficiency that we could be.

==========

Between turns: Hamadan's armies defeat three attacking cavalry and cause one to retreat. (Why in the workd are they assaulting this city instead of Samaria?) Three other cavs do attack Samaria for one win, one loss, and one retreat.

1060 AD: We repel another several units.

The Indians are building Newton's. F4 shows Gandhi in the Industrial Age.

1070 AD: A Zulu boat landed two units at Hamadan. We kill the impi and the horseman.

1080 AD: Part of the reason we aren't getting anywhere is that we have two dozen units stacked up in Antioch that haven't been shipped over yet. Since it's going to take a while to move them anyway, I decide to build universities in the cities instead of more military for the moment.

1090 AD: The two galleys full of musketmen land at Samaria and fortify, which should cut down on our losses here.

1100 AD: Three galleys full of longbows from home have finally arrived, so this turn I advance two of our musket armies and a lot of longbows and catapults up next to Hadrumetum.

1110 AD: Hadrumetum falls! It had only one Numidian and one musket for defense. It is razed, and replaced by a city one to the north.

1120 AD: The force that took Hadrumetum moves onto the mountain next to Leptis Minor. I choose this city instead of Cadiz because I can reach it a turn sooner (including with four more longbowmen fresh off a boat), there's a mountain for us to sit on while attacking it, and because it's better and more useful terrain to start growing our own city than Cadiz iz.

Between turns, FRIGATES start bombing the terrain by Samaria. This is going to be a major problem; we are soon not going to be able to ship anything up to Hamadan's area, so I've been getting as much up there as I can right now.

1130 AD: Our catapults score two hits on muskets in Leptis Minor. I'm not going to waste that opportunity. We lose three longbows (including one that lost by attacking a longbow in the city), but the city is razed and replaced.

This also brings Spices within our borders, if we ever manage to secure a trade route between these cities and home. I don't think we can do so until Magnetism, because Carthaginian territory seems to block all the paths over sea terrain.

1140 AD: More casualties on both sides.

1150 AD: I'm going to pass off at the beginning of the turn (no units moved) in hopes somebody can think of some better plans. We have three cities in the FP area now, each defended by a musket army; but the cities' terrain is getting torn up by units we can't counterattack without fast units of our own. (Maybe we should've tried to beachhead on India's horses between Calcutta and Bangalore, but it's too late now; we'd never get galleys through their frigates.)

We have some of our universities built and the rest are coming in 3 turns; after that we can swap to full research on Metallurgy.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lk44-1150ad.zip

Ah, the industrial age. Thats the point where we discover we have no coal on our island right? :lol:

Originally posted by ToddMarshall
Ah, the industrial age. Thats the point where we discover we have no coal on our island right? :lol: The only coal will be on the island with the other civs on a mountain near the coast. We will only be able to use it in that city, because it will be surrounded by the culture borders of another civ.

Originally posted by T-hawk

We have some of our universities built and the rest are coming in 3 turns; after that we can swap to full research on Metallurgy.


:confused:
What research ability? At the end of CB turn we could not even make 10% without a loss.
:confused:



LKendter
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk
Meldor (currently playing)
ToddMarshall (on deck)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are still playing with the 1.14 patch

I got a change to look at the game.
Getting the FP and the 2 new cities is making a big difference.
We can research at 20% with a small loss.
We are starting to climb out of the hole in the science department.

The next problem is the nation size, and getting saltpeter back to the homeland.
1) We must get the settler from Samaria up north.
2) We still have some cash, and need to upgrade that last spearman while we can.
3) We need to get Carthage out of the picture.

During the next 10 turns - Rusicade must be destroyed.
Theveste must go next and be replaced.

I think we have been so scared of unit losses that we have gotten paralysis. If we can't take out cities every round left in this game, we can't win - period.

It is in the queue....

Well, after looking at it, if its still in this kind of shape, I'll definately be taking some chances, because I feel like the time for safety has passed. It's time for Carthage to go bye bye so we can start doing something about India. If we can hurt India, that should bog down the tech pace and give us some kind of chance. The real concren would be making sure we can get this continent under control in time to do something about the other civs before they can launch.

If we drop 25 of our best units every 10 turns we won't be have to worry about spaceships. Research opportunities are looking better though, only another 60 more units to drop.

I'm not advocating suiciding units...... even though the title is suicide mission. It does seem like we don't have much choice but to take a few chances though.

meldor, how far "in queue" is this one? I know you were up in at least 3 games at the same time. If its pretty far down the list, I could swap with you. If your gona get to it tonite though, no problemo.

I should be albe to get it tonight, but if you can get it done by tomorrow morning, go ahead if that is better for you.

If you can get it tonite, I can wait. I have the morning and afternoon tomorrow to play. I just knew you came up in a lot of games at once, so I though I'd offer if it helped you out. I'll probably take a turn in Sirp's open game in a few then. Either that or a nap......nap sounds good too.

Sorry Todd, I had something come up, if you can get it then take it and we can swap for this round. Thanks.

Ack, I had something come up TODAY =/. I was loging on to say got it play tomorrow... I can't play till tomorrow night most likely. If you havent played by then we'll switch.

Hmmmmmmmm. Looks like you aren't going to be able to play tonite either, so I guess I got it and should have it played in the next 12 hours or so.

:saiyan: This is unbelievable. Aparently something is wrong with my 1.14 patch now, it will NOT install. The 1.21 patch and all the vanila civ patches work just fine, but not the only one that I have to have working. :aargh:

Unless somone knows where I can still get a US version of this I'm screwed.

Todd,
You can get the US version of 1.14f here. (http://www.civfanatics.net/files/civ3/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=538)

Matt

I picked 1.14 to be fair to the non-USA players, but I don't think we have any here.

@All - is there any reason for us not to go to 1.21?
I know CB, T-Hawk, and Meldor can.
TM - Upgrade this one to 1.21 if you can play with that version.

LKendter
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk
Meldor (on deck)
ToddMarshall (currently playing)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are playing with the 1.21 patch

Patch 1.21f?:), the way this game is going, we will get Medicine for our free tech. :lol:

Good point -

Todd let us know what happens with 1.14 and then we can decide.

Blasted board flakeyness - double post.

OK, I'll go to 1.21 which I've been using for everything else but this game.

@CB The tech pull is really, really random on 1.21. Save the game the turn before you would finish an age than play the next turn. You can do absolutely nothing diffrent yet pull a diffrent freebie. Aparently the tech pull is in no way seed related but truly random.

Edit: Well, wait, let me try downloading the 1.14 from the link matt gave first. If I can get that to work, I'll play it on 1.14.

Actually, I'm not sure what time i can get to it but it will be within 12 hours. If meldor can get it before I post I'm playing go for it.

Now that we got CB nicely switching to 1.14, you guys are making it again too complicated !
;)

Hey, its not my fault my patch got a bug :(. My comp never worked right with it anyway. I have to completely uninstal the game to change patches for whatever reason :(. The normal method of patch swaping just wont work on this comp =/.

Alright, im going to go now. Honesty it looks hopeless to me. How in the world we take out rifle defended cities with a grand total of 20 longbows is beyond me. Especially since the other continent is HUGE and they will for sure be invading us soon. Forget what I said about taking chances. I'll be happy to just be able to pass this off to meldow with some prayer left of winning.

meldor, if your lurking out there and can play now, do it. My gf surprised me by returning a night early. Being as how I've not seen her for a week, Civ isnt whats happening atm. I got one turn played. If you haven't picked it up by the time she goes to bed, I'll finish the turn. Otherwise, I'll play after you if you can play tonite.

Edit: Aparently you weren't lurking, so I'll continue.

Well, I'm half done with the turn and I'm not playing the other half tonite because frankly I'm too depressed to. I really have to ask everyone how badly we want to play this out to the bitter end at this point, because after 5 turns I can guarantee any chance of winning is over.

The Indian's have at least 8 Friggates partoling the waters now. Any hope of using the Galleys in any way other than port to port is gone. Seveal galleys were lost to frigates coming out of the fog.

The Indians are now landing troops on our island every turn. The RNG cost us 3 longbows and 2 spears to kill one stinking Cav and a musket even with the 3 cats supporting. They ALMOST took a HOMELAND city because of this.

India has killed at least half a dozzen spears at our beachhead with their waves of cavs. Their RoP with Carthage lets them get in and hit before our cats can hurt them. The Aztecs are now sending cavs at our FP area.

The RNG is on their side too. 2 archers died trying to kill an 1hp knight in the open

The absolute "highlight" of the turn so far is when one Aztec vet cav, ONE, killed a fully healthy musket army ON ITS OWN.

We are losing units far faster than we can replace them and we no longer have any way of getting more spears over to upgrade because of India's friggates. They did lose a couple to our galleys and I've been hiting them with cats whenever possible, but it isn't nearly enough.

I tried mounting an offensive, but 8 Keshik, EIGHT, showed up from the fog and cut down the musket cover forcing us to call it off. If we want to go on, I'll finish the turn tomorrow, but there is no way I can see to win this now. We wont even have cannons for a dozen more turns. We may not even have beach heads left by then.

Todd,

Tell you what - lets put this up for a team vote.


IMO this game was lost when we had no horses or iron in the homeland. That in conjunction with us stay on on island WAY to long was the fatal blow.
I am willing to consider this the first lost in the LK series. :cry:



Lee

As a lurker, I would really encourage you guys to carry on. To the bitter end, and all that! If you look at the defiant nationalists thread, they were thinking of restarting as well but things have picked up in their game. You never know, the worst that can happen is you lose which you do anyway if you quit. And it's been such a great game so far which I've thoroughly enjoyed reading....

Have you been cah rushing muskets up north?

Have we managed to get any muskets into the beachead"?
I assume from your comments that we haven't. It will be pretty tough to keep that city with spears defneding against Cav.

We are down to $400. I very much doubt we can get many more muskets.

===================

I think an clear loss the if both beachhead cities go away.

Well, I think we should play on, regardless the outcome, we did play a very good game considering the island we were dealt. :)

We should probably evacuate what we can back to the *big* island and hunker down.

@Cartouche Bee -

Ok, we hide on the big island for the rest of the game.
What does this accomplish?
How do we win sitting on the island?
Even Susa won't hit 20K, as we won't get any more wonders.

I have no interest in simply sitting around waiting for the AI to win.

I understand, but I think it's better to make them win than to concede before the game is half done. Your right we do know the outcome, but there are things to be learned, even in defeat. :) It's your choice.

I just generated a new random map last night for a Emperor AW-Honorable Rules Greeks standard Pangea - 6 opponent game. Did a test run to ensure it was a valid starting spot. I'm writing up a few simplistic but specific rules to characterize the Greek civ in a way ensure that we get a behavioral fighting chance. Would you be interested in some simple revenge?

Don't give up!!!!

Don't underestimate the power of artillery (requires no resources) in the hands of a human player.
And don't overestimate the AI, which still gets bogged down in Communism and struggles mightily the later the game goes.

You might have rubber (infantry). Even if not, guerillas and riflemen are an effective enough force to take territory (with artillery). The lack of commerce and research might be a killer, but you won't know if you don't fight it out.

I can remember a number of other instances, Lee, where you "proclaimed" a loss, only to emerge victorious. Don't despair. Yes, it looks bleak now but hope might be just around the corner....

Arathorn

My preference would be LK46, revenge of Persia, Emperor AW, and 1.21 patch. However if the team wants to continue, I will. I do understand Arathorn's never give up point, and that is why I put the game up for a vote. I will continue if other team members want to.

This game has been no fun at all for me, as I could not get us out of infrastructure mode. We got so obsessed on granaries, cathedrals, size 12 cities, etc that we failed to be in a position for a major landing the second longbows arrived including a block of archers to upgrade for instant longbows. We lost our best windows of opportunity.

We DID have a major landing as soon as longbows arrived. I had 20 catapults, 10 longbows, and 10 spears right next to Carthage city when it didn't yet have a musket defender. I was thinking to wait until the catapults got lucky and made 3-4 hits on units in one turn, then hit the city with everything.

They got pulled out of there after my turn and sat in the first beachhead while we diverted our resources at the saltpeter beachhead and meanwhile Carthage built and upgraded muskets. I think that's where we went wrong. The cathedrals weren't wrong; there was no other way to have our cities producing even as much military as they are.

Anyways, Arathorn's points about artillery are good. Cannons will come soon, and can probably defend our homeland fairly well (although attacking them with longbows is still quite a drag.)

Our last hope is our Industrial Age free tech; if we can get Nationalism, or Steam Power and thence to Replaceable Parts reasonably quickly, we could yet pull this out. However, we're still 5.5 techs away from doing even that....

T-hawk, you yourself said we were stalemated at Carthage. The reason was that we needed a fortress there to make the siege. I was already culling workers and had one was on the way but it got added to Antioch. The fortress was key to making a sustainable assault on Carthage, baring some lucky RNG run for us with the cats and longbows.

The current situation, even with steam, since we have no iron will not help us out. Cavs are slaughtering our spears, we need to withdraw, back to the island. Our 3 armies need to be grouped to be able to sustain the forces that they are going to have chucked at them. Our cats can ping all that come near or on the homeland. Actually we could hold fairly easily until the AI get marines, then they have to actually do a real invasion to get us.

It was a stalemate at Carthage, but it would've been broken with a small RNG swing to our side, and (in 20/20 hindsight; none of us knew it at the time) continuing that siege would've cost us less than pouring effort at that saltpeter. Well, what's done is done, unless we want to go back to that save and continue playing the game from there. :)

I had forgotten about the possibility of shore blockading our entire island until marines. Catapults even work for that. That'll almost assuredly get us at least to artillery, although I'm not sure what we'd do with them...

Alright, I'll finish the turn in a little bit. I just wanted to make sure everyone was prepared to fight on in a purely defensive, live as long as possible mode.

@Nad - There is a huge diffrence between this game and the defiant game. There we only had to live long enough to get peace, and thanks to some great play by the entire team we did just that. Here, we can't make peace ever, so cowering in a esve shell prolongs the inevitible..

@ Arathorn - I agree about the power of artillery, I'm just concerned that when we have artillery, the AI will have mechs the way our research is going.

As far as where tha game was lost, I think it was lost at the point where Carthage was our neighbor. Anyone else we could have taken with Archers. I do think, though, that had we had horses we win this game because we could have gone for iron somewhere. Even a handfull of knights and we could still win this game :(.

I think the game was lost with no iron on our landmass.
Immortals would have ripped through nm.

-----------------------------------

I think when we got afraid to attack the city of Carthage was the other key. Even if we lost a lot of units, but got the pyramids out of the game we would have been in better shape.

Having no iron was indeed a bummer, but had we at least had horses, we might have been ok. Having nothing but archers and spears to go face Carthage with was just more than we could overcome. Ill have the save file up in time for meldor to grab tonite. Dont look for a highly turn by turn accounting of this one. It's too depressing to write it up in depth.

Well, the good news: We still have 2 of our 4 beachhead cities left. The Mongols stoped sending Keshik after us, we sank 6 Indian friggates. India stoped landing stiuff on our home continent, we are now able to research at 30% at only a small loss.

The bad news: The reason Mongolia stoped with Keshik is they are sending Cavs, India now has a rifle menacing our FP, We have only One musket army and a single musket left. No chance of evacuating stuff from the FP city, as india has the port blockaded. We are down to 9 spears in our first beachhead city.

I've been evacuating some of our cats home as best I can. Maybe a hardened Deity conuest vet could have held out better than I did, I don't know. I know that the pillaging really killed us as 2 turns in we lost salt connections to both our other FP area cities, so that really tied my hands with being able to rush any muskets.

Really, even if we HAD held those cities, we were doomed in the long run because of all the Cavs running arround now. If I had it to do over again, I'd have sacrificed a few longbows to kill some of those Cavs, but that only prolongs the inevitible, it wouldn't change the eventual outcome. We are at least 60 turns away from Nationalisim, and there is no way we could have held those cities 60 turns.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LK44-1250AD.sav

Got it.

I forgot to mention this earlier, but I DID get the 1.14 patch up and running and played my turn under that.

1250 AD (Pre-turn)
Bomb everything I can. Unload the galleys and move them back across to pick up more Cats. Kill off a Mongol Pike and Sword.
(I) The musket army at Hamadan kills 3 Cav and retreats 3 more before it dies. Belive it or not, the spears in Samaira kill two Cavs and lose none.

1255 AD (1)
I manage to kill a Cav and a Keshik near Hamadan and 1 longbow near Samaria. One maybe two more turns for Hamadan. If it looks like they will take it, I am going to sell everything, abandon the city and disband the cats.
(I)

1260 AD (2)
I should have done it last turn. My bad, sorry guys. 15 Cav come out of nowhere and we no longer own Hamadan. I load 6 more Galleys in Samaria. If we get these six out it will be the last ones we can.
(I)

1265 AD (3)
Bring across 6 cats and bomb what I can. Keep putting units around blocking the shoreline.
(I) Not pretty. A lot of Cav arrive at Samaria.

1270 AD (4)
The cats are disbanded and I sell all improvements.
(I) The cav hit and we only have six defenders left. The Zulu land a Cav on our island.

1275 AD (5)
The last six defenders make it out, but because of a blocking ship. can't make it all the way to the safe port. We abandon the city. Luckily the Zulu Cav was a reg and dies to a Longbow. On the plus side we are now at +11gpt income. I move the science slider up two to give us Metal in 2 at -34gpt.
(I) Our brave galleys die at sea, but they take a frigate with them. India begins US. The Zulu do the same.

1280 AD (6)
Keep covering landing sites.
(I)Our shores continue to get chewed up. Aztecs start US. We get metal and start Astronomy due in 8 at -13gpt

185-1300 AD (7-10)
Scamble to get the turtle defense in place as massive fleets approach our shores. As soon as all of the spots were coverd the ships turned around.

We need to finish covering the Cats up north with spears. With nothing else to build I was switching some cities to wealth. Astronomy is due in 5.

Saved Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LK44-1300AD.zip)

India begins US. The Zulu do the same.

:eek: We are even further behind then I realized!

=======================================

LKendter (currently playing)
Cartouche Bee (on deck)
T-hawk
Meldor
ToddMarshall

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

:confused: I though ToddMarshall got 1.14 to work, but this is a 1.21 game.


1300 AD to 1350 AD - I stop building military, as I don't see what good it will do us. The whole coast is blockaded.

I am confused what we are trying to accomplish with hiding on the island? We can't win hiding on this island.

Astronomy has been researched. Banking is up next.

LKendter
Cartouche Bee (currently playing)
T-hawk (on deck)
Meldor
ToddMarshall

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are playing with the 1.21 patch


Summary:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LK44-1350AD.zip

I don't mean to butt in here or anything, but don't you guys think that blockading your entire island is a little on the exploitive side? I attempted a Deity Always War game (see the Stories & Tales forum), and I was on an island. Although I easily could have, I made sure that I *never* blockaded my entire island, always allowing the AI at least some tiles to land on.

I even captured a city on a tiny, two-tile island that had iron on it. Once again, I could easily have even more easily blockaded the island and disallowed the AI from landing, but chose not to, always giving them the chance to attack the city (and eventually they did capture it).

Just my 2c.

-Sirp.

Lee, we can't win period, the game is over. Really. We aren't even trying to win anymore that I know of. We tried winning and the cavalry blew us apart our saltpeter/FP area WAY faster than we could handle. We just want to hang out to see who launches first is my take on it. We have no hope of winning that I can see, no hope of ever launching annother offensive. Hiding out on the island isnt remotely fun or exciting, but there isnt anything else we can do unless we want to roll over, throw our paws up and let them kill us as fast as they can. If thats what the crew wants to do, thats fine with me.

Basically, whats left this game is grabing the save, clicking spacebar 10 times, and loading it up for the next person to do the same thing. Thats it. Hoover is going to be built before we ever get our first Industrial tech more than likely. They will have mechs before we get artillery at a guess.

Actually, at this point, we might as well revolt to Republic and try to get to the modern age before they launch.

Originally posted by LKendter
:confused: I though ToddMarshall got 1.14 to work, but this is a 1.21 game.Sorry, I missed that, I just got in my head that I didn't have to patch for this one any more. Do I need to go back and redo on 1.44?

At this point - NO.

I am not even sure what we are trying to accomplish at this point. The volume of AI cavalry would rip any future landings.

We're trying to get to artillery, and praying we have some rubber. Infantry and artillery can make almost infinite conquest with virtually no losses. That's our last hope. Maybe we don't get to Replaceable Parts before someone launches, but I'll be damned if I don't try... :hammer:

Wow, what is all this talk about caving? :)

I looked at the file and will play tonight.

I'll start bank prebuilds and marketplaces across the board. In my mind any city that does not have a marketplace by this time is an example of poor insight into the game mechanics. Banks and marketplaces do help research, they pay for stuff!

I'll move all the cats to Antioch. Trim MP duty to no more than 2 units per city. This will allow us to move as many longbows to possible to Antioch, instead of them sitting on the shores, only when I have something to replace them though. Then I hope to start some leader fishing by letting the AI land next to Antioch. I'll start baiting the AI with some impossible targets so they get some units on the way over to us, I doubt this will be required but it part of the FUN!

I'll start mining those irrigated grass, especially the bonus fur and that one tile that Susa needs to hit the 20 shield plateau. I'll move those workers down from the lame tundra cities up to do some real work where it will count.

Speaking of Susa, what about that FP after the bank? That will help our economy alot!

Instead of suicide, think ALAMO!

Thats the spirit! Now that we have moved off and stopped giving them easy targets, they should begin fighting amoung themselves again.

I thing I thought about was a suprise assualt of the small island.

I had one other thought, how close to the coast are all of the capitals of the AI civs?

We may need to do limited strike, raze and retreat on all of the first thing to prevent launch.

Capture of the small Island might be possible, but India has so many friggates now it would be risky. I was all for taking that island eons ago simply because it looked pretty easy. I even considered that we could build the FP up there on our northwestern tip of the homeland city and make those cities productive. Now that Rifles are running arround, I don't know how likely that would be. We probably missed our best window of opportunity to go with that plan.

Preturn:

As per my previous post.

I will let the AI land next to Antioch, so we can pound at them. Maybe we can get some more Great leaders and build armies or rush the FP.

1355 Trim research to 30%, banking in 1.

1360 Research Physics in 7 at 50%, can't sustain. Switch all the bank prebuilds to banks.

1365 Put research up to 60%

1370 Leave a spot for the AI to attack.

1375 Take out the 1 cav that was landed. Research at 40%

1380 Leave a spot for the AI to attack.

1385 Take out 1 rifle and 3 cavs, no losses and 1 elite.

1390 Research 30% Leave a spot for the AI to attack.

1395 Take out 1 rifle and 3 cavs, no losses. FP started.

1400. Physics. research ToG at 40% in 9 but can not sustain that rate. More banks will be coming on line.


LK44 1400AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LK44-1400AD.SAV)

LKendter
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk (currently playing)
Meldor (on deck)
ToddMarshall

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are playing with the 1.21 patch

I'm up? I see it, can get to it probably late Friday night. Will keep plugging along, and it looks like we'll get to see the free Industrial tech on my turn.

My apologies; but I had a bad day and wasn't in the mood for this one tonight. I think I can get to it tomorrow afternoon; I'll post one way or the other then. If whoever's after me is raring to go tonight and wants to play a turn, feel free.

Inherited turn:

Only change is to get Antioch working food tiles instead of the land tiles it's been displaced to by invading ships.

1405: We kill an invading Numidian and two longbows.

1410: We kill an Indian cavalry and spearman.

1415: Four Indian cavalry.

I start ordering courthouses in the cities that finish their banks. The courthouses more than pay for their maintenance cost if they save a single commerce lost to corruption.

1420: Eek. Two Indian rifles and no fewer than SIX cavalry landed. We lose three longbows but manage to kill them all.

1425: Yikes. Four rifles and two cavalry, but the RNG is kind and our catapults hit a lot and we only lose one longbow. (By the way, they're all veteran. So much for all you Einsteins who thought denying Sun Tzu's would deny veteran units to India. :p :crazyeye: )

I am going to have to run a full shore blockade for a turn or two to let all our longbows heal, though.

Sidon riots? Oops. Its marketplace will have to change to a cathedral.

1430: Okay, only had to run a full shore blockade for one turn; all but two of our longbows will be healed this turn. We open up a landing spot again. And Persepolis is again building longbows every other turn to replace the ones lost.

1435: Heh, nothing landed on the open landing spot. Those six rifles and 8 cavalry we killed must in fact be a good 8-10 turns worth of India's production capacity. (Well, at least the capacity that isn't going to friggin' frigates that are clogging up our waters bigtime. At least we can clean those up neatly with ironclads if by some stroke of fate we have coal...)

I rearrange things so the open landing spot is next to Antioch instead of a tile away, so longbows can attack from the city meaning they'll heal faster on the next turn. (Who built a fortress on the tile SE of Antioch? I'd rather leave that open as the alternate landing spot when we have a unit on the tile SW of Antioch.)

1440: Only one cavalry landed; we bombard it to redline but it takes all 5 HP off the attacking elite longbow! The next one kills it. If we get a GL in here, let's make a longbow army...

1445: Again, nothing lands. Are the AIs gassed?

Susa completed the Forbidden Palace this turn, reducing our corruption losses from 40 to 30 which is a 20/turn gain of beakers+cash. Not huge, but we'll take it.

Theory of Gravity comes in this turn, and I didn't realize we didn't have Magnetism yet. That's ordered up; it'll take about 8 turns.

1450: One rifle and three cavs land; we lose one longbow against a redlined cav. I pillaged that one fortress I was complaining about; we can use the two spaces SE and SW of Antioch as landing and killing zones. Do keep doing that, since it kills AI units in a trickle instead of letting them amass a SoD.

==========

Well, here's the game situation. India is in communism. Carthage is still in Republic but must be under tremendous war weariness; we did raze three of their cities.

If it was us against only the near continent of civs, I do believe we would reach a winning position in the artillery era. Our early efforts didn't gain us much, but we did hurt Carthage some, and we inflicted enough damage on India to knock them into Communism. With artillery and infantry (we gotta have SOME resource on this rock), we could take out those two civs in time, well before they launched, and the Aztecs and Mongols would follow in turn.

Unfortunately, there's another three civs on the far continent, all larger than our neighbors and in Democracy to stay which we aren't going to be able to do anything about. One of the reasons Always War is winnable in the first place is that the rival civs build NO buildings, just units, and will do so forever while at war. But contact with the other continent came too late; they got all their infrastructure built, and they're going to be researching and supplying our neighbors with techs that we can't do anything about.

I'm still all for playing this out and seeing just how far we can get with artillery. If nothing else, it'll be a tremendous learning experience - far more than cruising to an easy win would be, and the knowledge we gain here could well lead us to victory in the revenge game (which IS forthcoming. :eek: ) I'd much rather this go down as the first loss in the LK series than the first chickened-out-in-midstream in the LK series. :hammer:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lk44-1450ad.zip

Originally posted by T-hawk
So much for all you Einsteins who thought denying Sun Tzu's would deny veteran units to India. :p :crazyeye: )

...and the knowledge we gain here could well lead us to victory in the revenge game (which IS forthcoming.



I don't know why you a dragging this old issue with sarcastic statements. This game already sucks without having to put up with attitude from my fellow players.


Don't assume anything about future LK games. Between this and LK45 I am starting to feel like I need to take a break.

===============================

LKendter
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk
Meldor (currently playing)
ToddMarshall (on deck)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are playing with the 1.21 patch

Ha ha ha, it just goes to show the myth's that people believe that governs their play. In this case, the myth that the AI only builds units while at war, is disproved, don't rely on that when making key game decisions. ;)

Hey, there were plenty of smilies there, it wasn't intended to be nasty, just a point that did need to be made. :) :crazyeye: :band: :D :king:

And I'll sponsor the revenge game (though not for a while) if Lee doesn't want to. :hammer: Between this and Epic 27, I'm getting a lot more experience in Always War than I'd had previously...

Originally posted by T-hawk

One of the reasons Always War is winnable in the first place is that the rival civs build NO buildings, just units, and will do so forever while at war.


Wrong, maybe on some of the old patches but not any more. ;)

This is especially true for island starts. The AI builds many many buioldings when they dont have a war on their landmass now

LKendter
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk
Meldor (currently playing) OVERDUE heading toward skip.
ToddMarshall (on deck)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are playing with the 1.21 patch


I know Meldor has been around, I don't know why he didn't "got it" for this game. Nothing by late tonight and the game skips to ToddMarshall.

Well, we'll work it out. I'm up in his SG and hes on deck behind me there. I'll play there and if he hasnt played here by then, I'll play here as well?

OK - I don't know what is going on with Meldor.
His last post was very early this morning, so his is still around.

If he fails to post within 5 hours of this post, then ToddMarshall should take it and he is auto-skipped until he shows signs of life for this game.

Try giving him a PM; occasionally the email notification system for subscribed threads glitches and doesn't notify somebody.

Originally posted by T-hawk
Try giving him a PM; occasionally the email notification system for subscribed threads glitches and doesn't notify somebody.

<Lurk mode off>
I have never received an e-mail notification for any thread or PM.
I think some ISP's filter them in the belief they are spam.
<Lurk mode on>

I used to get pm / thread notifications, but they both stopped.


I did try pm and e-mail besides this post.

Sorry, I had to go out of town on short notice for business. I can't play it until tomorrow night, so if you still wan't to skip me, that would be fine.

LKendter
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk
Meldor (on deck)
ToddMarshall (currently playing - swapped positions)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

We are playing with the 1.21 patch

well, its in queue. eh, tell you what. ill do this one first. it shouldnt take long

I just got a call from my mom. My stepdad is in ICU. I dont know whats going on right now, I'm on my way up there. I'm gona have to say skip me till further notice. I'll advise my SG's when I'm able to return.

I'll say a prayer for him Todd.

I will grab this one first if I am up now.

My apologies to all, I checked the date of the posted save and I missed it.

I was gone this weekend on a Scout camping trip with my son. I had posted it in another thread, but didn't think I would come up in this one. I then missed it when I got back Sunday evening, though I probably wouldn't have been able to play it, but I could have posted a skip. I was on-line at work Monday, but Monday night through last night, I was out of town doing a study at T A&M. Tonight would have been the earliest to have gotten it anyway.

Again, my apologies for holding it up.

1450-1500 AD (Pre-turn-10)
We have too many units. I hate doing it but I put most cities on wealth and MMed all that weren't building anything to max cash to fuel research. Continue leader fishing. We build a caravel and sink some Frigates. It then was sunk when I got upity and tried to take out a 1HP ironclad. There is a galleon building if we want to send some porr souls to pillage the island for a turn or two. We got Mag and Nat. We are working on Steam. I didn't lose a single unit on my watch and killed INFANTRY, Cav, and Guerillas. US got built and ToE is under way, but not by us. I did start a pre-build as I am the eternal optimist. Hey, Boston and Islandawwhatever don't look that good!

Saved game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lk44-1500ad.zip)

Well, ignoring the fact out our defensive position feels like an exploit...

We are researching steam. A picture is worth a 1000 words.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LAK-306.jpg

1500 AD to 1550 AD - We can build rifleman, so wealth is cancel in favor of rifleman. At the rate this one is going I don't want to face marines vs. spearman. What is more important is the Hanging Garden expires in 10 turns! We don't have enough mp for when it toasts.

We get a leader, but I have no clue what to do with him. Susa is swapped to rifleman with no shield loss.

Boston completes the ToE. Production in Sardis has been sabotaged.

LKendter
Cartouche Bee (currently playing)
T-hawk (on deck)
Meldor
ToddMarshall (indefinite skip)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LK44-1550AD.zip


Summary:
Of course we have no coal. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by LKendter
Summary:
Of course we have no coal. :rolleyes:

My God, you guys haven't had a single resource on that godforsaken island, have you?

Like the old saying goes.......
"Sometimes your the bug, and sometimes your the windshield" :lol:

Leader: Assuming we don't pull some miracle and get the tech for ToE in time, use him for an army for when we try to invade again when we get artillery. Don't fill it yet; just hope that some miracle gives us rubber and we can fill it with infantry.

Rifle Army? Assualt the small island?

I'll try and hold off using that army.

I don't understand the defensive position that we currently have so I'm going to go back to what I had before. I'm too afraid that one of these times those landing parties will survive and then have free access to those hills and mountains. I want the AI landing over to the west of Antioch so our units battle from the city and if the AI survive they have to battle something else to move from their beach head.

OK, I just worked on upgrading defenses by exchanging warriors and spearmen for riflemen. Built a couple more catapults. Built fortifications on flatlands. The attached graphic show where I think we should be letting the AI land.

LK44-1600AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LK44-1600AD.SAV)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LK44-1600AD.JPG

@ Matt. I'm pretty sure we'll have oil in the tundra. Question is do we get Refining before somone builds the UN and gets a diplo win? Otherwise we may never know. Then again, what good is oil with no other resources?

Hey, maybe we can get to replaceable parts, find out we don't have any rubber, and build civ 3's first ever guerilla army!

LKendter
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk (currently playing)
Meldor (on deck)
ToddMarshall (indefinite skip)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

@Team -
The more I think about it, the more I feeling the coastal wall is an exploit and cheating.
Should we abandon the wall and fight honestly? I would rather lose honestly, then win by cheating.

I'd rather pull every trick in the book to win than shy away from good tactics. It's good tactical maneuvering to, say, block a narrow land chokepoint. It's good tactical maneuvering to do stuff like set up an outpost on a mountain with a killing zone around it. This falls under the same category. Besides, Amphibious War does exist; we can't keep it up forever anyway.

Got it, might not get to it till tomorrow.

Just stoping in on my way back up to the hospital. I don't feel like blockading your own home island is ever an exploit as long as it is with military units and not cats and workers and such. And T-Hawk is right. Amphibious war is probably just arround the corner anyway. They are allready probably 20 turns past learning transports. Its a standard 40% map and the American continent has some huge civs which is propelling the tech pace pretty fast. Shouldn't be too much longer before somone gets a diplo win is my guess.

As Cartouche suggests, I open up that one landing spot for AI units.

Between turns, a Carthaginian TRANSPORT (they're that far ahead) lands no fewer than EIGHT infantry on that spot.

1605 AD: Our catapults do get all the infantry down to 3 HP and one to 2 HP. Let's hope Carthage doesn't have his Battlefield Medicine built yet...

1610 AD: Nope; Carthage's infantry don't heal. Our catapults bombard most of them to 2 HP and one to 1 HP.

We catch Gandhi attempting to plant a spy.

1615 AD: Three more fresh infantry join Carthage's stack. And the ones that were there healed. Folks, we could be in trouble.

1620 AD: Electricity in, Replaceable Parts due in - yuck - 23 turns.

And America begins the Manhattan Project and United Nations.

1625 AD: The catapults did well and got all the Carthaginian infantry down to 1 HP; our longbows begin attacking and take them all out, losing two.

We catch Gandhi spying again, and America completes the Hoover Dam.


1640 AD: The first AI marine appears, attacking Bactra and losing. I've been making sure all our cities are defended by rifles. Antioch gets its harbor bombed out and starts starving pretty badly.

And India landed a TANK in our killing zone. Fortunately it's only accompanied by one infantry; our catapults redline and longbows kill both units, but we can't allow landings there any more.

1645: We catch India spying AGAIN.

Well, folks, this one's probably not going to turn into a win. We're still 18 turns away from artillery and another 16 from having cash to actually upgrade everything. It could happen that nobody wins the election when it comes around, which would still leave us 60 or so turns until somebody gets all the techs to launch, but even that isn't going to be enough to do more than slightly dent Carthage. Still, let's play it out just to see what happens - at least until we start getting nuked. :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lk44-1650ad.zip

LKendter (on deck)
Cartouche Bee
T-hawk
Meldor (currently playing)
ToddMarshall (indefinite skip)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.

I see it, and it is kin the queue. It might not be until tomorrow night. I am up in others and tonight is Scouts for my son.

Nuthin better than longbows vs. Tanks. Sort of the opposite of the old Tank vs. Spear urban myth.

Myth my rear end. I once saw, with my own eyes, an elite AI hoplite fend off an entire transport of tanks and infantry. That happened to me in Epic 15. You can read the details at my site.

:lol: :lol:

- Sirian

From a lurker's perspective, this has been one of the more entertaining threads to read in awhile, mostly because of the underdog aspect of the whole thing. Longbows and cats VS cav . . . and now transports full of tanks and marines besieging your small army. Makes me think of the Zulus battling British Infantry, Aztecs and other Native Americans battling the Spainish. And with your numerical disadvantage, your game reminds me of Thermopylae as well. The code of the warrior has a certain romance when one side faces a much more technologically advanced and numerous opponent.

Don't lose heart - a diplo victory would be hard for the AI, and although a space race loss is a looming threat, if you guys can pull this one off somehow it would be a victory for the ages!

Either way, thanks for the interesting story. Constantly reading about easy victories gets boring, it's nice to read of the game throwing the player a screwball. I was actually happy when I read how you had no resources on that rock, I was really curious to see how it would be played out. However, I'm sure most of the players weren't too happy about that development . . . :goodjob:

@Sirian - *hoplite* vs. tank is a whole nother matter, who hasn't seen that :lol: ;)

but I may have to check out your Epic 15 when I have a spare hour.

Caesar_Augustus, I like your "title" ;)

Originally posted by meldor
I see it, and it is kin the queue. It might not be until tomorrow night. I am up in others and tonight is Scouts for my son.


Tommorrow night has already passed.
You have exceeded the 48 hours from got it.
I need you to either play or skip tonight.



Lee

From 1650 to 1675 it was pretty boring, bombed sone ironclad, repaired some damaage. In 1680 a transport off of Sardis gave us our first marine assualt. The three rifles barely held but it didn't matter. In 1685 America finished the UN and a vote was held between Lincoln and X-man. I abstained, X-man voted for himself and the rest voted for.....well....

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/disgrace.JPG



Here is the save right before:
Disgraced (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lk44-1685ad.zip)

Awww. :( Well, we did try; good game anyway, everyone. And we did learn a few things:

- Don't build 80 catapults unless you have something to actually do with them; they kill your economy
- Don't shy away from the point at which you finally get to use them
- Don't try Emperor Always War sitting that far away from that many productive civs that we can't touch
- Don't try to hold a beachhead city in the cavalry-vs-musket era
- Denial of Sun Tzu's doesn't stop the AIs from building vet units

So, is anyone up to try a revenge game?

It is weird, but I am glad to see that post.

This one hasn't been fun for a long time, and I felt it was over since the island totally screwed us for resources.

How did we lose the vote? meldor, didn't you vote for us? :)

I think we all took away different lessons from this game. My point of view was that we languished around building useless infrastructure too long. Then we missed our only opening, shortly after we got map making. There was no way to win that game sitting all game on that island. Also, it was demonstrated, don't separate your armies when your up against superior forces, they are just too easy to slice and dice on their own.

But in the end we survived, cause the AI would rather run to the UN that face our grunts. ;) :lol:

I have to agree with CB on this one. We should have put everything into getting off the island asap.

It wouldn't have mattered if we lost the vote. We wouldn't have lasted much longer under marine assualts. We were only saved because the AI doesn't know to load a transport with eight marines. Once the had taken one of our cities, with flight, it would have been quick.

Not to rehash old fights, but I still don't think taking archers against Numidians would've been a good idea. Especially since it'd trigger their Golden Age and not ours. We weren't yet anywhere near position to build and maintain 15-20 catapults (IIRC we didn't even get Mathematics until the Great Library was built.) Longbows were our only opportunity, but even that didn't work out for us.

Having a 3 defence, ga tripping unit, as our nearest civ was more of the horrid draw this game. Put any other civ there except the Zulu from this game, and we could have landed much earlier.

I have started up a revenge game, and I already played and survived 40 turns!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52783

Well guys I don't believe it's always about winning, I learned a lot following this game and you provided us with a lot of fun and some very good debates about strategic decisions in an AW game.

THANKS A LOT !

:thumbsup:

I just wanted to echo Skyfish. I learned a lot from this game as well.
It would have been easy for you guys to give up and forget about this game, but you didn't. I admire that. :goodjob: