They won't join your game, they hatess us
No...no, they will join my precioussss...they love uss
Wes bet you four Hobbites that we won't get thiss one sstarted either
Bring it on!

CTR 7 -- Carthago delenda est
Level: Deity
Civ: Rome
Map: Standard
Geography: Continents, other random
Opponents: Carthage, random others
Victory conditions: Conquest Only
Restart, Culturally-linked Off

Variant: We hate the Carthaginians! Every Senator proclaims Carthago delenda est! even when discussing the grain for the harvest. The only problem is this:
We can't touch them until they're the last Civ on the board.
Once they're the last Civ, we must immediately declare war and stay in war until Carthago delenda est.
We can not trade with them, or ally with them. We can set up an Embassy, though, so that we can do other nasty stuff to them (we are allowed to spy, steal techs, etc.)
We can't inspire other Civs to fight them, if they declare war on us. We can, however, get into an MPP with other Civs; if we end up fighting Carthage as a result, we can only fight a defensive war.
If they declare war on us before it is their turn (even if it's our fault, such as spying or stealing techs), we can only fight a defensive war.
If another Civ wipes them out (extremely doubtful due to the NuMe early), that Civ replaces Carthago in our pledge.
Carthage (or the capital, if another Civ takes out Carthage--the city, or the civ) must be our last conquest.
Carthage will be Militaristic, either in addition to their current traits, or instead of Commercial.

The goal of this game is to force an endgame with an opponent we haven't been able to cripple early, or at all. I suspect by the time it is their turn to fall, they'll be as powerful, if not moreso, than us.

Players are welcome to suggest other additions to the variant
The standard 24/48 and 10 turn rule applies, except in the modern age, when it will go to 5 turns. I defer to LKendter's exploit list; check out any of the LK games for what are considered exploits and not allowed (I may copy-paste)

Because it is a conquest game, and there will be plenty of warfare going on, I'll need 6 players (including myself) in the roster to start this one. I'm going to play the beginning of the game to make sure we're not stuck in a fifteen tile location surrounded by Carthago; therefore, I'll be last in the rotation.

Sign up, and prove gollum wrong!

Roster:
Rubberjello
Northern Pike
Belial
Judge Dredd
Karasu
ChrTh

Sounds a little like LK54 to me... :)

Originally posted by Arizona_Steve
Sounds a little like LK54 to me... :)

Let's just say I was ... inspired :D

ChrTh: it's good to see that you have the right mindset for the other game :lol:

I'm not going to join. The reason for that can be found below [party]

Well, if ChrTh isn't going to call it quits with the SG ideas, then I'm not going to call it quits joining them!:p

I'm in.

Welcome aboard (again!) Rubberjello! :D

AZ_Steve, I'm presuming your post wasn't a sign-up. If I'm wrong, let me know.

Well, I'm in four games at the moment, but two are about to end and one's open; so granted sufficiently flexible logic, 4 = 1, and I'll sign up here. :D

We'll need to play well. The Romans aren't a particularly good deity-level civ even in a game without special provisions.

I may be interested in joining - but to add more to the variant, why not buff up Carthage then? Slowly as the game progresses (make their units stronger, cheaper buildings, etc. etc.)

Not enough to kill everyone early on, but surely to make them a monster civ.

[Edit] I'll join if they get buffed up.

[Edit] What if they declare on us too? By getting discovering our spies and such? Take peace as soon as it is offered no matter what the consequence(s)?

@NP: Welcome aboard!

@Belial: I'm not sure how to buff Carthage up any more ... let me look into it.

If Carthage declares on us, we can only fight a defensive war; only troops within our borders can be attacked (cities conquered can be retaken, tho). We do not need to make peace immediately; however, since the goal is to make Carthage a worthy endgame opponent, no keeping them in war just for the sake of hurting them via WW, collapsed gov't, etc.

If the start is modified then units can be changed in defensive/offensive means as well as units given/taken from the civilization as well - I'm not the most experienced modder, but I'm sure someone could work something up. ;)

I will admit, your beginning pretty much drew me in from the start and yet, I've never read the books, just found it entertaining.

I think I could go for a SG. I just made a total mess of this months GOTM and am disgusted with it. Tried RCP and just made it too tight. Count me in. I tend to play more carefuly in a SG so as not to peeve others.:crazyeye:

I wouldn't mind joining this too even though I can only claim limited Deity experience.
I will be a bit busy in the coming months -but then, I'd be busy even without one more SG; so, why not! I like the idea.

And no, Northern Pike, I am not stalking you... ;) good to see you here, tho. :)



ChrTh, what about having the map edited (a bit) to fit the feeling of the game? Say, a large inland sea or something -nothing too obvious of course.
Maybe the Carthage tile should be visible right from the start, to give a target to our hatred...

Judge Dredd, Karasu: Welcome aboard! We've got a full rotation...smeagol wins!

I decided I'm going to make Carthage militaristic; I'm not sure if a mod will allow me to make it a 3rd trait (if not I'll just replace Commercial), but Vet NuMes will make Carthage a serious player at the beginning. As a result that Carthage will be modded, I will have to create a map; I'm not going to try to simulate the Mediterranean, as I'm not really going for historical accuracy here :)

I expect to have the start tested and posted either tonight or tomorrow.

Rubberjello, you're on deck!

If you like, I can run a quick test to see what I can scoop up and then try to explain, provided I could get it to work.

Originally posted by Belial
If you like, I can run a quick test to see what I can scoop up and then try to explain, provided I could get it to work.

Yeah, go ahead. It's looking like I won't get this started until tomorrow anyway

I think it will be too much of a hassle (for me at least) as the only way I can see it happening is actually creating a scenario where the map is randomly generated and then placing player and ai starts in different positions. Then give/change units to a more superior style and remove the 'usual' units from Carthage and replace them with the new and improved ones.

Sirian did something like this with his tweaks and I'm just not quite sure how he did it.

It -could- be done, but would take a couple hours on ChrTh's part, provided the interest was for it.

Hey guys,

Just wanted to let you know the game should be starting tomorrow night.

And away we go!

I did do a scenario; I beefed up Carthage with additional traits and techs (and made them more aggressive); I also made sure they're on a different continent from us (our starting spot was random, I just confirmed that it was on a different continent to Carthage's sweet starting spot). This may be a tough one, boyos...

Here's our starting spot:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7-4000bc.jpg

Here's the save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_4000BC.SAV

Rubberjello < UP (10-20 turns, your call)
Northern Pike < On Deck (10 turns)
Belial
Judge Dredd
Karasu
ChrTh

Heh! Wow! After that horrible start position in Hot8, this is a paradise start. I will try to play 20 tonight.

4000 (1) Settle as is (we are not on a bonus grassland - no real benefit for moving anywhere). Production set for Warrior, set max science for Pottery.

3750 (5) Warrior produced. Set for another. Worker is mining river BG.

3650 (7) Discover a Village close by, not brave enough to pop it now.

3500 (10) Warrior finished, Barracks started. Wheat plains to the West. Cow to the North. A total of 4 Wines tiles nearby.

3400 (12) Risk a hut pop and get 25 gold.

3300 (14) Discover Chinese (and silks) to the SW. They are up BW and Masonry. I can't get a deal on both, so I trade Alphabet for Masonry + 22 gold. Barracks finished, start on Settler (prebuild for Granary.)

3200 (16) Encounter Russian Spear. Trade Catherine Masonry for B.W. and 2 gold. Finish Pottery. Research scaled back to min on Mathematics. Russians start the Colossus. Build switched to Granary.

3000 (20) China has learned Ceremonial Burial. Rome is now size 3 and Happiness slider is now at 20%. Worker should get the Wines square hooked up next.

The Save 3000 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_3000BC.SAV)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/ctr7pic001.jpg

Good start, Rubber (and most appropriate signature! ;) ).

Rubberjello < Just batted
Northern Pike < Up (10 turns)
Belial < On deck
Judge Dredd
Karasu
ChrTh

Yikes--sharing a continent with China and Russia? Not good times. How about some ancient warfare to eliminate them before they get their respective UUs? ;)

"Could.... Get... Ugly...."

ChrTh (and the rest of you), I have the opportunity to buy a Russian worker in 2850 BC. Would doing so violate our standards for this game?

Slightly later: I notice that LK has a house rule against worker purchases before 1000 BC, but his house rules seem to be distinct from his list of exploits. I don't know what this means for our purposes. One worker buy from the Russians is unlikely to have the "civ crippling" effect LK mentions.

Originally posted by Northern Pike
ChrTh (and the rest of you), I have the opportunity to buy a Russian worker in 2850 BC. Would doing so violate our standards for this game?

Not at all! All the normal rules apply, it's just Carthage we can't interact with in such a manner. We're simply non-interventionist in all matters Carthaginian, we can still do what we need to in order to wipe out the other Civs (since we can't take on Carthage until all other Civs are gone from the planet).

It looks as though we cross-posted, or in my case cross-edited (my second paragraph above). I'll buy the worker unless you have anything to add in the next half hour or so.

Ok, gotcha. I should've been more clear, but my only concern are Lee's exploits, not house rules. And considering we got China and Russia on our continent, even if it had been in effect, I would've tossed it!

2950 (1): Our southern warrior spots a brown border, but...


2900 (2): ...it's just the Russians, of course.


2850 (3): Five Chinese units appear west of Rome. Leaving our capital empty is perhaps too provocative, and I start marching our northern warrior back towards Rome.

I buy a Russian worker for 102 gold and 1 gpt.


2800 (4): Our augmented labour force gets the wines hooked up, and I have them begin to irrigate the tile (worth doing even in despotism).


2750 (5): The Russians have the Wheel.


2710 (6): Rome granary --> warrior.


2670 (7): Zzzz...


2630 (8): Rome warrior --> settler.


2590 (9): Zzzzzz...


2550 (10): The Chinese and Russians are ahead of us by Ceremonial Burial, Iron Working, and the Wheel, and they've reached this point without our being able to afford any twofers. We may be able to buy IW soon.

BTW, the Russians popped the hut near Rome, with a scout.

Good luck, Belial.

The world as we know it:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_2550BC.JPG

The save:

2550 BC, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_2550BC.zip)

Got it.

I plan to settle as much of our southwestern area as possible to keep a productive side while holding off the advancing Chinese settlers.

I'll get a dotmap going to see what you guys think.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/ChTr_Dot.GIF

I'm also colorblind, but I think I can understand most of the colors I listed.

Yellow are just fishing villages while blue should be high priority as well as red.

I'd settle blue, then red, then orange(?), then green, then black, and then the southern fishing village and the last fishing villages.

The queue of city-falling may change as resources do appear as well.

Good dot-map. I really doubt we can pull off Red and Blue before the AI gets one of them, because Rome has no bonus food squares and is a very slow settler factory. We could try to go blue-red-orange-black, but if we miss out on red, I'll be pretty miffed!

*********************************************
Karasu wrote: Good start, Rubber (and most appropriate signature! ).
*********************************************

:D
"Oh, yeah. If we didn't have crucifixion, this country'd be in a right bloody mess."

Good dotmap, although I've always been iffy about a position immediately behind mountains...I'm always concerned the AI can use it to bombard our position...but the AI isn't usually intelligent enough.

We can put settlers out every five turns but no defense to follow them up.

If China has a lot of room to expand in the west, then we can grab the blue, red, and orange dots respectively no problem.

But I agree, red is most important.

Red and Blue as our first priorities, yes. :goodjob:

Black concerns me, though. If we do things this way, only a wretched tundra city will have access to the cow, and that would be a waste of the best bonus resource in the game. I'd like to found a city on the forest tile one southeast of the cow. A little crowding would be a small price to pay for an excellent city with a cow, two BG, and minimal corruption.

Inherited turn: What do I get to veto... oh what do I get to.. Oh, wiat, nothing, we don't have enough for me to say no to.

IT: Cathy asks us to leave, as much as I'd like to tell her to stick it where the sun don't shine, I comply and agree that I'm just "passing through". Barbs pop out of the fog north of us, I hope my RNG is good.

2510 (1): Cathy has mathematics, oh well for that gambit. I continue ours as the Chinese still don't have it and hopefully can trade for it before Cathy trades it to them.

IT: Barb fortifies himself, okay, prolong your death another turn.

2470 (2): :sleep:

IT: Barb now leaves the area, I think he must have feared our two warriors.

2430 (3): Dial up Cathy again just to prewarn her that I'm "passing through again" as we have to step into her territory to pass.

2390 (4): Ah, the pass through Russian territory fared well as we see we're not the only people doing so. Egyptian warrior allocated to the east of the Russians. Hello Cleopatra, the backwards ;), she has the wheel and ceremonial buial but no alphabet. 19 gold and 2gpt sent to her for the wheel and temple-building knowledge for our alphabet. Mysticism is revealed by both the Chinese and Russians, we'll see if/or I can pull another two-fer with Egypt before I purchase anything else, although I would like to grab mysticism to start a gambit on polytheism. Horses revealed right in our capital. ;)

IT: Egyptians start the pyramids.

2350 (5): Rome, settler -> settler. Settler sent to claim, hopefully, blue. It also looks like we'll get both, Chinese went for the jungle-city-dyes before getting to close to us.

2310 (6): :sleep:

2270 (7): :sleep:

IT: Barb impales himself against a unit under the fog on a mountain.

2230 (8): :sleep:

2190 (9): The people of China and Russia have now developed a new art of attacking, they claim the ability to ride the four-legged beasts called horses!

2150 (10): Rome, settler -> warrior. Workers should mine to complete the five settler turn factory, I'd also advise sending, at least, a slave down to the plains city, to establish some production and, hopefully, but unlikely, get a border expansion before the Chinese do. I also sent with the settler as an escort and we do have two chinese archers prancing around our capital but, I assume, they're killing barbs and camps.

Summary: Russians still have a monopoly on mathematics, we're still researching it and forging of iron is known to all but us, as well as mysticism. The next ten turns, two-fers should be written all over the place and I have a feeling we have another civilization on our continent.

Game On (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_2150BC.zip)

Originally posted by Northern Pike

Black concerns me, though. If we do things this way, only a wretched tundra city will have access to the cow, and that would be a waste of the best bonus resource in the game. I'd like to found a city on the forest tile one southeast of the cow. A little crowding would be a small price to pay for an excellent city with a cow, two BG, and minimal corruption.

I agree that it is a waste to have a tundra city with a cow, but on the same side, it will also speed up growth to this harbor city, which is still within core range and help produce good coinage from the sea.

I'd much rather have two alright cities, then one awesome city, myself and I think the green(?)/brown city would be able to build a few things with both those bonus grasslands. Our most productive cities are going to be the two we're laying down now, all the rest should be capable of money-making purposes to help rush/upgrade, build, rush/upgrade type process to get us to obtain some better quality land.

Good job, Belial

On cities, at this point in the game, and with the opponents on land with us, I'm more concerned about getting the core built than being strategically optimal in our city placement.

BTW, I honestly did not know our starting position had horses.

Rubberjello
Northern Pike
Belial < Just batted
Judge Dredd < Up (10 turns)
Karasu < On deck
ChrTh

24 turns to 'got it', 48 to play

Judge Dredd: It's past 24 hours, do you have it?

@ChrTh, I have limited Internet access during weekends.
I will try to give a look at this thread tomorrow anyway, but if you need to skip Judge Dredd and don't see anything from me before Sat evening (CET), then please skip me too.

Got it. Will post this afternoon.

Pre-turn: Everything looks good. Click on.

IBT: China plants a city near our Blue dot. We can still settle our spot but city will be squished in. Decide to go ahead. China will most likely be our first victim anyway.

2110BC (1) Veii is founded. Queue warrior>worker.

IBT - Egyptians are building Oracle

2070BC (2) Rome builds warrior. Starts Settler. Lux to 0.

2030BC (3) Zzzzzz...

1990BC (4) Antium is founded on Red Dot. Starts Temple (vetoable). Rome grows to size 4, lux to 10%.

1950BC (5) Zzzzzz...

1910BC (6) Zzzzzz...

1870BC (7) Rome grows to size 5. Lux to 20%. Settler in 1 turn.

1830BC (8) Rome produces Settler. Starts warrior. Lux to 10%. Settler-warrior combo sent to Orange Dot.

IBT- China extorts 24gold. We give in, for now.

1790BC (9) Zzzzzz...

IBT- Chinese are building the Colossus.

1750BC (10) Worker finishes connection to Horses. Rome builds warrior. Starts Settler. Lux to 10%.

http://home.wi.rr.com/wallis/ctr7/ctr7.1750bc.jpg

Savegame (http://home.wi.rr.com/wallis/ctr7/CTR7_1720BC.SAV)

Oww, those two cities are in horrid position and are high for flip risk unless we toss a very early war out.

I'd suggest we hook up those horses and start preparing or else we're going to lose two perfectly good settlers.

Not to mention some good defense too.

How was the tech table by the way?

[Edit] Duh, he already hooked the horses up - now to get horseback riding.

:mad: :aargh: The only future that Chinese city has is smoking ruins.
"If it's the last thing I...ever...do".

I feel an early war coming up.

Speaking of which, I'm not sure why the Chinese even settled there, it's not even a great city other than the wheat... I figure there is a resource or so there too which also gives us another eason to secure the spot.

Interesting situation...

Got it.

Pre-turn
Everything looks in order.
We are behind in tech and I can't see a chance for a good trading round. Let's hope Mathematics does not come too late.


Turn 1 - 1725 BC
Veii: Warrior - Temple (feel free to veto this)
Chinese warriors are blocking the way to our Settler.


Turn 2 - 1700 BC
Egypt still without Maths (fingers crossed).
Settler in position
Southern warrior keeps exploring.
MM Rome to get the Settler one turn earlier.
Raise lux to 20% (Rome)


Turn 3 - 1675 BC
The Chinese have several units in our NW territory. Let's hope it is only barb hunting (yes it is).
Cumae founded: Barracks (same as above)


IT - Babylon builds The Oracle


Turn 4 - 1650 BC
A little exploration.


Turn 5 - 1625 BC
Rome: Settler - worker (we need more!)
Moving Settler towards Cow site (ehm... he's not really escorted...)


IT - China establishes embassy


Turn 6 - 1600 BC
MM Rome to build Worker and grow in 2
Spotted Silks W of Antium


Turn 7 - 1575 BC
Discovered Mathematics. Egypt still lacks it (Phew!). Traded Math + 150 gp + 3gpt for IW and Writing.
Start on Literature (40 turns).

Good news. Two Iron suorces within reach.

Bad news. China and Russia already have MapMaking (Egypt hasn't got it), and won't even buy our World Map.


Turn 8 - 1550 BC
Nothing to report, sir.


Turn 9 - 1525 BC
Neapolis founded. Temple (to get the cow).
MM Rome.


Turn 10 - 1500 BC
Nothing much.

Personally, I would found the next city right on the silks.

The server is going funny today (maybe it's full), I can't upload anything. I am trying to attach the end-turn image for the time being.

Rubberjello < On Deck
Northern Pike
Belial
Judge Dredd
Karasu < Just Batted
ChrTh < UP, awaiting Save

Uploaded files keep on showing as zero-byte sized.

ChrTh, the size is a few bytes larger than the max allowed as an attachment. I can split it in two parts (.rar format) and attach them to two posts (which seems a solution of little elegance) or e-mail it to you. Just let me know.

Contact Thunderfall - The upload file is full if everything shows up as zero bytes.

Thanks, LKendter.
The upload server is full, then. I'll wait a while before crying with TF, as I guess he has already received all sorts of warnings about this.

Karasu, if you want to, you can email me the save at my work address. I'll PM you with it.

Regarding the silk city, I think that should be our last founded city before we start on some military preparation.

We really really really need to remove that Chinese city or we're going to be facing two settlers lost along with two cities and a lot of time lost duruing our initial forty turns.

However, the war should only have one goal, just to remove that city and then seek peace so preparing for it shouldn't take a whole lot of time.

With the horses, we can always use those to upgrade into knights and use them to finish off the Chinese which would, in my opinion, give us a very strong starting position as well as one front with the rest of our continent, albeit one big front, but our rear cities would be much safer.

[Edit] Upon further thinking, we may also want to grab that second iron before the greeks poach it off of us.

When I Settled Veii I could have moved it SE SE but I wanted to keep to our original expansion strategy. Chinese be damned!:saiyan:

I agree we should only destroy Xinjian in the first war:rolleyes:.
But we should move to destroy them shortly thereafter. We do not want to see Chinese Riders.:eek:

Turn 0 -- 1500 BC

Ok, we're down Myst, MapMak, and HBR to the Soviets and the Egyptians, and the Chinese...hrmm

I switch Neapolis to Warrior, but I have a vague fear that we're about to lose it to a Chinese sneak attack...hopefully I'll be wrong...
IT:
The Chinese go away, and I switch back.

Turn 1 -- 1475 BC
Nada

Turn 2 -- 1450 BC
More Nada

Turn 3 -- 1425 BC
Mucho Nada

Turn 4 -- 1400 BC
Rome completes Settler, begins Warrior (for defense of silk city)

Turn 5 -- 1375 BC
Nada

Turn 6 -- 1350 BC
Rome Warrior > Spear

Ok, Rome and Egypt have Code of Laws, Russians don't. I trade CoL to Russia for Myst and HBR. We're broke, but only short MapMaking at this point.

I change Rome to Horse

Turn 7 -- 1325 BC
Pompeii is built on the Silks. I start Barracks because it's free.

China and Russia have Construction now

Turn 8 -- 1300 BC
Pompeii had beaten a Chinese settler pair by about two turns...kudos for us!

Turn 9 -- 1275 BC
Egyptians have Construction now as well.

Turn 10 -- 1250 BC
China and Egypt have signed a Military Alliance versus Russia. WOO-HOO! [dance]

Athens completed Pyramids...Beijing cascades to Great Wall

Here's the save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_1250BC.SAV ... that was a close call there; if China had decided to attack us, this game would be ovah. As it is, the Russian War should keep our continent's members suitably occupied for (hopefully) a long time.

Got it. Our military can't be THAT bad off, errrr....can it? :p

Let's load up the warriors and CHARGE!

Originally posted by Rubberjello
Got it. Our military can't be THAT bad off, errrr....can it? :p

let's just say I saw a significant number of troops move through our borders during our turn

:eek:

Screenshot anyone?

Nice progress, ChrTh. :thumbsup:

I strongly think that Rome should switch from horseman to settler, after which the settler should be used to found a city on the grassland two tiles northwest of the hill wines. We desperately need the best possible single city north of Rome, not the combination of a so-so city and an outright fishing village which we'd get by strict adherence to the dotmap.

Neapolis should switch from temple to barracks. The tiles which it would gain from a cultural expansion aren't much good, so cultural buildings needn't be a priority here.

Here you are, Judge:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_1250BC.JPG

:eek: What military? We aren't going to start anything against China anytime soon. (unfortunately) Decide to follow Northern Pike's recommendations. Neapolis changed to Barracks and Rome changed to settler. No trade opportunities at all.

1225 BC (1) Cumae Barracks->Worker. The rest of the world has learned Construction. We really, really need Mapmaking to dig us out of this hole, but no one is selling.

1200 BC (2) Rome Settler->Horse. Antium Temple->Worker. Xingian's border expands :(

1175 BC (3) Found Pisae North of Rome.

1150 BC (4) Egypt finishes Colossus. The others cascade to the Lighthouse.

1125 BC (5) Cumae Worker->Spearman Chinese forces are using our lands like they own it...which they almost do! :p

1100 BC (6) Antium Worker-Barracks

1075 BC (7) Barbs appear from the North.

1050 BC (8) Chinese archer gets rid of one barb horse. Rome Horse->Horse (Mostly for Barb control) Neapolis Barracks->Spear

1025 BC (9) The only good news in all this is that China doesn't have horses! I *STILL* can't trade for anything!

1000 BC (10) Nada. There is a barb encampment to the Horsies' NW that should help our cash flow some. Russia just learned Literature. No one is talking trade yet. No communication with other civs. If we can get Mapmaking and get some boats on the water and get first contact, we could get out of this hole in one fell swoop. Egypt has the only Swords so far, (China doesn't have Iron also???

The Save (1000BC) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_1000BC.SAV)

Rubberjello < Just Batted
Northern Pike < UP
Belial < On Deck
Judge Dredd
Karasu
ChrTh

Is Russia still at war with China and Egypt? If so, we may be able to take advantage of that for some two-fers with Lit.

Got it. I won't be playing for at least sixteen hours, so suggestions and comments are welcome.

Hhmmm. Who am I to give suggestions...

But I am growing a little concerned over China. Now may be a good time to hit them, while they have not expanded too much and are (if confirmed) at war with Russia.
Can we put up a small horsemen army in a reasonable time? While trying to get off this continent?
It's a delicate situation indeed...

With culture now into Xinjan, it's only a matter of time before those two cities both flip. They don't even have the full 8 squares which increases the chance they flip in. I was hoping with the war, it would buy us some time, apparently, it didn't. I think with five horses and then to continue making them from our capital and then having an odd city build a settler, we should be fine.

We won't hold a defensive war, so our priority should be just to eliminate advancing troops and horses would be our best bet and, hopefully, they have no swords which would completely make the war that much easier. We also need to take advantage of all their given troops now in Russian land.

Remember, if the Greece or Russia put a city to us but are long tiles away, then it's no problem to take it and then get peace before there troops even get there. The advantage of ancient warfare.

[EDIT] Also, Veii should whip a temple as soon as possible that way no one can poach that iron city off of us.

[EDIT] Just realized, Xinjan hasn't expanded yet, was Shanghai(sp), so we're still 'ok' but we should definately start thinking about removing that city.

Veii was growing very slowly because they had no improved squares. I fixed that during my turns, but a temple whip is still 6+ turns off. (If I remember correctly.)

If we get in a war against China where we just capture the one city and then hold out against the hordes until peace, then a catapult or two would really come in handy. If China continues to have no Iron or Horses, then we are not in too horrible a position.

Originally posted by Northern Pike
Nice progress, ChrTh. :thumbsup:

I strongly think that Rome should switch from horseman to settler, after which the settler should be used to found a city on the grassland two tiles northwest of the hill wines. We desperately need the best possible single city north of Rome, not the combination of a so-so city and an outright fishing village which we'd get by strict adherence to the dotmap.

Neapolis should switch from temple to barracks. The tiles which it would gain from a cultural expansion aren't much good, so cultural buildings needn't be a priority here.

The overlap of rome and the city founded would be huge, granted they both would be functional, but the question is why? I don't particularly like where our palace is, even and I'd put the forbidden palace in Antium, giving us a much larger selection of cities to choose from.

I think our main difference is how we see the future of the game, I see the cities placed as best as economically as possible, so we could use the cash to rush things as opposed to making them productuce. Yes, rushing everything isn't the ideal situation, but having money also creates a world of difference in the game, it helps to keep up in the tech race, it helps to keep the other civs happy and diplomatic, and, most of all, units are not too expensive to rush if just a few shields are put in them in the earlier stages of the game. Putting the city there will make it a strong point temporarily, but if and when we move the palace and place the forbidden, the city will most likely be in our second ring, while still 'okay' just not as good as having all those money-making water tiles (which are also corroupt, but much more of them than shields.)

D'oh, I wanted to mention that. Veii couldn't support itself above size 1 ... I was roading towards it to get it some irrigated land...I guess Rubberjello took care of it for us :goodjob:

Originally posted by Belial


The overlap of rome and the city founded would be huge, granted they both would be functional, but the question is why? I don't particularly like where our palace is, even and I'd put the forbidden palace in Antium, giving us a much larger selection of cities to choose from.



I hope comments from lurkers are OK.
If you count the tiles of the proposed city you will find that it pulls in 14 additional tiles, "only" 6 tiles overlap with Rome.
That said, the two cities have a total of 34 tiles, 25 of them grassland and hills, which means you will have two powerhouse size-12 cities.
Later in the game, only Rome needs a hospital and you still have a second, productive size-12 city.

Think you missed three somewhere, overlap is nine tiles, provided I have the right spot.

[EDIT] I hate how these maps are located, I think I know where the city will be placed and, I think that would be fine :p

You can still grab one fishing village too with a few tile swapping.

Still count 6 tiles overlap with Rome, but perhaps we don't talk about the same spot.
2 tiles NW of the wine-hill, corruption distance 3.5 from Rome.

EDIT: Cross post with Belial

Belial, thanks for your thoughts; and Belisar, thanks for writing most of my response for me. ;) I'll just add that IMO, most deity games are decided before hospitals become available; and I don't think that our variant is going to change that, though the routine task of reaching domination in the IA or the MA will be more interesting than usual. So from this point of view, any city site offering twelve (in a pinch, nine) good unshared tiles in a low-corruption location should be settled as soon as possible, and overlap is a very minor issue.

I agree that there are various valid trade-offs beween shield production and wealth generation. But a shield-rich city can get its marketplace and perhaps its bank built fairly quickly, after which there is no trade-off, but a city useful in both respects. It's much harder to run this process in reverse and use wealth to improve a city's shield production (at least before factories, which arrive very late in the day, in cold win/loss terms).

To descend to the level of specific detail, it wouldn't have been right to found a fishing village on the hill wines outside Rome. A wines/hill tile, worth two food, three shields, and three gold when fully developed in republic, is one of the game's treasures--but not when it's a city site and can't be mined.

Originally posted by Northern Pike
...though the routine task of reaching domination in the IA or the MA will be more interesting than usual.

Especially since Domination is turned off in this game :eek:

;)

After I had figured out where you had placed the city, it actually occoured to me that it would have been the best site for it as opposed to two fishing villages, now we have two fairly productive cities with one fishing village (in that fascinity) or will soon shortly have.

I also really like wines on hills, especially early in the game past despotism, nice shield bonus with the two food already on it, a BG and more, so to speak. I however, didn't like where it was located right next to Rome (in the forest) and I believe that where it will soon be settled is a much more ideal place.

I also hear that most games are won before hospitals, this is usually true, but you always want to prepare for the worst. If they're not won by then and being behind because of lack of city placement really hurts in the late game. With the amount of talent in this game, I would say it's highly unlikely, but the chance is still there, we may even get three sneak attacks in on the same turn (again, highly unlikely, but the chance is there).

On a side note, the wine/hill tile does no good when it is bombarded and not improved as well. The AI will also bombard this spot time after time after time simply because it's a luxury location. So, nice as a tile it is, I wouldn't even say that it will always get the full use out of it unless we have some navail defense which usually does not happen in most games.

All right, ChrTh, if you want to be pedantic, I suppose reaching domination may be a just a tad harder in this variant. :D


1000 (0): Our army consists of seven warriors and one horseman, so we're going to have to live with the flip threat from Xinjian for some time longer.

Neapolis clown --> scientist, science rate 10% --> 0%.

A twofer seems to be available. We give the Egyptians 6 gpt, 48 gold, and our WM for Philosophy. We then negotiate with the Russians, who don't have Philosophy--but ____, they don't place much value on it. (It can't be that they've almost researched it, because they just completed Literature). I can't strike any deal involving Map Making, so to nail down such value as Philosophy has, I just sell it to the Russians for 80 gold.

We should still be able to afford MM when our payments to the Chinese run out in six turns. I switch Cumae and Neapolis to granary prebuilds for galleys.

Pisae worker (just switched) --> warrior.

Antium barracks --> warrior.


975 (1): Our horseman disperses a Sumerian camp, and we pocket 25 gold.


950 (2): Rome horseman --> horseman.


925 (3): Pompeii barracks --> horseman.


900 (4): Zzzz....


875 (5): I pop-rush Veii's temple as suggested, so Veii temple --> catapult.

Pisae warrior --> barracks.


850 (6): A difficult decision. We can now trade with the Egyptians, and sending them our wines would make Map Making cheaper. But the trade route would obviously run along Chinese roads, and the situation looks like a classic reputation-wrecker, so I decide it's a bad idea. We just give the Egyptians 156 gold, 8 gpt, and our WM for Map Making, completing the delayed twofer.

Cumae prebuild --> galley --> horseman.


825 (7): Rome horseman --> horseman.


800 (8): Zzzzzz....


775 (9): Veii gets a cultural expansion.

Neapolis galley --> horseman.

The Chinese complete the Great Lighthouse in Chengdu, so it should be ours eventually.


750 (10): Well, the main result of this round is that we now have two galleys out and exploring.

At the moment we're getting our minimum research from a scientist in Veii.

The Chinese and Egyptians are ahead of us by Literature, Construction, and Republic, the Russians just by Literature and Construction.

All in all, this is a perfectly acceptable position for 750 BC at deity. The cultural pressure on Veii and Antium makes it feel a bit desperate, but Veii doesn't matter that much; as long as Antium doesn't flip, we should be fine.

The age of exploration begins:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_750BC.JPG

The save:

750 BC, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_750BC.zip)

Rubberjello
Northern Pike < Just Batted
Belial < UP
Judge Dredd < On Deck
Karasu
ChrTh

:goodjob: NP

Got it.

You know, the Chinese kept sending troops NW of Neapolis. There must have been a barb camp or 2 up there.

Is there any sign that the wars between our neighbors have done any damage? Are they even still ongoing?

Preturn: I switch a few tiles around as we desperately need some 10 shield cities to start pumping horsemen out every three turns.

730 (1): A barb hut pops pops in the only fog we have left, so I get ready to disperse it after the warrior leaves. China has a monopoly on polytheism.

710 (2): The horse loses to a barb on ice, talk about bad RNG. Our galley uncovers a barb galley, I hope we fair a lot better than the horse. I spot coast off our eastern side, will wait a turn to reach completely across it.

IT: The Egypt redeclare on Russia! Definately what we needed, but it looks like Russia is going to be gone sooner than we think. I saw a handful of Egyptian swords prancing around Russian land.

690 (3): Antium, horse->horse. Rome horse-> horse, once we get about five of these, I'll be declaring, then pounding out spearmen to the front. I explore into the uncharted waters yet, no signs of anything significant, just a small, two tile island and some iceland further north. Egypt has currency.

IT: Egypt demands wines, we really can not afford a war and our route is through China, so I give in. Chengdu borders expand.

670 (4): Pompeii, spearmen->walls. Our veteran horseman is redlined trying to kill the barbarian warrior; he, however, does promote to elite. The eastern most galley is stumbling upon either a nice chunk of land, or a link to the other continent(s).

IT: Another barb galley arrives to attack, once again, our galley is victorious in claiming the seas from these so-called pirates. The Chinese bring a settler/spear par into our lands, I imagine it is to try and poach the iron off of us, so I send a warrior down to claim the spot.

650 (5): China has lost their monopoly on Polytheism... or did they? China and Egypt are both at war with Russia who also has polytheism, Egypt has currency monopoly and we have, uh... an unmonopoly on every tech, yeah, that's the ticket.

Will finish the last five tonight.

Yeah, 'unmonopoly'... :D Nice one...

Egypt must be in their Golden Age, so there is a serious risk that we loose Russia too soon.
It might be tempting to look into an alliance against China (also to get some tech in the process), but I doubt we can sustain a long war rigth now.

We won't be able to for at least twenty turns, egypt demaned wines and we were in no position to war them instead of the Chinese.

I'm hoping that while exploring, we find other contacts.

:goodjob:
Yep. Other contacts our are best hope of catching up tech-wise in a big hurry. With explorering ships, we can also make a few gold a turn on selling maps.

I'm debating sending a suicide galley across the western half, if I don't find anything with the eastern galley, then I'll probably do so and whip another galley out.

Yes, I think we need to take some risks <crosses his fingers>

Make sure you explore fully before suiciding; too many times I've seen a foolish suicide run when a simple coast - sea - sea - coast excursion move would've found a safe path without suiciding.

Pickup from where I left off:

I decide that twenty turns is to long, Egypt has a harbor and I'll switch our iceland city to one, which will complete in five turns. The next leader will get the chance to lay the smack down onto China.

630 (6): Continue the exploration - Columbus was part Roman, wasn't he?

IT: The settler/spear pair are actually heading for our nother tip. We should be able to pickup two free workers from this and keep the tip clean but after the harbor is done in neapolis, a settler should be sent to claim some more area.

610 (7): Russians are not looking to good at all, get to see some fighting with Chinese and Russians with the galley. Egypt is now in the medieval times, I think they will definately be our biggest opponent on our continent.

IT: The Greeks complete the Great Library.

590 (8): Our eastern-most Galley turns out he is not Columbus, but one of his grandparents as he finds nothing but the back tail of the Egyptians. We also complete literature and now start on Republic. I bite the bullet and trade a WM, 1gpt, and 28 gold to the Russians for their WM. The WM doesn't show to much for sea-related, but the Chinese have no iron as well as no horses, they'll be as good as dead once we're ready to give it to them.

IT: Carthage completes the hanging gardens. Russians lose another city.

570 (9): Setting us up for war, mind you it's just an offensive one and hopefully it can be over within four to five turns. Rome is now at 10 shields per turn, but no growth and however the war goes, can change how Rome production can be used.

550 (10): Not much, just finished up what I had started, for the most part.

Summary: The map did help reveal a lot about China and not much about the sea which is now, covered for the most part. We're going to have to suicide across in order to make contact. I think we have enough horses to take the city, but poor Veii is way under defended, the horses should stay there while veii tries to pop out warriors and it should probably pop rush a library as well before we revolt as I'm sure the Chinese are putting extreme culture pressure on it from surrounding cities. Two more cities can be placed north of Pompeii, I have it set to settler now, preferally grab the fish and as many sea tiles as possible while another can grab what the first city does now. The spear/settler comobo should net us a few more workers to help our cities, I neglected to build any but we certainly need more to get these cities full improved. Save to follow.

Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_550BC.zip)

[EDIT] I also left two scientist by mistake - one should be changed to a tax collector. I also just noticed the Chinese own the great wall... any idea when that happend? I don't recall seeing it on my turns.

Good turns, Belial. Gee, it's a shame AZ_Steve didn't sign up for this one, he'd be gaga over how fast the game is moving :lol:

Rubberjello
Northern Pike
Belial < Just Batted
Judge Dredd < UP
Karasu < On Deck
ChrTh

24 hours to get it, 48 to play

Egypt is tough now, but once Riders show up? I get the feeling China will even the score. And if they don't choose to do so themselves, we can always prod them in that direction...

They have no horses for riders ;)

Or iron for that matter.

Originally posted by Belial
They have no horses for riders ;)

Or iron for that matter.

For now. Never strategize on the basis of present resource allotment.

Got it. Will play and post sometime Friday.

I'll be safely online to get it until about 1730 CET, after which I'll try to pop in during the weekend.
I will probably post my turns on Monday, Tuesday at the latest.

Pre-Turn (0) Change Scientist in Cumae to Taxman. Change Catapult in Veii to Spear. Catapults are worthless in my opinion. Click on.

530BC (1) Pisae Horse>Spear. I notice a cute little Chinese Spear-Settler combo moving North. Looks like slaves for us. I let them keep walking.

510BC (2) Rome Horseman>Horseman. Use this Horse along with the Elite Horse from the North to Block Chinese Spear.

http://home.wi.rr.com/wallis/ctr7/ctr7.510bc1.jpg

I also notice a Barb Camp. Not sure is this was there before or not. We should get this taken care of before the Middle Ages or we will have some serious barb revolts near us.

490BC (3) Now that Chinese Spear-Settler combo is blocked, they start heading East (hmmm, may be going for open coast hill,blue dot on this pic)

http://home.wi.rr.com/wallis/ctr7/ctr7.490bc1.jpg

I will use the other Horse to delay him until I am ready for war.

470BC (4) Veii Spear>Warrior. Antium Spear>Warrior. We hear of a Barbarian Uprising near Neapolis. Damn!

THE WAR BEGINS!!!!

Our first Horse redlines a spear and dies.
Second redlines himself and kills a spear.
Third redlines a spear and dies, spear is promoted.
Fourth redlines and withdraws.
Fifth redlines and kills a full health spear.
Sixth kills the 2/4 spear from earlier and is promoted to Elite.

IBT- We lose a Horse in the North to the charging barbs.

450BC (5) Rome Horse>Horse. Horseman charges from Rome and catches Spear-Settler combo in the open, we kill the spear and take some slaves. Horse promotes to Elite. Other Horse in North takes out one barb Horse and is stationed on a Mountain.

430BC (6) Pisae Spear>Horse. Army is healing.

410BC (7) Neapolis Settler>Spear. Pompeii Spear>Horse. Egypt is building Sun Tzu. We charge Xinjian with all of remaining forces. Eventually, all of our Horses redlined or dead, we send a 4/4 spear against a 3/5 Chinese spear and take the city and burn it to the ground!

390BC (8) Rome Horse>Spear. Cumae Horse>Spear. We get our first Palace upgrade. Chinese are building Sun Tzu's. Barbs are beating up our defense in the North, but they have almost been disperesed. Send Suicide Galley off the East coast of Egypt.

370BC (9) Antium Horse>Library. Egypt is Building Sun Tzu's (again). Our Suicide Galley sinks. Now that barb uprising is over, we move our Settler out from Neapolis. Note: Russia is taking a serious beating from the Chinese.

350BC (10) Rome Spear>Temple. Peace time:

China Gives: Polytheism and Territory Map
We Give: 2 gpt.

http://home.wi.rr.com/wallis/ctr7/ctr7.350bc1.jpg







Save Game (http://home.wi.rr.com/wallis/ctr7/CTR7_350BC.SAV)

Good turns. Karasu is up, I'm on deck. One thing...


Catapults are worthless in my opinion.


:nono: Artillery is what sets apart the Human from the AI. Go read MLDR02 as to how to effectively use Catapults. We were able to decimate the Carthaginians (2.3.1 defenders), and Catapults were a large part of our success. We could've done a lot better attacking the Chinese if we could've tossed some rocks their way first.

I agree, but the city was indeed in need of defense so either way would have floated my boat.

I feel a lot of relief knowing that city is gone and that we also managed to pickup polytheism in the process (had no idea we would manage this). I think our next best bet would be to continue the horse march and save up a nice lump of gold to create some knights and finish the Chinese and never have to worry about riders (assuming they still don't have a horse and iron hookup).

The Russians will be good for trading partners, they're the only one on our continent who can't trade with Egypt and China, let's just not blow our rep by sending a gpt payment that won't last.

The barb uprising may have occoured on the last turn, I was marching between turns to make sure a new camp didn't hit somewhere under the fog and apparently it did, I guess I should have valued the mountains/hills a bit more as they're a pain in the ass to try and take.

Good work taking Xinjian, Judge. :goodjob:

I have to second what ChrTh says about catapults--not surprisingly, since I played in MLDR02 too. ;) Probably every player, at some point, notices that they're not very effective against enemy cities and concludes that they're worthless. But they're highly useful on defense, and against enemy troops in the open; they give the player a cheap start on the vital upgrade path to artillery; and they can be built in cities without barracks, or junk cities.

There's a Currency-Construction, Egypt-Russia twofer on the table, since the Russians lack Currency. Of course the Russians might turn out not to value Currency much, but even so, we should try it.

I agree Artillery is the difference between AI and Human, but Catapults SUCK. I will not waste my time building them. I would rather have 2 spears than having 1 catapult.

We'll have to agree to disagree, then.
I like catapults, but I am the first to admit they are not effective at *attacking* other cities. They are great for defending against counterattacks and hitting enemy units in the open. I see others' point of view about them though, especially if the RNG give you 8+ misses in a row, as sometimes have happened to me!

Since I was online 'just five minutes' to download a vacancy notice...

...I also got the save :)

Back later

Originally posted by Rubberjello
We'll have to agree to disagree, then.
I like catapults, but I am the first to admit they are not effective at *attacking* other cities. They are great for defending against counterattacks and hitting enemy units in the open. I see others' point of view about them though, especially if the RNG give you 8+ misses in a row, as sometimes have happened to me!

Yes, RNG is not kind to catapults when I play, I guess I never thought of the defense part of it, Xinjian did have a catapult but it didnt help them much:p

I guess I may have maligned them early in my [civ3] experience. I will take another look at them, do they upgrade?

Yes they do upgrade.

Catapults -> cannons -> artillery

Also, since this is a conquest game, should we not be preparing for war 90% of the time? Not all the time, as there are always some needed infrastructure + buildings, but trying to build smarter units as opposed to something else (I guess that fits every game, but hey, might want to make it clear).

Yes, it is a conquest game, but not an AW, so if we have an opportunity to pull back from fighting in order to build infra, etc., we may want to. Remember, the only reason it's conquest is to force the endgame with Carthage, it doesn't necessarily dictate our strategy until we get near that point.

Sorry for the delay, the save I downloaded Saturday must have got corrupt (blame it on my home internet connection...).

Got it again, should be able to post later today.

Pre-turn
Increase lux to get Rome back to growing
Probe Egypt regarding Currency, but she still wants too much gold. I will wait a couple of turns, hoping Russia don't get it in the meantime.

Switch Pompeii to Temple, Cumae to Galley, Antium to Horseman.


Turn 1 - 330 BC
Horseman dispersed barb camp to the North.
Second horseman felled by barb horseman...


Turn 2 - 310 BC
Veii: Spearman - warrior
Ravenna founded: Temple


Turn 3 - 290 BC
Our people want to build the Forbidden Palace! Maybe we should...

Trade Wines + WM + 250 gp to Egypt for Currency
Trade Currency + WM + 175 gp to Russia for Construction
They've all got Feudalism. Russia lacks Monarchy and Republic, but there is no getting them from Egypt or China.


Turn 4 - 270 BC
Antium Horseman: Library
Pisae: Horseman - Temple
Rome switched from temple to Marketplace


Turn 5 - 250 BC
Neapolis: Spearman - warrior


Turn 6 - 230 BC
Veii: Warrior - Library
Cumae: Galley - Horseman


Turn 7 - 210 BC
Our new Galley barely survives a treacherous barbarian attack.


IT - Russia and China sign peace


Turn 8 - 190 BC
Neapolis: Warrior - warrior


Turn 9 - 170 BC
Rome: marketplace - warrior


Turn 10 - 150 BC
Rome: warrior - Library
Neapolis: warrior - Galley


Turn 13 - 90 BC
:blush:
Ehm... Sorry... I had this Galley ready for a suicide run just off Nanking on my tenth turn. I was about to leave it there for the next player to decide when I fell to the temptation, and I set sail to the unknown.
I was half expecting it to sink on the next turn, but it didn't happen; nor on the second...
So it came that we reached the shores of Greece (plus another blue civ).

Switched Neapolis from Galley to warrior.


I am ready to give these turns back on my next round! :)


I haven't contacted Greece yet, and Russia is still lacking both Monarchy and Republic.

In general, I have been building some infrastructure and some units -a bit more warriors for a later upgrade. I haven't started roading the Iron yet, although three workers are on the source we have next to Neapolis.
With eleven warriors (Legions) and eight Horsemen, I think we could start considering another attack on China, who have become quite large.
There is also a chance that we could ally with Egypt, if the peace treaty between China and Russia broke their MA.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7-90BC.jpg


The save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7-BC90.zip)

I got it, I'll play 7 to even up the turns. Good job finding Greece. :thumbsup:

Hhhmmm... I was a little ashamed of playing longer than I should have -I really got carried away :D ...Talk about being 'too old to play'...

No worries, mate, especially considering I'm also up in the middle of a huge war in my other game...

:goodjob: Karasu! Suicide Galley runs are one of the most suspenseful aspects of the game, so we all understand.

First Contacts should get us all caught up in the tech race and WM knowledge. We'll be sitting pretty considering this is a Diety game with some pretty strong neighbors.

Well, Karasu, I'm glad you didn't have to report failure with the galley after taking those extra turns ;) ...but as things stand, great work. :goodjob:

ChrTh, I'm sure you'll be able to get Republic in the upcoming frenzy of trades. It seems to me we'd then want to revolt immediately.

We're building a lot of libraries, given that we won't be doing our own research again for a long time, if ever. I'd change Rome's library build to a temple, Antium's to a marketplace, and Veii's to a barracks.

I agree, but we may also consider the fact of self-researching at a later point since it's only going to be us and carthage at the end (preferably when we can just rush them all). However, I think our number one goal should be cleansing our continent, then we can worry about the self researching aspect while we build a 'fleet' to traverse the... soon-to-be-known waters.

So, what kind of goal should our next war be? I really don't want to see riders, but long lasting wars can be painful. Perhaps claim some land for a FP and cripple the Chinese so we don't ever see the riders? Note that they are just around the corner too, so it'd have to be somewhat sooner rather than later war.

Yes. Take those builds I left as pre-builds for anything.

I had started a couple of Marketplaces myself in fact, but as we only have two luxuries they won't be very effective for a while.

I was in doubt between military and culture buildings -especially on the border with China, and I did a little bit of both as I culdn't remember what our approach was towards China.
Personally, I would be inclined to wiping them as soon as possible... :D

Turn "3" -- 90 BC

Ok, trading time. Alex has Republic, Monarchy, and Mono...as well as communication with the Carthaginians (grr), Babylonians, and Koreans. I take note that I'm not allowed to trade with Carthage.

I'll cut it short:
We got Monarchy, Monotheism, and Feudalism...but not Republic. We're down Republic to China, Egypt, and Greece. We're up Monarchy on Russia. We're up Construction on Korea. We're up Currency on Carthage, but down Republic ... but since we can't trade with them, I can't pull of a two-fer. We're up Poly, Currency, and Construction on Babylon (they're by themselves on an island).

Here's the situation: Greece is the strongest country right now. Carthage is in good shape, but seem to be fighting Korea (they've taken some central cities)...they also seem to have fought Greece at one point.

I'm able to drop Lux to 10% since we got dyes from Egypt as part of the trading.

I open an Embassy with Greece. They're currently at war with Carthage.


I switch Veii to RAX, and Rome to Temple.

We don't have Republic yet, but since it appears war with China is imminent, I'm going to go with Monarchy now anywho...but I'll wait for the builds to finish next round.

Turn 4 -- 70 BC
Veii RAX > Horseman
Cumae Horse > Temple
Neapolis Warrior > Temple

Greeks are building Sun Tzu

I disband the Galley since it's done his duties ... I give it a Viking funeral.

We revolt to Monarchy..two turns.

IT:
Carthage has now traded into the Middle Ages apparently...they're building Sun Tzu...as is everyone else and their cousin. Only Babylon is still backwards.

China has Chivalry, but its a monopoly.

Turn 5 -- 50 BC
:sleep:

Turn 6 -- 30 BC
We're a Monarchy. All hail King ChrTh!

Turn 7 -- 10 BC
Pompeii Temple > Worker

Turn 8 -- 10 AD
Palace expands! Twice! Who laid astroturf down first?
China has Theology now as well..as do Eqypt and Greece (also has Chivalry) ... I consider a 2-fer, but I don't think I can get it as Chivalry isn't worth as much as Theology.

Turn 9 -- 30 AD
Rome Temple > Pike
Antium Library > Pike
Pompeii Worker > MDI (can be vetoed)

Turn 10 -- 50 AD
Pisae Temple > Worker

Not much to say ... might want to get war going with China, as they don't have Iron or Horses.

Here's the save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_50AD.SAV

Rubberjello < UP
Northern Pike < On Deck
Belial
Judge Dredd
Karasu
ChrTh < Just Batted

Russia is on their last legs, so if we want to fight with China, we may want to ally with them in the hopes of getting Republic from them.

Got it.

Poll time!
I it OK to start our Golden Age now in Monarchy? Or wait until later?

If we can gather up enough troops with the GA triggered (preferably a few marketplaces as well), then I say it serves it's purpose. The econ part may not be as well, but I think having the northern half is far more powerful than a few more gpt.

Our being in monarchy rather than republic is no reason, in itself, to delay our GA. The question is whether we want to wait until we've built the Forbidden Palace, and have two cores which will get the benefits of the GA. There's something to be said for this, but on balance I think we should trigger the GA as soon as we go to war with the Chinese. As Belial suggests, once we've conquered China we'll be well on the way to victory, so a GA whose main function is to help us in this war should be acceptable.

The question of when we should return to war with China is tricky. Of course we want to do it quickly, but I don't think it can be right to lose horsemen attacking the Chinese when we're this close to upgrading them to knights.

We need to reduce both the science rate and the luxury rate to 0%, and hire a scientist in Rome. This will save us a full 14 gpt.

"Astroturf" :lol: I did it, IIRC. It feels good to have something soft to walk upon when we enter our mansion... ;)

I agree on not delaying the GA too much. Have we got enough Legions to go to war with China without risking our horsies? Or are there good chances to get Chivalry in a short time.

Originally posted by Karasu
Or are there good chances to get Chivalry in a short time.

Yes. We could buy it right now from the Greeks, though with the irritating complication that we'd have very little gold left for upgrades to knight.

Um, guys? There's a problem.

I don't think we can build legions any more...and since Iron wasn't hooked up until after MDI came on the scene, I'm going to guess that we never did build any.

:eek: :smoke: :eek:

No. We can still upgrade to Legions.

This first turn is really complicated. (I haven't played yet - I decided to sleep on it first). Our Peace Treaty with China is with +2gpt, which means Mao will force a renogotiation during the IT. So we either agree to 20 more turns of Peace, Peace and then ruin our rep, or go to war with Legions and Horsies. We can break the piggy bank and buy Chivalry, and not have any money left to upgrade knights or buy in Egypt into the war. Egypt is standing by with an extra Iron just ready to sell to China. Hmmmm....what a quandry!

I agree we want to start our GA soon, just to break us out and be a world contender.

I would vote for Legions and Horsies: a short war, take a few cities, get Chivalry from the peace deal and finish off China at the end of our GA... Easy, heh? :D

P.S.: Of course, I would need to sleep a bit on it too. In general, I would need to sleep a bit... :crazyeye:

How can we upgrade to Legions? They replace swords, and swords upgrade to MDI in PTW, so if you upgrade a Warrior, the choice should be MDI, not Legions ...

You can build either.

I think that all throughout the game, you can still build your unique unit.

[Edit] However, I don't think you can upgrade to them, but I may be wrong.

Originally posted by Belial
I think that all throughout the game, you can still build your unique unit.


You can always build your UU until you have tripped your GA. After you trip your GA, you can't build UU that have a more modern version on the upgrade path. IE - No more Samurai for Japan once cavalry is known.

Ok, thanks, I didn't realize that (guess I'm not playing enough...hrmmm...CTR8, anybody? :groucho: ;) )

Heh, not sure how long before I get conquests, but sure, why not. :p

Originally posted by Rubberjello
This first turn is really complicated. (I haven't played yet - I decided to sleep on it first). Our Peace Treaty with China is with +2gpt, which means Mao will force a renogotiation during the IT. So we either agree to 20 more turns of Peace, Peace and then ruin our rep, or go to war with Legions and Horsies. We can break the piggy bank and buy Chivalry, and not have any money left to upgrade knights or buy in Egypt into the war. Egypt is standing by with an extra Iron just ready to sell to China. Hmmmm....what a quandry!


Yes, the choices are very difficult. If we have to go to war with China soon, this sequence of events might be most efficient: war, trigger GA with legionary, buy Chivalry for gpt after the GA boosts our income, upgrade horsemen to knights with our hoard of gold. I still strongly dislike the idea of getting our horsemen killed as horsemen,when they should be the nucleus of our knight force; but I realize that all your options may be imperfect.

Pre-turn. Trade WM around for +15 gold. We are the cusp of a big decision here. China is twice as big as us, but can only throw Archers and Spears at us. It could turn disasterous for us if they manage to trade for Iron and Horses from someone and Knights & Pikes appear. Also, they will learn Invention fairly soon which would mean Longbows. Unfortunately, all we have are Horses and Warriors (upgradeable to Golden-Age triggerable Legions.) Our Peace treaty ends this turn. We need to bring Egypt in against them no matter what, as they have an extra Iron they will trade to them any turn now as roads are almost complete between them. Establish embassy with Egypt (size 12 city building Sistine's Chapel and looking really strong.) I decide to move the horses into attack position, and upgrade 6 Vet Warriors to legions and 3 spears to Pikes. Set up a lone scientist and move Research to zero. Move lux to zero. I decide to go without shiny Kaaaniiigits for now. We simply can't afford them.

IT Mao comes up for a Peace Renogiation. I tell him to "Get Bent". His archer loses against a spear-guarded worker on the border. Greece and Carthage sign peace. Greeks start Sistines.

70 AD (1) Attack a wandering Spear with a Legion, just to kick off our Golden Age.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/ctr7pic003.jpg
Our income jumps to +84 gpt. Decide to wait with the invasion after a quick scouting mission shows a butt-load of chinese Archers coming our way. (need to get the Legions up to the front anyway). Egypt wants 27 gpt, 150 gold and WM for alliance against China. We could buy Chivalry for only a slightly higher price. I think I will live to regret this, but I give up on the idea of buying in Egypt. Save up some money for a Chivalry buy in a couple of turns.

IT 6 Chinese Archers invade. Chinese gally headed to our frozen North.

90 AD (2) Rome and Antium complete Pikes ->Horses. Pisae Worker->Horse. Kill 2 Chinese Archers with no losses. Attack Chinan - defended by 2 reg spears - and take it with 1 Horse loss. Troops approach Shanghai. Upgrade a laggard Warrior to Medieval Infantry.

IT 4 Archer raiders push deeper into our territory. Russia has the chutzpah to demand gold and maps from us. We decline and she retreats to her hellhole desert in the South.

110 AD (3) Veii Horse->Horse. Main force still approaching Shanghai. Get an Elite horse after killing an Archer in the Mountains.

IT Tons of Archers are converging on Chinan (defended by 2 Horses and a Legion)

130 AD (4) Rome Horse->Horse Cumae Temple->Horse Engineering has come into play. Capture Shanghai with no losses aganst 2 Reg Spears. This effectively splits China in half (in terms of roads). Kill 3 Archers in hills outside of Chinan with 2 Legions and a M.I. (no promotions). Not trading with Carthage really hurts! I buy Chivalry from Egypt for Wines, World Map, 136 gold, and 18 gpt. Upgrade 2 Horsies to shiney new Kaaaaaniiigits.

IT Russia and Egypt sign Peace. Mao comes groveling for peace. He's not willing to pay with any techs yet, and I want to try out our nice new knights, so he is sent packing. An archer kills himself against a pike. lots more Chinese archer movements.

150 AD (5) Antium M.I.-> M.I. Neapolis Temple->M.I. Pompeii Pike->M.I. Check and see what Cleo wants for a MA against Egypt. It is still way too much. Try to trade Chivalry for Republic from Russia, but it is too expensive in the midst of our costly upgrades. Take a loan out from Greece for 94 gold and will pay them 6 gpt in return. Upgrade two more horsies to knights (80 gold each! :eek: ) Kill 3 more archers approaching Shanghai.

IT Lots of Chinese movement.

170 AD (6) Can't afford a single Knight upgrade this turn. Kill 1 spear and 5 Archers near Shanghai, only one Knight promotion.

IT Wounded knight fights off an Archer attack.

190 AD (7) Veii Pike->M.I. Pisae Knight->Knight Upgrade a Knight. Kill 2 Archers. I decide to go for the "Big Enchilada" and set an invasion force towards Beijing. Cut off their Wines source in a raiding foray.

IT The Chinese Archer onslaught has dried up.

210 AD (8) Antium M.I.->Knight Upgrade another Knight. Beijing was defended by 5 Reg Spears, a Reg Archer, and 3 Catapults. I defeat 4 Spears on this turn at the cost of 1 Knight and some red-lines. Move foot forces into postion for next turn.

IT An archer attacks out of Beijing and we get Trajan in a defensive victory of an Elite Horse!
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/ctr7pic004.jpg

230 AD (9) Rome Knight->Knight Beijing is ours after we kill two more Spears with no losses. We now have the Great Wall, and 4 slaves and 3 Catapults.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/ctr7pic005.jpg

IT Archer picks off one of our wounded legions.

250 AD (10) Cumae Knight->Knight Pompei M.I ->Knight. Beijing is a huge flip risk. I've stacked healing units outside, but they will heal slowly there. The other two cities are minor flip risks since they've been starved down to 1 citizen. We are in "awe" of Chinese culture, so that is really bad news. I don't want to create settlers during our Golden age, but we may have to. There is a stack of units heading for Tsingtao to get the Dyes so we can have 3 luxes. Another stack is heading towards Nanking. Overall our military isn't that bad...4 Legions, 5 M.I., 9 Knights, 8 Pikes and 5 Horses (1 is headed back to a barracks to upgrade). We may be able to gain 5-6 more cities in the next 10 turns, as long as nobody else butts in.

Trajan is back in Rome. Options are him to build Sun Tzu (certainly helpful) or to build the Forbidden Palace. I don't recommend putting the Palace in any Chinese cities because of the flip risk, but we could always save him for a raze/replace city further down the road.

The Save 250 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7-250AD.SAV)

:thumbsup:

Rubberjello < Just Batted
Northern Pike < UP
Belial < On Deck
Judge Dredd
Karasu
ChrTh

If we build Sun-Tzu, we can heal troops in cities now ... if they're a flip risk, maybe swap troops each turn to get them healed.

I was sorely tempted to raze Beijing and get extra workers, but I thought The Great Lighthouse was there along with the Great Wall. TGL is actually very useful, but the Wall is worthless. We may want to raze all non-vital chinese cities in the future and settle them later with our settlers after our Golden Age ends, but we have to be wary of poachers.
The Lighthouse is in another Chinese city.

Originally posted by Rubberjello

The Lighthouse is in another Chinese city.

Then Northern Pike better make sure he gets it! ;)
:mwaha:

Can anyone post a screenshot of the world? I like pictures, but I'm at class so I can't open the save.

Most excellent, without bringing Egypt into the war, we really needed to take core cities off of the Chinese.

Now, they may get the chance to build riders, but so slowly that they will never make a difference, provided we still bring them down the way RJ did.

Depending on the outcome of the war, I think Sun Tzu would be most valuable, however if we take enough cities to give the FP even three cities, then I'd value the FP much more. Barracks are cheap for us as we are militaristic, but still, those barracks will be very handy late game, especially crossing the waters and not having to wait a turn to rush one and then heal troops.

^^Sun Tzu is only for your continent

Since we're militaristic, perhaps we should build an army? Give us the oppty to build Heroic Epic and further increase our ability to get GLs?

Bleh, need... more... Sun... Tzu.

Aye, then definately FP would be more valuable IF we get the land, if not, just before ending the war, I'd consider making an army just to get the heroic epic.

We'll be warring lots and if we don't finish the Chinese, then I assume twenty turns later, we will be.

How long do we want to hold on to our GL, tho? We are militaristic, and we don't want to hurt our chances of a latter one by keeping one in reserve.

I think you're referring to the heroic epic and the chances of drawing another leader during our war.

Truthfully, we shouldn't have time during the war to build the heroic epic, which is why, if anytime, it should be near the end when we can build somewhat peacefully, while preparing to remove China within the next twenty turns. Granted, we may draw a second leader via luck, but the chances are slim.

It's like rolling a dice, one out of six may be a three, but does that mean you bet everything you have on three? (not that we're making a huge gamble, but something to think about).

I briefly (but only very briefly) considered an army. The problem was that during most of my turns we had so few units that putting some in an army was a luxury I could not afford, especially since I was killing so many archers and reg spears (where an army is simply an overkill.)

My vote is for Sun Tzu at the moment. Northern Pike may very well get another Great Leader. I don't think China built a single Barracks in their entire empire, so there are lots of opportunites for promotions out there.

Now that I think about it, we're also in monarchy... the only real army China is going to have is what they have out right now.

Instead of declaring peace, why don't we just continue to wipe the floor with them? There is no penalty for us to stay in war and the only reason I can, now, think about going for peace would be to extort some tech out of them. It would put our government to best use and even afterwards, we may even get a shot at hitting up the Egyptians (those legions simply rock). Heck, if we claim our whole continent, then I don't see any hurt in switching goverments again.

While I agree with prosecuting the war with China, we need to be careful of a couple things.

1. If we're in war too long, we'll drag in techs--and we won't gain any from peace
2. You never know when Egypt will get an itchy trigger finger

On the plus side, wiping out China would give us an excellent position for the remainder of the game--but we may want to consider doing our own research...

EDIT: It also might be tough to wipe out China; they have a northern island city and an eastern island city. While reducing them to a 2cc isn't bad, there base culture is intact, and those two cities can cause flips later in the game (trust me, it once happened to me like 1000 years after I conquered a city). We may want to raze and restore.

Well, if we don't pursuit the war until their bitter end, then we definately need to get those two cities for a peace concession.

Got it. Great handling of a tricky situation, Rubberjello. :goodjob:

I certainly expect to attack the Chinese all through my round. An opportunity to bully an opponent with inferior units is rare and precious at deity, and has to be exploited to the hilt.

My thoughts on our options for Trajan, incorporating some of what's already been said:

Sun Tzu: Would only help us on our home continent, where we're off to a great start against the Chinese and the Russians are nothing. So we'd essentially be building it just to help us against the Egyptians--and we get cheap barracks anyway.

Army: Hard to reject, since we badly need Heroic Epic--possibly more than any Great Wonder--to get the most out of being militaristic. But I think Belial's objection that we've got nowhere to build HE at the moment is decisive.

Forbidden Palace: By elimination, and for all the obvious reasons, the best choice. What I'm inclined to do is switch Veii to a settler (available on my first turn), abandon Shanghai, and rush the FP in a native city founded in the Shanghai area no later than my third turn. It would be pointless to do a sitemap, since the exact locations of our cities in China will depend on tactical factors and perhaps flips, but it's obvious at a glance that we could build an excellent second core around an FP city in this area.

ChrTh, does lining the beaches with workers to prevent other civs' settlers from landing count as an exploit for our purposes? This may be an attractive option in the Nanking-Chengdu region.

I'll probably need most of my 48 hours to play my turns, so any of you who feel violent opposition to my FP plans have time to register it. ;)

ChrTh, does lining the beaches with workers to prevent other civs' settlers from landing count as an exploit for our purposes? This may be an attractive option in the Nanking-Chengdu region.


I wouldn't say it's an exploit, but it sure as heck ain't sporting of us. Plus it'd be wasting workers.

I totally agree with building the FP as soon as possible.

Just for the sake of discussion, what about building the FP say in Antium and leader-rushing the Palace in a Chinese town? It would clearly take more time, but would give us some more freedom.
I haven't checked the map lately though, so it may just be a silly idea for the present situation.

What if we moved the FP further south? To make more use of 'all that green'.

We don't have the power to push settlers from our core right now, but those cities are pretty populated and maybe rush a settler out of them? The city won't be natively ours, but if we push that far south, then there is no reason we shouldn't be able to finish them off.

We also will have to leave one city for twenty turns, just to take there two island cities, or we could draw the Egyptians in now, since Chinese has been drastically reduced in size, we may even get a cheap tech from them for doing so as well.

I'm halfway through my seventh turn (320 AD), and it's going well so far. I rushed the Forbidden Palace in a new city founded one tile south of (abandoned) Shanghai. Tsingtao, Canton, and Tientsin have all been razed, so the land is available for a second core of native cities, and settlers are on the way. We also hold Shantung and Kaifeng, which I couldn't raze since the Egyptians would have beaten us to the sites with their settlers.

:thumbsup:

Boo-yah! Looking forward to THAT turn report!

Great job!
Now we know who the real warmonger is...

Btw, NP, I noticed that your SGs too show a worrisome inclination towards grouping together... ;)

Originally posted by Karasu
Btw, NP, I noticed that your SGs too show a worrisome inclination towards grouping together... ;)

Yes, this syndrome is definitely contagious....;)

250 (0): Our stack approaching Nanking doesn't have a lot of hitting power (One MDI, one legionary, two horsemen, three catapults), so I don't think I'll press this advance for the moment. I'd rather upgrade the horsemen than risk losing them attacking a size-nine city.

I switch Veii from MDI to settler, which completes immediately.


260 (1): I upgrade a horseman to a knight in Veii. (Eventually I upgrade all five of the horsemen I inherit in Veii.)

We pick off a Chinese archer outside Nanking, at no loss to ourselves.

Pisae knight --> settler. Pisae is stuck at size six with a full food box, so the settler will only cost one population point, in effect.

The Carthaginians are building Leonardo.


270 (2): We destroy a Chinese horseman and a Chinese archer outside Tsingtao (no loss), and one of our legionaries promotes to elite.

Rome and Antium knight --> knight. Excellent MM of our core cities for knight production. :goodjob:

We squeeze a catapult out of Shanghai before abandoning it.

Cumae settler --> settler, Ravenna temple --> courthouse. Ravenna is just the sort of semi-corrupt town which should get a courthouse early.

The Carthaginians are building Sistine. It looks as though they'll be the tough endgame opponent you had in mind, ChrTh.


280 (3): We abandon Shanghai, found Forbidden Silk one tile to its south, and employ Trajan to rush the Forbidden Palace there. Some of you may notice that I've put Forbidden Silk on a dry tile, in an area where this isn't easy to do. ;) But (1) this is a good RCP site, at corruption distance six from Veii, Beijing, and the tremendous location one southeast of Tsingtao; and (2) it's tactically useful in setting up the attack on Canton, for which I need to get the roaded jungle tile under our control immediately.

We destroy a longbowman and an archer outside Beijing (no loss).

After waiting a bit to accumulate a stronger stack, we attack Tsingtao. I'm glad I waited, because the RNG is cruel, and we lose two knights and an elite legionary; but we have enough units on hand to destroy the garrison of four spearmen and raze the city. A settler and a worker are in the city, so our total haul is seven workers. We get two promotions to elite.

Pisae settler --> pikeman.


290 (4): We destroy four archers and a settler in skirmishes outside Beijing, Forbidden Silk, and the ruins of Tsingtao (no loss). We're still seeing many more archers than longbowmen, so the Chinese must be too broke to upgrade.

We take Canton from its garrison of...one spearman (no loss). I hope this is a tribute to the surprising speed of our descent on the town. :lol: We capture one worker and raze the town for three more.


300 (5): We destroy a spearman north of Anyang and a horseman outside Tientsin (no loss).

The Chinese land a longbowman on the mountain next to Pisae. If they'd thought to land two, we'd have a real problem.

We discover Republic and, for what it's worth, choose Theology as our next objective.

Veii settler --> pikeman, Cumae settler --> pikeman.

Neapolis knight --> aqueduct (vetoable, but it would be nice to get a little infrastructure out of our GA).


310 (6): The knight just produced in Neapolis destroys the Chinese longbowman outside Pisae, and promotes to elite.

We take Shantung from its garrison of two spearmen (no loss), and a knight promotes to elite.

We take Kaifeng from its garrison of two spearmen (no loss), and a knight promotes to elite.

I decide we have to keep these two cities, despite the flip risk, because we'd never beat the Egyptians to these sites with settlers. After next turn the Chinese capital should be a long way from these towns, in Nanking, which might help.

I upgrade our last horseman to a knight, in Veii.

Rome knight --> knight.


320 (7): We destroy a longbow outside Nanking (no loss).

We attack the present Chinese capital of Tientsin, and it's basically a replay of our attack on Tsingtao: our luck is poor, but we have enough troops on hand to succeed anyway. We lose two MDI and one knight, and wipe out the garrison of three spearmen. We raze the city for a haul of four workers. Nanking becomes the Chinese capital.

We pick off a Chinese spearman two squares SSW of Rome (no loss). It got that far because I refuse to attack these nuisance units on good defensive terrain. For the same reason, there's now a Chinese spearman two north of Antium (which hasn't done any pillaging, BTW).

The resistance in Beijing ends.

Pompeii knight --> knight.


330 (8): We take Anyang from its garrison of two spearmen (no loss), capturing a worker.

We take Hangchow from its garrison of two spearmen (no loss).

We destroy the Chinese spearman north of Antium (no loss).

We found Viroconium one square southeast of the ruins of Tsingtao. Now this is what I call a city site: two grassland cows, grassland wheat, a gold hill, dyes, a floodplain, a river. The dyes come online at once and we're back to three luxuries.

I switch two knight builds: Pisae to aqueduct, Antium to marketplace. I think we can afford this now, to get a little more infrastructure out of our GA.

One of our knights defeats the attack of a longbowman emerging from Chengdu.


340 (9): We take Tatung from its garrison of two spearmen (no loss), capturing three workers and getting a knight promotion to elite.

We attack Nanking, and we have better RNG luck than in our previous assaults on size-nine cities, defeating the garrison of four spearmen for the loss of one MDI. We raze the town, acquiring four more workers, and Chengdu becomes the Chinese capital.

Chinan temple --> barracks, Antium marketplace -->knight, Cumae pikeman --> aqueduct.

The Greeks begin Copernicus, so they're a minimum of five techs ahead of us--though this is a little misleading, since we can have Theology and Engineering whenever we make peace with the Chinese.


350 (10): We found Lugdunum one square south of the ruins of Canton. I wish there were some BG in the area, but this should be a useful first-ring city once developed.

The Carthaginians are furious with us, appropriately enough.

Thirteen elite victories this round didn't produce a Great Leader. But we have nine elite units, so the Leaders ought to start coming before too long.

THE FUTURE:


We have two exit strategies for the war with China:

1. We could take Ningpo while leaving Chengdu, after which it appears the Chinese would give us everything else for peace: Macao, Paoting, Engineering, and Theology. The Chinese would then be reduced to one city in a convenient location, and disposing of them in twenty turns would be simple. We'd have to put up with twenty turns of cultural pressure/flip threat from Chengdu on Beijing and Chinan, though. We'd also have to wait twenty turns to get the Great Lighthouse, though this doesn't seem important.

2. We could take Chengdu, after which I assume Macao would become the Chinese capital. We could then get everything but the capital for peace (or everything minus Ningpo, if we'd rather take this by force to get another couple of shots at Great Leaders). Getting a force to Macao about twenty turns later to finish the Chinese off wouldn't be impossible in terms of distances, though I grant that it might be impractical in the middle of a war with the Egyptians.

I favour the option of taking Chengdu and leaving the Chinese with Macao, on the grounds that (A), the risk that cities will flip to a capital as distant as Macao will be is modest; (B), even if a city does flip to Macao it'll probably be an unimportant one in the second ring of our second core; and (C), we're now catching up to the Chinese in culture with every turn, since they're generating next to nothing. By contrast, the flip risk to Beijing and Chinan would be considerable, and they're cities we'd really like to develop. But it's a close call, and I won't object either way.

I should emphasize that this analysis only makes sense if I'm right in my assumption that the Chinese capital would jump to Macao, and not Ningpo, if we took Chengdu next.

The settler southwest of Forbidden Silk should found a city one tile southwest of its present location, on the jungle tile where the MDI is waiting.

We should probably just replace Nanking with a city on the same site, and the settler for this is outside Beijing.

The force advancing on Ningpo (one square south of Anyang) isn't very strong, and you might want to wait a turn for the two knights north of Anyang to catch up.

Our galley is lurking around the Egyptian islands. Once we get the Great Lighthouse we might be able to sail it into the blacked-out sea to the south and add some value to our WM.

I've followed the usual practice of holding cities at risk of flipping with just one unit, while keeping counterattack forces outside.

Possibly the Great Wall is overrated:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_350AD.JPG

The save:

350 AD, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_350AD.zip)

:goodjob: NP

Rubberjello
Northern Pike < Just Batted
Belial < UP
Judge Dredd < On Deck
Karasu
ChrTh

Some thoughts: Definitely take Chengdu; war with one of the other continent's powers could happen soon, and I'd hate for them to be able to either take Chengdu or use the area around it as a staging area for an assault on us...if war with Egypt is inevitable, we want to make sure our rear is not exposed.

If I were playing a solo game, I'd take Chengdu and then make peace. I'd then take a breather from fighting and see if we can pull off two-fers to get our tech back up (except from Carthage, of course), as well as getting some much needed infra built.

Carthage is strong, but I was sort of hoping they'd possess 3/4 of their continent by now ...

:lol: Greece is giving Carthage major headaches over there! I thought you gave them some "huge" advantages?

Goodjob, Northern Pike! I too vote for getting Chengdu and making peace. We then face a very daunting task of getting our infrastructure built up and catching up on techs. I vote for no action against Egypt for quite a while. They have Knights and M.I., not a bunch of archers running around like China did.

Agreed, we're too short of units to go to war with Egypt right now. But we should continue pushing south until we've eliminated Russia, which besides being good in itself would gain us incense, allow us to do some Leader-fishing, and bring us closer to Macao (assuming we rush ships in the Russian cities).

If we're not going to attempt major wars for a while, the moment our GA ends may be our last good opportunity to revolt to republic. Should we do it? I'd say yes, although I also think that we could probably win without ever leaving monarchy.

Originally posted by Rubberjello
:lol: Greece is giving Carthage major headaches over there! I thought you gave them some "huge" advantages?


I did, but I think the problem is that I made them too aggressive; I think they've been fighting both Greece and Korea, while Greece has been able to concentrate on science, etc., with only the occasional skirmish with Carthage.

I'm afraid that unless something kicks in (and that has been known to happen), this will end up being a simple Deity conquest :( ... however, considering our start position, that ain't too unfortunate a result.

I would agree with pushing into Russia and getting the Incense.

Got it and reviewing.

Will play tonight.

Regarding Carthage, as of now, they lack iron.

They have some within the borders (two actually) and one is hooked up but no harbor to connect the two.

This is probably what is doing Carthage in, IE: keeping them at par with the other AIs, however, Korea is lacking in tech given that they are scientific and have no techs over us and we're in the process of gaining two more.

Would anyone object to putting the Babylons into the Medieval times before we get peace? They may draw engineering which would be a nice bonus for us if the Chinese have invention and we extort that from them as well.

I agree in taking Chengdu and letting the city go off to some unkown island next to the Egyptians. We can then also use the Egyptians to MA against them to, prefarably, gain a few techs out of the deal.

I also think the Great Wall is about pointless to us, by the time we're going to war the Egyptians, we're going to have calvary. I don't know about the rest of you, but I simply don't like knights vs. muskets, maybe in numbers, but it's uneconomical.

I'd suggest razing Bejing and putting it on the coast to where it where also grab the second fish.

@Belial,

I have no issue with razing Beijing. Promoting Babylon shouldn't be a big deal either, I don't think they're going to be able to get off their island, so they'll likely be last in techs the entire game.

Belial and ChrTh, I know the AI's poorly chosen city sites are irritating, but it can't be right to abandon Beijing. It already has its aqueduct, and it's accumulated 45 shields towards a temple, so we'd be throwing away 145 shields to make a very minor apparent improvement in its location.

I say apparent, because in fact all three of the coastal tiles next to Beijing would have bad consequences for corruption if we founded there. If we moved Beijing one tile south, Viroconium's corruption rank would increase, and it's a more promising and important city than Beijing is. If we moved Beijing one tile southwest or west, Beijing itself would fall from the status of third city out from the FP to that of fifth city out, which would more than nullify the small benefits of the move.

I have no problem with the Babylonian tech gambit.

Sorry for the delay, but the flu really kicked in last night.

Playing now and report should be up shortly.

Inherited turn: We definately have way to few workers and many cities still under resist. MM Rome to produce 0 extra food (to benifit Pisae in growing, in which it will complete its acqueduct next turn). Cumae changed from Aqueduct to granary, it will be our worker factory as the new lands need improvement. This will leave Rome to push out troops to the front with the Egyptians. Chinan changed from barracks to worker.

IT: Egyptians complete Sistines.

360 (1): Rome, knight -> cathedral. Pisae, acqueduct -> pike. Troop movements - need to quell the resistors and put them on diets.

IT: The GA ends.

370 (2): Rome riots (GA also causes happy faces?) hired an entertainer rather than raising the luxury slider. Lutia is formed. We remove three spearmen in Chengdu, should have it by next turn. Byzantium is formed.

IT: Cleopatra wants 42 gold and TM, I politely tell her yes and explain to her how pretty her candy-cane hat is.

380 (3): Chinan, worker -> barracks. We now own the great lighthouse and a few pesky Chinese resisters. Chengdu fallen and no leaders drawn. Just before I start to negotiate peace, I send a group down to Ningo and sure enough, they have some longbowmen there and we snag another great leader. Ship currency for WM and two gold for Babylon and they draw monotheism. I dial up Korea and ship them 25 gpt and 240 gold for engineering.

The Chinese will give up invention, theology and one of their non-capital cities. The question remains, do we take the one off on the island or Ningo? We probably have enough force to take Ningo but I'll leave the question up for debate.

IT: Lots of Egyptian movement has me somewhat worried. Will be building walls (losing no shields) in bordering cities.

390 (4): I do as I had planned to, attacked Ningo and took it and then snagged peace with Mao for everything above. Gambit started on printing press.

IT: Treacherous Carthage has started JS Bachs as well as Greece. I think our GL would best be used for this.

400 (5): Troop movement, more to the Egyptian front. A two-fer is out there but it would break us completely so I hold off until Education is a bit cheaper.

410 (6): Rush the temple in Anyang and move more troops.

Time for breakfast, will be back in about a half hour.

IT: Egyptiantians start JS Bach's Cathedral in a fairly productive city too, I imagine they will probably get it.

420 (7): Rushed granary in Cumae (should have done this a while ago). Antium, knight - pikeman. Anyang, temple - courthouse (may change to walls according to Egyptian movement.)

430 (8) Veii, worker -> marketplace (vetoable). Cumae, granary -> worker. Worker every two turns from there. Pisae, pikeman -> pikeman. Rush a temple in Kaifeng.

IT: Our galley is lost in treacherous waters, I had no intention of suiciding him other than finding more land and I think he did or at least more sea.

440 (9): :sleep:

IT: Athens completes Sun Tzu.

450 (10): Finish a little micromanaging but, again, nothing significant.

Summary: We could easily declare war on Russia and take the incense, however I see no real point until we can get navigation as we only need one specialist in a size 12 cty (yes, 0 would be nice, but it's not killing us). We're also capable of holding a war with Egypt if the time came (until calvary are discovered). The leader rests in Forbidden Silk and I think the best use for him would be for JS Bach but... I do think the Egyptians will get it so we may decide to try and conquor it as well. It's a risk to hope the Egyptians build it but I'll leave that decision up to the team. There is also a two-fer available and was throughout my whole round but it will probably always be there. China has education and lacks gunpowder, so we could buy it and then ship about everything we have left to China for education and it would leave us just short of getting JS Bach. Our gambit also may be good to try and research as fast as we can, the tech leaders is solely Greece while Egypt and Carthage both are slightly behind.

The game. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_450AD.zip)

Rubberjello
Northern Pike
Belial < Just Batted
Judge Dredd < UP
Karasu < On Deck
ChrTh

Good turns, Belial.

Nice round, Belial. :goodjob: on the worker factory in Cumae.

Bach's would be good to have, but as Belial suggests, we may be too far from Music Theory to get it--especially since there seems to be quite a cascade building up out there. Perhaps we should just have Hadrian form an army, and then get the army a victory against the Russians, so that we can have the Heroic Epic built by the time of our next serious war.

Good round also, Belial! I vote for the Army/H.E./Russian thing. I think Egypt is too strong to pick a fight with until Cavalry, so if we can keep the appearance of a good defense up until then, we can concentrate on Infra and Techs.

Egypt is the powerhouse on a side note.

It's only a matter of time before they become the tech leader so taking it to them is, indeed a good goal and I'm fairly sure we will draw a leader or two from that war alone.

We may also want to make navigation a high priority, after obtaining Russian land, we'll have a monopoly on wines and incense other than the one source Egypt has which they can not trade.

Hey Judge Dredd...it's been 25 hours, do you have it?

Judge Dredd hasn't logged in since the 27th....so he's bumped for now.
Karasu, you're UP.

Ok, got it.

Now look at this: one player ends up faster than usual in one SG, another one gets skippin in a second SG and voilà, I am up in seven hundred at the same time... :D

No problems, though. Nights are for playing. I will give this one a go tomorrow.

@Karasu:

Take your time, I won't be able to play until Thursday night (East Coast US Time) anyway.

Pre-turn
The two-fer is still there, but Egypt are now on tech par with Greece (at least as far as we can see).

We still have three turns on a 2gpt deal with Russia. I will wait for it before attacking.

Hadrian builds an Army and moves towards Ningpo, along with three or four Knights.

Press Enter


IT - Carthage have completed Leonardo and started JSBach
Everyone is building Bach


Turn 1 - 460 AD
Viroconium: Temple - Pikeman
Pisae (now renamed Livorno): Pikeman - Marketplace


Turn 2 - 470 AD
Rome: Cathedral - Library
Cumae: Worker - Aqueduct

Shuffled workers around.


IT - Carthage have started Magellan


Turn 3 - 480 AD
Antium: Pikeman - Kinght

Ok, then. We can no longer wait on tech trading. With Navigation around, we may be able to sell some excess luxes abroad...
Sell Egypt WM, Wines, 443 gp and 25 gpt for Gunpowder
Sell Greece Wines + Silk for 20 gpt
Sell China Wines, Silk, Horses, WM, Education ad 17 gpt for Education

We are still making 46 gpt

Egypt is up Music Theory, Astronomy and Banking
Carthage is up MT, A, B and Chemistry (just for info, of course), plus Navigation
Greece same as Carthage.
The others are useless

So there is, in principle, room for another twofer involving Chemistry, but we'll have to be creative for that...


Turn 4 - 490 AD
Unit and worker movements


IT - Egypt get Navigation and start Magellan


Turn 5 - 500 AD
Forbidden Silk: Marketplace - Library
Viroconium: Pikeman - Marketplace


IT - Thebes (Egypt) completed for us Copernicus


Turn 6 - 510 AD
Rome: Library - Knight
Hangchow: Temple - Harbour
Ravenna: Courthouse - worker


Turn 7 - 520 AD
Declare war on Russia.
Enter their borders with a two-Knights Army and five Elite Knights. Two Pikes are panting behind.


Turn 8 - 530 AD
Neapolis: Marketplace - Library


IT - China declared war on the Egyptians :confused:
Utica (Carthage) completes Bach
Delphi (Greece) completes Magellan


Turn 9 - 540 AD
Beijing: Marketplace - Knight
Livorno: Marketplace - Library

Attack on St. Petersburg
Elite Knight vs Veteran Spearman: wins, loosing 2 hp
'ucky 'ucky B@stards vs Reg Spear: wins, loosing 1 hp, captures St. Petersburg and sinks a Galley with his huge feet.
St. Pet starts a Temple

Knights Army kills a Russian Archer loosing 2 hp.
Veteran Kinght kills a Russian Archer promoting to Elite


Turn 10 - 550 AD
Antium: Knight - Knight
Ravenna: worker - Harbour

Our People want to build the Heroic Epic! Maybe we should... Ok, folks, if you really want it, let's switch Rome to HE...


I don't initiate any diplomacy, but I think we can make peace with Russia. Tbilisi doesn't seem really worth taking.


S.P.Q.R. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7__550AD.zip)

I got it. What does everyone think about finishing off the Russkies?

Well, I said we can make peace, not that we should... :D

Nice (mostly) building turn, Karasu. :goodjob:

We should definitely dispose of the Russians right now. We can only win by conquest, and it's always a good idea to finish off minor rivals before the MPP era, when various complications can arise.

Also, though I've never been certain about this, doesn't the survival of small, backward civs raise the cost of techs for the player, because he's not the last to buy them but the second-last, or whatever the case may be?

The cost is determined by how many civs have the tech, not how many that do not.

So, technically, buying @last with 8 civs is cheaper than buying @last with 3 civs.

[Edit] What an oxymoron. :rolleyes:

Alright, it does matter how many civs do not have it because if 6 civs are in the game and only three have it, it's bought @4th.

But to answer your question in simple fashion, no it doesn't affect the cost.

Thanks for the clarification.

Originally posted by Karasu

Sell China Wines, Silk, Horses, WM, Education ad 17 gpt for Education



If Egypt kills the Chinese, do we get a rep hit for this?

If your giving them gold per turn and resources for tech, yes you will get a rep hit if that civ dies before the 20 turns is over.
This is the one thing that everyone was hoping would be fixed in Conquests, but it`s not.
Soren has said it would take to much to fix it. (coding wise)

Hmm, would anyone oppose giving them a city then? All depending on how much we will rely on our gpt for tech and other means.

Can Egypt finish off China? I haven't looked at the save yet

This brings up a question......
When you gift a city to another Civ, do the improvements in it stay?
I would assume they do, unlike capturing a city where most improvements are lost, except aqueducts and/or hospitals.

Hmmm, you could gift them Paoting, just make sure you rush a harbor first so the resources keep flowing. (Assuming the improvements stay of course) :)

@ ChrTh, they are down to 1 city.
I'll butt out now. :o

Ok, I looked at the save...this is what I think we should do:

Gift Tatung to China. It has no builds, and is within three tiles of lugdunum. We can move our pike to Lug, hand it over, wait 13 turns (when our deals expire) and take it back.

Our deals with Egypt expire in 13 turns. The second we eliminate Tatung, we declare on Egypt. They're #1, but they're an Average Military...thus, prime pickings for the human player!

Eliminate Russia now, if we can get through Egypt without pissing them off...I didn't check, did we have any boats nearby? BTW, if we do take Tblisi, I'm going to abandon it as Egypt's culture is strong and it may flip to them. We can't make peace with Russia anyway yet, so we may as well see it through to the end.

I'm hoping our Printing Press gambit pays off, as Greece and Carthage are a few techs ahead now, and we can't trade with the latter. Hopefully Korea will catch up with them quickly...

@Matt_G: Paoting is vulnerable to the Egyptians, and it'll be harder for us to take back.

And if you're interested in joining the roster.... :groucho:

Giving the Chinese Tatung sounds like a sensible precaution.

I agree, if we still have a positive gpt, which was noted, then we could try to finish off the gambit a few turns ahead of schedule running in negative.

Anything at monopoly always pays off, just have to wing this and that tech to toss this and that tech.

As for gifting Tatung, works for me and lets make sure the resources do keep flowing. ;)

Originally posted by ChrTh
And if you're interested in joining the roster.... :groucho:

Thanks, but I`ll have to pass. I just started a new job and I am buried already. :lol:
What little Civ time I have is going into finishing a game using Lee`s World Map mod. I am going for a Domination win so it`s going to be a real grind.

TURN REPORT SO FAR. Please review the final question:

Turn 0 -- 550 AD

Since I'm still hoping the TOEE patch will arrive tonight, I'm going to play now :)

I move the Pike to Lugdunum and gift Tatung to the Chinese.

I hurry a Galley in St. Pete's in order to attack Tbilsi by sea.

I drop Lux to 0% and fire Scientist in Rome and hire one in Antium. Will check each turn in case a city grows.

Everything else ok, so I hit ENTER

IT:
China wants a MA/ROP against Egypt :lol:

Turn 1 -- 560 AD
Able to get troops over to Tblisi in 1 turn :thumbsup: Attack next turn...

IT:
Egyptians have Cavalry!
Everyone has Economics!

Turn 2 -- 570 AD
2-fer time: I trade a load of cash to Greece for Chemistry, and then trade it to Korea for Banking (and Music Theory, which is useless as Bach's is built.

The Big 3 are up economics (don't care), metallurgy (care very much), and astronomy (indifferent)...don't know who has Mil. Trad. outside of Egypt.

Attack on Tblisi:
2 Elite Knights attack 2 Spears and raze Tbilsi...Russians are NO MORE.

Egypt is moving its troop through our territories...they're obviously going after Tatung...if they do sneak attack, though...

IT:
More Egyptian troops heading towards Tatung...

Turn 3 -- 580 AD
Palace expands!

:sleep:

Turn 4 -- 590 AD
I tell Cleopatra to get her troops out of our territory--and she complies! Unfortunately, a couple of troops get moved into neutral territory, and they can still go at Tatung. Macao is still untouched, so I'm hoping the war will end during the next turn ... if not, I may have to gift Paoting anyway...

Turn 5 -- 600 AD
FRUCK...Printing Press is loose and everyone has it.

IT:
Tatung falls to the Egyptians..

Turn 6 -- 610 AD
I realize PP is a lost cause and switch to Metallurgy ... I'm beginning to think it's time to revolt to Republic...what does everybody think?

Monarchy bites for the research but I think we should finish our continent off before switching.

The question at hand, though, is what will benifit us more? If we push hard enough (which I'm sure we are very capable of doing) we can get mil tradition and be facing muskets against Egypt and with a little luck, be able to remove them without a single rifle.

There is only one scientific civ and the chances for them to draw rifle-i-zation... err, that one tech, isn't very high, let alone for them to trade it around to everyone else. Carthage isn't scientific, are they? If they are, that's also a nice bonus for the modded game. ;)

The obvious to be stated, we need China alive until the deal expires, gifting anything will due. :p

A couple thoughts:

Gambits are out ... everyone is too far ahead...we gotta hope Korea stays as behind as us so we can two-fer with them.

When we declare war on Egypt (and yes, I believe we need to soon), we need to get Greece in the war on our side. That'll slow down the tech pace.

I'm going to finish my turns now, I will not be revolting to Republic.

Turn 6 -- 610 AD Continued

I hurry a Harbor in Paoting. I hope Macao survives this interturn...

IT:
Egypt finishes moving their troops out of our territory

Turn 7 -- 620 AD
WHY IS BEIJING BUILDING KNIGHTS WITHOUT A BARRACKS?!?!?!?

I gift Paoting to China after Harbor completes. Hopefully that plus Macao will hold until either peace or 6 more turns pass...

Turn 8 -- 630 AD
:sleep:

Turn 9 -- 640 AD
We complete Heroic Epic, dedicated to our telling Cleopatra to leave our territory and her complying!

2-fer is available: Metallurgy from Greece to trade to Korea for Astronomy. I don't pull the trigger, as it would impoverish us to do so...next player may be less cowardly :)

Turn 10 -- 650 AD
:sleep:

2-fer still available...3 turns that China needs to stay alive for...3 turns until we can attack Egypt wantonly if we so choose...

Here's the save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7__650AD.SAV

Rubberjello < UP
Northern Pike < On Deck
Belial
Judge Dredd < MIA
Karasu
ChrTh < Just Batted

Got it.
What the....???
Uhmmm...this is partially my fault for not participating more in this thread, but I can't believe we're still in MONARCHY! :eek: :eek: :eek:
We should have changed over to Republic 20-30 turns ago! What was the rationale for staying in Monarchy?

I'll see what I can do.

@RJ:

I think we were subconsciously pretending we were playing C3C and didn't want to pay the 2g upkeep cost ... ;)

Wow, ChrTh, were you ready for war with the Egyptians when you ordered them to leave? :eek: Anyway, you did what was necessary for the sake of our reputation. :goodjob:

Rubberjello, the root reason why we're still in monarchy is that we were able to squeeze that tech, but not Republic, out of the trading frenzy which took place when we made contact with the other continent. So our first change of government had to be to monarchy, and it's always hard to find time for a second bout of anarchy at deity, as we've been demonstrating. :crazyeye:

@NP: Yep. They had a good number of troops in our borders enmeshed in jungle. If Cleo had declared war, I would've been able to eliminate probably half of them on my turn. We may have lost a city during the interturn, but we would've gotten it back lickety-split.

:blush: Yes. I apologize for the rant. With the size of our army and our lack of infrastructure, (and the impending war with Egypt), Republic would/will not gain us much. We are just going to be way behind in techs (irreversibly so???) whenever we finish with Egypt.

As long as Korea maintains relative parity with us, we will be able to make 2-fers so that we don't fall too far behind. We just got to hope they get the same Indust. Age tech that Greece does.

I don't expect us to conquer Egypt the first war. Take as much as we can and get some Techs for peace. Egypt is high on culture, so we should probably raze any of their original cities (we may be able to keep the Russian ones). Don't forget Tbilsi is 3 tiles away from Lugdunum, and they have 4 or 5 troops there.

Get Greece to dogpile on Egypt! That will help slow down the tech pace.

Actually don't knock Monarchy to much. As your empire gets large the unit support of Monarchy adds up. Remeber unit support doesn't suffer from corruption. I actually had a religious civ that swapped to Monarchy and made *MORE* money as I already owned 1/2 the world.

Which also depends on the size of the map and the war-related affects.

Monarchy is good, no WW ever which is nice but in republic, easily counterbalanced with enough luxuries (which we will have from domination).

I don't expect us to remove Egypt on our first war, however we should severely cripple them that way obtaining our continent should be as easy as pi.

At the rate were going, we'll be able to self-research by the time only a few civs are left. Painful thought at diety, but a necessity in our variant. Hauling troops via boat access will be the biggest pain.

Also, are we going to stay in monarchy during our whole time frame as we remove the Egyptians? After we get peace, is what I'm trying to get at. Also, with enough luxury, could we withstand a democracy and then shift into full-gear and get some unis in cores and make the ending that much easier? We'll probably have to shift governments again for warring on the other continent but the idea of getting all our infrastructure before RP is a rather nice thought, especially with all those jungle-heavy cities.

A few observations:

1. I'm not too bothered by our being in monarchy, for the reasons LK gives. Undersized first-ring cities are really hurting us, though. We badly need to return to Belial's concept of using Cumae as a worker factory, first switching to a settler there to avoid waste. After that, Cumae should produce nothing but workers, and the workers should be used for nothing but merges, until all our first-ring cities are at size twelve.

2. The upcoming war with Egypt will be a raze-and-replace affair due to their strong culture, but we have no settlers. We can get two immediately out of Cumae and Rome--in Rome's case, the food box is full at size twelve, so we'd only be losing one pop point. Squeezing settlers out of other cities won't be as painless, but it has to be done--two aren't remotely enough.

3. Viroconium is building knights without a barracks.

Well, 3 turns until all heck breaks loose, I guess. I sure don't relish the thought of a Knight attack against the Egyptians this technologically advanced, but we don't really have a choice. Rome and Cumae converted over to Settlers. Viroconium switched over to a barracks with some shield loss.

660 (1) Cumae changed into a 2 turn settler factory. Move some Knights up to the front. What little builds complete are set to a mixture of Marketplaces or Barracks or Knights.

670 (2) Greece will now not even talk to us about selling Metallurgy. I have no idea why as we have even more money now? I really have my doubts about the upcoming war. Egypt has Cavalry, and we lack defensive units big-time, and have few catapults. Egypt has 2 sources of Saltpeter and horses, one of each is close by their core, so pillaging seems not viable. We shall see...
Greece is willing to talk again, and we buy Metallurgy from Greece for 580 gold and 50 gpt. Trade to Korea for Astronomy and some change. Get an updated World map. The rest of the world knows Physics and Navigation (as well as M.T., PP, and Economics). Carthage is in Anarchy, by the way.

680 (3) Some deals expire and our gpt is restored somewhat. Declare war honorably on Egypt. Capture 2 workers. Near Tatung we kill a Cav, Knight, and M.I. without losses, but the city still stands. Near Moscow, 3 Archers, 2 M.I., a spear, and a pike are cleared from around the environs. Move other forces into position.

IT We definitely poked a hornets nest here. 6 M.I. attacks result in them getting killed 3 times, 2 Red-line Knight retreats, and 1 Elite Knight killed. No sign of Cavs yet, but they are coming. A bunch more M.I. are converging on Moscow.

690 (4) Greece can't be brought into the war with Egypt at any price. Trade wines and Silks for 29 gpt. (No deal possible on other Techs). Trade Wine and Silks and 16 gpt to Korea for Navigation. Trade a throwaway tech to Babylon for Ivory (we need another lux, and the Incense in former Russia is too close to the front.) Upgrade 2 cannons. The battle for Moscow is insane. It is defended by 2 Vet Muskets, 1 Reg Musket, and 1 Cav. Our entire envasion force of knights is red-lined and 1 dies. We managed to kill 2 muskets. I pillage the road to Moscow and pray.

IT Egyptian counter-attacks kill 2 red-lined knights. Others defended valiantly and managed to kill 4 more M.I.! Some Cavalry seen on the way.

700 AD (5) We conquer Moscow with the help of our outdated legions. :lol: (2 Knights lost). Slight flip risk, but there are still some Russian citizens left that are happy to see us. Tatung falls without a fuss (Musket and Spear defending) Hopefully the loss of 2 cities and the units so far will send Egypt (Democracy) into the first stage of War Weariness.

IT Egyptian Cav attacks Kaifeng and kills one Pike. No counter-attacks at Moscow.

710 AD (6) Kill 2 Egyptian Cavs. Healing turn. Move Knights down from the Tatung battle. Upgrade our other two cannon.

IT 2 more Egyptian Cavs invade.

720 AD (7) Hmmm...resistence in Moscow is not ending...at all! May have to raze/replace. Kill a M.I. and a Cav. without loss

IT Egyptian cav suicides against Shantung. Egypt finishes Smith's for us in Elephantine. Other Civs cascades to Newtons and Shakespeares. Greece (at least) is in the Industrial Age.

730 AD (8) Egypt will talk peace straight across, but no tech concessions yet. Start invasion towards Edfu.

IT 1 Egyptian Cav dies in an attack on Shantung. Some M.I. invade Carthage finishes Shakespeare's.

740 AD (9) Still approaching Edfu.

IT 3 Cav attacks resulting in 1 killed Pike at Kaifeng and 2 red-lined and 1 killed Egyptian Cav.

750 AD (10) Lutetia rioted. (No Marketplace - Sorry!) The battle for Edfu went much better than expected. Only one knight loss vs. 3 Muskets. It was razed and a settler is only 1 square away. Clean up two wounded Cavs. Left movement on our Knight stack of doom for the next player. (Please note, the Egyptian cavs will pick off our poor knights willy-nilly unless they are "protected" by our Knight army) There is a Dyes trade available to Greece, but I don't know if we want to package it with a tech purchase or not. Asking for Physics or Military Tradition from Egypt results in "insulted" still.

The Save (750 AD) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_750AD.SAV)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/hot7pic0181.jpg

Rubberjello < :thumbsup: on making the first moves into Egypt
Northern Pike < UP
Belial < On Deck
Judge Dredd < MIA
Karasu
ChrTh

Got it. Sounds like a wild round, Rubberjello. Any progress with knights against cavalry is admirable. :goodjob:

Originally posted by Northern Pike
Got it. Sounds like a wild round, Rubberjello. Any progress with knights against cavalry is admirable. :goodjob:

Thanks! I did get a little lucky in areas, and have a ton of Elite Knights helped (but no G.L.s). I am not usually a big fan of Knights (expensive buggers!), but this game helped me learn a lesson. If this was a solo game, I probably would have waited to attack Egypt until Cavs or Artillary/Infantry era. :)

This sounds like an interesting war, it just shows how well human mind vs. machine statistics is in our favor.

If we do draw a leader, any thoughts on rushing the HE? We'll have a long peace-time which would, probably, resulst in more than enough time to build it in one of our core cities.

[EDIT] Scratch that, any leader we have should wait for ToE/Hoover. Although, an extra one may not be quite so bad.

Wow. This is indeed a good lesson.
In a solo game I would probably have waited too, and most likely lost.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/smilies/clap.gif for the bold attack on Egypt and most of all for keeping the initiative with inferior troops!! :goodjob:

Hey NP,

Any updates? I'm not despotic about the 48 hours, but I am curious as to what's going on.

750 (0): I'm glad to see we've got a lot of courthouses in second-ring cities. :goodjob: I switch Byzantium and Chengdu to courthouse builds, too.

We buy Military Tradition from the Greeks for 55 gpt, 132 gold, dyes, and our WM. Then we get Physics from the Koreans for Military Tradition, 6 gpt, 13 gold, and our WM.

We're going to have to abuse one of our cities for settlers, and Shantung draws the short straw. Shantung switches musketman --> settler (which completes immediately).

IT: An Egyptian MDI redlines one of our elite knights, but it manages to retreat.

Kaifeng barracks --> marketplace.


760 (1): We pick off an Egyptian musketman north of Kaifeng, and an MDI and a cav around the ruins of Edfu, all for no loss.

A jungle burn outside Anyang doesn't reveal BG.

We upgrade eight knights to cavalry in Kaifeng. With ten elite knights and three in an army, we'll be doing less upgrading than might be expected.

IT: Egyptian cavalry attack Shantung and--by rather clever use of the unit's large movement allowance--Moscow, but both redline and retreat.

Forbidden Silk aqueduct --> cavalry.


770 (2): We destroy the two redlined cav units and a musketman outside Kaifeng, for no loss.

We cut down a cav unit outside Avaris, but lose one of our own cav in the process.

IT: The Egyptians make no attacks.

We decline a TM trade suggested by the Carthaginians.

Viroconium musketman --> cav.

Cumae worker --> worker (and this continues to happen every two turns).

Moscow worker --> worker, as I attempt to reduce the population this way rather than by starvation.


780 (3): We found Brundisium one tile east of ruined Edfu--a tactical foundation, so that knights as well as cav can participate in this turn's attacks.

We destroy an Egyptian cav outside Avaris, for no loss.

We take Avaris from its garrison of three musketmen, losing a cav and an elite knight (the latter in a Leader-fishing attack on a redlined musketman). We raze the city.

We take Mendes from its garrison of two musketmen, for no loss, and keep the city. As a bonus, we capture four workers.

IT: No Egyptian attacks.

Antium and Neapolis cav --> cav.

Hangchow settler --> settler.


790 (4): Essentially a redeployment turn.

The Egyptians want peace, but won't surrender a required tech for it--"doubt" on ToG and Magnetism.

IT: Three Egyptian cavalry attack. One dies at Shantung, one retreats from a musketman in the open, and one seeks out a cav unit healing a long way behind the front and destroys it.

Livorno cav --> cav.


800 (5): We pick off the two surviving cav which attacked last turn, for no loss.

We destroy a musket/cav team outside Shantung, but lose a cav.

We found Syracuse one tile NW of razed Avaris, again choosing the city site on tactical grounds. Our cavalry force advances on El-Amarna--and ____, the Egyptians have riflemen now. I attack anyway, trusting in the retreat ability of cav to keep our casualties reasonable, and our luck is excellent: three cav units and our knight army all redline, but we take the city from its garrison of three riflemen without loss. We raze the town for a total haul of eight workers (since we capture three).

IT: The Greeks declare war on the Koreans. Hmmm...it's good to see them beating each other up on the other continent, but we don't want to lose our only twofer partner.

An Egyptian cav attacks Syracuse and dies.

The Russian incense comes online, and we have the all-important fifth luxury.

Rome cav --> cav, Moscow worker --> worker.


810 (6): We cut down an Egyptian cav outside the ruins of El-Amarna, for no loss.

IT: Our elite knights in the ruins of El-Amarna defeat two cav attacks.

Mendes worker (as a benign way of getting the population down) --> temple.

Syracuse barracks (rushed) --> temple.

The Greeks complete Newton in Corinth.


820 (7): I dislike starting all our twofers by enriching the Greeks, but given that we can't trade with the Carthaginians, we don't have much choice. We buy Theory of Gravity from the Greeks for 60 gpt, 4 gold, incense, and our WM. Then we send ToG, 8 gpt, and 14 gold to the Koreans for Magnetism.

Entering the IA, we find we're not as far behind technologically as might have been feared. The Carthaginians and Egyptians have Nationalism, the Koreans Medicine, and the Greeks Nationalism and Steam Power, so no civ is two required techs ahead of us.

Ho-hum, time to MM everything now that we've traded away our only source of incense. Our second source will come online in two turns.

We move our SoD of nine cavalry, six elite knights, two cannon, a settler, and a musketman into position to menace both Hieraconpolis and Pi-Ramesses.

IT: An Egyptian cavalry unit dies attacking Brundisium. We can't complain about the RNG luck we've had with Egyptian cav counterattacks--it's as though they were knights.

The Egyptians impudently found El-Ashmunein next to the ruins of El-Amarna.

Forbidden Silk cav --> bank.

Chinan marketplace --> aqueduct.

Chengdu courthouse --> marketplace.

Shantung settler --> settler.

Byzantium courthouse --> marketplace.


830 (8): We found Caesaraugusta so that we can attack Hieraconpolis and Pi-Ramesses with knights as well as cavalry.

We take Hieraconpolis in a typically ugly cav-versus-rifles battle, losing three cavalry to defeat the (surprisingly modest) garrison of two rifleman and a catapult. We raze the town.

We raze Pi-Ramesses, defeating the garrison of two riflemen, two musketmen, and a cav unit for the loss of two cavalry. Our elite knights participate as well, and on the sixth attack:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_830AD.JPG

El-Ashmunein is held only by a pikeman, and we auto-raze it for no loss.

The Egyptians are still in democracy, disappointingly.

IT: An Egyptian cav, taking a remarkably roundabout route, attacks the knight left most vulnerable by our previous turn's assaults, and destroys it.

Beijing bank (our first) --> cav.

Anyang marketplace --> aqueduct.

We get a palace expansion.


840 (9): Decision time. We're close to three major Egyptian cities. Thebes (the capital) and Elephantine (on a hill) are nightmare objectives for cav-versus-rifle attacks, and will obviously have to wait for the next war. I'd like to raze Memphis before making peace, since it's a first-ring city whose loss would hurt the Egyptians a lot, and wouldn't be as hard to take. However, we can achieve another twofer if we get Steam Power in the peace settlement before the Koreans discover it, and I decide this opportunity has to be seized. So:

We get Steam Power from the Egyptians for peace, 64 gpt, 161 gold, and our WM. Then we trade SP and our WM to the Koreans for Medicine, 7 gpt, 1 gold, and their TM (full value, or very close).

With this, we achieve full equality in required techs. We still lack Economics, Democracy, and Nationalism, of course.

It turns out that we pushed far enough in the war to control all five sources of coal on our continent. The Egyptians still have two on their islands, though. The Babylonians have two sources, and while I stipulate that it's easy to be wrong about this...that seems to be it! The Greeks, Carthaginians, and Koreans are on a coalless continent! :lol: :goodjob: :D Sorry, ChrTh--I realize it wasn't your vision for this game that we should finish up by _____-slapping an opponent with no factories. ;)

I'm not sure that we'll ever want to let our rivals have our coal, and we certainly don't want to do it now, when the best offer is an insulting 23 gpt from the Greeks. To have it extorted from us would be terrible, so I take the precaution of pillaging us down to one hooked-up source, directly beneath Lugdunum. We can easily hook up the source next to Syracuse whenever we want to explore our trade options again.

We found Brief Peace on the ruins of El-Ashmunein.

I switch various builds to infrastructure, in particular banks, now that we're at peace.

A jungle burn outside Lutetia doesn't reveal BG.

IT: Nothing much.


850 (10): During this round I merged four workers into Beijing, three into Forbidden Silk, and two into Neapolis. I might not have done quite so much of this if I'd known how quickly we'd get Steam Power--but anyway, our cores look a lot healthier now.

It took us sixteen elite victories this round, three of them defensive, to generate Maximus.

THE FUTURE:


Maximus is waiting in Forbidden Silk to rush Theory of Evolution when the time comes.

This is no time to go into anarchy, since everyone is furious with us. More and more it looks as though we can win without ever leaving monarchy.

Caesaraugusta is at some flip risk, and its temple should be rushed as soon as we can afford to do so. Moscow still has two Egyptian citizens, so there's some concern there too.

The food shortage in Rome is intentional, to keep the city at 20 spt. Just keep an eye on the situation.

Neapolis should become able to use its second mined mountain tile as soon as its cow tile gets railroads.

The micromanagement of Pompeii should be checked as soon as it completes its marketplace.

Every time Cumae spits out a worker, it has to be hand-adjusted to get back to 5 spt and 5 fpt.

The save:

850 AD, end of turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_850AD.zip)

After the war:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR7_850AD.JPG

Rubberjello
Northern Pike < GOOD JOB!
Belial < UP
Judge Dredd < MIA
Karasu < On Deck
ChrTh

Looks like I get a building round for me.

:rolleyes: I really wanted to bring it to Cleopatra but it is very uneconomical for cavalry vs. rifles.

[EDIT] Oh, and this is a got it.

Cav v Rifles is only uneconomical until arty shows up...
If we got Med and Steam, can't we start on Sci Meth now instead of 40 turns on Nationalism?

EDIT: Whoops, I meant Electricity first. The reason I think we should research ourselves (if feasible) is because it may be awhile before the AI goes down that path, and I'd prefer not to rehash MLDR3 with our leader (although to be honest, we're in building mode now, not NOW, so we're less likely to suffer sitting tight)

Well, our research capacity is still pathetic, and we're strictly on forty-turn tech runs. I wouldn't particularly object if we changed to Electricity, but I always choose Nationalism as the minimum-tech target in this situation because it seems to have all the desirable qualities:

1. One always wants it eventually, but

2. it usually isn't needed urgently, and

3. it's so overvalued that one doesn't tend to waste the accumulated progress on the tech run by buying it. By contrast, and notwithstanding our odd experience in MLDR03, it's unusual to wait forty turns without buying/stealing Electricity or Scientific Method.

We may want to push the RP instead of hoovers with ToE also. This may not happen for a while, but if we can push for it fast enough, we draw artillery and another leader during the final Egyptian war to rush Hoovers, or we could always just have a prebuild for it as well.

The sooner we get artillery, the quicker we get to claim our continent. I also expect the tech race to slow down to a crawl with the other continent at war.

Once Electricity pops up, RP is usually the next tech researched ... I would think we could do the TOE>HD push, and then trade the useless Sci Meth or AT for RP ... but I guess that depends on how everything falls ...

:goodjob: Mr. Pike sir! :goodjob:

My votes: 40 turn Nationalism gambit it fine with me. (or maybe saving up money for a steal?) We can usually buy Electricity and Scientific Method from the AI for less than an arm and a leg (unlike Nationalism).

I hate to state the obvious :D (but I will anyway). The next 20-40 turns should have as the utmost priority for new workers and laying down rails everywhere. It is the real, true advantage the human player has over the AI (besides artillery!), and this is the stage where we can do some catching up.

About the coal situation. We should confirm that Cartharge has no Coal, and if so (I hope everyone is sitting down!) we should give a source to them every 20 turns until we have the showdown with them. This will be more in the spirit of the game and will provide a little bigger challenge in the end.
Votes?

@Rubberjello :lol: It's crazy, but it just might be crazy enough to work! :lol: Count me in! :thumbsup:

Thanks, Rubberjello. :)

The idea of giving Carthage coal is fine with me. We'll have to hook a second source up again, of course.

Actually the true human advantage is concentrated firepower. The is why artillery SoD are so powerfull. What makes rails so good is that allows for the ulimate in concentreated firepower.

I've witnessed a sequence of terrific rounds on Deity :worship:

I'm not going to say the game is already over, but if I were a certain person I'd start complaining that the game was too easy after all ;)

Anyway, I guess it will be over for me as I'm leaving for holidays this Saturday (15th) to return on December 8th (or 9th, or never... :D ). Have fun -I'll read the recap when I'm back.

P.S. Rubber, I love your idea. I vote go for it!

@Karasu ... have fun, but if Belial is quick on the turnaround, you still have a couple days to play :D

I apologize, but I simply don't have time for it tonight, if Karasu can take it tonight, then by all means, do so. If not, I'll have it ready tomorrow.

any room available?

@amirsan

Welcome aboard! We could use the help :D
Make sure you review the rules about our dealings with Carthage; I'm not sure where you'll be in the rotation, but you'll be up shortly :D

ok, is there certain pages I should look over? Or a recent set of turns? :)

Originally posted by amirsan
ok, is there certain pages I should look over? Or a recent set of turns? :)

Definitely read the first page or two for the parameters of the game, again, especially what we can or can't do versus Carthage. Read the last couple turns just to get a vibe of the a$$ we're kicking on our continent, and make sure you're aware of what the Coal Deal With the Devil is all about (that's actually on this page) :devil2:

ok, cool, I will look over it tommorrow after school.

So, I see I have already been replaced... ;)
Good luck, Amirsan!

@Karasu

Nah, amirsan is replacing Judge Dredd...we're still looking for someone to replace you :)

Rubberjello
Northern Pike
Belial < UP
Judge Dredd < MIA
Karasu < On Vacation
ChrTh < On Deck
Amirsan < Welcome aboard!

Well, by the time I'm back Carthage won't be but a distant memory... I'll be looking forward to CTR8 or 9! :)

Any more room?

Welcome, gormdragan--see my notes to amirsan of what you need to read. Wow, this game is full again!

Active Roster:
Rubberjello
Northern Pike
Belial < UP
ChrTh < On Deck
Amirsan < Welcome aboard!
Gormdragan < Welcome aboard!

Thanks pple, will read though during my lunch hour. :D

Welcome to the game, amirsan and gormdragan.

Please note that we're using Cumae strictly as a two-turn worker pump. Every time it produces a worker it has to be reset by hand to produce five shields and five surplus food a turn--which is possible, though you have to find exactly the right tiles. :cool:

ok, I read a little of the last two pages about giving Carthage Coal and attacking Egypt, I will get more of the hang of it when more players post thier turns before mine. I know the dealw ith carthage and this is cool. :)

@rubberjello, I saw the very first turns you did, dont you agree the start looks almost just like our German Emperor Game! Though china's city was Rome and we was Germany. The good ol' days...

Just got home from work (what a hecktic day, glad it's friday! or for me at least). Turns will be up shortly.

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, I just lost my report and my last turn, but I can give a summary of what I did.

I did...... uh... not much - a lot of building and a few units - the whole other continent (Greece, basically) is at war so the tech rate (what is tech again?) has come to a halt. So, we are in the same situation as we were before (tech-wise). I turned Chinan into a worker farm (or soon-to-be once a couple rails finish) that way we can either continue to have two farms pushing and clearing the jungles or actually give Cumae, a core city, a life of it's own. Our income is up to around 290 some and we have just about every luxury in the bag.

Before we declare on Egypt, I would suggest we put the universities in now and/or we can use them for prebuilds for factories or let them complete either or the outcome is the same (we whoop-ass). I think I have to replay the last turn but no big deal and as soon as I finiish that, the save will be up.

Messed up save name (oops) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CTR_7950AD.SAV)

Ok, I got it ... I guess I'll have to figure out what's going on ;)

Rubberjello
Northern Pike
Belial < Just batted
ChrTh < UP
Amirsan < On Deck
Gormdragan

I put high priority on workers and courthouses/money-making buildings (marketplaces and banks). The few places that have banks were pumping troops and may be changed to universities for prebuilds for factories or just build them as we will need them for our own research which will be coming sooner rather than later.

on deck and ready, good luck ChrTh!

I just finished my 6-2, will start reading turnlogs and am looking forward to my turns. Thank you for having me.

@amirsan: you're going to get it quicker than you think; I need to swap with you.

Have fun! :)

so I am up? I got it. :D

One important point and two minor ones:

1. Three other civs have Industrialization, so it isn't prohibitively expensive. The Greeks will sell it to us for 97 gpt, 600 gold, and dyes. We should make this deal and then switch most of our builds to factories--right now, before pressing Enter. We should then look into getting a twofer from the Koreans, although they may not be willing to part with anything useful.

2. The Egyptian population of Moscow refuses to drop below two, even though we've been building nothing but workers in the town. Perhaps we should rush a settler there.

3. Lugdunum is working a jungle tile, which involves a needless risk of disease.