Non-Oscillating War goes Deity

The variant goes as follows:

The first Civ we meet, we declare war on them and stay at war until they are wiped from the face of the earth. We must declare war on them by the end of the turn in which we meet them. (This does allow for trades but no gpt or lux payments).

We then take the Civ we contacted second and declare war on them and stay at war until they are defeated. Each Civ will be destroyed in the order that we meet them.

Before it becomes their "turn" we may freely trade with any other Civ. Please avoid any RoP, gpt, and other deals with the next victim if it gets close to their turn. The one exception would be a deal for an alliance against the current victim.

Standard rules apply, no exploits. However, dastardly is allowed as long as you respect our reputation for the most part. It is OK to declare war dishonorably, but not take peace and then attack before 20 (unless they do the declaring).

I try not to be as hard about play time, sometimes things get in the way. I won't make hard and fast deadlines, but would ask you to either play or post a skip as soon as you are able. This keeps the game moving and keeps everyone interested and happy.

Also, each turn (except the first player) will be around ten turns =/- a few. If you don't have to complete them all then its OK to stop early and pass it on. Sometimes the game just has some natural break pints beyond which you might commit the next player to a massive undertaking and you want to leave the choice up to them as they will shoulder the burden. Sometimes a war is just about over and you don't want to leave a the next player with a couple of boring "clean-up" turns or you have worked to get something done that you feel is important and you don't want it lost. Take a couple extra to do so. Try not to "hog" all the fun, but don't short change yourself either.

The parameters, standard size, continents, 70%, normal, temperate, 4 billion. Random opponents, random barbs, standard victory conditions, no culture link, no respawn. These are not set in stone, let me know if anyone wants changes.

The current roster stands as:
Meldor
Northern Pike
Belisar
Arizona_Steve
ChrTh
Coffee

These are the current players in NOW-E and all have expressed interest in taking things up a notch. The next step after this one will be the same style map but AWD. They say it can't be done. We will see. If anyone listed here doesn't want to play or needs to drop prior to the start post your intention. We will only add another if the roster drops to 4.

So far we have two choices expressed for our Civ.

China and Ottoman
Both of them are Industries giveng us Masonry to start with faster workers, more shields in large cities and city walls. Not bad for a game in which we are going to have to do a lot by ourselves.

The differences are:
China - Militaristic, cheaper military buildings, more promotions/leaders start with warrior code which give archers (early offense). They have the Rider (4.3.3) as their UU which replaces the Knight (4.3.2). This would enable an early Middle Age GA and it has that extra movement which is a big plus.

Ottoman - Scientific, cheaper Libs and Unis, cheaper research, starts with Bronze Working which gives Spearman from the gitgo. The UU is the Sapahi (8.3.3) replacement for Cav (6.3.3). This would allow the GA to be middle to late Middle Ages.

As for the UUs, I like the 8.3.3 Cav better than the 4.3.3 knight. The Cav have a lot more service life and 8 offense is great.

Thoughts, any other Civs for consideration.

I think the Ottomans are an excellent choice. As for the Chinese, I'm always sceptical about early-Mediaeval unique units at deity, because they become obsolete so quickly (as you imply, meldor). In the current game we found ourselves making a lot of knight-on-musket attacks, and that was at emperor, against civs which didn't get off to very good starts. Not a good omen for Riders in deity NOW.

Meldor, we had good luck with both the Ottomans and the Chinese in our MOW game and DefNationalist game. The Riders were key to our survival in Def Nat, giving us a GA when we absolutely had to have it. Further, the militaristic trait is absolutely yummy (and perhaps overpowering) in a war game.

The Sipahi is probably the most overpowering UU as there is. It comes in at a time when the best defense is half of its offensive value (muskets), and it has great movement. Further, it is still superior in ar/dr ranking for over half an age. Even afterwards, it is still effective against infantry due to its mobility.

You won't go wrong with either one, as long as you have horses :)

I'll have fun reading how you guys do. :hammer:

Osman sounds good.

Not waiting for the paint to dry on the last NOW game we start off on Deity. Since I played long enough to tell if it has a semi-viable start I will go last in the first round. The rest of the player are put in random order. Here is a shot of the start:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR003_4000BC.jpg

And the Starting Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR003_4000BC.zip)

the turn order will be:
NorthernPike
CtrTh
Belisar
Coffee
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

Get us a good start NP!

When I founded Istanbul and popped the hut, the Bantus gave us a map, so here's a teaser:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_3950BC.JPG

Just so that Arizona Steve doesn't burst with impatience ;), I'll mention that I may not get back to the game for a few hours.

...Keeping quiet here...

Since I'm fifth in the list, I'll probably take a look at this thread in a couple of months :lol:

Sorry Steve, I felt bad since you didn't get the go but once on the last one, but it was the luck of the draw. I am sure there will be plenty to do.

4000 BC (1): I move our worker east onto the hill to get a better look around, and he spots a floodplain.

I consider plans to delay popping the hut until we could possibly get a settler from it (ca. 3750 BC), but we could only do this by founding our capital on a clearly inferior site.

I move our settler southeast to a promising site: four BG, grassland wheat, a floodplain, the potential for +5 food in despotism.


3950 BC (2): We found Istanbul, popping the hut, and the Bantus give us their map.

Istanbul begins warrior.

We start 100% research on Pottery.


3800 BC (5): Our worker completes his first mine, on a BG tile.


3750 BC (6): Istanbul warrior --> warrior.


3700 BC (7): I begin scouting cautiously with our warrior, sending him around the perimeter of the territory we know in a rough circle, not in a straight line in one direction.


3550 BC (10): Istanbul warrior --> warrior.


3400 BC (13): Istanbul warrior --> warrior.


3300 BC (15): Istanbul warrior --> settler.


3150 BC (18): We discover Pottery and begin researching Warrior Code.


3100 BC (19): A Babylonian warrior comes into view six squares SSW of Istanbul. The Babylonians have three cities and ten gold. They know Bronze Working, Ceremonial Burial, and Warrior Code, and they're unimpressed with our culture. It looks as though we're their first contact. We're able to trade Masonry and Pottery for Warrior Code, Ceremonial Burial, and one gold; then we declare war.


3050 BC (20): We pop a goodie hut, which turns out to be a deserted Nubian village.

Our first settler will complete in two turns, but we could change the build to a barracks if we're worried about the war.

We've just begun our current tech run, so my choice of the Wheel needn't constrain us if something else is generally preferred. I have the research rate at 80% right now, but in an ordinary deity game I'd go to minimum research at this point, and this might be the better course.

The save:

3050 BC, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_3050BC.zip)

Early peril:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_3050BC.JPG

Ready for some :cry: on deity!

Ottos are always fun to play, the UU could make all the difference against rifles and even useful (with more casualties) against inf.

Contact in 3100? Will be a non-trivial thing, but we asked for it :rolleyes:

Now we await the initial rush of free units.

Maybe best to gamble and try to sneek in a vet spear before they arrive. A second defenseless city won't help.
No farmer gambits here :(

@Meldor - Absolutely no offence taken here, after all, I was just a "guest" in that game and wasn't in it from the start.

Hey guys,

Just got back, but I don't think I'll be able to play until Wednesday night, so if Belisar wants to flip with me he can.

BTW, great job on MLDR2! I like to think my earlier Bab Army destruction had something to do with them rolling over later :)

@Meldor: Is it OK if ChrTh and myself swap for this round?

Assuming the Babylonians really are to our south and southeast, should we found our first city on the hill three tiles south of Istanbul, strictly on tactical grounds? A walled city here could slaughter a lot of bowmen, while also giving Istanbul some cover.

Originally posted by Northern Pike
Assuming the Babylonians really are to our south and southeast, should we found our first city on the hill three tiles south of Istanbul, strictly on tactical grounds? A walled city here could slaughter a lot of bowmen, while also giving Istanbul some cover.

I concur. I think it'd be a good spot, and have the potential to be a secondary worker/settler factory later in the game.

Checking in. I like the hill 2 tiles northwest of NP's suggestion. It has the added avantage of water. Its still 2 early 2 tell but those points together might make a fine choke point. The AI sees all the map and tends to take the safest and most direct route. I'm guessing that Babs will be coming over the mountains.

@Belisar, perhaps just take it. ChrTh has asked for a skip/swap.

Originally posted by Northern Pike
Assuming the Babylonians really are to our south and southeast, should we found our first city on the hill three tiles south of Istanbul, strictly on tactical grounds? A walled city here could slaughter a lot of bowmen, while also giving Istanbul some cover.

The idea is not bad, but we will have to guard our cities north sufficiently.
See: Sirian, AWM (http://sirian.warpcore.org/civ3/epic6.html)
fifth picture to demonstrate what I mean. I have observed this in my own games, the AI bypasses strong points and advances to weak targets.
This does not mean that I'm against that location ( I like the site), just wanted to point out that we can't rely solely on a tactical outpost.

An additional suggestion:
We could place at least our first few cities strictly on sites 3 tiles away from each other. I found this extremly useful in GM-2 and in my own AWE game on a pangea to facilitate shuffling our defense units between our cities in one turn towards sites were they are needed most.
I will post a pic.

Ok, here we go:

Preturn: Change settler to rax. We need vet spears to survive, the Babs will come
with Bowmen soon.
Thinking of MLD002, this is hopefully not "Revenge of the Babs" ;)

IT: The warrior in the east loses agaisnt our warrior, 2 HP left.
There are 3 Bab warriors in the southern mountains.

3000: I try to block them a little with our southern warrior in the rough terrain,
every turn I can delay them is a turn more to build up our defense.

IT: The 3 Bab warriors advance towards Istanbul.

2950: Istanbul grows, lux to 10%.
I move the warriors on a hile tile and behind the river, on forest.

IT: The Babs move on the open ground.

2900: I block them with our warriors:

IT: And the result of the battle: they attack our warrior,
across the river and on forest. First we get veteran, then elite! :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld01.gif

A Barb conscript shows up NW.

2850: rax completed, spear started.

IT: The next Barb conscript shows up NW

2800: I send one warrior on the hills NW, two guard Istanbul and
the elite is heading south on th mountain.

IT: The Barb impales himself on our hill-warrior, the other moves towards Istanbul.

2750: Istanbul grows to size 4, spear next turn.

IT: And finally the second Barb commits suicide at Istanbul.
I like the 'tactical' defenses :D
Meanwhile, a new Bab warrior shows up south.

2670: Vet spear completed, settler started.


2630: -

IT: Another Barb conscript shows up in the west.

2610: I move our west-warrior one tile.

IT: The Barb approaches our warrior

2550: I try to block him, hoping he will attack at the hill.

Only 10 turns this time :D


Notes: We havn't met anyone else but with all the Barbs and the Babs south
even a single warrior could have been the difference between win or loss.
On the other hand we need contacts soon. The settler will complete in 2,
now we have to talk about sites.

Important: Our elite warrior, fortified south should withdraw
if seriouly threatened, we can use him for leader-fishing.

Here is the pic, all red circles are sites were units arrive from Istanbul in one turn without beeing exposed.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld02.gif

And the save, good luck we will need it. :)

SAVE 2550BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/ MLDR03-2550BC.zip)

Got it, will be playing tomorrow night. Advice appreciated! :)

Belisar, good job on absorbing the initial units and getting the RAX in with only a ten trun delay on the settler.

On the placement of the cities. I have nothing against places the cities in a defensive position if it is purely for that reason alone. I actually do a denser city build (not ics) in my private games simple becuase the cities spend more at at or below the size of 12. For AW games this can be a crititcal difference.

I will still refrain from any other comments on the map as I still have a little more knowledge than what the current game map shows.

Don't forget that we want Cats as soon as possible if not sooner. We need 5-6 cats in every city that is exposed to attack. Closer city builds will also help with the shuffling of these crittical units. Just as the AI will bypass a strong position, they will also bypass a city that has enough cats in it.

Use of the rivers and hills for the placement of the first cities is strongly recommended.

Our first job is defense and then slowly building up our offense.

NorthernPike
Belisar
CtrTh (up?)
Coffee (on deck?)
Arizona_Steve (chomping at the bit.
Meldor

Coffee, If you can play and post tonight, go ahead. CtrTh indicated that tomorrow was the earliest he could go.

Originally posted by Belisar
I have observed this in my own games, the AI bypasses strong points and advances to weak targets.
[/B]

The trick is to set up the strong locations so that the the AI has to go directly past the strong targets to get to the weak targets, i.e. set up a gauntlet. The AI is rarely intelligent enough to handle avoiding one.

Coffee can go before me if he's able; however if he can't finish before tomorrow night he should probably just wait for me to go.

Yeah, if we know precisely where they advance we can set up such traps (Maybe the hill directly south that was suggested from NP, but we would have to guard the mountain tiles as well to avoid huge stacks of enemy units on it). Even if they bypass it, we can knock them down with cats and finish them off.

Got it. No comments at this time, I'd like to look the map over first.
The corrected link:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03-2550BC.zip

2550 BC - 0
Nothin to do. :) Why do we have diety barbs?
12t to the wheel & 8g. :hmm:

ibt -> meet India at 2 cows, Babylon on the move.

2510 BC - 1
Turn science down.
Trade India Masonary +3gpt -> Alpabet.
Start 40t run on Math. Sorry for the veto. Its either that or 19t for the wheel at max.
This gets us to math 19t sooner and a potential trade. We need to meet the neighbors.

ibt -> Babs avoids our elite warrior fotified on the mountain.

2470 BC - 2
Istanbul settler -> warrior, just in case

2430 BC - 3
2 warriors block my settler moves.
Have a bowman lingering.

2390 BC - 4
Warriors bypass my spear/warrior/settler trio.
The AI is playing better chess than me.
Move settler/spear to forested plains tile, fortify reg warrior to attract some attention.
Move worker to hill to attract some attention and road.

2350 BC - 5
Bab warriors impale themselves on our fortified warrior -> now a vet
Lingering Bab bowman becomes confused and fortifies.
Istanbul warrior -> settler, I'm going to run a farmers gambit at the 2 cows.
I'm really at odds about the next settlement. Np's site is the best defensivly and has the best spacing between the 2 cows site. The flood plain 1 tile east will give control over the desert tiles and if the mountain near Istanbul is fortified total control over that area. I don't like the defense option, it might cost the farmers gambits run. We need cities etc., goin to NP city.

2310 BC - 6
Edrine settled -> spear, workers will have to wait.

2270 BC - 7
A 2nd bowman approaches Edrine.

2230 BC - 8
Now 3 bows, they bypass Edrine.

2190 BC - 9
1 bow impales on our vet warrior -> elite
Move a 3rd warrior to Istanbul.

2150 BC - 10
Istanbul settler -> spear


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Mldr2150.jpg


The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03-2150BC.SAV)

Got it. I agree with the Math gambit.

I have a new motto (and I owe it all to MLDR2): You can't spell Capitulate without Catapult :hammer:

Ok, it seems that we now have knowledge of all of the map that I had seen in looking at the starting position. So, now that I can say something, here it goes.

It looks as if the Babs might be on a spit of land below us. It would be to our great advantage if we bottle them up. One city west of Edrine and another to the east may bottle them up and not let them get past us. It would also help to capture some early slaves to do some work. Of course, this will only work until MM comes out and then they will do an end around.

It would also be nice to start building up some archers or chariots to start hitting back in about 50 turns.

It would be nice to get a temple in Edrine to prepare for mounted troops. We shouldn't miss walls and Raxs either.

We have a good start so far. Remember we can't let the AI out expand us by too much or we will be in trouble.

NorthernPike
Belisar
Coffee
CtrTh (up for sure)
Arizona_Steve (It's killing him but he is finally on deck!)
Meldor

Oh yea, in my excitement to run my mouth I forgot...Good job, Coffee!

Nice turns, Belisar and Coffee.

The Indians have Writing, and will give us all their gold (181) for communications with the Babylonians. The downside is that once they're in touch with the Babylonians, they may well join the war against us. But they're probably going to meet the Babylonians within a few turns anyway, so we might as well take the money.

Very good turns, Coffee. I was not sure whether to change our research project, but it could be the right move.
I think we should settle the high-food regions in the west first,
then the gold hill to the east.
And we also need more vet-spears. :)

Originally posted by Northern Pike
Nice turns, Belisar and Coffee.

The Indians have Writing, and will give us all their gold (181) for communications with the Babylonians. The downside is that once they're in touch with the Babylonians, they may well join the war against us. But they're probably going to meet the Babylonians within a few turns anyway, so we might as well take the money. It may be possible to make a deal get and embassy and bring them in on our side. We will need to have the AIs fighting to keep both their tech and expansion slowed. This early we may not be able to buy them into the fight.

My bad on writing. If we can trade for it, lets. We been lucky so far but we do need some more military. That farmers gambit was risky. Good luck to ChrTh.

Turn 0 -- 2150 BC

If memory serves me correctly, Coffee followed me most of the time in MLDR2, and kept changing my builds...vengeance is mine :mwaha:
;)

Erdrine switched to Rax .. too much playing with Lee, I reckon -- no regular troops!

I give Communications to the Babs to India for their treasury (181 gold)

I'm really tempted to send that settler S to form a locked border with Edrine, but we really need the settler factory.

Turn 1 -- 2110 BC
Babs are advancing ... I move Elite Warrior back to Istanbul

Turn 2 -- 2070 BC
Assault on both cities about to come ...

IT:
One Bab Bowman dies attacking Istanbul (vs. Elite Warrior), other beats Regular Warrior. Bowman bypasses Edrine...

Turn 3 -- 2030 BC
Bursa is built. Warrior is ordered.

IT:
Bab Bowman kills Elite Warrior in Istanbul.

Turn 4 -- 1990 BC
:sleep:

IT:
Bab Bowman kills Regular Warrior in Istanbul

Turn 5 -- 1950 BC
Spearman completes in Istanbul. This is going to be scary next turn...I change Edrine back to Spear, because I think we're going to need it.

IT:
Bowmen are scared off by Spear!

Turn 6 -- 1910 BC
:sleep:

Turn 7 -- 1870 BC
The Indians say that we are backwards...and they're right! They're up The Wheel, Writing, IW, and Myst on us. I buy IW for 160 gold. There's Iron just S of the Bursa-Istanbul road (a colony would grab it)

Turn 8 -- 1830 BC
Edrine Spear > Spear
Bursa Warrior > Granary (vetoable)

IT: Warrior attacks Istanbul, cut down without loss

Turn 9 -- 1790 BC
Istanbul Spear > Archer
Rome completes Colossus

IT: Attack on Istanbul: Elite Bowman kills Spear after getting redlined :aargh:, another Bowman dies on Spear.

Turn 10 -- 1750 BC
:sleep:

Guys, our situation may be untenable. Babs are sending a chain of fighters at us:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3-1750BC.jpg

Help us Arizona Steve, you're our only HOPE! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3_1750BC.SAV)

Guys, our situation may be untenable. Babs are sending a chain of fighters at us:
Early Deity fight is bad enough, but you are fighting a Golden Age civ. The stream will slow - the question will be can it stop in time?

Two things -

Maybe take a chance and use a spear to kill the archer outside of Istanbul. It would have a turn leeway to get back to the city.

Second, switch Istanbul from high food to high shield to build up some spears. It maybe better to scarifice some growth here fro immediate safety.

Was there any cahnce to get writting and get the Indians in on our side. The one thing that will end this game early is a dogpile on us before we have a chance to protect ourselves. However, even this can be weathered a la DefNat.

Good job holding the lines. Defense will get easier once cats arrive and the Babs get out of their mostly wasted GA. They are eight turns (by my counting) into the GA and so we have about 12+ more of danger.

Restoring the proper turn order:
NorthernPike
CtrTh
Belisar
Coffee
Arizona_Steve (Finally up!)
Meldor (on deck)

I will have a look at the save when I'm at home.
Nobody said this would be easy or not map(and/or opponent)-dependent.

EDIT: Cross-post with Meldor

Umm... errm... got it...

Yikes! Doesn't look too good. The one thing in our favour is that the babylon units are not stacked, so the barracks in Istanbul (there is a barracks, right?) will heal the units between attacks.

Tech should be left on Mathematics - we NEED the catapaults, however, I'll be prioritizing purchases of The Wheel and Horseback Riding, followed by Literature (cheap libraries for scientific civs).

BTW. What happened to the luxuries? We're going to have a helluva time keeping our citizens happy.

I wonder who built the rax in Istanbul :mischief:
only kidding ;)

Re: Writing

It was going to cost us our entire treasury to get Writing at the point I got IW, so we wouldn't have been able to afford an Embassy as well. The problem with India is that I think that they're not close enough to be able to effectively help us with Babylon.

IW was admittedly a gambit. We're fortunate on its location, but we need to get our territory to expand to grab it (and road it).

Good job ChrTh, I had a feeling it would be tough.

About Bursa, I'd like to suggest swapping Bursa to a raxs. Bursa and Istanbul together will give us the production we need. Also, suggest mining the cow grassland there. Quality might be a luxury right now so the barracks are optional. As long as we can field more defenders than they can kill with a single SoD we will be Ok.

Like Lee says on the Babs golden age.

Edit: If necessary merge our worker with Bursa. You want to get 5spt. An additional option is to build reg archers in Adriene to use as cannon fodder.

build reg archers in Adriene to use as cannon fodder. Make that warriors :blush:

I might do this

Bursa -> mine grassland, swap to spear, merge worker -> mm for 5spt
Adirene -> swap to worker ->mm for 2spt -> warriors for pillaging
Istanbul -> archers

Your call Arizona_Steve -> good luck and no need to rush it.

Originally posted by meldor


Maybe take a chance and use a spear to kill the archer outside of Istanbul. It would have a turn leeway to get back to the city.




But we would have a better than 15% chance of losing Istanbul's only spearman in this attack, at which point we could resign. I don't think our position is nearly bad enough to justify desperate play like this.

I know that the trade-offs are agonizing in a situation like this, but I think walls are an absolutely essential build in Istanbul. With veteran (right now, elite) spearmen fortified behind walls, we could start killing off Bowmen at the very favourable ratio we need to achieve to survive. By contrast, spending too many resources on archers, which we could only safely use to attack redlined Bowmen stacked with other redlined Bowmen, might doom us.

I'd also like to get walls built in Erdine while the Babylonians aren't attacking us there. The multiplier effect of walls, which cost as much as one cheap unit and then give every unit in a city a much better chance of survival, is just enormous when one's under heavy attack.

Well, what we really need are cats. Between then and now its a chess game. Some warriors drawing Bab bows away from Istanbul with Bursa reinforcing Istanbul will buy us some time. Kicking science up might help but I doubt it. Should try for the sake of completeness though. My nickel.

I'm not disputing the value of walls and if the situation is ripe use it. I haven't seen the map so I guess my nickel is only worth 2 cents. ;)

Originally posted by Northern Pike
But we would have a better than 15% chance of losing Istanbul's only spearman in this attack, at which point we could resign. I don't think our position is nearly bad enough to justify desperate play like this.The unit in Istanbul is set to build in two. Not having looked at the save, I would suggest switching off the wheat to say the forest to complete the unit in 1 turn, take the 80+% chance to kill their elite 1 hp bowman and if the odds are with us the spear steps back into the city and heals while the city gets covered by the unit that completes. Best case, we have two units and they don't have an elite, worst case we have one unit and the elite still has to move off to heal.

I don't consider play like this to be desperate, I consider it smart. That elite bowman can come back to haunt us. Killing it improves our longterm chances.

This is predicated on the unit being able to build in Istanbul next turn instead of in two.

There are a lot of good options here. I doubt you will go wrong using any of them. Using the warriors from Bursa and Adriene has not been mentioned yet, so I'll add them to the list.

I looked at the save, two things.

1) There is a warrior under the spear so Istanbul has two defenders.

2) There is a Bab settler/spear pair on the mountain south of Edrine. We hae an elite warrior there that could either attach reg bowmen as they go by (between warriors) or go try and get us two slaves.

(0) 1750BC:
Take some time to look at the situation. There's not a good view to the South, due to the green smog eminating from Babylonian underwear. Seems that the gas clouds have been getting to their troops, as you'll see below.
India has contact with Rome, and will sell it to us for 115 gold. They will also sell us The Wheel for 111 gold. There is no way that we can get Mathematics in less than 21 turns without running a deficit, so I leave science at 10%. Buying contact with Rome would make known techs cheaper to buy, but on the other hand, India may well sell contact with us to Rome.
111 gold goes to India for The Wheel. Might as well see where the horses are. The news is good, there's some right outside Istanbul.
Istanbul build changed to spearman. The archer that was being trained there would be great for killing approaching troops, but would be left exposed after attacking.
Edrine build changed to walls (from spearman).
Bursa build changed to Barracks from granary. With no luxuries and a raging war, we need units, not growth. The city grows in 4 turns, so I'll mine another plain to get it to 5 shields per turn.
I'd like to nail that redlined bowman with the warrior in Istanbul to prevent him from pillaging, but decide against it. I'm almost scared to hit the spacebar, but I do it nonetheless, and...

IBT:
No attacks this turn, and the redlined bowman moves away from Istanbul without pillaging. The babylonians build Eridu next to a second source of iron. We will need to take this city quickly, before they connect their iron and start throwing swordsmen at us. There is also a second spearman/settler pair heading to the coast West of Edrine.

(1) 1725BC
Worker irrigates a second cow at Bursa, starts roading that tile.

IBT:
Again no attacks this turn, although Babylon's units begin to congregate outside Istanbul. A second spear completes there, bring the garrison to two spears (one elite, one vet) and one regular warrior. Walls are started, due in 3 turns.

(2) 1700BC:
Fortify spearman inside Istanbul. Istanbul has grown to 5, so I up luxuries to 20%. I also slow growth considerably to get the city to the magic 10 shields/turn. Walls now due in 2.

IBT:
Babylonian warrior impales itself on our elite spear in Istanbul (no damage to the spear). Babylon starts the Pyramids, well at least it means that they can't build more units in a core city. Two bowmen and a warrior are outside Istanbul. Walls due next turn.

(3) 1675BC:
Bursa worker completes road, and moves to mine a plains tile (to get the city to 5 shields/turn when it grows).
India has sold our contact to Rome (they have over 400 gold in their treasury, compared to Babylon with 1 gold), and there is a two-fer opportunity available.
The Wheel + 40 gold + 4 gold/turn go to Rome in exchange for Writing.

IBT:
Another Babylon warrior impales itself on our elite spear.
Samarra is founded by the Babylonians West of Edrine.
Walls complete at Istanbul, a program of archer-building is initiated.

(4) 1650BC:
Worker begins mining a plains tile by the lake. in restrospect it would've been better to mine the tile by the river to get the extra gold.
We're getting killed for number of cities. All rival civs have 9 (yes, NINE) cities to our three. The good news is that the supply of Babylonian units appears to be drying up, and we might be able to go on the offensive soon.

IBT:
First bowman attack on Istanbul, nothing more than a suicide against that elite spear, who has not taken a single hitpoint of damage yet.

(5) 1625BC:
Nothing to move this turn.

IBT:
First archer completes. The Iroquois complete the Pyramids in Salamanca. A stack of three bowmen are sitting outside of Istanbul. A fourth is ready to pillage a road.
Yet another Babylonian spearman/settler pair comes into view.

(6) 1600BC:
I attack the lone bowman who is threatening to pillage with our new archer. He is no match for our archer, who wins without taking a hit and promotes to elite.

IBT:
Two bowman attack Istanbul, one takes out our veteran spear.

(7) 1575BC:
Take out an elite bowman with our elite archer, losing only one hitpoint.
Realize that Bursa has been making 5 shields per turn, due to the forest there (duh!), so the mine was somewhat counter-productive. Still, I've got this far, so the worker is set to work roading it.

IBT:
Edrine completes walls, starts barracks.
Bursa completes barracks, starts spearman.

(8) 1550BC:
Another bowman is taken out by our elite archer, no hitpoints lost.

IBT:
Second archer completes at Istanbul. A babylonian spearman/settler pair will move onto exposed territory next turn, and will be ripe for picking off.
Another Babylonian city appears South of Eridu.

(9) 1525BC:
Move worker to chop the forest next to Bursa. Once the spearman completes there, change to a temple, to take advantage of the chop (and get our iron online).
Luxuries to 30%, as Bursa has grown to 4, and will riot otherwise.

IBT:
Babylon wants an audience, I tell 'em to shove it.
Babylonian spear/settler pair move onto level ground, ready to be picked off.

(10) 1500BC:
Veteran archer charges out from Istanbul, and takes down the spearman with one hitpoint left to spare. We get two slaves. I will leave it up to the next player to decide what to do with them.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3_1500.jpg

Summary:
We are woefully behind on cities, and need to either start settling or attacking the new Babylonian settlements once they reach size 2. I have cleared up the majority of Babylonian troops, thanks to some good RNG luck and only one spearman lost. Looks like Babylon is gassed, underwear notwithstanding.
Istanbul has been switched to archer production.
Once the spearman completes at Bursa, SWITCH IT TO TEMPLE to take advantage of the forest chop.
The two Babylonian slaves have been left unmoved.
There's no wall graphic at Istanbul in the picture above. Weird, huh?

Go kick some smelly Babylonian butt!! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3_1500BC.zip)

Good choices :goodjob:

I can only second Coffee, :goodjob: Steve.
These additional Bab cities won't be productive for them in the near future and we can hopefully capture them.
As Meldor stated, their GA should now be over.

The one thing that is going through my mind over and over:
We built (and needed) only military buildings (rax and walls), so
not beeing militaristic did hurt us enormously.

We built (and needed) only military buildings (rax and walls), so not being militaristic did hurt us enormously.

Sure, but think of the cheap libraries and universities that we're going to need when we start researching for ourselves. You gain some, you lose some...

I traded for Writing... only Literature to go... Great Library prebuild anyone?

We need to get Samarra...that'll prevent the Babs for sending settlers to the West (they actually settled it in the spot I wanted to settle Bursa in, but we needed a worker/settler factory) ... capturing Eridu would then lock them in where we would be able to :hammer: them to nothing!

Good job, Steve, I knew you would save us! :thumbsup:

It is in the queue, looks like a serious feast for tonight and tomorrow...

I've never used combat settlers before. Is this an option now. I ask because there seems to be differences on city sites. Perhaps Meldor can post a dot map. My picks to tie the food sites together.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mldrdot-1.jpg

Well, I probably won't get to this before tomorrow and can't get the save until later tonight so any suggestions are welcome of course.

As for city placement, I see nothing wrong with the one to the southwest, but would probably have to think about the eastern one. It maybe that we could use it and then move it later. I would like to cut the Babs off, but it may already be too late.

Just a thought at this end. Was exercising the idea of combat settlers and how that might fit with our expansion.

Originally posted by meldor
I would like to cut the Babs off, but it may already be too late.


Yes, that ship may have left the dock. If we just want to found useful cities while keeping a compact, defensible position, we should consider the grassland site NNE of Istanbul, on the river, at corruption distance 3.5.

Its a good spot but too close for this variant. The end game will likely be in the modern age and we will need the production from well spaced cities.
I estimated for size 16 cities. With all that food I figured 4-5 tiles out and 3-4 tiles between. The first gets the tile area and the second makes it defensable.

Which is what I had in mind when considering the idea of combat settlers and how to use them during expansion.

Too close, in a war variant at deity? :eek: I don't claim to speak from much personal experience, but the principle which seems to emerge from the heavy-war games which have been played here is the harder the fighting, the denser the build. If we can get to the Modern Age we'll win with any rational build pattern, given the many options available to the player(s) then. I'm just more concerned than you seem to be about our surviving to that point at all. ;)

Having well spaced cities is ideal, but you'll always be in war and early on, you want to maximize on production and less corruption (size 12 cities) and the more than likely, you'll draw lots of leaders and workers to push a new core to a very well spaced area after conquoring it. Of course, costs a leader, but I figure you will have lots of them to come.

Thanx for the compliment, but I don't consider myself any more experienced than anyone else in this game. And I do enjoy the dialog. Thats not to say that at some point I won't allow myself some braggin rights.

However, yes I'm confident that the worst is over. The Babs are gassed as has been said. So yes, I do think a wider build is preferred. On winning, well, I'm not as confident. But not planning/preparing early for the end game is likely a mistake. My full nickel. :)

@Belial, I would say that you can never get a second core like the first. The possible exception is with a palace jump and then your talking about staying within your primary core anyway. So depending on the variant and level I prefer to go 16-18 pop in the center and 12-14 outside. At the corruption mark I just forget it mostly. If this were on Emperor, see Mldr02, sure then size 12 is fine. But thats because the tech pace is slower. I doubt we will be able to research at an equal pace until we get about twice the size of our largest rival. Much of our success here will depend on trading and diplomatic alliances.

Originally posted by Arizona_Steve
Sure, but think of the cheap libraries and universities that we're going to need when we start researching for ourselves. You gain some, you lose some...


Yes, but because of the exponential form of our growth-curve the question arises what's more important. If we get walls and raxs in place earlier, not only the libs are started earlier (and thus finished about the same time as if they were cheaper but started later) but also our military situation (the most important fact in this eraly-war variant) is much stronger because more units are vets, they are available earlier because the rax would be finished quickly and walls would be in place faster even in small cities with little production. Most of these aspects don't apply in a standard game because walls and raxs are not built in every city, they are not the number-one priority, less shields are invested in military production and the militaristic trait is therefore less advantageous.
And by the time we are building unis the game certainly is on its way towards victory.

[i]
I traded for Writing... only Literature to go... Great Library prebuild anyone?

A prebuild would kill our production, so our options are rushing it with a GL in time (hopefully) or capturing it later.


On city placement: I already stated my preferences for a semi-dense build with 3-tile distances between the sites wherever possible.
However, this is not appropriate in every case (see our cow-city)
As far as Northern's NNE-site is concerned: It could be useful if we capture Eridu, but if we (auto)raze it, we may consider a slightly different location.

1500 BC (0)
The workers move to hook up the horses
(I) The Romans start the Great Lighthouse.

1475 BC (1)
Move elite spear to cover workers.
(I) Istanbul archer=>spear. Bursa spear->walls.

1450 BC (2)
Movement.
(I)

1425 BC (3)
Kill off archer outside of Edrine, cover warrior with a spear.
(I) Second archer kills itself on the covering spear. Istanbul spear->chariot

1400 BC (4)
But HBR for 73g and 1gpt. Chariot swaps to horseman. Kill off spear the came to pillage. Warrior and spear retreat to Edrine. Spear on workers steps over to protect our elite archer.
(I) More bowmen appear. Bursa walls->settler.

1375 BC (5)
Move the archer back and the spear goes back to the workers. There are 7 bowmen visible at this time.
(I) One bowman impails himself on a spear at Edrine. The rest advance on the city. Our elite archer dares to attack a regular bowman across the river. he goes to one HP but produces our first leader.


I put the game on hold at this point and defer a question to the other members and lurkers. We have possiblities witht he leader.
1) Save until Math is done, swap for Lit and build the GL.
2) Take settler and build a coastal city, get MM and build the Great Lighthouse.
3) Build a spear or horseman army and get an early HE for even more leaders.
4) Rush a needed building somewhere, Rax, temple, granary, or walls.

I think that 1) is pretty much the way to go, but I might have missed something. Ideas?

I suspect the Pyramids are already built. That would also be awesome.

This early leaders are far and few between. Getting the Great Library would be unreal. My choice is 1.

We need the GL, I reckon, and on Deity that would be pretty nice. How many Civs do we know, though?

A palace jump is what I meant by stating that.

Early on, in deity the AIs have a good count of units they can throw at you and having a denser build means getting defense and offense to city locations much quicker. Also it's a tid bit less work to connect cities which is very important with luxuries and resources. 75% of the game (or in all always war/oscilating wars, are done in the first half of the game). My opinion anyways, I always prefer more widespread builds myself, but it varies from case to case.

For the leader - a pity to miss the pyramids, but I'd say GL would be number one priority, not having to buy tech until, usually, until gunpowder is discovered is a great way to start - especially when getting early libraries and universities for self-research, if chosen to go that route.

Just wanted to explain my reasoning - will continue to lurk, as these types of games are typically my favorite to follow and play.

Yeah, the Pyramids have been built: I've confirmed (also the Oracle and the Colossus). As of the last save, no one had Lit, but yeah, I'd aim for the GL.

BTW, the KILL order is:
Babylon
India (any chance we can get rid of them before Oliphaunts?)
Rome (UU will be long gone)
Rest unknown...

Thats a good question about the pyramids, I don't remember it being completed. First thoughts: Pyramids or Library, Army. Tough call. Nice turns.

x-post with ChrTh

Great library, for sure. Leaves us with cash to rush units and infrastructure (once in Monarchy) up until Education. Second leader might want to create a horeseman army for Heroic Epic (not spears, I've noticed the AI seems to steer clear of defensive armies, a fact that makes them DEADLY when it comes to pillaging). The other priorities of course would be Sun Tzu's, Leos and any "happy" wonder, due to our hurting for luxuries.

There are currently no wonders available. I would assume that someone will have lit shortly. We can most like trade Math for either it or MapMaking (or both since we know two civs besides the Babs). We would need another leader to get either Sun's and/or Leo's. I think we are a long way from where we can do prebuilds.

Yes, absolutely the Great Library. Good work! :goodjob:

Nice work Meldor.
We need the GL, tech will be one of our problems.
I have played 3 solo emperor AW games, in 2 of them I secured the GL. Now guess which of the 3 I lost :rolleyes:
Sun and Leo both would be nice, but I guess we will get at least another leader in time.

I'm now giving us very good chances :goodjob:

EDIT: It suddenly hit me: Are we at war with someone else? :eek: You mentioned you killed archers, not bowmen :crazyeye: or is it just a typo?

1350 BC (6)
OK, after opening the prisons and consulting with past despots, Meldor moves Orhan back down the new road to Edrine into Istanbul to sit safely awaiting the Grand Opeining of the much anticipated Great Library. One of the past leaders is rushed medical aid as Meldor accidental mentions archers instead of calling them Bowmen. The workers, having completed the road, and becuase Istanbul'sborders expnded again, will move to hook up the iron as soon as irigtion is completed. BTW, India has Philosophy, MM and Mysticism, while Rome has the later two. I would assume that India just finished researching Mysticism and we will see what Rome was working on.
(I) Edrine is attacked by three Bows. The first one ooses but the second two kill off our spears. Istanbul horseman->spear

1325 BC (7)
The elite spear moves into Edrine leaving the workers exposed for a turn but in no danger. The spear and two archers from Istanbul also move into the city. Unfortunately none of them could fortify this turn, it being across a river. Both India and Rome show up with CoL, so that was Rome's research. No one has Lit as of now. I was hoping that was what Rome was working on. Maybe the Babs are and they will sell it around.
(I) Istanbul is attacked by two bows but both die on our elite spear with it taking no damage. There are now six bowmen and one spear in the area.

1300 BC (8)
The horseman damages a bow but retreats. We go 1 for two on the archers (not good for us). Both Eridu and Samarra are size 2 if we can ever mount an attack.
(I) Two Bows attack and die, two move off to heal. Ther are 4 Bows in sight. The spear moves towards pillage spots. A settler/spear pair show headed for north of Eridu. Istanbul Spear->Horseman.

1275 BC (9)
No offense this turn. I whip the Rax in Edrine which will help there. Move the archer and horseman back to Istanbul so something can go after the spear and settler/spear pair. All three workers are on the iron to road it. Our *elite archer move to intercept the settler/spear pair.
(I) The Bowmen tire of implaing themselves at Edrine and now advance on Istanbul. The foolish settler/spear pair move next to our *elite archer. Erridu drops back to pop 1 so either a whip was done ro a worker was built. Bursa settler->spear. Edrine Rax->Horseman (once the bow moves we need to work the forest to get the shields).

1250 BC (10)
Our elite archer redlines again, but manages to take out the spear and we have two new slaves. Since it won't keep Math from completing next turn, nor stop Istanbuls production, I set it to have a lone scientist and turn Science off for a turn to get us 2 more gold (Whoopee!). Lit is still unknown on our land mass. My biggest fear right now is that the other landmass is ahead on tech and someone will build the GL before we can rush it. I cross all fingers and toes.

The settler is moving toward Istanbul. I was eyeing the hill two NW and one N as it is on a river or someplace else that is safe for the time bieng. We need another productive city or two if we are to mount a good offensive. I meant to build another settler in Istanbul but we needed the units. It is now size 7, and maybe should build a settler next build. I thought about geting a temple in at Edrine to expand borders, maybe we shold build the GL there to give it some cheap culture.

The hit list:
1) Babylon
2) India
3) Rome

NorthernPike (up)
CtrTh (on deck)
Belisar
Coffee
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

The save at 1250 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3_1250BC.zip)

Our view of the world:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR003_1250BC.JPG

No more comments from me on city placement. Northern Pike is up now -> his call. :)

Originally posted by meldor

The elite spear moves into Edrine leaving the workers exposed for a turn but in no danger. The spear and two archers from Istanbul also move into the city. Unfortunately none of them could fortify this turn, it being across a river.


I may not be picturing this situation correctly, but...if you move units into a city containing even one unused unit, activate that unit, and hit "Fortify All", everything's fortified.

Again, nice work getting the Leader and the slaves.

It wasn't that the comments were ignored, it is just that I didn't have a chance to build a settler until the end and I thought a safe productive city better than a offensive one that would need even more defenders. If we can capture Samara and Eridu then we are that much better off than building a city near and razing them. your suggestions were good ones, we just aren't in a position to get overly agressive right now. Keep thinking that way though. As soon as we can start a sustained offensive drive your ideas will come to the fore. At this level if the city grows too much and expands the border, it might be better to raze and replace. We won't go through this first opponent like butter so we need to be mindfull of flips.

@Meldor, I didn't think my comments were ignored, thanx for the response though. After seeing the screen shot and reading your comments I'd say we're on the same page.

@NP, That is my understanding. It may, I'm not sure, take 1t for the fortifications defensive bonus to kick in.

I've been studying the position on my first turn. We have Mathematics, of course, and our neighbours still don't have Literature. We could sell Mathematics to the Romans for 332 gold (full value), after which I assume that we could get the Indians' entire hoard of 147 gold in a second sale, and perhaps their TM as well. Should we do this, as a way of locking in our gains from getting to Math first, and then rely on buying Literature for cash when it becomes available? It seems to me that this course of action would protect us from the danger of our neighbours' getting Math before Literature, with no particular downside, but I'd like to hear what the rest of you think.

@NP, that sounds like a fair analysis to me. Better we get the cash than another Civ.

NP, I know that the units all assume the fortified stance, but I was under the impression that they wouldn't fortify (get the bonus) until the next turn. Can anyone give a definite answer?

Also, trading it for the cash is fine, as long as that doesn't make us a bigger target.

If you go with cash, then perhaps embassies also. If not already done.

Originally posted by meldor
I thought a safe productive city better than a offensive one that would need even more defenders.

I can only second that one. Same on my turn in 3000 BC.

On the GL: Very good idea to rush it in Edrine, will give us the needed border expansion without a temple.

Originally posted by meldor
NP, I know that the units all assume the fortified stance, but I was under the impression that they wouldn't fortify (get the bonus) until the next turn. Can anyone give a definite answer?


I always thought that there has to be some movement-point left to get the bonus, but now I'm unsure too.

Oh, and I love your 1350BC turnlog :lol:

Oops, my first experience with the dreaded double post.

1225 (1): As proposed, I sell Mathematics to the Romans for 332 gold. After this, the Indians will only give 99 gold for it--which is disappointing, but which I suppose means that they're researching it, in which case we've done the right thing.

I risk a horseman attack on a Babylonian spearman about to pillage our horses tile, and we win.

The iron comes on line.


1200 (2): No Babylonian attacks.


1175 (3): Seven Babylonian Bowmen are within one move of Erdine. I pop-rush a spearman there.

I send our horseman to do some cautious scouting towards the northeast.

Three Bowmen die attacking Erdine. One even attacks cross-river. We lose nothing.


1150 (4): We found Iznik, surprisingly enough on my preferred site NE of Istanbul. ;)

Another four Bowmen die attacking Edrine. Our losses are again zero.

A Babylonian spearman pillages our horses tile.


1125 (5): Our scouting horseman discovers a mother lode of BG to the northeast, along with a wheat tile. A city here will cut the Babylonians off in this direction, too. I decide we have to seize this opportunity, and switch Istanbul from swordsman to settler (due to complete this turn).

Our asterisked elite archer, finally restored to full health, destroys the pillaging Babylonian spearman.

I've been checking every turn, of course, but neither the Romans nor the Indians have Literature.

Our first swordsman completes, in Bursa.

Another four Bowmen die attacking Erdine. For the first time in this slaughter, one of our spearmen is redlined, but it survives.


1100 (6): One more Bowman dies at the walls of Erdine. No losses for us.


1075 (7): Our horseman disperses a Bantu camp in the northeast and promotes to elite.

Erdine, two more Bowmen, our losses zero, etc.


1050 (8): Another Bowman dies attacking Edrine, we lose nothing, yadda, yadda.


1025 (9): No Babylonian attacks.


1000 (10): So, the good news this round: Babylonian losses 17 units, our losses 0 units. The bad news: Literature hasn't appeared.

Erdine is at risk of flipping, which is why I've left the garrison at five even though the Baylonians' attacks have tapered off.

Our settler and its escort are on what I consider to be the right site for our next city.

There's a Babylonian settler/spear pair two squares from Eridu. We should be able to pick these units off once they pass the mountain range.

Our third swordsman (or second horseman, if this is preferred) is just about to complete in Bursa, so we're very gradually putting together an attack force.

The new frontier:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_1000BC.JPG

The save:

1000 BC, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_1000BC.zip)

Originally posted by Northern Pike
So, the good news this round: Babylonian losses 17 units, our losses 0 units. The bad news: Literature hasn't appeared.


Can't argue with this, :goodjob:

About Lit: I guess we have a bit more time.

Good work on getting not only 1 but nearly two cities going. I am suprised that the Babys are still after Edrine and haven't tried on e of the lesser defended cities.

If we continue to pick off their settlers then we have stopped them cold. It is almost time to make an offensive move either at Samara or Eridu. Eridu would most likely autoraze, but it would take out at least the iron. Samara would be a possible capture if we dare to risk the flip. My preference would be to take Eridu and the extra iron (which might be handy as trade bait.

As stated before, my biggest fear at this point is the other landmass. They could well be ahaed on tech and someone could be building the GL and we won't know it until we get the dreaded completion message. The good thing is that we aren't doing a prebuild for it so we won't waste shields. Just sit on a leader for a long time.

The hit list:
1) Babylon
2) India
3) Rome

NorthernPike
CtrTh (up)
Belisar (on deck)
Coffee
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

[EDIT] I can't see what Edrine is building, but I assume it is a temple? Also, be carefull with Edrine now as it has two recent pop rushes and need a rest before it gets whipped again.

am suprised that the Babys are still after Edrine and haven't tried one of the lesser defended cities.

I will place a bet that Erdine has a future resource.

I got it, won't be playing until tomorrow night (wed) ....unless I skip class tonight....No! Bad ChrTh! :D :whipped:

Nice turns NP. We are up and walking. :lol:
someone could be building the GL
Maybe query the turns to get Lit at max. If it looks good can always switch.

Go to class, the game can wait...it is OK to stay up late and play after...maybe sleep at lunch.

Originally posted by meldor
Go to class, the game can wait...it is OK to stay up late and play after...maybe sleep at lunch.

Nah, I was kidding, we have 8-class half-semesters, and tonight's the final class, so attendance is more or less mandatory. I actually have real work to do after class (applying patches in our development system; needs to be done afterhours), so maybe I'll try to play some then ... but considering I'm still recovering from being sick, I'm probably better off getting the sleep I need. :)

Meldor, I left Erdine working on a catapult because a temple would take a discouragingly long time, but on reflection you're right; we should switch the build here to a temple.

Meldor and Belisar, on the fortify-all question, I don't know anything absolutely definite either. I can only say that:

1. I've always had the impression that my units just put into the fortified stance do well when attacked in the next interturn, suggesting that they really are fortified.

2. It seems oversubtle to assume that units which look fortified aren't fortified--unless there's some reason for thinking this which I don't know about?

Class got out early! (Seriously, I went) So I'm playing now ...

Turn 0 -- 1000 BC
The question on everyone's mind: Will we get the GL?!? Will we actually attempt offensive action?!?

Florida 6, Cubs 4, bottom 6th ... c'mon Cubbies

Take a look at our neighbors ... Rome has like a jillion cities, but neither Horse nor Iron! :mwaha:
Similar with the Indians, but they don't have Iron

Compared to everybody, our military is weak...

Edrine changed to Temple, as requested.


Woo-hoo, HR! 6-6 in the 6th!

Turn 1 -- 975 BC
Bursa Sword > Horse
Rome completes Great Lighthouse
Bursa sword moves on intercept course ...
Uskudar is built, order up Temple (vetoable)

Turn 2 -- 950 BC
Quiet ... too quiet

IT: 1 bowman dies attacking Edrine.
Both Settler/Spear pairs turn back. I'm not sure if any are reachable, but I may give chase.

Turn 3 -- 925 BC
Istanbul Sword > Horse
No lit yet

IT: India (INDIA!) demands 48 gold and Territory Map. I can't risk it, so I pay up.

Turn 4 -- 900 BC
Death to Bab Spearmen! One approaching Istanbul is cut down by a sword with no loss, and a settler-spear pair is now one spear short of a pair! Two more slaves...

Turn 5 -- 875 BC
Elite horse takes out Bowman, suffers a little damage.
Sword assaults Eridu, redlines Spear but dies :( Probably :smoke: on part

Turn 6 -- 850 BC
Istanbul Horse > Sword
Bursa Horse > Sword

Sword takes out Bowman, but is now in position to be assaulted by a sword next turn
Horse kills Bowman

IT:
Barbarians attack Iznik and we sneeze at them
Sword survives, is now elite!

Turn 7 -- 825 BC
Bab Bowman gets lucky and defeats one of our swords :grr:
Sword kills Sword
Elite Warrior dies trying to kill same Bowman! I light a few candles and :worship: RNG :worship:
Horse kills sword

Still no Lit

Turn 8 -- 800 BC
Horse fights red-lined Bow, kills it but not before being red-lined itself! And there's a sword nearby! :cry:

IT: Horse dies :(

Turn 9 -- 775 BC
Istanbul Sword > Horse
Iznik Rax > Spear

IT: DAMMIT. Sword and Spear both killed (killing one sword in the process), despite attack being across river. :worship: RNG :worship:

Turn 10 -- 750 BC
No attacks of opportunity...the one negative about Edrine is that we can't actively attack the troops outside it because they get the mountain defensive bonus.

Still no literature!

Tally for turn:
We lost 1 horse, 3 swords, 1 warrior and 1 spear
We killed 2 spears, 1 settler (netting 2 workers), 4 bows, 2 swords ... *sigh* ...sorry guys, guess I still have a lot to learn about warfare ancien.

Babylonians are still able to field a good number of troops

Here's the save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3_750BC.SAV

OK, you stayed on the postitive side of the attrition, thats were we need to be. Not haveing looked at the save, it sounds like we have some offensive units built up. Maybe we should try to consolidate them and go after our first Bab city, Eridu.

The hit list:
1) Babylon
2) India
3) Rome

NorthernPike
CtrTh
Belisar (up)
Coffee (on deck)
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

Ok, I got it.

I had a quick look at the save and think consolidation is the right way to go, the babs have a lot of units in the Edrine-region.
Will see what I can do.

Preturn: We have only 2 swords and 2 horses for offensive actions, no cats.
Updated the last two warriors, costly but necessary.
Vetoed the temple in Edrine, sorry.
I will also build settlers in Busra and try to expand our empire.


IT: We now have 8 Bab units (swords, bowmen and (silly AI): spears) in the Edrine area,
but they seem to head north. Also there are two bowmen occupying the mountains east of Istanbul.
Additionally, a Bab galley near Uskudar, maybe landing a settler pair in our back
or landing troops.

730BC: Mine iron at Busra, protect the slaves with swords.
Move an elite spear on a mountain tile near Edrine to block the advancing swords.

IT: some Bab-movement near Edrine.

710BC: I move a sword on the mountain near Eridu.

IT: OK, the Babs definitely landed a settler pair north of Uskudar, at least not 2 swords.
Their units near Edrine move in strange ways, as if they were patrolling in the
mountains and hill tiles.


690BC: I kill a spear at Eridu and one near Edrine.

IT: The next settler pair enters our territory west of Edrine.
A bowman impales itself on the mountain-sword near Eridu and our sword gets elite.
A stack of 3 swords, a single spear and a bowman/sword pair advances on Istanbul,
all of them two tiles away, except the spear which stops near the city.
And guess what: a third settler pair shows up SW of Edrine.

670BC: Kill a spear near Istanbul with a horse.
No Literature, I'm getting a bit (only a little bit...) nervous.

The stack of 3 swords moves finally on open ground, our horse tile at Istanbul,
patience gets honored.
One of the two settler pairs between Edrine and Busra is finally in range too.

650BC: I kill the sword stack, two of our horses retreat, but no casualties so far. :D
I capture the settler by killing the spear with a sword, 2 more slaves.
Thanks to the Babs our worker force exists at least.

The stupid Romans have researched Currency instead of Lit. :(

630BC: I capture/kill the second settler/spear pair between Busra and Edrine.

IT: A horse on the mountain near Eridu is attacked by a Bowman, it retreats north.

610BC: The attack on Eridu: a horse redlined, our elite archer dead (Meldor's brave guy,
our first casualty), but we finally autoraze the city which was defended by 2 spears
and capture a worker.
Send injured horse back to Iznik. I love ancient warfare, it is like chess,
you see most of the pieces and can guess were they will move. :D

Our first Bab-city:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld3-3.jpg


IT: A bowman impales itself on our sword near former Eridu on a mountain.
Another moves on the horse tile near Istanbul.

590BC: Finally, the Romans and Gandhi both have Literature, we buy it for 170,
the low costs imply that the Babs must have got it too or they were the one
researching it.
I found out we still have this lazy Great Leader, must build a horsemen army....
OK, just kidding. I rush the GL in Edrine, wasting 8 shields, but I don't think
I should have waited until that cat was finished...... :D

IT: A Bab sword commits suicide on the same mountain-sword as the bowman last turn.
3 of their bowmen and 2 swords turn their attention towards Edrine, two spears advance
on their 'settler route' SE of Busra.
Good news, here is a pic:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld3-1.jpg


570BC: We autoraze the annoying Bab city of Shurrupak at the Silk-site in our backyard.
It costs us a horse to its single spear-defender, but it was likely worth it.
I replace former Eridu with Izmit, was not sure about the exact site but the hill is
near their boarders and the grassland in the north is not better at all.

IT: An eventful IT. The Babs attack Edrine with a sword and 2 bows.
Our sword defeats them and gets elite.
We get "a few" techs and enter the Middle Ages. Our free tech is Engineering,
both Romans and Indians lack it, it's good to be scientific I must admit to Steve. :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld3-2.jpg

And now:

Some embs:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld3-4.jpg

and the result:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld3-5.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld3-6.jpg

looks nice:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld3-7.jpg

But the story isn't finished yet:

The Romans and Indians are now building the Great Wall.
The next settler pair shows up south of Edrine, must be the 4th, if I have counted correctly.
Currently 4 swords, 2 bowmen at Edrine.

550BC: I send an additional vet sword from Istanbul to be prepared at Edrine.
Engineering gets us a few gpt, some cash and most important: two alliances
against the Babs (let the games begin) and last but not least a WM,
also both the Romans and the Indians are gracious to us now.

IT: Next attack on Edrine:
First I thought I get to pay for some of our good luck so far as our elite spear
fortified on hills in a city with walls gets redlined, but:
it costs the Babs 3 swords and a bowman and we get a defense-GL, Murad I. :D:D:D while one of the swords was defending.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld3-8.jpg

One sword and one bowman don't attack but stay on open ground and another sword/spear/settler stack
moves on the mountain near Edrine.
A bowman fails attacking one of our swords on a hill between Edrine and Istanbul.
All in all not so bad.

530BC: I attack the sword/bowman combo, get a horse-retreat and kill them both.
Now there is only one Bab sword outside of Edrine and those settler/spear pair in the
immediate killing-zone.

Here is an actual pic:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mld3-9.jpg

The road to Izmit (former Eridu) should be finished next turn.
We need luxes so the silks north may be worth a second thought for the settler finishing in Busra.
I let the next leader decide what to do with our second leader, had to concentrate
hard on my turns and need a break. :)
Keep in mind to produce swords AND horses to have capabilities for softening targets,
taking them out and to finish the last one of a stack by retreating on the same turn.
Cats would also be nice to attack the Babs units even on high ground such as hills after
injuring them but we still lack producing capabilities. I had to produce those
2 settlers (the one that replaced Eridu and the one finishing in Busra) to make at least
some progress on our expansion.
We have a few spare horses but we need such reserves to react quickly.
I thought about rushing something in Edrine but the citizens are too unhappy down there.
Maybe they just didn't hear about our progress... :D

Bab-casualties: 8 spears, 7 bowmen, 9 swords and 2 captured settlers, one worker.
We lost 1 archer, 1 horse.
Edrine is an excellent trap, but we have the additional advantage that most of
our units are vets or elite and their's are regulars.


Because Coffee is next I'm sure we are in good hands. :)
Good luck, keep the casualties low and we will win this one.

The SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLD03-530BC.zip)


EDIT: I see, the last picture is not correct, I already changed production in Edrine to Cat.

Superb! :goodjob: :thumbsup: :goodjob:

Good job! Might I suggest, that considering the size of our cities, we get the Great Wall?

--EEEK! Scratch that, it would trigger our GA. I think an Army would be best

Excellant job! You get a bonus cookie for taking out the first Bab city. We are limping offensively but we are going forward.

My first thought on the GL would be Sun's. This would get rid of those dissidents who claim we should be more militaristic.

It was a good job managing the troops, just the type of results that will put us over the top. The only thing I hate to see is that the Babs have cities on that island. Fortunately, they tend not to re-enforce them from the mainland unless they are threatened. If we built a couple of gallies we nmight be able to take them before they respond. That is a medium range plan.

Can we afford to peal another settler out of Istanbul? If we could get to settlers up in the silks area quickly, it looks like we could get a strong lock on silks. A monoply or near monoply on a lux in this type of game would be very good. Also, it won't hurt to peel a settler out of Edrine, it has walls so there is no defensive reason to let it get above size 6 for now.

Next targets are Samara and Largesh, but is that a dye I see at Niveveh! You mean we could have two luxes on line? After going so long without!

Enough random thoughts!

The hit list:
1) Babylon - Getting the dogpile!
2) India
3) Rome

NorthernPike
CtrTh
Belisar
Coffee (up)
Arizona_Steve (on deck)
Meldor

got it.

Army versus Sun Tzu is a difficult choice. I suppose the main argument against an army is, where could we afford to build Heroic Epic right now? And the possible problem with Sun Tzu (I'm not looking at the save at the moment) is that we might have to wait a while for Feudalism, and hoarding a leader when we've got numerous elites wouldn't be good.

On the FP:
We either have to clear jungle or clear the Babs. With the alliances in place it wouldn't be too hard to run settlers only
into the jungle. A granary in Uskudar with the FP near by will gives us the work force to do this.

Originally posted by meldor

My first thought on the GL would be Sun's. This would get rid of those dissidents who claim we should be more militaristic.


Sun was my first thought too (obviously I'm part of that small dissident-group :D) but NP is also right, we could sit on our leader for a long time.
A third option is to build/capture the next 2 cities quickly, rush the FP
and jump the palace later.
Difficult choice. If I had to vote, I would say Sun is too important to miss.
Just think of all those Roman and Indian cities we will capture, all of them
ready to heal our troops or to build vets.


If we built a couple of gallies we nmight be able to take them before they respond.


We also need a galley to try getting the rest of the contacts.

Well, I haven't seen the map yet but I might be able to get 5 cities up. Three as battlefield sites, two for the FP. That would complete the first core and start the second.
Given the MA's, I'm expecting Sammara to fall quickly and want a settler there to take advantage of that. Same goes for Lagash and another to poach the dyes at Neneveh.

It can't hurt to hold onto the Defender of Edrine until I can work the timing out. Will post again mid turns.

Preturn 530BC - 0
Belisar has left me in great shape. I decide on expansion. Switch things around to get 4 settlers.
I have enough military to pursue settling and conquest at Samarra and Lagash. Two more sites at
silk valley will be a farmers gambit.
Mm Edrine to a taxman + lone scientist. Start on monarchy. We may want to switch to Republic.

510Bc - 1
Uskudar settler -> catapult
Lose 1 sword capturing a Bab settler.

I -> Babs move on Edrine, looks like 4 spear + 4 sword next turn.

490BC - 2
Iznik & Bursa settler -> cat & spear
My farming settler finds a barb camp.

I -> India lands a settler at the barb camp, Edrine hangs.Lose archer to pillaging spear.
One India warrior wanders into view.

470BC - 3
I decide not to risk it and settle short. Some fog busting discovers new barbs and
a Sod of five Romans. I like these guys.

450BC - 4
Konya settled at Samarra, the fog busting reveals many Indians. :) Like those guys.

I -> lose a horse to a sword.

430BC - 5
Adana settled.
Lose a sword + horse to a cat + spear at Samarra.

410BC - 6
Lose 1 sword at Lagash.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mldr03-410BC-6.jpg

I'm at turn 6. I've lost some guys. Have 4 cities up. Samarra & Lagash should fall soon. I was lucky to get those cities in up north or India would have surronded us. With the Roman and Indian military arriving I doubt that we will get much more land from Babylon. We should settle on those dyes however and try to raze Nineveh. We might get lucky and be able to place one more city in the north. My guess.......??the FP, rush or wait.

I expect no-one will agree with this but here it is anyway.

410BC - 6
Lose 1 sword at Lagash.
Rush the FP in Antalya.

Rome starts the Hanging Gardens.

390 BC - 7
FP completes -> spear.
Lagash raised.
Swap Edrine to a settler.
Swap Uskudar to a granary
Rome will not trade Monarchy, I leave science alone.

370BC - 8
no change

I -> India raises Samarra.

350BC - 9
It looks like the whip in Edrine is over.
Lux up to 40%

I -> India makes peace. Starts Sun Tzu.

330BC - 10
no change.

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLD03-330BC.SAV)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mldr03-330BC.jpg

On Sun Tzu or the FP:
I went for the FP because I think happiness is most important. There is nothing I could do, (silks are hooked up),
directly about happiness while in despotism. So I did the next best thing. Building the FP will reduce corruption.
A population of 7 is about the limit of our resources. Seven tiles doesn't do much. So the more cities producing
the better.

So my ideas are as follow:
We could use a worker farm. We need workers.
Babylons dyes for sure.
Revolt to Monarchy as soon as it shows. Monarchy and fuedilism might happen this turn set. The increase in
commerce will give happiness a boost.
Build/cash rush markets first then temples.
If another leader shows, consider the Hanging Gardens while building markets.

On the military side -> catapults.

Why are we researching anything? We have the GL

Well it looks like we have our FP, an early FP is good in this level of game. If we can get the silks and generate another leader for Sun's that would be ideal.

The hit list:
1) Babylon - Getting the dogpile!
2) India
3) Rome

NorthernPike
CtrTh
Belisar
Coffee
Arizona_Steve (up)
Meldor (on deck)

Got it. I'll be at the gym after work, so should get most if not all of my turns done later in the evening.

Why are we researching anything? We have the GL Preturn 530BC - 0
Mm Edrine to a taxman + lone scientist. Start on monarchy.

Edrine was whipped. Monarchy as a precaution.

Hm, an early FP is nice, but I'm not sure whether Antalya is the ideal place for it, no complete second core possible.
Did we need this instant short-term boost for those 2 cities NE ?
Because I think it could hurt us in the long run. :hmm:

We can always rush a Palace elsewhere later. I think this early FP will help with our core production while dealing with our immediate neighbors.

You are underrating the FP.

Remeber those 2 cities are removed from the capitol corruption list. Therefore you have other cities considered closer to the capitol and less corrupt.

(0) 330BC
Looking over the land, I formulate a number of goals for my turn.
Firstly, I'd like to see Ninevah razed and replaced with an Ottoman city next to the dyes.
Secondly, settle on the hill four tiles north-west of Sinop, to get as many of those silks within our border as possible, for trading opportunities (there is a Roman city covering one of the silks).
Thirdly, try to get a settler up to the ivory to the north-east of Antalya.
For wonders, try to get Sun Tzu, Leonardos and Sistine. If no wonders are available, go the army/heroic epic route.
Fourthly, try to get Monarchy and revolt.
And finally, try to get a galley to the other landmass.

Now let's see what we have out there.
Our defensive situation is not as bad as it looks, well at least until I started playing. There are a lot of Roman and Indian troops in our land, fighting on our side. These will go a long way to mop up Babylon's troops that stray into our territory, so I can leave our defenses a little thinner than I otherwise would. This not only releases troops for an attack on Ninevah, but allows production of additional settlers to populate our Northern lands.
Edrine is building a settler right now. There is also a scientist there, researching Monarchy. Since that is the only ancient age tech left to research, chances are that we'll pick it up from the Great Library. So the scientist is put back to work on a hill. Luxuries remain at 30%.
Istanbul switched from swordsman to spear. We need two defenders in our larger cities for military police. Istanbul is guarded by a single horseman.

IBT
No attacks, and whadayaknow... we get Monarchy and Fuedalism from the Great Library.
Dehli completes the Great Wall. There is a cascade to the Hanging Gardens and Sun Tzu's.
Another Babylonian settler appears, guarded by a spear AND a sword.

(1) 310BC
Move some workers around, and upgrade swords to medieval infantry, and spears to pikes where possible. Elite non-leader producing troops are not upgraded.
One babylon sword killed.
Pay India 500 gold to get them back in the war with Babylon. We need their troops to help our defence.
We have no gold/turn payments to anyone, so I begin the revolt to Monarchy. India and Rome should help to hold off Babylon. We draw 3 turns of anarchy.
I call up Ghandi, and pay him 250 gold + world map for wines and ivory, to help avoid starvation in our cities. Hire two taxmen and an entertainer to avoid riots.
A delicate balancing act ensues, trying to keep enough troops in Edrine.

IBT
Keep an eye on wandering Babylonian spear/settler pairs. A Babylonian sword moves next to Edrine.

(2) 290BC
Some more troop and worker shuffling. I get a pike into Edrine from Istanbul, temporarily leaving the latter empty until another pike arrives from Bursa.

IBT
Watch as babylonian swords attack Roman warriors instead of Edrine. An Indian horseman kills a spear/settler pair that I had earmarked for my next turn :(


(3) 270BC
Kill one sword on a mountain with a medieval infantry. Attack a spear/settler pair, losing an elite sword, but winning with a medieval infantry, who promotes to elite.

IBT
Few attacks, none affecting us. The first Babylonian medieval infantry are sighted.

(4) 250BC:
We're getting low on troops in Edrine, so I bring reinforcements from Adana. Guess I won't be attacking Ninevah this turn.

IBT
Babylon is more interested in attacking Romans than us, which is a good thing. India has also moved some cannon fodder within range of their swords and medievals, so we should be OK for another turn.
Konya riots, big deal. It's not connected to the road net, so it went miserable when it grew to size 2.
Anarchy ends, Monarchy selected.
Romans build Tarentum exactly where I had a city earmarked. We're boxed in now, so any new land gained will be at the expense of the Babylonians.

(5) 230BC
Post-monarchy adjustments. Now making 44 gold/turn.

IBT
A Babylonian galley is moving up our coastline.

(6) 210BC
I'm forced to move some horsemen to our northern lands due to the Babylonian galley.

IBT
India clears out the remaining Babylonian troops. It looks like they're heading for Ellipi.
Temple rushed at Sinop.
Catharge completes the Hanging gardens. No cascade, so I guess everyone else is already building Sun Tzu's.

(7) 190BC
Move horsemen into Antalya to guard against that Babylonian galley. I note also that we have contact with all but one other civ.
I sell Engineering to Montezuma, for Contact with the Arabs, and their world map.
I'm not sure what the attack order will be, our contact was sold to Iroquois, Catharge and Montezuma last turn, with the Arabs taking last place. None of them are ahead in tech, and the Arabs are woefully behind.

IBT:
No attacks. Indeed there are no babylonian troops in our territory.

(8) 170BC
(9) 150BC
Nada

IBT
Rome cancels the military alliance. It's expensive to renew (world map + around 27/turn), so I leave it up to the next leader to decide.

(10) 130BC
Nada

Notes:
In summary, we had a BIG problem with defence, which I spent most of my turns alleviating. The alliance with India was worthwhile, keeping the Babylonian troops out of our way, but at the same time, they may have the jump on us when it comes to clobbering Babylonian cities. They're definitely headed towards Ellipi in a big way, so chances are that there's a resource there we don't know about. I think we have maxed out available land for now, so our only option is to attack Babylonian cities. The next leader may want to renegotiate the military alliance with Rome.

There is a pikeman next to Uskadar, who is on GOTO to Sinop. There's a number of horsemen in Antalya, to defend against that galley, which still hasn't unloaded any troops. There's also a settler in Adana, which will be useful if any Bab cities get razed.

The save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_130BC.zip)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_130BC.jpg

A good consolidating turn. :goodjob: I notice our army is now described as strong relative to Babylon's.

I'm not sure whether Antalya is the ideal place for it And not my first choice. Also, Antalya was not settle where I wanted it. My first choice was Synop. Good reasons not to proceed. But India's warrior/settler pair and the Roman block forced Antalya. The choice was simple symmetry.

There is an immediate short term gain for sure. We now have 10 cities. 3 in the FP, 7 in the Palace . All 10 can be productive +/-. Thats not bad long term. There is opportunity for perhaps two more cities inside Babylon. Those sites can also be productive. Thats getting better. I agree, its not ideal and does means a larger 1st core.

In terms of city management its a process of rotating thru the cities, say 2 at a time, to build improvements, increase happiness and become more productive. This was a tough choice, congrats to Meldor for this variant.

As ChrTh said, we can always jump the palace later, depending on how fast we finish off India.
Otherwise our original core just has to be extended.

Now that we have survived the first crash I'm sure this variant will be lots of fun :)

130 BC (0)
Wake up our elite* unit and upgrade him to an MDI, wake up two other units and send them south. Wake Pike and settler send them towards Nineveh.
(I) Babylonia lands a single sword in the northern jungle. The Romans and Indians are going after Ellipi heavily. Edrine Pike-Horseman.

110 BC (1)
Wake horsemen in FP and put them outside Sinop to hit sword next turn. Troops moving south. With the number of troops in the area, Edrine is pretty safe.
(I) uskudar Granary->Rax.

90 BC (2)
Elite horseman dispatches reg swird in the north. Rest of troops advancing on Nineveh.Bursa temple-MDI
(I) A hurt Bab MDi passes up attacking our Pike/settler and goes for our elite MDI, it loses.

70 BC (3)
Found Kiafa on top of the dyes. Start a temple.
(I) Istanbul Temple->MDI, Adana Rax->Pike

50 BC (4)
The Roman troops stopped moving south last turn and turned towards our core. It was expensive, but I bought insurance for 11gpt and 252g in the form of an alliance.
(I) Edrine Horseman->MDI, Antalya Rax->MDI

30 BC (5)
We throw our forces at Nineveh taking out 2 Pikes, 1 Spear, 1 MDI and losing 1 MDI. The remaining MDI left is down to 2 HP and our two horseman attack and retreat doing no damage.
(I) We get invention and start no research on Gunpowder. Iznil pike->worker.

10 BC (6)
The regular MDI heals but the Babs send no one else to cover. I send a hurt elite sword to finish him off and we raze Nineveh. I swap Edrine to a settler as a nice place on the river just opened up. The three salves gained are sent back to start raoding Kiafa and the dyes into our network. This removes all cultural pressure from Edrine.
(I) We get Monotheism.Bursa MDI->settler. Uskudar Rax->Pike.

10 AD (7)
Use our cash to rush a Rax in Kiafa to rest the troops.
(I) Ellipi finally falls to the Indians.Istanbul MDI->Pike. Iznik worker->horseman, Kiafa Rax->temple.

30 AD (8)
Take out a hurt Bab MDI. There is another one but it is just out of range of our elite sword and MDI.
(I) I don't know why the hurt MDI moved away from our elites but it won't do it any good we can still reach it. If you get the idea I am leader fishing like crazy, you are correct. We had a shot at Sun's and it is fading very fast. Worst case we get Leo's maybe. Edrine settler->horseman. Izmit Rax->horseman. (Hopefully we get knights and these will be cheap upgrades).

50 AD (9)
Our freshly healed troops move towards Ur.
(I) Bursa settler ->Pikeman, Uskudar pike->horse

1250 BC (10)
Our sod advances on Ur. The settler with the two MDI escort is headed for the corner river square 2s and 2sw of Kiafa.

There is a second settler that can pick up a pike escort in Kiafa to get another site if we raze Ur. I irrigated a BG for a trun to get water to the FP wheat. The workers are mining back over it now.

The hit list:
1) Babylon
2) India
3) Rome

NorthernPike (up)
CtrTh (on deck)
Belisar
Coffee
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_70AD.zip)

Originally posted by meldor
If you get the idea I am leader fishing like crazy, you are correct. We had a shot at Sun's and it is fading very fast. Worst case we get Leo's maybe.


Seems like we are advancing :D
Leo would be nice too. We will upgrade a lot of horses and cats.
But if we have to decide I would definitely favor Sun.

Got it, a little belatedly.

We're playing a one-core game, and most of our core cities already have their barracks. Does this affect anyone's thinking as to whether we should take Sun Tzu or Leonardo, assuming we're lucky enough to have the choice?

-nt-

fine. my bad. i'll step down. :wavey:
heres a challenge: replay the turns from Belisars save and get Sun Tzu.

@meldor, drop me. this one has become too serious. thks and good luck.

@NP: As I said, Leo would be nice, but Sun will be great once we are on the offense. Close call, but we definitely need barracks in captured Indian and Roman cities.
Having them in place will speed up our advance and the fact that we don't need to rush them with cash will save a huge amount of money.

Originally posted by Coffee
-nt-

fine. my bad. i'll step down. :wavey:
heres a challenge: replay the turns from Belisars save and get Sun Tzu.

@meldor, drop me. this one has become too serious. thks and good luck. :confused:
Part of playing in SGs is the fact that not everyone is going to make the same chioce that you would have had you played it yourself. I have been questioned many times about why I did things as I did and when I did them. Having played numerous games with Lee and Sirian, you have to have a little thicker skin and stand up for the choices you make. There are comments there about what we can do going forward, those would be there if the choice was good or bad. I do think you are reading more onto this than anyone here intended.

Now, as far as the FP location is concerned, it is fine where it is right now. If we put no more into the city as it stands, we can abandon it at a later point and rebuild the FP elsewhere in a more suitable and agreeable location to all. This isn't something I have done before, but it is something that can be done. No matter wherer the FP had been placed, it would not have been ideal for a while.

As far as Sun;s is concerned, we haven't lost it yet. It is probably pretty close, and hopefully we won't lose Leo's on the cascade, but either one of them on this level is simple a matter of luck. If you or me had gotten another leader then it wouldn't even be an issue. NP may still snag one or the other for us. Sun's preferably, Leo's as second choice.

The first SG I played in with Lee he blistered me (he has mellowed since then) for a choice I made. I defended myself but he insisted that I had made the wrong choice (I stiil think I was right). I almost didn't play in another SG with him. Now, he and I have played in at least 20 SGs together, my HDD is litered with subdirectories of LKxx games. I would suggest that you don't take things so personnal. Learn from it if you made a suboptimal choice and move on. Heck, some of the best players on these boards have made some huge blunders, some still infamous today, yet the game and their play went on. I am not going to drop you from this SG unless you absolutely refuse to play any more. Even if you don't play, the game will continue from my save and not the one before you played. That is the corp of the SG play. Otherwise we could all just play GOTMs.

I completely agree with Meldor. Part of an SG is the discussion, otherwise we could play our own games and post it in the story-thread.
We have a great team of experienced players and if we wouldn't discuss things in a way-beyond deity level game (in a constructive way) it would be senseless.
Hope to have you on-board :)

Belisar

Since my name was mentioned, I will throw in my 2 cents. I would have taken the sub-optimal fp. Even if only a handful of cities benefit, you are still ahead. You could always have a game where you move palace later on.

It took me a long time to understand why the deity player rushed for the fp. Any fp is better then none for another 50 turns.

As for negative comments, I still have been hit for some subtle misses during my turns. I even had turns I thought mm was great, and the next player found several mistakes.

As for mellowing, nah, I just learned many battles aren't worth fighting.

@Meldor - about that first game. I screwed up by being in Democracy in the first place. I since learned that Democracy sucks as a government unless you are religious. The core difference is you were thinking domination, while I was thinking space race. Shows you how I have changed. I doubt I would ever choose space at this point unless it was a tournament goal.

I am not a natural Deity level player. When I play solo, it's usually on Emporer, with completely random starts to ensure I have to cope with a wide range of opening conditions, and to make the most of the Civilization traits that I have been given. Once I have more than 10 or so cities, I neglect micromanagement, only returning to it when cities reach size 6 without an aquaduct or river, or when they reach size 12 without a hospital, for shield optimization. Hell, I've even lost a few solo Emporer level games recently.

Still, I love to take a crack at these Deity succession games. And I fully expect to receive criticism from the other players and lurkers in the thread, many of which are vastly more detailed and experienced in their analysis of each situation. Given this criticism, I can learn from it and improve my game. That to me is the whole purpose of succession games, and I believe it is by far the best way to excel at Civilization, way better than reading the War Academy threads.

So for these reasons, I add my comments to those of Meldor and Belizar, and urge you to hang in there.

EDIT: And Lee too... I've received plenty of verbal lashings from him in the past :)

:confused: Did I miss something?

You guys are right of course. I'll chalk this phoo pa up to quiting smoking three days ago. Please leave my name on the list.
My unchanged opinion, the fp was the best choice and Antalya the only location.

Let this be a lesson to y'all:

Don't quit smoking. And if you don't smoke, start.

This message brought to you by the Piedmont Triad Business Association of North Carolina.

Drink more coffee...then your nerves will be twice as shot...

Originally posted by meldor
Drink more coffee...then your nerves will be twice as shot...

Bah, must...drink...more....coffee.... => :sheep:

Can not live without it :D

In a nutshell, decent military results, bad Wonder results.


70 (0): I wake up two pikemen and send them into Babylon, to give the offensive units in our mini-SoD some protection against counterattacks.

If we had as many units within and on our own borders as the Romans do, we'd be in fine shape. They have thirty.

A Babylonian MDI attacks the elite swordsman on top of our mini-SoD, fortunately across a river, and dies.


90 (1): Two pikemen and two horsemen join our SoD outside Ur.

Sinop barracks --> pike.


110 (2): The Babylonians request an audience, which we of course refuse.

Our alliance with the Indians comes up for renewal. We'd have to give them gold or silks to extend it, so I decline, due not to the cost but to the potential reputation complications. They remain at war with the Babylonians and remain gracious towards us.


130 (3): Our SoD moves into position to assault Ur without attacking across a river. This is also our third turn of pillaging around Ur, but the city stays at size eight.

Uskudar completes our first galley.


150 (4): Ur is held by four pikemen and a catapult. We defeat a veteran pike with an elite MDI, defeat a regular pike with a veteran MDI, lose an elite swordsman attacking a regular pike, defeat a regular pike with an elite swordsman, and defeat a redlined regular pike with an elite horseman, and the city is ours. No Great Leader appears.

I intend to raze Ur, but when our troops enter the city an Indian galley becomes visible just offshore. We have a settler on the way, but it isn't in position to forestall an Indian settler should one land in the interturn. I reluctantly spare the city, though it's plainly a tremendous flip risk.

With the city of Babylon seemingly at their mercy, the Romans break our alliance and make peace with the Babylonians.

The Indians take Uruk.

We get Chivalry and Gunpowder from the Great Library. We have, or almost have, one source of saltpetre, on a mountain south of Erdine which is under our general control but not within our cultural boundaries.


170 (5): I give the Romans 5 gpt for an RoP agreement, as the cheapest form of insurance available in the new situation.

We get our first knight, by upgrading a horseman in Istanbul.

Ur revolts. We lose its garrison of one horseman.


190 (6): We re-take Ur, losing a horseman in the process. With a settler now in position, I gladly raze it.

The Romans move twelve units next to Istanbul, with another eight one square away. It had better be true that the AI doesn't RoP-rape.


210 (7): I found Rebel's Reward on the ruins of Ur.


230 (8): Extraordinary luck--our pitiful force of three catapults manages to reduce Babylon from size eight to size six. We then take the city from its surprisingly weak garrison of a pikeman and two spearmen, although we do lose a veteran MDI in the attack. Since Babylon isn't under cultural pressure from any of the remaining Babylonian cities, I decide to keep it; but the decision isn't really rewarded, as no city improvements survive.

The Romans get Sun Tzu, and the Carthaginians get Leonardo in the cascade.


250 (9): I found Salonika on the site two tiles south and two southwest of Kafa. Along with the city we should eventually found just northwest of the saltpetre mountain, this town will give us very efficient coverage of northern Babylon.

In a minor replay of the events outside Babylon city, the Indians make peace with the Babylonians just before they would have beaten us into Akkad.

Konya finishes its library.

We get Theology from the Great Library--so Education may be next, before we get Chemistry.


260 (10): I found Mugla, claiming the two sources of ivory across the bay from Antalya. In the process, we disperse a Thracian camp and collect 25 gold.

We had only five elite victories this round, one of them defensive, so it's no surprise we didn't generate a Great Leader. Apart from the garrisons of their cities, I hardly saw a Babylonian unit--not ideal conditions for Leader-fishing.

The Babylonian front:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_260AD.JPG

The save:

260 AD--some knights can still move (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_260AD.zip)

Got it, although there's a slight possibility I won't finish within 48 hours (I'll do a partial update if that's the case).

Do we have any boats?

Theology from the GLib, nice.
It's also very good that we got the Babylonian lands and not our allies.
(This was my greatest fear when I signed the alliances)

Salpeter is the most important thing in the 'good news' departement :D
:goodjob: NP

EDIT: I can not play Saturday, so if you want to swap again ChrTh, no problem.

THE FUTURE:


Ashur should fall soon; the only issue is working in as many elite attacks as possible.

We can either attack Akkad with the nearby knights (right now, since they haven't moved) or wait three turns to let the elite MDI just north of the knights get an attack in.

We have a galley in Izmit and two knights in Istanbul, as the basis of an amphibious force to send against Kish.

Just before we go to war with the Indians (to reduce flip risk), we should found a city on the tile directly northwest of the saltpetre mountain. A town here would redeem several wasted tiles and wouldn't be too corrupt.

We have an RoP agreement with the Romans, and they're polite. We have only a peace treaty with the Indians, and they're annoyed. The Aztecs are furious with us, for some reason.

There are no techs in circulation which we don't have.

Good Lord, those were quick responses. A subtle hint that I was a bit too deliberate about playing and posting? :D :o

ChrTh, we have two galleys.

I'm online because I'm at work.

No hints as far as time is concerned from me, a solid turn is much better than a 'quick' one in such a difficult variant (and I guess Meldor will agree) :)

@Belisar,

Yeah, let's swap. I'm going up to DC tomorrow, and even though I'm bringing Civ with me, I don't know how much time I'll have to play, and I don't want to slow things down.

@NP,

You did fine, let no one tell you otherwise :D

Ok, then I take it, will try to play tonight.

As I have stated before, I am not a stickler for absolute finish times. Having teenagers myself, there are times when it is tough for me to hit a solid deadline. I would prefer swaps if you know you are not going to get to for 2+ days, but if you have good intentions and something comes up, I won't complain. That also goes for times in which it hits a critical point in the game.

BTW, I don't moan the loss of Sun's and Leo's too much. I am happy that we got Gunpowder and muskets before we got education. We have a good chance of getting ToE at this point which is now our number one tech goal. We should be able to 2-fer our way that far from this point.

One of the things that could have killed us on this game with the size of map and the number of opponents was if we would have had a Babylon like the last game. It looks like no one AI is taking commend of the other major land mass, so we won't have a run away tech leader.

BTW, another solid set of turn NP. You put the city north of Babylon where I had intended it to go, you just used a different settler. Can't complain about that.

We want to save something we can trade to the Romans so that we can ally with them against India as soon as possible after we declare on them. They have already fought one war with India so it may not be too much trouble getting them to agree.

We are in great shape for this game. The cascade is broken, so we have a shot at a GL and one of the Happiness wonders. I would also think it is about time we build an army to get HE up and running. Once we start getting enough GLs the game will get alot easier.

The hit list:
1) Babylon - On its last legs!
2) India
3) Rome

NorthernPike
CtrTh (up - swap?)
Belisar (on deck - swap?)
Coffee
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

Deleted

Preturn:
Bad luck, we got the only AI with knights (War Elephants) that doesn't require iron,
it would have been nice to fight against an AI without Knights.

IT: The Romans have more units near Iznik than we would need to take out the
whole continent. Bad thing, the Indians would give us two luxes for Theology
but because they are next on our list -> no deal.
A lot of Roman troop movement back north.
We better make sure we get an alliance against the Indians like Meldor proposed
or we have 200 legions and 400 MDI's in our backyards.
And wow, Abu is a backward guy. If we get Navigation, we should get some of his beavers.

270: We take Akkad without casualties and get a fresh slave.
Only one elite sword in position to attack Ashur this turn, a pike gives him cover
and I don't want to risk any horses. I can live with the
result as we get GL Suleyman, 4 turns too late. (I think that's the hard part of
an SG: Meldor and NP were leaderfishing and I get one with the first elite victory,
this is your man guys :) )
I think the Chapel is wortheless for us, we need Bach. Because I don't expect
a new GL before MT (The Babs don't seem to have any spare units left), I want to
save him, two more content citiziens would really help us.
On the other hand I expect the war with India to begin during my turn and
an army would be nice for tactical reasons.

IT: The Roman 'Expedition Force' continues withdrawing north, a lot of Indian troops move
back west towards their side of the landmass.

280: With the MDIs in position, we take Ashur and get two more slaves and a third iron source.
I decide to connect it immediately to be prepared.
We land near Kish.

IT: A Bab bowman commits suicide at our vet pike near Kish.
An important boarder expansion at Konya, we get the land tiles south and
India no longer has a direct route to its colonies on our side.

290: We take Kish from its lone spearman defender getting us an elite knight,
Ok, only Nippur left. The stupid Romans are blocking my troop movements.
Istanbul is already size 10, some cities without temples are problematic too,
we badly need luxes. Rushing the harbour in our new Ivory town is still way too expensive,
so I have to increase lux to 20% to avoid clowns in several towns.

300: Road to our salpeter source, order settler. Guarding the salpeter
with an MDI while the spear heads back for upgrading.
Some unit movement, mainly preparing for our war against India.

310: Hannibal seems to be the tech leader, he got Education.
2 knights are healing in Kish to attack Nippur.
Order Cats in our corrupt south.

IT: Most of the Roman troops have left our territory and should be in the Caesarea-area

320: 2 new knights are finished. Continue clearing the jungle in the north,
our iron source in the south is online, just to be on the save side.

330: Both the Romans and the Indians got Education :(, we will likely
have to pay the Romans.
I load our two galleys and go for Nippur.

IT: We get Education, the GL was great.
I spot the first Indian War Elephant.

340: I land at the hill near Nippur.

350: I take Nippur and the weak Babs are gone. They were just not good enough
to survive at deity.
In Austria, we have a proverb (I guess it doesn't make sense in English):
Something like "We showed them were to get the good stuff" :D
After the units in Nippur are back at full strength they can be used
to take out the Indian city near the iron.
The next player has to declare against India, but he may want to investigate those
2 cities on our side of the landmass, should be cheap.
I saw only horses, spears and longbows and I doubt that the Indians have the
money or the raxes to upgrade these units.
The westen front is more problematic, I saw the first Elephants.
Note: Our galleys and a few workers are unmoved.



I stopped at this point (only 9 turns this time) because a few decisions are necessary
which will determine our plans for the next 10-20 turns:

1. I would suggest and alliance with Rome, immediately.
It is costly (35gpt and 8 cash), but India is strong and in the case of a dogpile
we would be in real troubles. Rome has a lot of units in the Caesarea-area and the
additional pressure against the Indians might be just what we need because our
military is not as strong numerically as I hoped it would be at this point of the game.

2. Our defense position in the west should be OK, I added Cats but we still are short
on them, so I ordered a few during my turns.
Main goal are those two cities on our side of the landmass to shorten our front considerably.
I built a road to the salpeter source, the next player can decide whether he
wants to upgrade to muskets (via a colony, so the source would be online this turn)
If I had to play the next turns, I would delay the connection (it is outside our current boarders
so the road won't connect it immediately)
to produce those cheap pikes and grab the source with the settler I built in Babylon
after the region is secured, mainly because our production capability is not that great
to produce many knights AND musktes.

3. What to do with our GL.
Since I had only 2 elite battles after I got him I decided to keep him.
Now the war with India will start this turn and we should agree on our priorities.
I see two possibilities: Wait for BACH (which would help our happines situation
enormously, saving a lot of money) or an army to better block the Indians
at the western front. Because we will fight defensively for some turns until
we have absorbed most of their offensive capabilities a musket army that covers
our knights and cats would be an excellent choice, but a knight army would not be
a bad choice either.
IF we want an army, we should build it now to get all those leader-chances
during the next turns.

Good luck ChrTh, you get all the fun this time :)

SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLD03-350AD.zip)

Two points. A 2nd harbor is necessary to get the ivory hooked up.
First choice goes to a musket army to pillage India's ivory.
I prefer Sistines over Bachs because it gives 6 vs 2 content faces with cathedrals.

I looked at the save and I would lean towards building an army at this opint and getting HE up and running. We need to have a settler ready to go on the island so we can raze and replace the Indian city there. I would hope the two southern cities are easy to take as the majority of our units are up on the northwesteren front.

If we are to go for a wonder, I always preferd double cathedrals to one that was limited to only one landmass. Our GA should be coming up soon and we need to have the Indians gassed by then so we can push much needed infrastructure during it.

It is a hard call, I won't complain either way.

The hit list:
1) Babylon - On its last legs!
2) India
3) Rome
4) Iroquois, Carthage, Aztecs (Fielders choice)
7) Arabia

NorthernPike
CtrTh (up)
Belisar
Coffee (on deck)
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

--(I think that's the hard part of
an SG: Meldor and NP were leaderfishing and I get one with the first elite victory,
this is your man guys :) )--


Very graciously said, Belisar. Thanks.

I agree that we should pay the Romans for an alliance, and that we should build pikemen, not musketeers.

I think we should use the current leader for an army. As in our last game, we've reached the point at which we have to build Heroic Epic without delay to get full value from it.

I don't object to a musketeer army, but if we're going to do it this way while mostly building pikemen (which seems essential for the moment) we'll have to hook up, unhook, and eventually re-hook ;) our saltpetre. We don't consider this an exploit, do we?

Originally posted by meldor
I would hope the two southern cities are easy to take as the majority of our units are up on the northwesteren front.

I saw only horses and some longbows in the Uruk-area
We have knights in Babylon and MDIs in Salonika. They might be not enough
to take the two cities in a few turns but I was more worried about huge Inidan invasions stacks from their homelands.


Originally posted by meldor
If we are to go for a wonder, I always preferd double cathedrals to one that was limited to only one landmass.
[/B]
In every builder-game I would agree, but for 3 reasons I suggest Bach if we really go for a wonder:

1. We have only a few temples, not to speak from shield-heavy cathedrals.
Sistine wouldn't be useless for a long time whereas Bach would help every single city on our landmass (I doubt that we will have productive cities on the other landmass)

2. With Bach, the 4 native luxes of our continent (+ maybe Abu's beavers) and marketplaces (which we need anyway) we should have solved our lux-problem. I think the critical part of this game will be played with size-12 cities.

3. Finally we can capture Sistine while Bach would be useless if built on the other landmass.

Originally posted by Northern Pike
--(I think that's the hard part of
an SG: Meldor and NP were leaderfishing and I get one with the first elite victory,
this is your man guys :) )--

Very graciously said, Belisar. Thanks.


I felt a bit guilty ;) but only a bit :mischief:

[i]
I don't object to a musketeer army, but if we're going to do it this way while mostly building pikemen (which seems essential for the moment) we'll have to hook up, unhook, and eventually re-hook ;) our saltpetre. We don't consider this an exploit, do we?

I guess Meldor has to decide about what should be considered as an exploit because it is his game.
Personally I think that you should have the possibility of building "obsolete" units anyway. In one of my own AW games, I founded two "filler"-cities and avoided a connection with the road network.
While the size-12 core cities produced kights and later Cav, these towns just produced cheap MP-units for my whole civ.
Same thing when playing with Greece or Rome. Who wants 60-shield units with defense 4 when one can have 3 20-shield pikes or 2 legions with the additional attack-capability?

Your point on Bach's is well taking, I would agree that short term it would be best. However I still lean towards an Army and HE to increase the chance of more leaders. However not so much that I would cry if someone went either way.

Did India get an elephant victory in the war with Babylon? If so they will still be in their GA at this time. If not, then the first one they get against us or Rome will put them there as they haven't built many wonders that I recall.

As far as the connecting and unconnecting of saltpeter is concerned: I do consider this to be a minor expliot. It is not something the AI can or will do. I do consdier it OK to wait to hook it up, that is a strategic choice, but disconnecting it after to build cheaper unit for upgrade does go over the line. The use of unconnected cities to build MP units is however sonething I had never considered, I will have to contemplate that one. I really consider it an exploit if it goes to the extremes that it did in the Russia game where it was used to get around the inability to cash rush in communism.

The Indians had no War Elephants on our side of the landmass and were already withdrawing their forces (horses, longbows, spears) when I attacked the two last Bab-cities south. I saw the first Elephant in the middle of my turns on "their" side, so I guess we will have bad luck and they will get their GA during the next turns
(We have to declare this turn, you can delete Babylon from the list).

I favor the army.

On happiness
I count 3 luxs with Ivory unconnected. We should play to our commecial strength and cash rush the markets and harbors. If we can get a 4th lux then we likely won't need a happiness wonder. See below.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/happy1.jpg

Originally posted by meldor


As far as the connecting and unconnecting of saltpeter is concerned: I do consider this to be a minor expliot. It is not something the AI can or will do. I do consdier it OK to wait to hook it up, that is a strategic choice, but disconnecting it after to build cheaper unit for upgrade does go over the line.


I've never had any qualms about doing this, because IMO it just compensates for one of the game's silliest features: the way in which the player is punished for getting Gunpowder with a far less cost-effective infantry unit. But your game, your call.

@chrth - some thoughts on my upcoming turns.

If its possible, leave me enough income to start rushing some markets. Suggest you rush the harbors and build embassies first. Then sell some tech overseas to help finance the war. Rushing the harbors will allow you to reduce the lux rate with or without markets. -> more income.

If nothing else you will be able to short rush units with the extra income. Good luck, one Indian GA coming your way.

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know I'm back and I got it ... I'll be playing tonight.

OK, I know I'm going to sound like a moaning old fart (well, I admit I'm a few years short, but I'm well on my way), but I think we need to do a little more to enforce the 48 hour time limit on turns here. It's been 3 days since the last set of turns has been played, and frankly, It's hard to stay interested in a game where there is nothing new to be read for several days at a time.

I agree with Steve. :D

Expect a turn report tonight :cry: :whipped:

EDIT: Who thinks we should volunteer AZ_Steve for SUL5b? ;)

Yikes @ SUL5b!!

I only got through about two pages of it, but sheesh! ONE YEAR and only at the early Industrial age?? :lol: :lol:

Turn 0 -- 350AD

Ok, Babs are gone, time to declare war on India, what to do with the leader, hmmm...

Ok, I start war with India, and kill some of their troops (without loss). I ally with Rome (with the terms as listed above).

I decide to build an Army with the leader...I think it'll take too long to get to Bach, or any other worthwhile Wonder. I want HE.

I also want a Musket army...I create a colony on the Saltpetre, and upgrade a few pike to Muskets

How come we always get stuck fighting the #1 civ?

IT:
We lose two MDI

Turn 1 -- 360 AD
Palace expands! Kill some more troops without loss. I am forced to leave the colony undefended, though

IT:
We lose a pike and two knights..and our colony :(

Turn 2 -- 370 AD
Kill some more troops, lose only a pike

IT:
Lose two MDI, but they die fighting!

Turn 3 -- 380 AD
Kill some more troops, lose nothing

IT:
We lose a Knight who kills like 4 troops trying to take him down

Turn 4 -- 390 AD
We're down Chem and Astro to Rome and Carth...no chance for a 2fer right now

Kill troops without loss.

We take New Jaipur and now control the island

IT:
We lose an MDI (goes down fighting)

Turn 5 -- 400 AD
We lose a Knight

IT:
No troop losses!

Turn 6 -- 410 AD
Lose 2 knights fighting War Elephants, but our army gets a victory. Istanbul changed to Heroic Epic

Ok, I need to stop here until tomorrow night ... we're killing Indian troops easily 4 to 1. Ellipi and Uruk have substantial troopage, so I've had a hard time making progress on that front.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Sounds good so far. Given the initial size of the Indians' army and their GA, we just have to accept a substantial period of attritional warfare before we can expect to make much progress against their cities.

Originally posted by ChrTh
How come we always get stuck fighting the #1 civ?


If you mean the Babs then I would say we did a good job.
Remember we had 3 cities when they had 10.
Typical ancient-age proportion on deity.


We take New Jaipur and now control the island


That's good! no iron to the Indians, will prevent them from producing MDIs.
Longbows are easier to kill.
Did they already use muskets?


Ellipi and Uruk have substantial troopage, so I've had a hard time making progress on that front.


That's why I concentrated our troops in the Busra area.
Our first goal is to hold the lines with minimal casualties, 1:4 sounds not bad. Don't forget to produce the cheap cats in our southern cities to further reduce our losses.
Metallurgy is not that far away.
If enough Indian Elephants die on our cheap pikes, we can build up our offensive forces and make some progress.


Any Roman units in sight ?

The Romans have been doing damage to the Indians...they are attacking with gusto, and have razed at least one Indian city! Of course, they're our next target...

My final four turns are basically going to be spent in a defensive posture; probably half of the troops I lost was because I was aggressive offensively, and left unguarded troops too far in front.

@Belisar: I mean the Indians. They're #1 in score right now.

@ChrTh: This would be way to easy for us if we got only undeveloped jungle-AIs in the first stage of the game.

I love your sig :D, must be one of Murphy's laws:
If you sign up for 3 SGs, you will defenitely reach the point when you are up in all of them.

@Belisar: Yeah, you're right. In fact, it's better to face the big guy now, rather at the end...hopefully the other continent will continue to keep each other at a respectable level (although the Aztecs will likely be conquered by the end of the Industrial Age, as is their normal method of playing).

Yeah, I thought the sig would be a good idea, just everyone in my games are aware :)

I think the Romans are taking this seriously:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3-410AD.jpg

That is the biggest SOD I have ever seen.

Turn 7 -- 420 AD
Nada

IT:
Romans take New Bangalore, heading towards Ganges

Turn 8 -- 430 AD
I build Denizili, Saltpetre now back in our borders

Turn 9 -- 440 AD

IT:
Denizili somehow falls to a horseman? :aargh: Forgot to :worship: RNG :worship:

Turn 10 -- 450 AD
Not much


Well, I didn't do so hot ... we lost some more troops and India is getting ornery near Bursa....hopefully the next player can reverse my inanities...

The Knight from New Jaipur just left to take care of the Settler Spear pair that landed on the island....hopefully we'll get them before they settle...and hopefully New Jaipur won't flip either (may have been a bad idea, now that I think about it)

Fortunately the Romans are in full ass-kicking mode...hopefully they'll stay that way. Navigation is now out there, but since we don't have Astro, we can't get it (not that we care, methinks).

Here's the save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3_450AD.SAV

@Belial, well, it has already split up (and hopefully you've seen larger in the modern age...because I reckon we will)

got it

450 AD - 0
Cash rush 2 harbors and 2 knights.
mm all cities.

460 AD - 1
Harbors complete and lux to 10%, cash up 15gpt to 74gpt.
We can now trade with Carthage.
Jungle over silks completes -> road
Trade Carthage silks @ 12gpt
3 knights complete, I start some markets.

We are not popular. Embassies are needed.
Aztecland -> embassy.

Ibt India is very busy with Rome.

470 AD - 2
Iznik riots I add an MP. We need 2 mp's per city now.

480 AD - 3
Denizli recaptured.
Rush the market in Sinop.

490 AD - 4
Uskudar riots -> temple, we are way behind in improvements.
Rush a temple in Edrine, was due to riot next turn.
Don't know, think most AI's simply annoyed -> embassies can wait.
All major cities to improvements.

500 AD - 5
Rush temple in Uskudar

I have something of a choke point setup near Bursa. Was able to cut ivory to Indias core
using cats.

510 AD - 6
Ellipi captured.
Rush market in Antalya, 1 turn saved.

520 AD - 7
I lose a knight, attacking before bombarding.
Aztec land has settled on our island.

530 AD - 8
Rush market in Izmit.
Istanbul completes the Epic. -> no I didn't veto it.

540 AD - 9
We get a great leader at the choke point.

550 AD - 10
Lost another knight.
Rush market in Edrine
Markets completed in Bursa & Iznik
Upgrade pike in Bursa.


The GL, Selim, is in Bursa at your discretion.
There are two knights in Babylon, healing to take Uruk.

Good luck. I'd rush some knights and go for the wines. rome is moving.

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3_550AD.SAV)


Here are the chokes.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CPoint.jpg

After thoughts
We are earning 109gpt. The alliance is up next turn I believe.
Chemistry due in 6 turns.

I think we need to continue to push improvements. Libraries should be next. That way we will be rushing banks and universities during our golden age. With libraries we might be able to follow the leaders up the tech tree. Good for trading.

Please keep an eye on mming. 18, 14 ,12spt for knights etc. I was able to gain some turns with a few simple changes. We would benifit from scads of cats but beware Rome is getting out of control. Thats about it.

Good turns, Coffee.
You placed our army exactly at the point I would have done myself. :)
Should tie down a large number of Indian units.


Originally posted by ChrTh
Fortunately the Romans are in full ass-kicking mode...hopefully they'll stay that way.


That's good! Without them, we would have a hard time. :D Hopefully they continue producing a lot of middle-age units.
I didn't see salpeter inside their boarders, so we might have a technical
advantage when it is their turn.



@Belial, well, it has already split up (and hopefully you've seen larger in the modern age...because I reckon we will)

We certainly will :rolleyes:
On the other side, we can chose our target on the other continent and
start similar dogpiles. By the time we own our continent we are set for victory.

:goodjob: on the infrastructure push and the Great Leader, Coffee.

Some thoughts on our options now:

1. A Banking-Astronomy twofer is available, starting with the Romans or the Carthaginians, since the Aztecs don't have Banking. The Romans and the Carthaginians both want our ivory (which sounds vaguely rude ;) ), so we could send one of them our only supply as part of the deal, and then replace it almost immediately by switching Mugla's build to a worker.

2. The only problem with taking the twofer is that it might postpone the point at which we could afford Music Theory and rush Bach--which I tentatively assume is what we'd like to do with the GL, although the options are complex.

3. We have only one unasterisked elite offensive unit, and it's on the island; so we probably wouldn't lose anything by hoarding our GL for a while, much though I normally dislike this.

4. We're doing such a good job of clearing our northern jungle that we should try to squeeze in another city there--four tiles directly north of Istanbul, I'd suggest.

You know, I wouldn't object if we snag Bach -> hint, hint ;)

Good job on both prosecuting the war and getting much needed infrastruction completed. We should be looking good by the time our GA starts and be in the middle of the bank/uni build phase. I am glad to see HE pay off almost immediately! While the leader is idle, we should get as many troops up to eleite status as we can. I would like us to have enough elites to give us a good shot at ToE and maybe even use a few to rush factories in some core cities. I am not so concerned with US as we won't be leaving Monarchy, unless we somehow get control of eight luxes.

I agree that we could use Bach's. I also think we should take the two-fer on the table. This is an important time and we don't want any one AI beating us to ToE. That is a very critical wonder and it is set up by us staying even in tech at this point.

We also need to keep an eye on the other land mass. I don't want one of them becoming a 900 pound canary. If it looks like one Civ is starting to get control we may need to give a hand to the underdogs.

The hit list:
1) Babylon - Gone
2) India - Current target.
3) Rome
4) Iroquois, Carthage, Aztecs (Fielders choice)
7) Arabia

NorthernPike
CtrTh
Belisar
Coffee
Arizona_Steve (up)
Meldor (on deck)

@meldor, you may want to revise the hit list, unless you know something we don't know :)

Where's Steve? I figured he'd have already played and posted by now ;)

Steve probably commited suicide because he lost a bet with 100000$ that he wouldn't be up again until next week :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Still here, I'm afraid :D And will take my turns tonight.

I've seen bigger number-wise, just not pure body-wise :p.

Unless, I count the stack of artillery I accidently lost a long time ago :rolleyes:

The thing that scares me is that it's going to be turned on us next :eek:

Hopefully India can put up a spirited defense versus Rome, and enough attrition will happen...if we are successful in taking our continent, I don't see how we can lose this game. However, that "if" is a mighty one.

I have seen AI stacks as high as 120 units with no arty in them. I was playing an Emperor game and one of my "friends" was going to RoP" rape with with such a stack. I saw it coming, canceled the RoP, ask him to leave (forcing him to declare), and then pounded his stack with arty and killed off about 2/3's of it. Got the rest the next turn. It was China IIRC...

(0) 550AD
Well I had high hopes for bashing some Indians here (after all they're stealing all of our Information Technology jobs), but I've been left with virtually no offensive units. There's also not a Roman in sight.
I'm going to follow Northern Pike's advice here and go for the two-fer for Banking and Astronomy. Mugla is switched to a worker (from a pike), due next turn to connect the other ivory. I'm inclined to leave Rome out of the deal, hopefully I can sell something to them to continue the Military Alliance.
I buy banking from Catharge for 42 gold/turn + Ivory. The Ivory saves us 20 gold/turn.
Banking + 17 gold/turn goes to the Aztecs for Astronomy.
We only lack Chemistry at this point, which we will get in 6 turns.
I notice that we have two excess iron, but I'm not able to trade them for luxuries, so lux tax goes up to 20% and I switch around a number of specialists to avoid riots. We make 35 gold/turn.

IBT:
Rome calls, wanting to renew the Military Alliance at the current price of 35 gold/turn. I renegotiate this down to World Map + 13 gold/turn. We now make 63 gold/turn.
India's Jumbos turn round and head towards Rome.

(1) 560AD
Some units are have GOTO orders, one of which is a Medieval Infantry who goes by the name of "Iron Man" (someone on the team has a sense of humour - I think I might name a few others randomly). I think I caught them all.
Catharge has acquired Navigation in addition to Chemistry. So also has Rome and India. The Aztecs only have Chemistry, so there is a two-fer available. I hope to hold off a few turns to rush a few knights.

IBT:
Marie (my other half) lies on the couch in my office, reading out loud some of the more erotic passages from her book. That's about as exciting as the inter-turn got. Oh, and Adana completed a temple and started an aquaduct.

(2) 570AD
"Knight Guy" kills an Indian spearman who was about to start a pillaging run. "Iron Man" heads toward Bursa.

IBT:
Rome sends a substantial SOD towards Indus. It even includes an army.

(3) 580AD
Uruk is taken with two knights. Two workers complete the package. Istanbul has gown to size 12, and with some MAJOR reshuffling of citizens, I can get it to 24 uncorrupted shields/turn and produce a knight every three turns.

IBT:
As expected, Indus is taken by the Romans. Our second ivory is connected at Mugla.

(4) 590AD
Rejiggle citizens to keep them happy with the minimum of apecialists. Luxuries have to remain at 20% due to knight-every-three-turns Istanbul, the production there is too important.
Rush a couple of knights.

IBT:
More Rome / India fighting. India seems to be taking the worst of it.

(5) 600AD

IBT:
Chemistry comes in.

(6) 610AD
Kill a couple of spears that were ready to pillage next turn. Taxman hired in Rebel's Reward, as it grew to size 6. Metallurgy has come in, but the Aztecs are short of both Navigation and Metallurgy, so I watch them in the hope of a two-fer.

IBT:
Some steps are added to our palace.

(7) 620AD
Nothing

IBT:
Rome and India sign a peace treaty :(

(8) 630AD
Call up Rome, who is suddenly annoyed with us. It now costs 26 gold/turn to get them to redeclare war on India.

IBT:
Aztecs start JS Bach's Cathedral.

(9) 640AD
OK. 34 gold/turn + 59 gold goes to the Aztecs for Music Theory.
Rome will not sell either Navigation or Metallurgy, even with Music Theory thrown in the mix. Then I do the same process manually, and manage to purchase Navigation for Music Theory and 18 gold/turn. Weird huh?
Istanbul has no shields in the box, so it is switched to JS Bach's and rushed with our leader.

IBT:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_650AD.jpg
Catharge completes Magellans Voyage.

(10) 650AD
I send a stack of knights towards Calcutta while there is a clear route (no-one in range to attack).
Lux tax goes down to 10% - I gave the city list a quick eyeball, and it looks like none should riot. At least that gets the cashflow back to +22 gold/turn.

Attack Calcutta!! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_650AD.zip)

but I've been left with virtually no offensive units. dang! did I forget to mention that. :goodjob: Steve. Next time i promise, really I do.

Originally posted by Arizona_Steve
Rome calls, wanting to renew the Military Alliance at the current price of 35 gold/turn. I renegotiate this down to World Map + 13 gold/turn. We now make 63 gold/turn.


Nice, they seem to take it personal now.


.... a Medieval Infantry who goes by the name of "Iron Man" (someone on the team has a sense of humour - I think I might name a few others randomly). I think I caught them all.


I named the unit because the victory was on the former babylon iron hill in the south. This guy got us Bach :D


IBT:
Marie (my other half) lies on the couch in my office, reading out loud some of the more erotic passages from her book. That's about as exciting as the inter-turn got. Oh, and Adana completed a temple and started an aquaduct.


:lol: Didn't that gave you ideas? It should have :mischief:


Now that we have Bach, not only myself but also our people will be happy :band:

Good job, btw.

Didn't that gave you ideas? It should have
Yes it did, somewhat later that evening. But I won't go into the details :love2: :eek: :p

Hey, I see the word "forum" at the top of the screen, but not the word "Penthouse". :nono: :lol:

It's good to see that we've accumulated 17 knights. :goodjob: If we have a healthy number of knights available for upgrading to Sipahis when the time comes, we'll be in fine shape.

Miscellaneous points:

1. Akkad has somehow accumulated 39 shields towards a regular musketman, which we don't want. We could switch to a library there and get it immediately.

2. Kafa and Salonika are semi-corrupt towns which would probably benefit more from courthouses than from the temples they're building.

3. We badly need settlers with which to claim the land we'll be clearing by razing Indian cities. It's easier to say this than to decide where they should be built, I know. :)

650 AD (0)
Pick up furs and drop lux tax to 0%. Still can't buy Metalurgy. It is still due in 36.
(I) Watch the Romans kill some elephants and then the Indians kill some Romans. The Indians then move some elephants into our territory. Edrine Knight->Bank,

660 AD (1)
I wake up three cats to hit the elephants and get 1 hit. I wake up the three under our army and it takes and Indian spear down to 1HP. I decide to use some of the knights in the stack to take out the three elephants and get three victories and 2 promotions to elite. I move them so they can heal. I then advance on Calcutta and raze it, losing 2 knights and getting 1 promotion. We also get 5 slaves in the deal. I change Konya to a settler to try and snag the wines. I was suprised that we didn't have one ready. I also change Kaifa to build a settler, but it will take a few turns.
(I) We lose one knight to a counter but the Romans have more tempting units and the Indians go after them. Rome eats a few of theirs as well. Carthage comes calling and wants to renew the silks deal. I sell him silks and our only dye plus 24gpt for Metalurgy. We are now working on Military Tradition and on the last leg to our UU. Unfortunately this also means we are short a lux and wouldn't you know, Istanbul is the first city checked to riot. I scroll ahead and fix Konya so we will get our settler. Konya settler->Knight

670 AD (2)
I can't up lux as we don't have enough money. The entertainer in Istanbul will have to stay until we get the wines hooked up. The settler is on his way and some knights mark the spot. I bombard some elephants to make them more tempting for the Romans. I retreat the rest of the knights to heal. The new slaves are busy roading their way back to us and getting the road for the wines going as well.
(I) The Romans kill the two elephants but the rest of their units seem to be retreating. I hope they are trying to attack one of the northern cities and not preparing to break our deal again. Antalya knight->knight,

680 AD (3)
I use a freshly healed elite knight to attack a 1 hp elephant, we win but no leader.
(I) The Indians attack one knight with two elephants and give us an elite knight. They then attack the exposed elite knight with a bow and cause it to retreat. They then land an elephant between Ellipi and Denizli. Istanbul Knight->knight, Izmit Aqueduct->temple

690 AD (4)
The city of wine tasting is settled and the workers move to connect up the last leg of the road to bring the wines back to our cities. I move some extra knights in to help out until the musket arrives for cover. I can get a knight into Ellipi but I can't attack. I can not get another unit into Denizli, it will have to cross its fingers and pray to the RnG.
(I)The elephant in our lands kills the knight at Ellipi and then heads for the saltpeter. We lose one other knight to counters. Bursa, Iznik, Uskudar knight->knight, Adana Aqueduct->Market, New Jaipur pike->library.

700 AD (5)
Lose a knight trying to rid us of an elephant in the mountians, at least it is hurt now. continue to re-enforce Wine Tasting and build secondary raods to avoid a choke point pillage. Move a musket on top f the wines to rebuff a pillage there. Kill two elephants mear WT.
(I) Elephant at Ellipi forgos the saltpeter and moves into a forest tile to heal. We lose a knight to an elephant counter.

710 AD (6)
A knight readlines but we kill the elephant in our backyard. I almost have enough knights to shift and try for another core Indian city. The capital is out of the question without more pikes but Kolhapur is doable. Oh baby! Rome has lost their saltpeter and is will to buy our only supply, take 17gpt and 64g for Military Tradition and Physics. I know, I know, we can't build Sipahi without saltpeter, but we had to take the tech while we can. This leaves us down only Magnetism and we have some deals ending soon that we might be able to get that one as well. Hopefully, some one will be short ToG and we can get a late 2-fer but I doubt it.
(I) Ouch! The Indians have Cav now. I think we go back to a defensive war position for now and try to leader fish. Istanbul knight->bank, Sinop knight->knight.

720 AD (7)
We bomb the first Indian Cav down to 2HP and then kill it with an Elite knight.
(I) The Indian's take Indus back from the Romans. The musket on our wines takes out one Cav and takes a second to 1HP. Kafa settler->Aqueduct, Salonika temple->settler.

730 AD (8)
Troop movements and thoughts. ToG isn't up yet so we are still in decent shape for tech.
(I) An Indian Cav kills a musket in WT. They also land a spear on the island. Antalya knight->knight.

740 AD (9)
We kill off an Indian Cav. Move the army SoD toward Indus, it is guarded by Cav right now. Kill the spear on the island.
(I) Lose 2 knights to counters. The Aztecs start Smith's. Bursa, Uskudar, Konya Knight->knight.

750 AD (10)
Take out an elephant near Indus. The troops are in place to hit Indus and a settler is near Bursa to replace the city. I would suggest one square back on the hill by the river.

NOTE: There is a 2-fer available right now. We can get economics from Carthage and with some MMing for gold we can get Magnetism from Rome. That will leave is caught up in tech except Printing Press and Democracy. We are in really good shape for a Deity game. I hope our bonus tech is steam or nationalism.

The hit list:
1) Babylon - gone
2) India
3) Rome
4) Iroquois, Carthage, Aztecs (Fielders choice)
7) Arabia

NorthernPike (up)
CtrTh (on deck)
Belisar
Coffee
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_750AD.zip

Got it.

:goodjob: on trading our saltpetre for techs, meldor--clearly the right call.

Does anyone think we shouldn't use our next GL for Smith, if I happen to get one?

Does anyone think we shouldn't use our next GL for Smith, if I happen to get one? We should stay focused on getting the ToE. If Economics happens along so to speak then sure. Else its an optional tech and we don't need it.

Originally posted by Coffee
We should stay focused on getting the ToE. If Economics happens along so to speak then sure. Else its an optional tech and we don't need it.

If we get a GL and we have the option to build Smith's, then I'd say go ahead and build it; we're at least 30 turns from being able to build TOE, and if we can't get a second GL by then, then we're doing something wrong.

That said, we should have a prebuild going (maybe started now?) in a river city that can be used for either TOE or Hoover (if we GL to get TOE)

@ChrTh - Thats a good point about the number of turns. Lets say for the sake of argument 10 turns per tech and we get Nationalism for free. We need Magnetism, Steam, Ind, Elec, Meds and SM. Thats 60 turns. So 30 - 60t, estimate 45 turns. IIRC the ToE is 300 shields. We should start a prebuild now in a 6-8spt city. The one on the desert tiles comes to mind but that might be too productive. Perhaps rushing a courthouse/temple elsewhere would do it.

Ouch I forgot RP. The desert city is running at 9 IIRC. Hard to say, an 8spt city feels right....edited.

750 (0): We take the twofer: ivory, 25 gpt, 4 gold, and WM to the Cathaginians for Economics; Economics, 47 gpt (possible after we hire taxmen in Babylon and Rebel's Reward), 1 gold, and WM to the Romans for Magnetism.

I'm concerned about Wine Tasting, which contains so many knights that if it flips our good work building up a mobile strike force will be largely lost. I get three slow units from Bursa and Konya moving towards WT, and withdraw the two elite knights in the town. I move the elite knight in Bursa so that it can attack Indus next turn.

Three Indian cav units attack WT. One dies, one retreats, and one kills a veteran knight.


760 (1): We take (and shortly after abandon) Indus from two cav, losing a veteran knight (no GL). This is probably the only Indian city I'm going to attack. To lose knights attacking musketmen in size 7+ cities at this point, when they'll soon upgrade to Sipahis, would be criminal.

We pick off the two cav in exposed positions around WT, but lose a veteran knight in the process.

We induce three Indian cav to attack us on the hill two SW of Wine Tasting, which is only two tiles from Delhi. Two die and one retreats.

Iznik knight --> pike. I'll continue to build mostly knights, but we have to do something about our infantry starvation. Absorbing cav attacks with knights is awful.

The Indians land a cavalry unit on the mountain tile between Denizli and Ellipi. Didn't they just do this?


770 (2): We found Urfa on the suggested location one square SE of the ruins of Indus.

I replace the elite knight being wasted on the island with a veteran.

We kill one Indian cav outside WT.

The situation with the Indian cav between Denizli and Ellipi is incredibly awkward. Nothing can reinforce anything, except in a way which would cause us to lose a knight to the cav's attack rather than a pikeman. I decide to evacuate Ellipi, which has no improvements anyway. This way we shouldn't lose anything except Ellipi's accumulated shields.

The Indian cav unit takes Ellipi, stealing one gold.

One Indian cav dies attacking WT.

The Carthaginians demand 21 gold and our TM, which we provide.

Erdine bank --> knight, Izmit temple --> pikeman.


780 (3): The Romans and the Indians are at peace again. We get the Romans back in the war for 24 gpt.

We take back Ellipi, destroying the Indian cav for no loss.

We destroy a spearman and a cav on the Delhi-WT front for no loss, our catapults proving their worth yet again.

Istanbul bank --> knight, Bursa knight --> bank, Konya pikeman --> barracks [!], Iznik switches to bank.

No signs of life from the Indians in their turn.


790 (4): Gratifying Roman-Indian bloodshed, as the Romans fail to take Kolhapur, and then lose two cav and two knights to the Indian counterattack.

Uskudar knight --> galleon. We have to have some ability to reinforce Mugla, especially since the Iroquois are cruising in the area, and they're furious with us.

Antalya knight --> knight, Adana marketplace --> knight.

A forest chop outside Uskudar reveals BG.


800 (5): We destroy two Indian cav outside Kolhapur for the loss of one knight. We get an elite victory, but no GL.

The Indians attack outside both Delhi and Kolhapur. We lose two pikemen and destroy two cav.

Sinop knight --> palace prebuild.


810 (6): We destroy two Indian cav between Wine Tasting and Delhi, without loss.

One Indian cav counterattacks, and it dies attacking a depleted pikeman.

Wine Tasting gets its first cultural expansion--a great relief.

Istanbul knight --> knight, Iznik pikeman --> pikeman.


820 (7): The Romans aren't making much of a showing against the Indians on our front, but in the west they now hold Hyderabad.

An Indian cav defeats a pikeman in WT.

Konya barracks --> pikeman.

The Carthaginians are building Shakespeare.


830 (8): The Romans have taken New Madras in the west. The strategy of letting the Romans and Indians bleed each other while we build up our strength seems to be working well.

We pick off the Indian cav which just attacked WT--an elite victory, but no GL.

Urfa library (rushed) --> barracks.

One Indian cav attacks our hill position overlooking Delhi, and retreats.

Erdine knight --> knight.

The Aztecs are also building Shakespeare.


840 (9): We destroy the cav which just attacked our hill position--elite victory, no GL.

No Indian attacks at all.

Istanbul knight --> knight, Uskudar galleon --> knight, Konya pikeman --> pikeman, Denizli cannon --> catapult [!].


850 (10): I renew our furs deal with the Arabs by sending them Banking. We also get 3 gold and their WM.

We destroyed twenty Indian cavalry units and an Indian spearman this round, for losses of four knights and three pikemen.

Six elite victories didn't produce a Great Leader.

THE FUTURE:


We now have 23 knights, with another four due to complete within five turns, so we should have a reasonable force for upgrading to Sipahis.

All the technological action this round was on the top half of the chart, and no one has ToG yet.

We should probably try to have two banks building at any one time, until we have them in all our major cities.

We have five knights south of Erdine, in addition to the one which is Babylon's garrison and the mobile reserve for that area. They're moving south in case any problem develops from the Indian galleon off Uruk.

The two pikemen on mountains in Babylonia shouldn't be moved until there's no further danger of Indian amphibious landings.

The save:

850 AD, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_850AD.zip)

As India shrinks:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR03_850AD.JPG

I got it.

Sorry about having to fight the defensive side of the battle. I am glad to see that Rome is taking a more active roll this time. You did a great job on getting us set up to have our GA coming during the next set of turns. Sipahi should do a lot better against those muskets and rifles than the knights do.

The hit list:
1) Babylon - gone
2) India - Soon to start our GA!
3) Rome
4) Iroquois, Carthage, Aztecs (Fielders choice)
7) Arabia

NorthernPike
CtrTh (up)
Belisar (on deck)
Coffee
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

Great turns against the cavalry. I expected much higher loses.

Yes, great job NP to keep our casualties minimal
Makes all the difference in constant-war situations.
:goodjob:

EDIT: I looked at the save, just a minor thing:
MM in Uskudar/Antalya gets us a knight every 4 instead of every 5 turns in Uskudar. The 13th shield in Antalya is corrupt anyway.

Thanks, all. :) Having catapults available to knock that first hit point off the attacking unit about 50% of the time makes a huge difference.

Originally posted by Northern Pike
Thanks, all. :) Having catapults available to knock that first hit point off the attacking unit about 50% of the time makes a huge difference.

You wanna go post that in CTR7? ;)


I'm guessing I'm going to have a shot at starting the GA during my turn. What sort of timing should I use? And should I use the GA to build a slew of Sipahi, or concentrate on infrastructure, or try to mix the two?

The timing of our GA: we won't get our saltpetre back until your sixth turn anyway, so you won't be able to trigger the GA with a Sipahi until a turn or two later. I don't see any reason to wait longer than this.

Our GA build priorities: basically a compromise between Sipahis and infrastructure, I think. We certainly want to finish building banks in our good cities, and harbours where appropriate. I don't know about universities--perhaps we should have one under construction at any given time?

I agree with NP, banks (and at cities that lack them: marketplaces) are the top priority, together with the usual mix of offense/defense units and cannons/settlers in the corrupt south. Maybe a few extra workers would be a good idea too.
When I looked at the save, I noticed that Bach really helped our income-situation. :)

Good luck ChrTh.

Guys, I'm falling behind on my tasks for the day, and I don't think I'll be able to play tonight. Coffee, can you play tonight? If not, I'll get the game in asap (will be able to play tomorrow night at the latest).

Actually, you swap with Belisar so often, you just think Coffee follows you... :)

Originally posted by meldor
Actually, you swap with Belisar so often, you just think Coffee follows you... :)

WHOOPS, I had looked at my last turn... Doh!

Belisar, if you can play before tomorrow night, feel free :D

I'm at work now, so that's no got it.
If you can play today ChrTh there is no need for a swap, but don't play in a hurry.

I can play tonight, and will.

Question time, me boyos:

We've captured Delhi. It has Sistine Chapel and Great Wall. Do I keep it, or replace with Combat Settler? It has 8 resisters, and India has a whole lotta culture at its borders, despite Roman gains in the West.

What do you think?

The turnlog so far:
Turn 0 -- 850 AD

With Sipahi and the GA coming up, I decide to go defensive, and will not actively pursue any activities that could cause the loss of valuable knight units.

I'll also save up gold for upgrading.

IT: Cav attacks Pike, gets redlined and retreats

Antalya Knight > Knight

TUrn 1 -- 860 AD
I send an Elite Knight to finish off the Cav. No GL
Settler takes up position in Wine Tasting

The galleon didn't land anything, and instead continued east. I'm sending the knights in the general direction.

IT: Cav attacks Musket, dies

Akkad Temple > Cat
Izmit Pike > Pike
Adana Knight > Knight

Carthaginians are building Newton's -- TOG has been discovered. Carthago has a Monopoly

Turn 2 -- 870 AD
Not much, just some maneuvering

IT:
Ship keeps moving, still not landing

Istanbul Knight > Knight
Bursa Bank > Knight
Konya Pike > Bank

Turn 3 -- 880 AD
More moving. Aztecs have ToG.

IT:
Rome and India fight, I think Rome gets the better of it (although losing a Musket). The ship has turned South.

Edrine Knight > Knight

Turn 4 -- 890 AD
Carthage wants a Kings Ransom for ToG, I politely decline.

IT:
Cav dies attacking Musket
Uskudar Knight > Bank

Turn 5 -- 900 AD
Troops outside Wine Tasting are moved sw to form a new position o' strength

IT:
The Romans are making more strides in the West, and I just saw a GL for them!

Istanbul Knight > Knight
Iznik Bank > Knight

Turn 6 -- 910 AD
Saltpetre deal expires, I switch all Knights to Sipahi
I upgrade several knights to Sipahi
I rush Barracks in Wine Tasting for 32 gold
Since the Romans have it well-guarded due to their assault on Kolhapur, I move the guarding forces towards Wine Tasting.

IT:
Romans take Kolhapur
Wine Tasting Barracks > Cannon
Izmit Pike > Cannon
Mugla Library > Barracks

Turn 7 -- 920 AD
Troops mass outside Delhi

IT:
Cav attacks Sipahi--GOLDEN AGE TIME, BOYZ!!!!! 143gpt to ... 315!

Bursa Sipahi > Sipahi
Palace expansion! I add a wing.

Turn 8 -- 930 AD
I trade Silks and 38gpt to Carthage for ToG

We're in the Industrial Age ... we get Medicine :wallbash: ... huh, we're the only Scientific Civ? I order up Steam Power at 0% (don't gain much by spending all of our cash)

I trade Physics to Arabia for Printing Press.

I don't feel the need to trade for Democracy yet.

Assault on Delhi...we lose 1 sipahi in the assault, but kill 3 muskets and a spear. We capture it and get Sistine Chapel and Great Wall... do we keep it?

Here's how the world currently looks; I hope to get Bombay my turn and then prepare two assaults, one for Bangalore and one for Karachi.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3-930AD.jpg

Sistines is good. Is the Great Wall good across the entire empire or is it limited to only the current landmass. This would be a good capture for this type of game as the replacement cities get free wall for defense. I don't hardly ever build it as there are more important wonders at the time. If you think we can keep enough units in the city without slowing down our advance. Is there enough trash units to move in until we can rush a library and get the population down to 1?

The other option is to not put any units but one trash unit and let it flip if it will. Then simply have some units on standby to take it back, rinse and repeat until it is down to size and/or the Indians no longer exist.

Great Wall expired with Metallurgy. Sistine Chapel doubles the effects of cathedrals, but considering we're not bloody likely to go to Republic or Democracy any time soon, our happiness isn't as much of an issue--plus I don't think we have any cathedrals.

Personally, I'd rather save the containment effort to Bombay, but that's just my opinion.

Turn 8 930AD - Continued

I like my logic above, so the resistance in Delhi ends as I abandon it. Bingo!, er, I mean Bingol, is built in its place.

IT:
Antalya Sipahi > Bank

Theveste completes Shakes, cascade time?

Turn 9 -- 940 AD
I hurry Barracks in Bingo!

Assault on Bombay: Kill 2 Muskets and 2 spears without loss. I keep it and start to starve it.

Hrm, I have some troops left over ... I go raze Madras (Rome had the full-on assault on it, now it's gone :D )

IT:
I lose the Sipahi that razed Madras :( (no one else could reach him in time). Our MDI fights off a Cav, though.

Turn 10 -- 950 AD
Bingo! RAX > Cannon
Istanbul Sipahi > Sipahi
Edrine Sipahi > Sipahi
Nippur Harbor > Worker
Adana Sipahi > Bank

I send our Elite Knight to kill off the Cav who dared to attack our MDI .. and get a GL!

I change Wine Tasting to Smith's and Rush it

Assault on Bangalore .. we take it without loss (killing one musket and two spear)

Assault on Karachi .. beat 3 muskets, lose 1 sipahi. Since it's pretty close to Dacca, I raze it...DOH! :smoke: Saltpetre is still in Indian borders as a result. I bring a unit down to pillage it, but no moves left.

I get revenge on the cav that killed our Madras-razing sipahi

Carthage has Steam Power AND Nationalism?!?! We can trade for Steam Power, but I leave that to Belisar.


Well, I lost 3 sipahi, and more or less wiped out India:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3-950AD.jpg


There's still a city to the far north, for whatever reason the Romans have been leaving it alone. There are 2 Sipahi in Kafa (just upgraded this turn), and a galleon right next to it. Expedition, anyone?

BTW, SIPAHI KICK ASS. We might want to get started in on the Romans now before they get Rifles, especially since Carthage now has Nationalism...

Here's the save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLDR3_950AD.SAV

Reads like a fun set of turns. :goodjob:

Originally posted by Coffee
Reads like a fun set of turns. :goodjob:

Oh, it was glorious...I was tempted to keep playing, but didn't want to deny Belisar some enjoyment. I just hope I didn't leave any Sipahi vulnerable to counterattacks during the interturn...

Fine work, ChrTh. :thumbsup: Smith will help a lot.

The war against Rome will be unusual and interesting, with three separate narrow fronts.

Glad you left some Indians for me :lol:

As I said before, Sistine is not very important for us in this game.
Smith on the other side is very nice, now ToE is the top-priority.
Bad thing we didn't get Nat. or Steam, I think we just can not have it all.
The fact that we are the only scientific civ somewhat compensates for that.
The huge income increase will help us, we have to upgrade a lot of troops and need to stay equal in tech with leader Hanni.

And now I'll have to drive a few Sipahis. :devil2: :D

Originally posted by ChrTh

Well, I lost 3 sipahi, and more or less wiped out India

That's the way we will win this game :goodjob:

'Got it'

Just a thought for the future: we should found a city five tiles straight NW of Istanbul, and one five tiles straight NW of Antalya, as soon as the progress of the Roman war permits. These first-ring cities might help us a fair amount before the game ends, but only if they're founded promptly.

It's a good thing you fallowed my advise...:crazyeye:

Good work pounding the Indians into the dirt. Now we get the payback for having to build all those early barracks at full price. A nicely timed GA and a UU that should last us even after Infantry show up.

Medicne isn't as bad as you think. It is one of the requireds for SciMeth so we have one foot in the door, only two more to go. If we get ToE we should be able to win this with no problems.

I think that maybe after Rome, we should start looking at hitting Hannie, as they are the tech leader. Thoughts?

The hit list:
1) Babylon - gone
2) India - On the ropes!
3) Rome - In the sights.
4) Iroquois, Carthage, Aztecs (Fielders choice)
7) Arabia

NorthernPike
CtrTh
Belisar (up)
Coffee (on deck)
Arizona_Steve
Meldor

Sorry meldor :blush: ... if I had realized how quickly I'd be able to alleviate the cultural pressure by thwacking the nearby cities, I would've kept it.

Oh, I know we need medicine...it's just that I was thinking that having Nationalism during our GA would be keen as we'd have extra cash for upgrades to Rifles (and we'd build them faster), and I was running out of tasks for the workers so if we'd gotten Steam I could've had them work on the railroad.

Of course, both Steam and Nationalism is available now from Carthage, although the latter is probably prohibitively expensive. I'm going to guess that India got one and traded with Carthage, as none of the other Civs have either.

Yea the tech leader for sure, should start a ToE prebuild also.

The Sinop(sp?) prebuild is still going...I think it has 50 turns left, but that's in GA, I think it was in the low 80s...so it'll probably be about 55-60 turns left after the GA

The Sinop(sp?) prebuild is still going Ok, thanxs

Should we be researching sanitation?

[EDIT] BTW, I was only teasing about not following my advice. It doesn't really matter, it is likely we won't build too many cathedrals anyway. Only in those cites that get hospitals and can go high enough in pop.

Sanitation or Nationalism, certainly.

RL was buisy so I will get to the game tonight, sorry for one day delay.

A few things which are open to discussion:

Steam is available now (we still have a monopol) so I'm taking no risk and
will secure it. Thereafter, we will be short on workers, so my question is probably not important short-term: Do we consider worker-merges for growth as exploit?
I do it all the time in solo-games and our northern FP-region cities are way below size 12. Speeding up growth would require irrigation and we have not the labour nor can we accept the loss of production.

Next: I fully agree that we research sanitation at min, a necessary but optional tech. Nationalism isn't affordable yet (this tech is way overprized), but it should be too expensive for Rome also.

Leading to my next point: Do we sell the Romans Med. (@last) for gpt ?
If we have to declare in ~ 4, 5 turns we won't get every coin but they would get it from the other AIs anyway, so we could take the extra money. Not sure if that's within our variant.

Prebuild: With the current prebuild we have 600 shields in ~30 and 800 shields in ~45-50 turns, depending on MM. (GA is considered)
Timing is not easy, it may be ideal for Hoover. In ST2, the AI researched all the way to Combustion before getting SciMe, but I had other games as well.


And last: I was left without any settlers :cry:

@Belisar: Sorry, I only had one to start, and I was so busy building military that I didn't make any for you :(

Do we really want our cities to go above size 12? If we can get enough Luxuries, we might be able to maintain a Republic during AW ... but not if they get larger than 12. To be honest, if this were a solo game, I'd just keep popping workers/settlers off the large cities to keep them around 11 and not bother with hospitals.

Things taken in order:

I agree with using the Medicine monoply to secure steam, the sooner we have it the sooner we start pumping out more units.

I don't consider worker merges to be an expoit unless you merge in more workers than the city can feed to boost production adn simply add a worker a turn to make up for the loss. The other exploit to pump up the score wouldn't be done here anyway.

I would prefer that we didn't make any deals that require us to break them. I know if you are the one on the losing end it isn't as big a hit on our rep. I would try to get as much cash as I could for it or let someone else sell it to them so the money is drained even if we are fighting them.

I would prefer to use a GL for ToE if things work out that way and the prebuild for Hoover's. At this level trying to beat the AI to a wonder even with a prebuild is tricky, especailly since we will be fighting one of them and they may pop a leader as well. I wish we had enough cities to have two prebuilds but that is the way it is sometimes. I have had games were I had time to rush a hospital and factory before starting a ToE prebuild and others were I was still in the last age when someone else built ToE. The tech pace picks up in this era becuase the tree breanches back out and the AI don't all shoot for the same tech anymore.

Last, we should be a monarchy and going above size 12 shouldn't be a problem. We can use left over trash units (or even build some) as MPs and if needed build a cathedral in the biggest. WW should be a problem for this government. I don't think at Deity and with constant war you could sustain any other form of government except communism. We might think about switching to that although I hate losing the ability to cash rush units.

I don't think Sinop (sp?) was on a river, so I don't think it can be used for Hoover (although US is always a possibility).

We are getting to a size where we can start doing our own research. But we still need libraries and universities.

Originally posted by ChrTh
I don't think Sinop (sp?) was on a river, so I don't think it can be used for Hoover (although US is always a possibility).

A city for Hoover needs a river within its radius and Sinop has one.
It doesn't have to be ON a river.

Serious? Huh, that's two things I've learned today ... I need to play more!

@Belisar, Maybe try and steal steam :lol:

Yes, in choosing Sinop for the (possible) Hoover prebuild I took the Civilopedia at face value...though I know that's not always wise. ;)

A partial update:

Preturn:
Military Check: We have already a bunch of Sipahi, good.
I'm also glad ChrTh didn't upgrade our few elite knights.
There seem to be only a few veterans left. And Iron Man is still around :D

Economic/Production Check: We are NUMBER 1 in production, not bad for deity
pre-steam and we are making 360 gpt in Monarchy. :)

A few MM changes:
Kafa is building an Aqueduct because it is stuck on size 6, so max shields instead of max food.
Production in Izmit changed from cannon to Sipahi, tile reshufling and I can get it in 5 instead of 7 turns.
MM in Uskudar/Antalya saves one turn for the bank in Uskudar (2 instead of 3 turns).
Most important: MM in Edrine gets the city to 25 spt, a Sipahi every 4 instead of 5 turns
MM in Iznik to get 25 spt will be necessary next turn.
Bursa switched to courthouse due next turn to get Sipahis every 3 turns like in Istanbul.


Diplomatic Check: We have 3 turns left on our MA with the Romans, but
that's no problem as I will need those turns to finish off India. Good timing.
An interesting detail: From the other continent, only the Iros get dyes.
They must get it from the Indians, since the Romans have only 1 inside their boarders.
When we have finished off India, we will get their 2 sources, nice.
We have a monopol at Medicine, only Hanni has Nationalism and Steam.

If we wait, there is the possibility that someone breaks our monopol, so I get the important
Steam from Hanni for Medicine, 60gpt and dyes. My reasoning: The Aztecs have a spare spice
source which I will secure and we will have our dyes back during the next turns in the
Indian territory. Hanni would have accepted Ivory too, but our source is not secure in the upcoming
campaign against Rome and I don't want to risk our reputation.
We have coal, or should I say we almost have it, near Urfa, inside our boarders but not connected yet.
All AIs except Abu have coal too, the Romans have 2 sources, but not that far away from our boarders.
I get spices, 69 gpt and 17 gold for Medicine from the Aztecs.
Next I contact our "friend" Caesar, selling him Medicine for all his cash and Democracy, maybe we can use it
for trading with the Arabs.
Last I get 12 gpt (all they had) and 31 cash and Free Artistry for Medicine from the Iros.

Now the Iros are broke, the Romans have 32 gpt which I didn't take to avoid breaking the deal
and the Aztecs have gpt left, so I sell them Steam for 72 gpt and their last cash (now they are broke too).
Considering deity AI-AI trade rate, I would take any bet that they would have got it from Hanni.
We are behind Nationalism to Hanni.

Long Preturn :)


IT: We finish Smith in Wine Tasting, saving half of our maintenance costs :D
Bursa: courthouse -> Sipahi (guess what: 33 spt :cry:, I have to wait for rails to get a Sipahi every 3 turns)
Iznik: Sipahi -> As proposed MM to get Sipahi every 4 turns.
The Iros switch to Newton and finish it in Salamanca.

960:
I moved some injured units back for healing and advance on the last Indian harbour-city, Dacca.
Send workers to secure coal, will need a few turns, the position of the source is really annoying
and we have no workers nearby.
Send our workers in the corrupt south towards the core for railing.
Found a stack of 16! units on a GOTO :scan:
Upgrade two vet knights and a few catapults to cannons.

IT: A Indian longbow comes out of Dacca.

970: Uskudar: Bank -> Sipahi
Babylon: settler
Akkad: worker
I kill the Indian longbow and capture Dacca, defended by 2 muskets, without losses.
The Romans send some cavs and some foot-soldiers back north, near Urfa.
I fortify a pike on our coal.

980: Istanbul: Sipahi
Urfa: rax -> walls
Upgrade the last cats to cannons.
Our alliance with Rome ends, saving 24 gpt.
I begin troop-positioning for the war against Rome.
Sipahis heal in Bombay to take the last two Indian cities south.

IT: Hanni must have got Industrialization because he begins US.
The Indians send a spear....
The Arabs have gpt available, I sell them ToG for 17 gpt and all their cash.
We are up to 530 gpt Income.

990: Kafa: Aqueduct -> courthouse
Edrine: Sipahi
I advance at Lahore, kill the spear with an elite knight.
I'm finally able to rush the settler in Bombay, the resistance has ended.

IT: The Romans are moving to the southern Indian cities, their stack contains an army.
They also took New Kolhapur in the north.

1000: A few new Sipahi finished. Konya builds a bank, Mugla finishes raxes.
Good news: I finally connect coal, begin railing our core and building the military net.
Ha, Bursa finally at 34 spt, a Sipahi every 3 turns :D
We raze Lahore, only Pune left.
Move settler into position on hill to secure the two dyes.
Spot some additional Roman units in the former Inidan territory.

To be continued.....

Found a stack of 16! units on a GOTO


Huh? I didn't goto any workers, they should've finished moving at the end of my turn...maybe I slid an extra space (lousy touchpad) by accident...sorry.

Carthage can't be the only ones with Industrialization...can they?

Sorry, next time I can not play at the first day I'm up I will ask for a swap.
Nevertheless, I think we made some progress:

IT: The Romans send cavs, longbows and MDIs south towards Pune.

1010: Istanbul, Uskudar and Izmit finish Sipahis, Urfa it's wall.
I'm in position to take the last Indian city this turn, so let the "games" against Caesar begin.
How does it come that I'm always the one who has to finish a crippled opponent and prepare against the next?
Next time my turn comes up I'm sure I will have to clean up size 1 Roman hill cities....hopefully :D

The military advisor tells us we have a weak military compared to the Romans, Hmmm.
We also have an annoying big front to defend and pikes and muskets don't do well against cav.
I have also enough from this "Nationalism costs 10000 gpt" nonsense, we need rifles to protect both
our cities in the first few turns of the war (I plan an active defense and prepare the offensive actions
for Coffee) and our advancing Sipahis to prevent high casualties.
Conclusion: I steal Nationalism carefully (Aggie did a test somewhere, no difference in chances
between "save" and "carefully", only less money, not the best alternative but necessary IMHO.



I capture Pune and 2 cats and the Indians are gone, shorten the list guys.
I declare against the Romans, now it will get ugly.
The one thing we don't need in this stage is a dogpile agaisnt us, we will have our hands full
while dealing with the Romans and need trading options.
Caesar had something like 40 gpt available last turn, so he can buy one or two other AI agaisnt us.
So I sell the Iros Steam for 35 gpt, 70 cash and a MA against Caesar.
I get an MA with the Aztecs too. This is a double-insurance policy, as we get currently 141 gpt from them.
Next I get a MA and their last 4 gpt with the Arabs for magnetism.
Now only Hanni left. I give him 28 gpt for a MA. I considered saving the money but
this way the Romans have zero trading possibilities and we may avoid facing rifles for some turns.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/meldor3-1.gif

Now from the diplomatic to the military front.
The first Sipahi withdraws from the mixed Roman army south, the second kills it.
I kill a cav 2 tiles near Urfa on open ground and retreat behind the walls.
Dyes Peak is founded on the hill near the two dyes.
I upgrade selectively some vet pikes at the front cities before running out of cash,
the rest will have to wait. We make 560 gpt, but the rifle upgrade is costly.

IT: An eventful IT.
I forgot the worker at our Ivory city north, he was roading and got captured, sorry.
1 Roman cav dies at Dyes Peak one at Bingol, another at Sinop. 1 retreats at Sinop, one kills a rifle there.
I'm glad we don't defend with muskets
7 Roman cavs enter our territory near Wine Tasting and Urfa, also 3 longbows, a musket, a pike and a MDI.
North, at Sinop, there are the redlined cavs and a spear.

1020:
Antalya: bank -> rifles
Sipahis in action: I kill all of the above listed Roman units except the musket, losing one Sipahi.
I get 3 new elite Sipahi and the third elite victory produces GL BAYEZID II, our ticket for ToE :D:D:D


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/meldor3-2.gif

IT: The next Roman wave: They go for Sinop, we lose a rifle, they lose one cav.
I had one exposed Sipahi on open ground, we lose him to a cav.
At Bingol our rifle defeats a cav, at Urfa the Romans attack with a cav-army but have to retreat.
Bingol seems their second important target, they move a MDI, a longbow and 3 cavs in position.

1030: I kill a cav and the redlined army at Urfa without losses.
Then I kill the units at Bingol, losing a knight, next I kill the remaining cav at Sinop.
For the first time, our army is "average" compared to the Romans.
Change a few builds to rifles.
Babylon and Rebel's Reward draft a rifle each.
If resistance ends, Bangalore should do the same (its stupid that one can have resistors
from an already gone civ).
Hanni got Communism this turn, now he has a monopol of both Industr. and Com.
Industr. is available, but @1 it is way too expensive.

IT: The Romans have still a lot of cavs. At Sinop, one dies and one retreats.
At Bingol one retreat, at Wine Tasting they kill a rifle.
Two new longbows appear at Urfa, together with 3 cavs and a spear.

1040: We finish 3 Sipahi.
I kill the redlined cav north and the units at Urfa except the spear to avoid exposed Siphis.
Our military rail-net in the core is nearly completed.

IT: A longbow and a musket at Bingol, 2 cavs advance at Wine Tasting.
A barb conscript near Dyes Peak.
Our Furs deal with Abu expires, up to Coffee whether he needs it, dyes at Dyes Peak still
a bit unsecure as our main forces are north. Maybe sell him Silks and Metallurgy.

1050: Kill the 2 cavs, the musket and the barb.
Didn't attack the longbow in the forest to avoid exposed units.
No attacks at Sinop this time.
I use our spare Sipahi there to capture both Caesarea and Tarentium, defended by two muskets.
This gets us a Silk monopol and the option to connect our Ivory city.


I hand the save over with almost all units unmoved so Coffee has options for troop-positioning.
I think we have absorbed their initial attack, kill ratio was about 7 to 1
Now we can advance, but I suggest carefully, maybe getting a few more rifles.
I have settlers at Urfa and Sinop ready to replace the Roman cities.
New Bangalore is number 1 priority, a connection to our Ivory city north
(maybe rush the rifle there, no Roman attacks there for now) next.
The former Indian territory needs reinforcements, it wasn't my top priority because
I expceted even more Roman units.
Our GL waits in Edrine.

Have fun Coffee, Sipahi rule, use our 37 wisely :D


SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MLD03-1050AD.zip)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/horsie.gif